Manhattan's Chelsea Neighborhood
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Chelsea has relatively few hotel rooms compared with other key Manhattan neighborhoods, but it's a 10- to 20-minute walk (or a short cab or subway ride) from the scads of hotels in Midtown. What you will find in Chelsea, however, are several properties with reasonable rates, most catering heavily to the gay market. A favorite of history buffs is the raffish Hotel Chelsea, the city's tallest building when it was built in the 1880s. This bohemian hostelry has been the home of all sorts of fascinating characters, from William Burroughs to Jasper Johns to Allen Ginsberg. Just up the street, the modern and rather basic Chelsea Savoy Hotel has a terrific location at the corner of West 23rd Street and 7th Avenue, and rooms here can run as low as $99 nightly.

Among the big chains, there's a Four Points by Sheraton Manhattan Chelsea on West 25th Street, and the Hampton Inn Chelsea on West 24th Street. Both of these are clean, well-managed, and affordable. This hip neighborhood is rapidly developing, though, and within a few years you'll find a number of additional hotels to choose from. For instance, the trendy hotel brand Indigo is planning a 122-room property for 127 West 28th Street, to open in early 2009.

And, just a short walk east of Chelsea in a similarly vibrant area, you might consider the uber-cool W New York Union Square, a swank stunner that occupies the 1911 beaux-arts Guardian Life building and contains Todd English's bustling Olives restaurant and Rande Gerber's see-and-be-seen Underbar. Or check into Ian Schrager's luxuriously re-imagined Gramercy Park Hotel, a glam boutique hotel overlooking the elegant park of the same name.

Among smaller, gay-oriented properties, a reliable pick is the Chelsea Pines Inn, which occupies a charming 1850s town house in the heart of the neighborhood. Rooms with semiprivate bath (sink and shower are in your room, but the toilet is shared with several other rooms on same floor) start at $140, while rooms with private baths begin at $175. An even better value, with rates beginning around $130 for shared-bath units, the Chelsea Lodge is set along handsome West 22nd Street and contains 22 cozy, clean, and pleasantly furnished rooms. When you consider that generic, bland chain properties in Midtown can charge well over $400 per night, these two intimate and friendly Chelsea hideaways are a real bargain. And you can use the money you save to dine well in the neighborhood's dozens of inviting eateries.

Andrew Collins is the author of Fodor's Gay Guide to the USA and as well as numerous other guidebooks.