A while back, some of us were swapping some horror stories about lodging experiences. The gnu of the north has one outstanding one that I may paste here if he doesn't beat me to it. But I never got around to telling about the Hotel Marion, Chicago.

It was either the fall of 1964 or the spring of 1965. A fellow Navy seaman apprentice and I were roaming around in Chicago on liberty. We were about to look for lodging for the night when we met two other sailors who told us they found a cheap room at the Hotel Marion, by the Northwestern station. So we went and checked in.

The lobby looked old, plain, and inexpensive, but decent. Then we got upstairs. The halls looked a little shoddy. Then we got to the room.

The carpet was somewhat worn; actually there were good sized areas worn through to bare floor. There was a bathroon style sink on the wall; the wall was rotted through around it so you could have stuck your hand through.

If we used the toilet (down the hall) I guess it wasn't really as bad as some I've seen. But I remember the shower as the highlight of the experience. An old fashioned sign, the kind in the shape of a hand with pointed finger, indicated "shower". It hung pointed to a door in the hallway. The door opened to what could have been a small broom closet, lined with tin, with a shower head. There was plaster piled on the floor; it couldn't have been used in years. Had it been working, you would have had to strip naked in the hall (or back in the room, or somewhere) to use it.

The bedding was actually clean, with only a few small frayed holes. The place was entirely quiet and peaceful. But I resisted the temptation to go back.