Greenpoint, YMCA Review Part 1

~ This is the first of a two part extended review of the Greenpoint, YMCA in Brooklyn, New York. You can read Part 2 here...

The original, shorter version of this review first appeared on the Trip Adviser website in April, 2008. At the time I was staying at another New York City 'Y', the North Brooklyn/Twelve Towns YMCA. Since I mentioned the Greenpoint 'Y' in a previous post, Cheap Accommodation in New York City, I thought I would include an expanded review here.

In a forthcoming entry, I will also add a review of the North Brooklyn/Twelve Towns YMCA.

One of the great things about sites like Trip Adviser is the ability for travellers to add their own reviews and photographs of any aspect of the travel experience they care to comment on. Used properly, this type of service can be invaluable for other travellers following in the reviewers footsteps, since it can give new visitors a chance to see how other people felt about a particular service, attraction, or location.

Having said that, travellers take from their experiences only the things they want to take. What may be regarded as a run down building, filled with dusty rooms, and uninterested staff to one traveller, may be viewed completely differently by another.

If you read all the Trip Adviser reviews for the Greenpoint, YMCA you will find a very divergent range of opinions about that particular YMCA branch. My advice is to read as many of the reviews as possible, and make up your own mind. Despite the obvious mixed reviews you will find at Trip Advisor and other online review sites, there are a whole lot of excellent reasons for choosing to stay at the Greenpoint, YMCA, and this review covers the most important ones.

Having spent five weeks at the Greenpoint branch of the YMCA during March and April, 2008, I feel reasonably qualified to offer a review of the facilities, the staff, the location, and the surrounding area.

I moved into the Greenpoint 'Y' on Monday, March 17, 2008, and stayed for a full 28 days before moving out for two nights to the North Brooklyn/12 Towns YMCA in the neighbourhood of Cypress Hills. I then returned for a week, before moving back to North Brooklyn.

Facilities
If you are looking for five star accommodation during your stay in New York, you won’t choose to stay with the YMCA. Accommodations are basic, at best, but pretty much all that you need for a short or long stay. Although the website for the Greenpoint YMCA states that rooms have televisions and air conditioning, this does not apply to all rooms. Apparently deluxe rooms have them but economy rooms don't. Bare this in mind if you are visiting New York in the middle of summer, where I understand it gets very hot and humid. You may want to pay for a deluxe room so that you have the use of an air conditioner.

I did not use the fitness centre, pool, or any of the other facilities available to the public so I have no comment to make on these, except to say they are very popular with the local community.

Other reviewers have complained about the smells and vermin. I never saw rats or mice, or even signs of them. However, small brown cockroaches were in plentiful supply. Hey, this is a big city after all, and I suspect there are more than a few cockroaches scurrying around New York. My advice – ignore them or kill them, but don’t let them spoil your stay at Greenpoint or in New York City. And coming from me – a guy who has an aversion to cockroaches bordering on the pathological – that is saying something!

Keeping Clean
Bathrooms and shower facilities were generally clean and tidy. If they are not, blame the people who make the mess, not the staff who clean these facilities in the morning and again late at night. The water in the showers was always hot and plentiful, there was plenty of free liquid soap in the dispensers in each shower cubicle, and there was always toilet paper available, at least in the fourth floor bathroom facilities I used.

Breakfast Included
A great advantage of staying at the Greenpoint YMCA, is that breakfast is included in the cost of accommodation. You can choose anything from the breakfast menu at the Manhattan 3 Decker Restaurant (Location ‘D’ on the map), with items ranging in price from around $2.50-$5.50. This arrangement is a great money saver in my opinion, and it would be fantastic if other branches of the 'Y', could make similar arrangements with a local diner in their area. NOTE: You must ask reception staff for a breakfast voucher each morning before going to the restaurant.

I assume the owner of the 3 Decker Restaurant is reimbursed a set fee for every voucher he returns to the YMCA. However, this amazing deal (cheap accommodation and full American breakfast), has to be one of the best on offer in New York City – and all for around $30 a night.

If someone knows of a better deal – I’d like to hear about it.

Addendum: Monday, April 26, 2010
According to my journal entry for Monday, March 17, 2008, I paid US$916.00 for 28 nights accommodation at the Greenpoint YMCA. That's just US$32.70 a night! Unfortunately, it seems that all YMCA branches in New York have now subcontracted the booking process for rooms through Hostel World.

Now a single room will cost you US$77.00 per night (well over double what I paid just two years ago), while a twin share room is US$46.00 per person per night.

In Part 2, I look at Staffing, Staying Connected, The Neighbourhood, and more...
~ Thanks to Google Maps for the street map used in the main image.

The Wired Traveller

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.”
- Jack Kerouac

~ Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the wired world.

A couple of days ago I wrote about the Plugged in Traveller. Today let’s look at the Wired Traveller.

