Hotel Review: Carlton Arms, NYC

This is my first ever hotel review. I've never been moved enough to write one, until now...






HOTEL REVIEW

YE OLDE CARLTON ARMS HOTEL, NYC

by Cynthia Rodriguez

The ultimate artist's hotel. A mural museum. I first heard about the Carlton Arms about five years ago from an artist friend of mine. I promptly looked it up online, and had wanted to go there ever since. This hotel has a heavy duty history, and goes way back. I mean I'm talking about the prohibition era. Then I believe it became a prostitute and drug addict den for a while. They REALLY turned all that around, though, when they decided to transform it into the artsy fartsy mecca it is today. The "baby chelsea", as it's been nicknamed, among other things.


I made arrangements months ago to stay there for a week for my summer vacay to visit the hometown. As soon as I stepped foot in the Carlton Arms, I immediately got hit with art A.D.D. There is just SO much to look it. It's an exhibit in itself. Half of the pictures I took were of the hotel itself. I've never experienced a hotel like this before, and I've done my share of hotels and motels. Okay that probably didn't sound too good, but you get my point.





On the practical level, their best asset is of course, the price. I stayed there a Monday through Friday for under $500. It's a great, pretty safe neighborhood. Right next to Baruch College, surrounded by a nice assortment places to grub, bars, and shops.


But, like the saying goes, "you get what you pay for", such as room service or a television. Which is good that you don't pay for either of those things because of the fact you don't get them, or a telephone, (but with cell phones today, who needs a phone in their room anymore, anyway?) Yes, it's bare bones service. Once you get your keys, and the little dollar store looking padlock for your door (for when you're away from your room), you are pretty much on your own. It's also "no smoking", (like most places in New York City now a days), which for a big smoker like me is kind of a pain in the ass, but I dealt with it.




It's a little on the ghetto side, some have called it more of a hostel than hotel. Okay, so the sink (which was located in the bedroom) didn't work when I first got there, and maintenance had to go into my room twice to fix it. When you need an extra roll of toilet paper or more towels, you just go to the lobby and get them yourself. I also did that when the light bulb went out on my little night stand table lamp. They also have at least one cat running around, I guess they are the mascots of Carlton Arms. Regardless, I still consider it a hotel.


More on the plus side, they had internet access available in the lobby that came in handy a few times a day. Most of the time the floor I was at was surprisingly quiet. Sometimes I wondered if I was the only one on "Floor B". The staff was friendly, (you can tell most of them have been there for a long time), and VERY helpful, especially with my little tourist adventures when I would ask for directions as in which train to take where. I had one of those old New York fire escapes outside my window which was pretty neat. I just wanted to stand out there and sing something from "Rent". The roof top is restricted to guests, as most are, but I'd love to go up there maybe with someone who works there could escort me next time, to check it out.





Apparently, the hotel runs a gallery in Brooklyn called "Art break". I was told they had an entire exhibit dedicated to President Obama. Tentatively, they will be putting together another one for his one year anniversary in office. I'm hoping they will allow an outsider like me to participate. A hotel that runs an art gallery, one that includes political themes too, no less. How cool is that?


The bottom line is that perhaps as far as the standard hotel ratings go, they would probably get like a two, two and half, maybe. It's not for the weak. It is not for everyone. However, this is a special place, and I know only certain people can truly appreciate it's character and artsy charm. That is why in THAT context, I absolutely give it five stars. I definitely plan on going back, hopefully with some like minded people who will hold it as dear as I do.

My Palm Springs Weekend Plus A Pictorial

Some of you may have noticed that I've been MIA. Part of it has been due to the fact that work has all but consumed my life and taken to pulling my brain in more directions than it knows what to do with. My 9-5 job has left me exhausted, overworked and feeling slightly homicidal. Never in my life has the term "going postal" ever sounded so poetic before. The bottom line is, I needed a vacation, and I needed one stat. I knew that if I didn't take a mental vacation soon, I'd be sure to end up in the loony bin. So with little reservation, I abandoned my computer this weekend and headed for the hills. Literally.

