When Kylene Klinker and her nephew stepped outside the San Francisco Central Hotel’s main office on a recent day, the last thing they expected to see was a car on fire. A moving car on fire. “Oh my God, it’s gonna blow up,” she recalled saying as they watched the battered navy blue cruiser peel into the lot, hood and bumper ablaze.
Upon further inspection, Klinker realized that she actually recognized the oblivious owners of the flaming vehicle. She had recently offered them money when they needed to load a payphone.
Klinker screamed at them to exit the car, fearing for her own life as she neared the flames. The moment after she led the couple away, the car exploded.
Klinker and the couple she rescued are part of a community of regulars who live side by side with tourists at the Central Hotel. The $70 rooms are a steal for travelers, and somewhat manageable for low-income and often homeless residents wanting to avoid shelters or the street.
They all cross paths at the two-story motel at the edge of the Mission, where the hip vibe of Valencia meets the more urban culture of Market Street. Its former neighbor, the art store Flax, has been replaced with a shiny new high-rise, but little else has changed — not even its sign. To anyone booking online, the place pops up as the Central Hotel, but drive up and into the parking lot and the sign promises the Travelodge.
Its rooms look out to the parking lot, and the second floor view offers a scene of mostly European tourists packing up their rental cars to check out from a place they shared with lower-income regulars.
“We enjoyed ourselves here,” one of them said, his eyes fixed on the receptionist who walked towards him and his wife, lugging their bags in tow. “The location is great, and the staff were friendly.”
They read about it on travel sites, and the $70-a-night price in a city where hotels average $208 a night was too good to pass up.
“At first, it seemed too good to be true,” the tourist said as he nodded at the receptionist and shouldered his bag. “We found ours on a different booking site for only $65.”
Nassir, a German tourist traveling with his wife and daughter, says it was “very loud at night,” and not what they expected. “Weird” is how his wife put it. And, Nassir complained, they had to pay $25 a night for parking.
Another tourist, Hannah, posting on Priceline, says, “Terrible, scary night — never again,” But others called it “comfy” and “perfect.” From a recent 10 reviews, the Central Hotel managed a rating of 6.3 out of 10.
Matthew Silva, a regular, says the tourists know what they’re getting into. “They see the comments. They know what’s happening here. They look at that stuff, and the reviews,” Silva said. “Then, the prices — the prices are just too good.”
For the regulars, as well. While the hotel allows only 21-day stays before a visitor has to go elsewhere for a while, a community of regulars continues to return. “This hotel has always been here for me,” Silva said. “It’s a mainstay monument.”
Silva says he began staying at the hotel over two decades ago, to explore his sexuality with other gay men in the area. As time went on, he found himself coming back, but not just for the “hookup parties,” as he affectionately called them.
He had established a rapport with other regulars, and so he continued to return. Klinker is a friend who has stayed regularly at the hotel for months. “I let him do my makeup, you know,” Klinker said as she grinned at Silva. “It sparkles and everything.”
As the two chatted, pausing occasionally to take drags from their cigarettes, a man walked down the outdoor hallway that runs along the second-floor rooms.
“Oh, no shit! That’s Mo,” Silva said, pointing at him from below.
Without missing a beat, Klinker added, “He used to work at Valmar Market, right down the block. He was just a little kid. And now he’s grown into a man!” The two watched fondly as Mo continued his course towards bustling Valencia Street.
Sure, there are downsides: It can get loud, and life happens at double speed.
Just two days after the car exploded in the parking lot, two men hovered behind Klinker as she moved through the parking lot. She demanded they leave her alone, but they persisted before finally leaving. On another day, she left her room to find a man sitting in her car.
When she feels nervous, she usually invites her brother, Lynn Scribner, to stay with her. Only a phone call away, Scribner is a regular visitor at the Central Hotel as well.
And, that $70-a-night price remains a potent draw.
Jennifer Reedy, who specializes in reversing overdoses and administering Narcan, acknowledged the disadvantages of the location, where drug use is common and the streets can be unseemly. “It obviously isn’t the cleanest or the safest, but hey — I can afford the room, lock my door, and sleep safely,” she says.
And, there is an advantage to being a regular: They know the rules.
As Klinker and Silva chattered away about the latest hearsay that floated through the halls of Central Hotel earlier this week, a tourist waved his hands furiously at the hotel manager, cursing him for summoning a tow truck to take his rental car.
“Oh right, that’s another thing about this place,” Silva said with a chuckle. “They won’t wait a full five minutes before towing your car if you haven’t coughed up that $25 parking fee.”
During the pandemic the city moved homeless people into the motel. There’s all sorts of drug use that happens on and around the premises. Drug dealers loiter at the intersection. It’s common to see people laying comatose on the block after overdosing on either heroin or fentanyl. There’s a park at the intersection where homeless people are able to hide and do drugs. A very blighted and troubled area.
$70 a night is NOT cheap. Especially for long term stays—isn’t there at least a reasonable “weekly” rate? (Even if $250 or $300 a week is now a thing of the past, how about at least something under 400?)
And what’s with the paid parking? Why isn’t parking included in the price?
I’ve had sex at this motel dozens of times! Guys will post an ad on A4A or BBRT and just leave their door unlocked or slightly ajar, I rate it a solid 10! If you wanna sleep, I recommend ear plugs.
How can homeless people afford $70 a night?
And if an otherwise homeless person could afford that, it’s an unwise financial decision as a sublet/apartment share could be had for almost half that.
We have heard so many stories about this place over the years.
My mother-in-law stayed there, unwittingly, on the weekend of the Folsom St Fair in the very early 1990s.
You get what you pay for. If you want peace and quiet and room service and luxury. You pay for it along with safe secure parking. $70.00 definitely will not get it for you. In today’s economy when anyone sees a $70 price tag and location of the property too, especially in S.F. you had better run as fast as you can. Mission, Tenderloin, definitely not the place to be. S.F. is a far cry from what it use to be 50 yrs ago. It was a city with Pride. Not to mention our Mayor’s, where active, and action moved. Now S F. Has become a place of Zombies, Crime,Greed at any cost. Sad what S.F. has become. And it is going to get worse before it gets better.
This place has been a Travelodge for decades, and I only recently noticed that it calls itself the San Francisco Central Hotel. Of course, as you can see from Lydia’s accompanying photo, it’s a motel, not a hotel.
I particularly admire the caption, “Up in the Old Hotel,” for this interesting piece.
That’s the name of the celebrated writer Joseph Mitchell’s collection of stories, Vintage Books, 2008) centered on New York City from the between-war years through the postwar. He was a news reporter who later worked for the New Yorker Magazine and is said to have influenced a great many reporters since then by showing his detailed way of doing business, taught in journalism schools.
Looks like he did a good job, thank you, Gilare Zada!
Thanks for this. I often walk by that motel and wonder about it.
I once stayed in New Orleans at a cheap motel that was mainly used by prostitutes. The price seemed right — but it was really noisy all night so it wasn’t worth it. Sounds a lot like this.
The correct term is sex worker, Cole.