Jazz on the Park Hostel

Good hostel, nothing less nothing more
My stay at this hostel was pretty nice. The rooms were ok, the beds were ok, and the bathrooms were ok too. But the staff can be a bit more polite, our roommates camera got stolen in the hostel and they didn't want to show them the cct. Probably one of the staff members stole it himself, so please take good care of your stuff! My flipflops (Reef's) and some of our towels got stolen too. But after all, It's a normal hostel where you can meet people easily especially in the summer i think. The breakfast sucks but it's way too early anyway.

Well, I at least had a good time
Just came back from NYC about a week ago. Saw a lot of bad reviews about this hostel and honestly, it aint as bad as all that. I actually really liked it. Sure, it's not perfect -- no kitchen (NYC can be expensive to eat in, but theres actually a lot of cheap eats up the street, so don't worry esp if you have the power of the pound or euro), I did wake up with spider or bug bites once when I slept in a different bed, rooms and beds can be pretty cramped and the heating can be too low or too high. But really, it's a hostel and not a hotel. Laid back atmosphere, fun to hang out and drink in, staff were very friendly and well drink with you, meet lots of cool new folk all the time. In other words, a very sociable place which is what I look for the most in a hostel (as opposed to just facilities). Good location -- right across from central park and a couple of streets down from the subway, walk a little further up that street and plenty of fairly cheap places to eat. Crime wise the area honestly isn't too bad (even though its technically in Harlem). Maybe watch your back a little, but honestly it's not taking your life into your own hands. And of course, compared to a lot of other places in NYC this place is cheap. I recommend this place. Oh and NYC itself is the bomb. Go there.

I had the best week of my life
Here is the real deal on Jazz On The Park -- it is the best hostel in New York. The location is excellent, right next to Central Park (you step out the hostel, turn right, cross the street, and you're in central park). And the subway is just around the corner. You know you can get a seven-day unlimited metrocard for $24? (12 quid!) See how far £12 gets you on the London underground. The staff are the nicest, friendliest people in the world! If there is a problem with anything the guys at the front desk will move mountains for you. And all the staff take care of the guests, give them directions, new york tips, take them out, show them a good time. Every night there is something cool to do -- pub crawl, poker (I won $35!), on Sundays they have an iPod party where you can play your music. Man, when I stayed there they had a Playstation 3 behind the café bar that the guests could use. A playstation 3! They really go the extra distance for the guests -- one girl from Chicago was in tears when she left, she didn't want to go. And I saw one of the guys on the staff help a girl take her luggage across town on the subway. Considering they don't get paid (just free board) that is something else. Ok, so the rooms can feel a little cramped when they're full, and the building is a bit battered and bruised (there was something weird going on with the heating -- extreme hot and cold!) but what do you expect? It's a hostel! If you want privacy, comfortable bed, bathroom to yourself -- don't stay here, get a hotel. If you want to party, have fun, see cool stuff in new york, make loads of friends from all over the world, get laid, and have the best time of your life, stay at Jazz On The Park. It's the best.

Weak at best -- very poor.
Essentially this weak hostel confirmed my decision to return home after the best two months of my life. I stayed in this hostel at the start of my trip in june 2007 and my opinion initially was it was poor but I met some great people so the condition and location didn't bother me. however when i returned in august 2007 my blinkers were removed and i saw this hostel for what it was. First of all they had overbooked and i had to stay in the basement. I was then not guaranteed a bed for the next few days even though I had clear evidence I should have a room. This brings me onto the staff. The way I see working in a hostel is that it shouldnt be treated like a job. In almost all the other hostels I stayed in the staff were so much fun. The idiots in this hostel seem to be very distant and cliquey and not really enjoying what they do. May I suggest a new career. The condition, considering the abundance of staff, possibly the reason i couldnt get a bed, was atrocious. The toilets were disgusting, the rooms were equally disgusting, and the kitchen was similar. i would recommend this hostel if you had no other choice although it isn't that cheap.

Alright place
Breakfast is a bagel, a piece of fruit, and tea or coffee (free). There is no kitchen, but the cafe staff will heat up food in the microwave for you or provide boiling water. Security seemed ok. You needed to swipe a card to get into the rooms area, and then to get into your room. This place wasn't super clean, but it was ok.

