Bowery Lodge

I must say that I had just wasted $ 200+ for 3 days stay in such a pathetic place and space. The room is small (est. 7 feet by 7 feet, 2 meter by 2 meter) and gloomy with just a bed, an old mirror and a side mini cabinet with drawer, which is gonna fall apart any time. Once you open the door, the bed is just right at the edge of the door frame. You can’t even bring in a proper big luggage into the room without banging into the wall. What I can say is that it just looks like a brothel or a storage room.
There is no privacy. The walls are super thin, you can literally hear everything going on in the entire place. The bed is squeaky and unstable. The mattress is not even a proper thick layer foam, woke up with backache every morning. Doors are not very secure too. The bathroom is clean, but at times, you will see one or two baby roaches crawling on the wall. If you are afraid of roaches, then I’d suggest not to even consider this place.
They only accept cash, and have this «No Refund» policy once payment is made, because they themselves know that if they were to have a refund policy, everyone who stays there will definitely want their money back.
All in all, I would NOT recommend this place to anyone, it’s overpriced and everything is not even welcoming.

I lived there for over a month in 2008, on the third floor for $ 20 a night. For this review, keep in mind my room was on the 3^rd floor which is for long-​term tenants (chances of getting a room up there are slim), mostly Chinese immigrants who pay a lot lower rent. I had some nice pictures of the place on my cell phone but that got stolen from my room, along with some other stuff. That was in March… it was a little cold but in the summertime it becomes a sweatbox.
There are mice, so be very careful with food in your room. A friend of mine had bedbugs but when I took over his room they had changed the mattress when I moved in.
The room is like a 4×6 prison with cutouts above the door to breath. A little different from the chicken wire ceiling when I lived in the Grand Hotel ($ 10/​night) in ’96. At least there are no can collectors, crack smoke and all hours craziness. The Chinese here are generally quiet by 11pm. I think that most of them have jobs and they were neither friendly nor mean to me. No problems, except the room theft that I described, but I am not chinese and was a bit of an outsider.
Most cook outside their door sitting on tiny foot stools on propane stoves or electric (lots of blown fuses in the evening) Sometimes I felt like I was living in a chinese restaurant kitchen.
Chinese have a habit of clearing their nose and throat with a loud hack and spitting on the floor. I suspect it is a macho thing for them or because they were told swallowing phlegm is poison. The thing is that they are not really coughing up anything except spit most of the time. Doesn’t make it any better, you still have to walk around little pools of spit everywhere you go.
I NEVER used the bathroom or shower on my floor but went downstairs to the second or first floor bathrooms. Never even set foot in the bathroom once. At least they have toilet paper.(You had to get your toilet paper at the front desk back in the day)
Tourists will stay on the first and second floors and it is much nicer, although well below anything most people are used to paying for. They are actual closed rooms and you do not feel like you are in a flophouse.
Like I mentioned, even the more decrepit third floor for permanent residents is a far cry from the Bowery hotels of old. Occupied by working immigrants rather than street people, drug addicts and those down on their luck, if you end up staying there, I would recommend taking a look on the third floor for a final peek of what is an endangered species, the Bowery flophouse.

A few friends from the west coast were visiting and I didn’t feel comfortable asking any of my friends if not just I, but ALL THREE of us, could stay with them for the night (in retrospect, I shouldn’t have been so uncomfortable).
After walking around Chinatown and finding out hotels were charging mucho bucks for last-​minute rooms, we came across Bowery Lodge. The person working their front desk didn’t seem to have a firm grasp of English so she pointed at a sign showing prices. We crammed into a room barely large enough to fit a clean bed and TV for a mere $ 30; they are cash only. A communal bathroom (complete with shower stalls that no one took advantage of) provided us with sinks to brush our teeth.
Though a good experience, I wouldn’t repeat it unless I REALLY needed lodging on the cheap. Worth a try, but unsure how this stacks up against local hostels.