Renee and I packed up our stuff on Friday afternoon and took off for some good old-fashioned R&R in Palm Springs, CA. Our 5 pets were left at home (under the watchful care of a friend)and the trusty laptop sat on a desk and collected dust for the first time in its life. We packed nothing except a few snacks, some comfy clothes, our bathing suits & a few other unmentionables that I will leave up to the imagination. After 4 hours of sitting in bumper to bumper traffic in LA on a Friday, we finally made it to the desert. Life was beginning to look good again.


Renee and I had never been to Palm Springs before so we were excited to explore. When we arrived, we had a late night dinner at a small diner and headed back our hotel to relax. We decided our hotel room should be "clothing optional" as we snuggled up in our king sized bed with lavish 300-count bedding. The down pillows? Heaven. Our hotel, although considered to be "lower budget" in many people's standards was absolute perfection in our book. It was a tiki-style Polynesian themed "resort" complete with attached Mexican restaurant, tiki bar, 12 person outdoor heated jacuzzi and a large swimming pool. Sweeping views of the San Jacinto Mountains from our second-story balcony was absolutely breath-taking. It was a perfect and much-needed variation to the smog, traffic, noise pollution and insanity that we left behind in LA.

For those of you who don't know, Palm Springs is best known as a gay and lesbian friendly resort town in the desert of California. It is even better know to lesbians as the ever-so-popular vacation desitination for the sorority-style, lesbian-laden drunken week known as "Dinah Shore". Some say there's golf too, but that might just be an urban legend.

Downtown Palm Springs, centered around one long-ish main street, is comprised of adorable shops, restaurants with ample patio seating, hookah lounges, jazz bars, drag queen shows and enough steakhouses to scare a vegetarian straight into another county. Of course, there are also several casinos, quite a few nudist colonies and enough spa centers to massage away the stress, smooth out the skin and finally get that bikini wax your girlfriend has been begging for. Yeah, I said it.

Renee and I enjoyed all these great amenities from a distance, and although we would normal partake in such fanciful things as couples massages, hookah lounges and slot machines (not necessarily in that order), we found ourselves perfectly complacent with strolling down the street, window shopping and most importantly, lounging by the pool, mojito in hand. Afterall, it was a perfect 80 degrees and when your body says "Relax, fool", you best do what it says.

At about 4am on our last night there, the Santa Ana winds picked up and created quite a blustery delight of crazy weather. Never had we seen it rain in the desert before, nevermind with a mixture of sunlight and darkness all in one span of view. Of course, on the morning that we were headed back to LA, the wild weather provided us with a gorgeous rainbow spanning the backdrop of our hotel. I wanted to stay there for at least another week and contemplated packing my bag and running away from society entirely, but obligations brought me back to the monotony of work and routine, as they always do. Don't be surprised though, if someday you hear of the girl that went crazy, ripped all her clothes off and escaped into the wild. With her multitudes of freckles, wild and crazy red hair and a pack of wolves by her side, you can be rest assured she'll be happier than any rich mogul, wall street work-a-holic or multi-business entrepreneur. She'll be more free than anyone.

And with that, I leave you with a pictorial from my weekend in Palm Springs because as we all know, a picture is worth 1,000 words. Next stop: Sedona, AZ, Thanksgiving weekend!

Olivia Cruises - Olivia Connect- Olivia Community!

Olivia is a company offering a variety of services for lesbians, founded by Judy Dlugacz as a women’s record label in 1973.

Since then, "The Olivia Companies" have continued to expand to include Olivia Travel, Olivia.com, and now an Olivia Community in Tucson, Arizona. Olivia Travel offered its first all-woman cruise in 1990 and remains the only company in the world offering cruises that cater only to lesbians, according to Wikipedia. In 2007, Olivia.com launched with an exclusive social networking community for lesbians online, which now has members from all over the world. The Olivia.com website says "Olivia seeks to create memorable community experiences and Olivia.com is an extension of that mission." Now, The Olivia Companies have brought to life another memorable community experience with an Olivia Community, which looks to be one more Olivia success!