Jazz on the park is a drug dealing den, it's pathetic and disgusting. Chances are decent that you'll get roomed with some crackhead. If that's ok with you, bring locks for your bags and password up that charging cellphone. Yes, I've stayed there, the crackheads were lighting up in the lobby bathroom. Hey, I checked into a room to see my bed covered with altered metrocards and some crackhead looking dude going through stuff. This is a hot place if you like illegal activity and trusting your stuff to crackheads. This place should be shut down.

My friend and I stayed at Jazz on the Park for five nights in Feb. 2004. I don't know if its changed much since we went but I do know we had a great time and would totally go back! We were both twenty-one-year-old, single females at the time and felt completely safe. The staff was awesome and the facilities were clean we had no problem feeling like we could use the showers and washrooms. We were in a room with two males we didn't know and had no problems, if you don't want to meet new people and have new experiences I don't really think you should be staying in a Hostel in the first place. The breakfast was alright -- just a bagel -- and the rooms were small and you never knew if it would be hot or cold in there but really for the price I don't know what people expect. We did get hit on a lot by the staff seeing as they were mainly male but like I said we were single, twenty-one-year-old females that's to be expected. We also felt completely safe walking around and we road the subways and walked back to the hostel at all hours. All in all it was a great experience that we both completely cherish and we got to meet amazing people from all over the world. I do suggest if you are not young probably not the place to stay.

I went on a mission to New York City in June 2006 with my church youth group, and we stayed at Jazz on the Park. Before leaving for NYC, I looked at the website my youth pastor gave us, and all the rooms looked decent. However, when we got there, I sat a table and cried, the place was so disgusting. I don't know where the pictures on their website were taken at, but they were not taken here! Our church was supposed to have the whole third floor reserved, but they messed it up. Instead, the girls were on the third floor with fifty strange men, and the guys were on the fifth floor by themselves. The rooms were half the size of my college dorm room (which is pretty small), and my sheets were filthy. Halfway through the week, we come back to our rooms to find that someone had been in our room! Towels were thrown everywhere and I had a big muddy footprint in the middle of my bed, which I had to sleep on for the rest of the week. I felt disgusting the whole week. I would rather sleep on the subway stairs than sleep in this disgusting excuse for a hostel!

We booked a room here for three of us for four nights on the net. We (Myself, wife, and twenty-year-old daughter) arrived from Washington D.C. to find our booked room (four beds) consisted of a broom cupboard sized room with two sets of double bunks. It was so small we could not fit our luggage in the room with us! Additionally, we were to share it with a fourth person (sex unknown). We quickly decided to check straight back out again and look for a nice hotel to treat ourselves. Apart from the room, the place appears to be undergoing some repairs or renovations and their pictures are not all that representative of the place. Take note that this place has five floors and no elevators. On a positive note, it was well populated with nice people and the staff were both friendly and understanding of our disapointment. They happily refunded our money whe we left. I suggest you be careful and check it out before committing to stay here. he surrounding area left a bit to be desired as well and may be a bit suspect at night (maybe I am doing it a disservice by saying that but it was the feeling we got in daylight).

I suppose I lucked out with my experience. I had just spent a night in a single room at another hostel downtown, where I had stayed in a single room (around one hundred dollars) due to a mistake when reserving a space in a four-bed room. So, after spending a night feeling very Allen Ginsberg hearing the ambience of Moloch around me (that Huge Big City sound, a hum of sorts) I walked over to the Jazz on the Park (I had called the night before and found that there were vacancies there). I thought it was great. The front staff were fairly cool, the place has a great feel to it, very friendly and young. It's three blocks from a subway stop, and the area felt perfectly safe to me. Of course, I walked by myself all around Greenwich Village and Soho one night and felt like I had been there for years. I didn't use the showers, I decided that part I could go without for two days. The beds are upholstered with a plasticky vinyl that rather sucks when the fitted sheets scoot off in the night, but this is all I remember not liking about the rooms. You can't expect luxury, but the value is great and the feel is right-on. People from all over the world stay there, and I know that is true of most hostels, but all I can say is that it felt really good, and things were clean where I expected them to be, and I left with a perfectly rosy feeling about the place. I feel sorry for others who might have stayed when things were a bit shoddier than when I was there, but I cannot recommend the place enough. Well done.

