BudgetTravel

Chelsea Star Hotel

300 West 30th Street, tel. 877/827-6969 or 212/244-7827, fax 212/279-9018, chelseastar.com. A small hotel of 20 rooms, all with shared bath. Rates: $83-$95

From street level, the nondescript door hardly looks like a hotel entrance. But up a narrow stairway, you'll find one of bargain lodging's best-kept secrets. Two years ago, owners Ted and Claudia Howard transformed the former hot-sheets transient hotel (Madonna lived here before her big break) into a charming, funky find facing Madison Square Garden. The clientele is largely youthful and European; the flavor, decidedly arty. A small second-floor lobby is painted cheerful yellow with blue cityscapes and glass brick; sounds of a fountain echo through industrial-chic hallways of pressed tin and exposed brick. Although the 20 rooms are small and hardly luxurious, artist Rob Graf designed each with a unique theme. The Shakespeare Room's walls are lined with sonnets and gray velvet swags; the Orbit Room's deep blue walls and ceilings glow with fluorescent stars at night. Baths are clean and new, with gray slate and black marble; all are shared (generally one shower and two toilets per six-room floor). All the rooms have TVs. E-mail and Internet access is available near the lobby. However, there are no elevators, and light sleepers might want a room facing away from Eighth Avenue. Decor varies dramatically, so get a room list ahead of time and choose one to suit your tastes.

Suites with baths are available in the building next door, though they're much plainer. At press time, plans were underway to add in-room phones and a street-level Internet cafe.

The Gershwin Hotel

7 East 27th Street, tel. 212/545-8000, fax 212/684-5546, gershwinhotel.com

Rates: $99 weeknights - $125 weekends (economy rooms with private bath); starting at $199 for family quads (private bath); but note that only 10 of the hotel's 150 rooms are treated as "economy rooms," and family quads number only 8

Though still part hotel, part pop art museum, an ongoing renovation has transformed the Gershwin from what once resembled a crash pad for starving artists into what feels like a stylish SoHo gallery. Huge colorful sculptures and lithographs brighten the freshly painted, high-ceilinged lobby. (That's a Lichtenstein hanging behind the front desk and a Campbell's soup can signed by Andy Warhol near the elevators.) Each floor is lined with cheerful green-and-yellow doors and showcases work from different artists. Guest rooms have high ceilings, plenty of light, TV, phone; some feature charming touches like bow windows and brightly painted wooden furniture. Baths vary from spanking new to well worn but clean. (Hostel-style shared-bath rooms with bunks start at $35/night, though the hotel plans to eliminate them eventually.)

Guests can visit the art gallery adjoining the lobby, browse through copies of the Village Voice, check their e-mail at one of two Internet kiosks in the Gershwin Cafe, or catch nightly comedy, live music, theater, and other performances in a back room with an enormous floor-to-ceiling fireplace and Statue-of-Liberty-motif walls.

The new, improved Gershwin even boasts a doorman. When we last visited he was hanging out curbside with a Jerry Garcia look-alike strumming a guitar. We'll take it as proof that the Gershwin's makeover hasn't diminished its unique and lively bohemian spirit.

Belleclaire Hotel

250 West 77th Street, tel. 877/HOTEL-BC or 212/362-7700, fax 212/362-1004, belleclaire.com. 189 rooms, of which 39 are with shared bath. Rates: $79-$95 (shared bath)