When I first traveled to NY, I stayed in a way cheaper hostel in Chinatown, surrounded by cockroaches, so this time when I was traveling with my bf, i wanted the trip to be something special and was not too greedy to spend a little more for the stay. The jazz hostels have a very appealing website with nice pictures and promises so we decided to go for this place. On the plus side, jazz on the park is located on the upper west side, with the central park almost at the door and also just a leap from the cheap foods and nice people of Harlem with several subway stations just around the corner. Sounded perfect to us so we packed our bags and said goodbye to our Canadian homes for the next 5 days.
Upon arrival we were reminded in a quite unfriendly tone, that check in is at 3pm (which we knew already and didn’t count on anything else, but the tone, people. Or maybe it’s just the fact that were not in Canada anymore??). Finally managed to lock our bags away, we decided to have a quick breakfast consisting of instantnoodels. Good enough, the common area of the hostel is equipped with a microwave, hot water and a toaster. We managed to find a few plastic bowls, but we were less lucky with everything else. When I asked about plastic forks the personal simply replied they were stolen a few days ago and if I needed one I should ask at a convenience store. So convenient! I didn’t even start asking about plastic cups, but it left me wondering how people use the hot water. Btw new plastic forks were bought after the third night of our stay, but by that time we had already learned to reuse those we obtained elsewhere.
As an "experienced" traveler (I have been to a whole lot of different hostels around the world) I was prepared not to expect too much privacy, after all it is a small place which has to fit in a lot of people and this is why it’s so cheap, right? Little did I know. My bf and me lived in a private room on the 3rd floor, including screaming children next door (which does kill the romance but is still understandable), super loud slamming doors and beautiful, romantic noises of everyone who had to fulfill their big business (exactly, to poop) at the toilet across the hall. That would be all understandable if only I didn’t want to take a shower the next morning and discovered the least private shower in the world. So there were three showers placed in one room next to each other, separated by walls on the side and just a curtain at the front. Whenever you want to undress or put your clothes back on you would have to do it under the shower unless you want everyone else to see everything you ve got to offer. I have no problem with my body and people, but I would still appreciate having the choice what I show and to whom. And what if I were a teenager not comfortable with so much openness??? Honestly, I felt like in a Sims world, when a certain amount of showers/toilets was required to bring your institution on a higher level and I built them all just next to each other with no intention of anyone actually using it. Awesome.

Also, in the mornings the cleaning lady just walks into your room to change the trash bag. Without knocking. I felt quite relieved that it was already minutes away that I changed after shower.
The hostels website suggested on their beautiful images, the hostel would not have any insect problems (or so I assumed). In fact, signs advise you not to have any food in your room or the cleaning lady would "confiscate it", "to prevent roaches and other parasites spreading in the room". Pretty sure, it’s "unlawful", as the New Yorkers would say. By the way, there are roaches in the common area and ants crawling all over the tables. Not so different from the Chinese place after all!
It is not that I am complaining, but during our stay a window in the rumored shower room just happened to fall into that bespoken room. Without any particular reason as it seems. How do I know? Because our room was just next to it and the sound of shattered glass scared the hell out of us and the toddler in the next room as we were able to hear. It took the hostel people almost an hour to clean up the glass splitters and it was not until the following morning (so 24hours later) until someone finally fixed that window.
However, we made the most of our stay and after 4 adventurous nights in this place and still had one day left in the city. Upon checking out we were reminded that we had to pay 5$ per bag if we wanted to leave them there for the day (never have I ever experienced this anywhere, but not our house, not our rules, agreed). The best thing however was that when we got back to get those bags, the girl with the key to the luggage room seemed to be on a break and even though the guy at the reception called her (he knew we were in a hurry) it took her good 20 minutes to come back which made us almost miss our bus back home.
So what we learned from this experience, is that everything is not as it sold at this place, and even if the location is really nice it is not worth paying more than for a Chinese place without website, at least you could lock the bathroom there!

Peace