“Olivia was created to serve a lesbian market that ranges from women who must live quietly in suburbia, to women who have the freedom to walk the streets holding hands. I am extremely blessed to have been part of this amazing experience. When the company launched 35 years ago, I never dreamed Olivia would become the company that it is today,” says Judy Dlugacz, President and Founder of Olivia.

According to the Olivia.com website 98% of the women who travel with Olivia Travel return.

This is due largely to the fact that Olivia cruises include exclusive entertainment for lesbians which includes popular celebrities such as Melissa Etheridge, kd lang, Heart, Belinda Carlisle, The Go Gos, Indigo Girls and Paula Cole; sports stars such as Sheryl Swoops, Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King, Rosie Jones and comedians like Margaret Cho, Whoopi Goldberg, and Lily Tomlin. The lesbian travel company prides itself on “featuring both international superstars and the latest up-and-coming performers, thereby catering to a wide cross section of women”. Most recently, Olivia rolled out its Sistas at Sea™ and Sistas at Play™ programs for lesbians of color; and in April 2008, one of the stars of the popular lesbian series "The L Word", Leisha Hailey, signed on as Olivia’s spokesperson and voice to the company. Leisha Hailey attracts fans of The L Word to the Olivia brand, including users of their official social network online, OurChart.com. The L Word features the cruise line in some of their episodes, highlighting the fact that Olivia is part of the lives of most lesbians who love to travel.

You can read more about what it’s like on an Olivia vacation on About.com here or watch a YouTube video commercial for Olivia.com below:





You can find a social networking community on Olivia.com called Olivia Connect.

This portion of their website allows lesbians online to network and communicate, find out more about Olivia and its lesbian-friendly partners, and talk about their trips with Olivia Cruises. You can find my profile on Olivia Connect here where you will find that I post articles I write for the portion of Olivia Connect called Olivia Voices. Olivia Voices are blogs by lesbians online sharing their voices on different topics of interest to other lesbians. You can find my voice on Olivia here where I share the articles that I write for my blog Lesbian Mommy and Lesbiatopia. There are plenty of discussion groups on Olivia Connect as well, which helps connect like minded lesbians to discuss their passions and interests in a safe online community environment. You can find lesbian discussion groups on a variety of topics, and that link is here.

Keeping to true Olivia style of creating "memorable experiences for the lesbian community", Judy Dlugacz has announced the company’s expansion in the lesbian market with a new Olivia Community in Tucson, Arizona.

Here is the email from the President and Founder of The Olivia Companies announcing the arrival of the new Olivia Community:

Dear Friends,

I have very exciting news for you, for we are once again about to make history together! I would like to welcome you to the first resort-style community intended for lesbians.

We have shared a dream that has finally become a reality: to create an Olivia residential community where you have the opportunity to own a condominium as your principal residence or as a second home for vacationing. We are taking action RIGHT NOW to bring you this once-in-a-lifetime experience to purchase a condominium in our Olivia resort-style community, with move-in dates as early as this fall.

We announced the community about two weeks ago, and already have over 10,000 women seeking more information, and over 45 who have sent their deposits and begun the purchasing process. This is a remarkable response!

The property is located in Tucson. Rachel and I have visited the property and Tucson to get a sense of what the area has to offer. We agreed that Tucson is a perfect location for our community. The price is right, with condos ranging from high $100,000’s to mid $300,000’s; the size is right at 344 units; and the beauty and warmth of the desert is undeniable. The grounds are open and spacious and already feel like a resort setting. The community is situated just a short walk from great shopping, restaurants, a movie theatre complex and an upscale indoor mall. There are also incredible facilities nearby for golf, tennis, biking, and hiking and the city hosts numerous cultural events as well. Three major baseball teams conduct their spring training in Tucson.

The lesbian and gay community is strong here, enjoying the support of a LGBT-friendly City Council, domestic partnership laws, and a large gay community that is both socially and politically active. You’ll find gay cafés, bookstores and restaurants and Tucson's own LGBT Community Center, Wingspan.

