The GEM Hotel Chelsea

Smack in the middle of Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, this hotel attracts budget-seekers of all stripes: recent college grads, artists looking to survey the neighborhood's hundreds of galleries, groups of girlfriends in town for a shopping spree, mature solo tourists, thirtysomething couples on a weekend getaway. All are looking for (and getting) the same thing: a clean, relatively inexpensive room in a convenient location, plus a few modestly luxurious touches like flat-screen TVs, rainfall showerheads, iHome clock radios with iPod docks, and fresh orchids in the hallways. At these prices, some sacrifices are to be expected: The rooms are small, even for New York, and there's no dedicated concierge, room service, or on-site restaurant. But as a place to lay your head for a few nights, it can often be a solid deal.

Right in the heart of Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, Gem enjoys the best of both worlds -- it's on a quiet, residential stretch of 22nd Street inhabited by lovely old brownstones, but just around the corner from bustling 8th Avenue with its eclectic selection of mid-priced restaurants and bars (many with sidewalk seating in the summer).

Running from 14th Street to 34th Street on Manhattan's westside, the largely residential neighborhood of Chelsea is the center of both Manhattan's gay community and, with some 350 art galleries, New York's contemporary art scene. (Just two blocks west of the hotel, the art galleries start.) Chelsea is also a convenient midway point between downtown and midtown -- the West Village is just two subway stops down, and the Empire State Building just one subway stop up.

• Three subway lines (the A, C, E) are just one block away.

The standard rooms are, at 135 square feet, distinctly small even for a New York hotel room. There's virtually no room to store luggage, as the eight-inch wide side table and small white laminate wardrobe can't hold much. This is a great place to rest your head after a day exploring the city and that's about it -- most guests know this and treat it as such, leaving early in the morning and not returning till night.

• Business-class room reach 195-square-foot and have a full-size desk
• One-cup coffeemakers have Wolfgang Puck coffee
• Waffle-knit robes
• 32-inch flat-screen TV
• Free Wi-Fi
• Rainfall showerhead
• Hairdryer
• Gilchrist & Soames bath products
• Comfy bed -- poly-cotton blend sheets are helped by a pillow-top Serta Sleeper with additional pillow top covering, a down duvet, and down pillows.

• A marble-topped lobby bar serves coffee, wine, and beer
• Free Wi-Fi in the lobby and the rooms
• 24-hour gym

Not family-friendly in any meaningful way. It would be virtually impossible to squeeze more than two people into a room here, even if the other bodies are small. The hotel doesn't offer cribs or rollaways -- they wouldn't fit in the rooms. And the location, while convenient to many parts of the city, doesn't offer much for kids (unless they're really into art).