Actually, the plugged in traveller and the wired traveller are generally one and the same person. But first, let’s reminisce…(insert dreamy transition sequence as we flash back to the olden days…).

Dear reader, if you are as old as I am, you will still remember the days of ‘snail mail’ – that ancient and all but lost art of letter writing. When men (and women) of letters sent home detailed reports of their adventures as they crossed the globe encountering strange and exotic people, in lands they had previously only read about in geography class. You do remember geography class, don’t you?

If you didn’t have time to write extended reports you could always get away with a PAR AVION* letter.

Remember them? Bought from a local post office, these were light weight, pale blue, one page, prepaid sheets of paper with gummed edges, that had to be folded in a particular sequence before you could drop them into any post box you stumbled across (see image illustrating this entry).

The really lazy traveller always made do with Post Cards. At least post cards gave you the added bonus of including a picture of a famous landmark, or island sunset to make the folks back home envious of your exciting adventures.

You can still get post cards of course, but I haven’t seen an air mail letter in years, and as for long letters home, they too are pretty much a thing of the past. Because today, we are living in a wired world, and the wired traveller wants to work fast, cheap, and online.

Yes, the wired traveller is constantly plugged in, switched on, instant messaging, and uploading to their FaceBook, MySpace, Blogger, Twitter, WordPress, Flickr, YouTube or personal web sites. In fact, the truly wired traveller probably keeps in contact through all the above portals.

Now as you travel the world you can take photographs of the pyramids with your mobile phone and upload them instantly to any number of free websites. Or you could send them to everyone on your phone contact list, and really make your friends back home jealous as they sit, shackled to their work desks, dreaming of their own foreign escapades.

The wired traveller moves around the world with a GPS enabled phone and never has to worry about getting lost in a strange city. He can check his email on the move, and answer them while enjoying a cappuccino in London, a slice of pizza in New York, or a kebab within sight of the pyramids.

The wired traveller can pop into her nearest Internet Café and Google her favourite fashion chain, before heading out to try on the latest summer craze, whether she is in Paris, Milan or Rio. Come to think of it – she can do that from her phone.

If your mobile phone is up to the task, a new opt-in service being trialled by Google called, Google Latitude allows your friends and family to know exactly where you are in the world, at any time, at the touch of a button. While there are some privacy concerns, the security conscious among us will feel a lot happier knowing our movements can be tracked in real time as we travel the world in search of new experiences. Click on the video to watch a short demonstration of Google Latitude’s features.



It won’t be long before you are able to hit a special key on your phone, to send out an alarm to the nearest police station if you are caught up in an emergency, allowing law enforcement to know exactly where you are and track your movements while they close in on you and those threatening you – if it can’t be done already!

Welcome to the wired world, indeed.

*PAR AVION is French for ‘By Air’.

Travelling Light

~ Travel light? Yeah, right.

If you are planning an extended vacation, you will almost certainly take too much with you. In fact, I don’t know anyone who has gone on a vacation of any type, long or short, and complained they didn’t take enough with them. They may have complained they didn’t take the right items along, but they never complained about not taking enough.

In fact, I’m a good example. When I arrived in New York early in March, 2008, it was bitterly cold. Personally, I generally have no problem with the cold, but New York was even colder than I was ready for. The jumper I had with me was just not up to the task of keeping out the freezing wind.

Rather than race out to the nearest department store and buy an expensive jacket, I found a charity store close to where I was staying and bought an excellent second hand jacket for under $20. I wore this over the next few weeks, but gave it away once the weather warmed up enough for me not to need it again. I also found some perfectly good t-shirts in the same charity store for a dollar or two each, and added these to my kit.

On my 2008 travels I started packing clothes with the concept of taking ‘three of everything’. Three pairs of socks, jocks, shirts, trousers, etc. Of course, ‘three of everything’ is only a starting point. Taking three pairs of shoes is overkill, as are three jackets/coats and many other items. So adjust the idea for your own needs and take the minimum you think you will need. After all, isn’t one of the joys of travel discovering and purchasing new clothing in exotic, far away locations?

My suggestion: half fill your suitcase before you leave, that way there will be room in it for the new purchases you make. Otherwise you will have to start discarding clothing as you purchase new items, or start shipping boxes back home – which is potentially very expensive, depending on how you decide to ship your packages.

As it was, I ended up sending three packages home while travelling: two from America, and one from Greece. To be quite honest, the postage for each probably doubled the cost of the original items contained in each box. Was it worth it? I’m still not sure. Some items (gifts and souvenirs, etc), simply had to be sent back to lighten my load, but other items could, and probably should have been left behind.

Don’t discount the option of hiring the items you need once you arrive at your destination. Dragging a set of golf clubs from Sydney to Florida, just doesn’t make sense. Renting a set of golf clubs once you arrive at your hotel in Florida does however, makes perfect sense.

In deed, you can hire almost anything today, making the possibility of travelling light, much more of a reality than it ever was.