Is downtown — or Downcity, as promoters like to call it — ready for a “European-style boutique hotel”?Specifically, is Mathewson Street between Westminster and Washington Streets ready for a rare bird like the lovely Hotel Providence?
The hotel's near neighbors include help centers for city indigents, a keno and lottery ticket outlet with its front window protected by a metal grate, and Kevin’s Corner Smoke Shop, boarded up and closed.
Fragments of conversations overheard on Mathewson open a window on the city's seamy side — perhaps not what those who've pulled up to have their car valet-parked might have expected.On the Friday in March when Retired Guy and I dropped by the Hotel Providence and asked to see a room, we saw no one in the hotel except its very helpful and eager staff. The desk clerk told us that a room was available and would cost $159, adding that if we found a better offer elsewhere downtown, he might be able to match it.
The room we saw was lovely, but its windows were unusually high, offering a view only of a blank brick wall just a few feet away. The room was small and seemed even smaller because the ceiling was so high — an odd configuration that made us feel immediately claustrophobic. Probably others of the hotel’s 80 rooms and suites don’t have exactly the same non-view and cell-like dimensions, but as it is on a dark side street surrounded by other buildings, there can’t be much better scenes to look out upon than the brick wall.
The room was, however, beautifully appointed, with a gleaming modern bathroom with rainfall-type showerhead, real ceramic cups for coffee, WiFi and a big flat-screen TV. And the hotel's lobby and entrance are Old World elegant, with marble floors, gilded mirrors, Oriental carpets and French Empire-style furniture.
One can only hope that the downtown — excuse me, Downcity — "renaissance" will quickly catch up with the Hotel Providence, and that the motley crew of street types that currently make up the Mathewson/Westminster scene will find some other place to go so that this undeniably lovely small hotel will be able to find its proper clientele.
Next: the Hilton and Courtyard by Marriott hotels
