The two scantily-clad women lounging in the street-level hotel room on downtown's Main Street barely get a notice from most passersby -- nor, for that matter, do the three hunky men hanging off bunk beds in a similar windowed setup next door.
The actor-models, who are doing a monthlong stint in the glass-walled rooms, are there to advertise the Stay, a new boutique hotel and youth hostel that opened recently on Main Street, between 6th and 7th streets. In an area that has long been the domain of the city's less fortunate and even now is sparsely populated by a parking lot, a taco stand and a tailor shop, they chat online and dance in front of webcams set to record their every move.
The display is proving a not-so-subtle publicity stunt for a hotel owner trying to bring Sunset Strip chic to the skid row area. But it's also a scene in an ongoing debate in the area about the future of some of the old hotels that for generations have served poor people and transients with no place else to live.
The Stay hotel is carved out of the decidedly less glamorous Cecil Hotel (the hotels have separate entrances). Since a group of partners bought the property last year, the owners have been performing a series of upgrades on the 80-year-old hotel, which for many years was a magnet for drugs and prostitution but also served low-income residents. The efforts have been cheered by some downtown boosters, but some advocates for the poor worry about longtime low-income residents being pushed out.
The Stay doesn't look like your average downtown residential hotel, from its mod orange and white lobby with a matching ATM machine, Apple computers and flokati rugs to its Xbox game area. With prices that hover under $100 a night and options that include shared rooms with bunk beds, the Stay is aimed at guests in their early 20s.
William Lanting, who runs the Stay, said the hotel-hostel represents something different for downtown: a chance to serve young, hip tourists, mostly European or Asian travelers in their teens and 20s, who come to downtown because they are used to finding activity in a city's center, usually near a train station. The area, he said, is "quickly transforming. It's exciting to see. This is a way to create a new neighborhood that's very vibrant and exciting. The time is right for this."
The opening of Stay is the latest part of a revitalization boom on the edges of skid row, where old buildings have been converted into lofts and long-vacant storefronts now house eateries, galleries and other shops.