Back in 1990, when I first decided to create the cruises, I appealed to you, our Olivia community, and said I had chartered a ship and I needed 600 people to reserve within three months. In the first three months we had sold out our first ship and we were on our way to filling our second one. Why? Because there was a need in our community for a place where we could all be completely free and open. You trusted Olivia to make that happen. We are here again. We are creating a home for you that is reflective of the Olivia experience.

Every condo will be upgraded with granite slab counters, premium carpets, porcelain tiles, your choice of paint colors and much more, so every unit feels like you are on vacation. Even though the complex already has expansive lawns, a resort-style pool, a fitness center, and a social clubhouse, we are adding a saline lap/soak pool, more Jacuzzis and barbeque stations. We’re also adding a fitness training course and a dog run/park for little Toto!

Step inside the dream of a life shared together, day in and day out, in comfort and openness. Your immediate action will make Olivia Communities, Tucson happen. We must reach 400 fully-refundable $10,000 deposits (that will be placed in your own individual, interest-bearing escrow account) in order to secure the complex. And speaking of price, your purchase into Olivia Communities, Tucson includes the great entertainment and activities you have come to expect from Olivia!

We have been having an enormous response, even during this economic slowdown. This is the time to buy. This is the time to take advantage of an opportunity we may not see again for a long while.

Please take a look at the website today at www.oliviacommunities.com to see what we mean about the uncompromised beauty of our new home, or click here to have one of our community consultants call you. We have a wonderful sales team that will answer your questions and loan brokers are in place to secure the best rates for you. You can also call our wonderful community consultants directly at 888.855.8649. This is a “first come, first served” opportunity, so send in your deposit now and have the best choice of units!

I have spoken to thousands of you over the years about an Olivia residential resort community concept, and the response has always been overwhelming. If you dream of a place where we can all be together, creating a fabulous community with the magic of Olivia right where we live, then please join us.

My promise has always been that I would only create a community I would personally want to live in. Rachel and I will be buying our own condominium in Tucson. Many of my friends have already expressed interest in buying with us and I encourage you to forward this message to your friends. But please remember, we only want fun-loving, fabulous folks!

So, what do you say?

I hope to see you in Tucson soon!

Much love,

Judy

You can read more about the project at www.oliviacommunities.com.

There is also a discussion group on Olivia Connect that is dedicated to the Olivia Community in Tucson where you can learn more and discuss the project with others online. You can find that here. I was extremely excited to learn that the first resort community for lesbians became a reality, and I suggest that those who are in the market for a new condo take a look at what the new Olivia Community has to offer.

I look forward to the continued expansion of The Olivia Companies, and the success of all their projects in the lesbian market!

I hope that you enjoyed this article and learning more about what Olivia has to offer lesbians worldwide. Thanks for reading and maybe I'll see you on an Olivia Cruise some day soon. Stay well in the meantime, and thank you for visiting Lesbiatopia.com ;0)


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The 15th Annual GLBT Expo

I don’t know if you were there but I was! Last week my gay back pack and I ventured to the 15th annual GLBT expo held in NYC. Maybe it wasn’t as exciting as all the pool parties going on at Dinah but it was definitely a place to go to and find out about all sorts of gay run or friendly businesses, publications, entertainers and more.

There were so many booths and so much information to gather I don’t know where to begin. Right now I’m swimming amongst brochures, flyers and magazines trying to decide what I should tell you all about (as well as getting a few paper cuts). So I’ve decided to pick my favorites and hopefully you’ll stop by the sites, events and/or organizations that fit your fancy.



