MAKES/TAKES: I find it absolutely bizarre that Trenton, NJ, a state capital, has only one hotel—and it's closing because of poor business.
Obviously, the state is compact enough that no corner of a state is more than a ~2h drive away (or you can visit by boat) but, seriously, that's weird. Are there any other state capitals which are similarly hotel-deprived?
Trenton is such a pit of despair, I can't imagine why anyone would want to stay in it. You could stay in Princeton and commute 15 minutes if you had overnight business in the vicinity.
ReplyDeleteYou gotta think that, size-wise, Dover and Providence might be afflicted similarly but I don't think either of those places is as slum-like as Trenton.
I figured Springfield might be similarly deprived but I was wrong there. Must be Lincoln tourists and Chicagoans forced to go their for government business.
ReplyDeleteIsn't Ewing a very nice community even closer? I know when my wife went to what was then called Trenton State the area directly near the college was nice, and I'm guessing has a few hotels as well. But I haven't been there in years.
ReplyDeleteWell, Marriott is pulling its franchise. I can't imagine the property doesn't picked up and kept in use as a hotel. Not like there's much else you can do with it.
ReplyDeleteThe hotel's not closing, just losing its Marriott branding. The city owns it, and will find a new logo under Holiday Inn or Sheraton.
ReplyDeleteCoincidentally, I'm driving to the Trenton area tonight for a hearing in court there tomorrow morning (with mutual rsbb friend David Nieporent as local counsel). I was going to stay in the Trenton Marriott, which is walking distance to the courthouse, but Internet reviews complained that the neighborhood is high-crime and that cars were regularly broken into. So, similar to what Meghan suggests, I'm paying an extra $40 to stay across the river in PA, and then driving fifteen minutes to the courthouse.
Because of the no-politics rule, I won't mention the implications of the fact of the government spending $60 million of taxpayer money on something that the market values as being worth $6 to $22 million.
Providence isn't that small. Dover has several hotels. Even Montpelier has hotels. Trenton is just in the circumstance of being high-crime in a high-liability state very near much nicer cities that have hotels and being easily commutable for anyone likely to do business there.
Agree. Trenton is awful. Not as bad as, say, Camden, but I would still never stay in a hotel there. I used to go to Trenton for work every so often, and even the area around the State House is kind of sketchy.
ReplyDeleteMy nephew just started his freshman year of college in the Princeton area, and has been taking the bus to Trenton where he can catch a train to go visit his girlfriend on the weekends. It's like he's determined to give me gray hair.
I think it's a violation of the no-politics rule to say "because of the no-politics rule, I won't say X." Let's just not, okay? And if you see something that you think violates the no-politics rule, please feel free to point out the violation (not your response to the violation) as well.
ReplyDeleteIsaac -- But that's one of my favorite rhetorical strategies! It's called paraleipsis. (And I won't mention how you're totally right.)
ReplyDeleteBut I didn't mention the implications. I just noted that the government spent X for something worth Y. Readers can draw their own political conclusions, ranging from "Trenton should spend another $60 million to build *another* hotel because the first $60 million didn't work!" to "The experience of the Trenton Marriott shows the prescient wisdom of the futuristic societies portrayed in 'Logan's Run' and 'Escape from New York.'"
ReplyDeleteTed, because I've known you for more than twenty years, I don't need to point out that the last three weeks before an election are about the worst time to push the limits on The Rule.
ReplyDeleteDon't be coy, Ted. The rule is "no politics," not "no political conclusions."
ReplyDeleteI'm choosing to not comment on my preference for spelling it 'paralipsis', which I find is only listed as an alternative of your "more common" spelling.
ReplyDeleteTed, I'm adding my two cents here only because my politics are probably very close to your own (and not so close to Isaac's and Adam's). The no-politics rule isn't "our no-politics rule" is it The Rule. And is applied pretty aggressively, Left and Right. (I might not even have gone as far as Adam did his post regarding "sketchy"; even that post is sort of a Section 4(2) exemption to the Rule and not a Rule 506 safe harbor exemption to the Rule.
ReplyDeleteIt would be wrong for me to explain that I always thought it was apophasis?
ReplyDeleteApologies. Mistakes were made. -- T
ReplyDeleteI once had a month-long patent trial in the Trenton federal courthouse. A few months before the trial, one of the partners trying the case sent a paralegal/trial coordinator to Trenton to check out hotels. The Marriott was apparently so terrible that we stayed 45 minutes away (during rush-hour traffic) in Princeton.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Trenton is so bad. There are some really good Italian restaurants and a Salvation Army that sold good grad student furniture. The Amtrak station is just fine. Okay, that wasn't the most exciting list. But still -- I wouldn't want to live there, but I wouldn't stay in Princeton just to avoid it.
ReplyDeleteProvidence is actually pretty large by state capital standards (compared to Concord or Montpelier, for example) and has numerous hotels.
ReplyDelete