Pontiac Hotel
509 Minna Street
San Francisco, CA
415-863-7775
http://www.pontiachotel.com/
The Pontiac Hotel is, as I would characterize it, about 25% actual hotel and 75% SRO. If you are unfamiliar with SROs (short for Single Room Occupancy), let me give you a quick primer. These are hotels that primarily cater to various very low-income residents who are staying for a long-term period, but offer rooms on a daily and/or weekly basis. They are usually old hotels from the earlier parts of last century, and are only found in a relative few major metropolitan cities that have a preponderance of old buildings as well as a housing crunch/major income gap (San Francisco has possibly the most in the country; New York, Chicago and Los Angeles are other cities that are known for having numerous SROs). Typically you have a small private room, but share a bath/toilet out in the hall, and may (or may not) have other shared facilities such as a kitchen and common room.
So, what does the Pontiac offer? Private room, but shared toilets/showers on every floor, no kitchen, no common room, no laundry, for the price of $45 flat per night or $265 per week. It’s in a real bad neighborhood, just off of Sixth Street (notorious drug alley) in downtown San Francisco, and therefore has a number of little tics that the unaware visitor who is perhaps accustomed to highway motels and such will really want to know about in advance.
Let’s talk about the neighborhood first, and getting here, since that is probably what has most captured your attention at this point. Minna is just off of Sixth Street, which is a 24-hour hangout for a lot of sketchy drug dealers and users. That said, it is not a very violent or physically dangerous neighborhood. It’s more like one of those place where down and out junkies go to die in the throes of their vices. That said, late night robberies are not unheard of, but if you’re hardened to the sight of urban degredation and you don’t flinch at the occasional mumbled call of the agressive pusher in your direction (“Was’sup man. Was’sup man.”), you’re pretty safe walking down Sixth during the day.
The stretch of Minna that the hotel is on is kind of a little alley that really isn’t used for much else but some residences and thus, once in the hotel, you’re pretty safe. That feeling is reinforced by the plexiglassed (bulletproof?) window that the clerk is behind and the steel gate they have to buzz you through to enter the hotel proper (if you want to avoid Sixth entirely, you could enter Minna at the opposite end from Fifth and walk down). There’s a little parking on the street here, but I don’t know if it’s legal overnight and anyway if you leave anything at all that can be picked up inside of the car (even a Snickers bar) expect to find your windows broken and the contents confiscated in the morning. If you absolutely have to have a car here, well I’d recommend going to another hotel since you probably have the budget for it, but at the very least use a garage of which there are a preponderance nearby down Mission towards Fourth Street.
Anyway, check-in. They do accept credit cards, which is a rarity among SRO-style hotels, and this also exempts you from having to leave a $20 deposit (collected if you choose to pay cash). After checking your ID the clerk lets you enter the lobby proper, you get read the rules of the house and handed a towel (basic K-Mart style but big and clean) and the room key and off you go. The only amenities downstairs are two of those ZRNet prepaid internet terminals (no WiFi here) and a couple of pop machines. There’s an elevator, which is slow but seemed to be in good repair.
The rooms are definetly on the well-worn side, though I had no complaints about the cleanliness of mine. Unlike many SROs, there is no sink in the room. There was a queen sized bed in decent condition, clean sheets and pillows, and a 19″ TV with the standard cable channels. May as well close the drapes, cause the windows don’t look out on anything you want to see. No phone in the room. You are supplied with four small bars of facial soap and that is it.
On each floor there’s two toilets, and one shower room which contains an additional toilet. The shower rooms are certainly interesting. Painted over with cheap grey paint they look like something out of a jail. There’s no shower curtain, not that you really need one I guess. Each one also has a big trash can, presumably for the longer-term guests, which they have positioned in the shower rooms apparently due to lack of anywhere else to put them. These are seated by the toilet and, when full, can lead to some wonderful odiferous experiences while you use the facilities. Anyway, aside from the big garbage cans the bathrooms seemed to be maintained at an acceptable level of cleanliness, even if they’re a little depressing. Oh, and there’s no mirrors in the shower room oddly enough (though there is one in your room).
The hotel overall has been through it’s best days in terms of attractiveness, but the cleanliness and upkeep were acceptable. There’s an older woman and a cute younger girl on staff who were very pleasant and helpful, and some trendy lookin’ guy with goofy hair who came off as kind of a dick. So you’ve got a two out of three chance of getting decent service, I guess.
The hotel website is a fascinating exercise in misdirection and bears mention. The main page shows a yuppie-ish backpacker couple apparently reading their passport for fun and amusement, who look absolutely nothing like anyone I saw in the hotel or have ever seen in the surrounding neighborhood. The “rates” portion claims private rooms from “$35.00 and up”, though it doesn’t explain how one gets that particular rate. “Continental Breakfast” means a small cup of styrofoam coffee and generic pastry. The “Photos” section has three photos that are a textbook study in clever use of angles, and then something like 19 others of various scenic locations around the city. Not pictured, I noticed, are toothless crackheads chasing each other down the street and dudes urinating in garbage cans.
Speaking of outside the hotel, it’s largely a place you just want to hurry through without stopping, but there are a surprising number of decent eateries just up Sixth a bit. Mythic Pizza has some really good New York style pie by the slice, Taqueria Chile Verde makes a nice fat super burrito for 5 bucks, and Tu Lan has some excellent Vietnamese food. The little convenience store right across the street has fair prices on drinks as well.
On the whole – tolerable in an emergency, but that’s about it. The price is pretty much rock bottom for the city, and it may be the only halfway decent option one can find here under $60 a night. They seem to have a number of long term tenants, though I cannot fathom why anyone would want to stay here given the weekly rate of $265 – there are other high-end SROs downtown that are in the $200-220 range that are not only in much more pleasant neighborhoods but offer WiFi, kitchens, nicely appointed living rooms, phones and maid service.