The Glamazons-

I don’t know about the rest of you ladies but I defiantly like a woman with curves and confidence and that’s exactly what these girls have. If you haven’t heard of them check out their website.



www.glamazongirls.com

Out In New Jersey-

I was super excited to find out that there was a gay Jersey publication out there. So if you’re from the area (and even if your not… you might visit) check it out to see if anything interesting is happening by your exit.



www.outinjersey.net

Our Youth-

Our Youth is a not for profit organization designed to help young people of all sexual preferences in the tri-state area by spreading knowledge through workshops, motivational speeches and hosting weekly support groups. I met these guys and found them inspiring and genuinely passionate about their mission. If you need a little support or you would like to give some; show these guys some love and contact them.



ouryouth2006@yahoo.com
(201) 920-0253

Dykes in the City-

DITC is a clothing line marketed and created for lesbians, by lesbians.
The chick working the booth was so sweet… I had to take a picture



www.ditc.net

a.milane-

a.milane *TEES FOR THE HOT MUTHA PLEATHER IN YOU!* be one of a kind & attract the attention you were born to get!!
These LIMITED EDITION tees give you the power to express yourself with out saying a word!



www.amilane.com
Tshirts

Feast Of Fools.Net-

Feast of fools is a fresh and funny daily Chicago born podcast /talk show with quirky news and interviews featuring Fausto Fernos, Marc Felion, Amanda Steinstein, Tracy Tyler and Sal-E. Feast Of Fools was voted the Best GLBT podcast for 2006 &2007.
I had the pleasure of chatting it up with Marc Felion who was super cool and adorable so I say subscribe and laugh.



Marc Felion
feastoffools.net

Dignity New York-

If any of you feel the need to find Jesus or something check out dignity NY. They believe it is possible to be a Catholic and lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender. Wow! Really!



(she’s an ex-nun.. but she’s not gay… I made that mistake)

www.dignityny.org.


The gay back pack and I really enjoyed strolling around the Expo and would like to thank all the people who took time out to talk with us about their businesses, publications and organizations. It was really a pleasure to see all the happy gay faces out and about and hope to see some of you again in the future. I know from all the information I gathered my gay calendar is filled to the brim.

For your enjoyment or boredom here are some random shots of us and all the people we harassed while at the expo!

Keep spreading the good gay word- Beebo



Me after the expo

The gay and I saw this and thought why the hell not!
By the way I saw The Beebo Brinker Chronicles a few weeks ago and I thought it was really good. If you are a NYC Gal I definitely suggest taking a walk over and checking it out. It’s only around for a limited time so get your tickets!
37 Arts theater NYC
http://www.beebobrinker.com/



MY GAY BACK PACK

The Secret Lesbian Viking Enclave

Lesbiatopia’s managing editor informed me of the fact that this blog gets a lot of hits from Norway. As I am appointed as European Special Correspondent, she sent me on a quest to find the source of this unusual Scandinavian influx of traffic.

As it happens my day job requires allows me to be quite up-to-date on any information regarding other countries, including Norway. And I also happen to be a lesbian… so when combining these 2 factual elements with some well-aimed computer Google searches I should be able to pull this off. Or at least that’s what I thought.

The start of my virtual quest was a happy and hopeful one. I mean, who wouldn’t want to find a secret enclave of Norwegian (= fair-haired, blue-eyed & well-nourished) sisters? Even the fact that I actually live in Belgium and had no hopes of meeting any of these Norwegian beauties in the flesh, couldn’t stop me from getting all excited. (What’s a bit of flesh in this virtual day and age, anyway?)

I started having very vivid (Viking) visions of half-naked Xena-like women who worship the Midnight Sun by touching each other inappropriately while singing “we come from the land of the ice and snow, from the midnight sun where the wild butch queens grow”. And whose post-worshiping rituals consist of surfing to Lesbiatopia, of course. I guess you could say I got a little bit carried away. (Luckily all this happened late February and early March which made it a bit too early in the year to involve Solstices and other Dante’s Cove-inspired madness in my visions. Although, I do honestly think I can’t stretch my imagination that far.)

Anyway, there I was… spending my days Googling like mad, adding Norwegian lesbians to my Facebook friends list so I could question them in an atmosphere of virtual sisterhood, sifting through tons of Viking pictures and feverishly looking for a lead on this secret enclave of blond goddesses when I received a Facebook message from a very high-ranked Norwegian Government official (whose name I can never mention, obviously). Here’s the message:

STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING OR ELSE…

My first thought was: don’t these Norwegians know that writing in capitals equals shouting? And then it dawned on me that in all these years I have been adoring women (as a hobby and a lifestyle) no bleu-eyed blonde woman has ever made it to the top regions of my hotlist anyway so I might as well take the subtle piece of advice, ask our managing editor to forgive me for not following through on the leads and write down in all honesty what happened to me on my quest.

The only option I have left now is to ask you, Norwegian Lesbiatopia visitors, if it’s true that there is a hidden elitist lesbian Viking enclave in Norway that desperately wants to remain secret. But you probably won’t be able to give us an honest answer anyway...

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Lesbians Around the World: The Lesbian Scene in Barcelona

A recently passed bill here in Spain has granted all gay and lesbian couples in Spain the same rights to marry, adopt and divorce as heterosexuals. That means Spain has become only the world's seventh country to allow gay couples full rights. This legislation is among a host of social reforms pushed through parliament by Our President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and his socialist PSOE government, this despite strong opposition from the Catholic Church.

With the passing of these new laws, there is a new freedom for gays and lesbians here in Spain that has resulted in a new openness . You can now see lesbians and gays holding hands in cinema queues, sitting on each others laps on the Metro, even dancing the Tango with each other in the park. After years of church rather fancying itself as the government of the country, this freedom is a far cry from the days when being gay or lesbian could get you put into jail in Spain.

But there has been a one slight draw back to this freedom, now you need some gaydar here in Spain, but not much.

Back in the bad old days, there had been secret lesbian only restaurants, bars and clubs where you knew everyone in there was lesbian and if you went to one of these places you did not have to guess who was gay and who was not, there was very little risk of applying your charms to the wrong kind of female. Most of these lesbian only establishments are closing as the gay scene has moved out of the closet and into the mainstream of Spanish life and so now one has to create a new ways of making contact with other single lesbians. But this has been a small price to pay in seeing what we got in exchange and living in Barcelona make that a small challenge.

Here in Barcelona, there are still plenty of places for Lesbians to meet up and have a good time and as a matter of fact they're starting to call Barcelona the new gay capitol of Europe. It's gay scene is lively and stylish and is growing bigger all the time. Barcelona is of course home to the stunning Gaudí architecture but apart from his works of art, the whole city center is an architectural delight.

The main gay area in Barcelona, called L'Eixample or Gayxample, runs from the port, to the center of town, stopping just a few blocks short of the gay village and is famous for Barcelona's best street performers. It's a constant highway of people walking up and down to see it's many visual delights.

When the sun sets is when Barcelona really comes to life and after a hot day, we gays come out to playand Barcelona's gay scene is lively and stylish. In Spain you don't go out to eat until 10pm, the bars don't get going until midnight and the discos don't even open until 3am.

Barcelona is going to be the host of 2008's gay and lesbian Euro Games going on from24 - 27 Jul 2008 , that covers a range of traditional sports from track and field events to racquet games, cycling and swimming, as well as more unusual ones like roller blading and floor ball. But this is more than just sporting competition - it is designed to bring the homosexual community together through cultural activities as well.

Barcelona's Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in October and Novemeber is one of the major highlights of the Catalonian queer calendar.

Also Just a short train ride away form Barcelona is the fishing village-cum-popular gay resort of Sitges and its Carnival that has been acknowledged by both the straight and gay press as Spain's wildest party. Lesbians from all over Europe all turn out for the Sitges carnival ready to party.

Add in Barcelonas wonderful beaches and you have a great Lesbian party spot.

So Viva Lesbia España!

Tantric Rose Lives in Barcelona Spain, travels extensively throughout Europe and is also one of the owners and editors of the Lesbian Sex Education Site, Lesbian Kama Sutra that explores Tantric lesbian sexuality with videos, photographs, explanatory text, and drawings.

She will be reporting for Lesbiatopia on topics of lesbian interest from across Europe.

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