My eighteen-year-old daughter and twenty-one-year-old son and friend stayed at this Hostel in June '06. I read some of the comments after they left and was quite anxious about their safety. I was relieved to hear the negative comments are exaggerated. They stayed in the "overflow" building, I guess -- the main one was full -- they arrived in the daytime, didn't find it creepy. The staff was ok, some were nice, one was kind of off-hand. I think the Hostel has some kind of deal whereby if you stay work for them, you get a free week's stay there so some of the staff probably has minimal training. There were no bed-bugs or cockroaches (visible). The washrooms were ok. One morning the girls had to go upstairs (they were on the second floor) to another washroom because the toilet had overflowed. They planned not to shower for two days, but the showers were fine, so they did use them. The breakfast wasn't too bad. They were on a strict budget and were happy for the bagels. The coffee was lousy, but hey, this is the U.S. There was a key problem, the cards become de-magnitized or something and to re-key them, they had to walk the couple blocks to the main building -- a nuisance. Their dorm room was crowded -- I saw the pix -- four bunk-beds quite close together. However, they met some really interesting people -- some British guys, a guy from Hong Kong and some Aussies, I believe. They liked the location -- close to Central Park -- they walked over and saw a Shakespeare in the Park performance -- and the area did not seem too bad even at night, though they were in before midnight both nights. They haven't "hosteled" much so can't compare, but it certainly wasn't too bad.

Women beware! This place is dirty, disgusting and nothing like the pictures. I went there recently and was told I had to sleep in a room with other men. Then I was sexually harassed and learned that the same guy that was harassing me was sleeping in the same room as me. He is known by the staff at the reception desk and they purposely put him in the same room as me. After this was conveyed to me, I demanded my deposit back and left there in a hurry. It is smelly and the rooms are dark and grungy looking.

I stayed here in June 05 The location is great, and there are a few decent pubs close by. The hostel itself is dirty, smelly and REALLY old. But it has all the facilities you need and the common area is ok for meeting people. The reception staff are complete idiots, but that didn't bother me. I was used to that. The good thing is that there are pub crawls organised every now and then which is great for solo travellers to meet others. I have stayed in some real shitholes in my time, but this was not the worst. I would stay here again.

After travelling in America for 4 months and staying at a whole range of different hostels, this would have to take the cake for the most dissappointing experience. Besides not having a kitchen this hostel has the potential to be an awesome place but unfortunately it's funky front area is about all it's got going for it. The staff are disgusting to say the least. We were asked to call back (international) at least 5 times to make a booking because they were 'busy' (doing what I don't know.) They are unhelpful, rude and arrogant and god forbid if you happen to have a question, they either roll their eyes and look at you like you are putting them out or they mumble something under their breathe, that is more than likely not in English. We stayed here for christmas and new years and the hostel planned nothing for christmas and had no clue of where we could go to get a chistmas dinner, nor did they care. The new years party was AWFUL, it started very late (1am), they played Spanish hip-hop the whole time with little regard for their non-latino audience and they even had the nerve to pick a few fights with some guests, and on top of that they had the nerve to try and charge a $5 entry fee (isn't $30+ a night enough). Most of the time the staff are sitting around in the cafe area with their thug friends. Essentially this place needs to overhaul their staff with actual backpackers and some kind of superior management, that cares instead of a bunch of friends of friends. Besdies the staff I could complain all day about this hostels problems. Some of the main problems are: - heating/cooling is always in the extreme. A number of people in my room got terribly ill and it is more than likely because the room was either ridiculously cold or unbearably hot. - the showers never get cleaned and the toilets are always flooded. Only 1 working male shower for 2 floors. On occasion the floor is mopped but even that is done poorly. - the door card keys always need to be reactivated, which is especially bad when your room is on the 5th floor with no elevator. - the breakfast bagel is often stale and the small number of OJ's they have on sale runs out very quickly. This would not annoy me so much if they had run out all together, but the truth is the staff are too lazy to go out the back and get some more from the fridge. - to use the wireless internet you have to sign up for 1 month, which costs $22. This would be ok considering that the computers they have here cost a ridiculous $1 for 10 minutes with a $2 min purchase, but the wirless stopped working. As per usual the trusty staff had no clue what to do and fed me some rubbish that the technical support doesn't work on the weekends. After waiting 4 days with still no internet, my partner found the power supply and reset it! Voila! It worked. - the cleaning staff here are also very sketchy. Several of the guests we met during our stay had stories of stolen belongings including passports, cell phones and mp3 players. Crucial belongings to any backpacker. - the location of this hostel isn't bad, but it isn't particularly good either. Harlem has been cleaned up a lot, but there are still a few shady characters walking around at night, which are totally free to walk right into the hostel and into the hallways of the dorms with out any screening or security checks. This was quite frequent with a lot of the staff's local friends. 5 years ago I stayed at this hostel and loved every moment of it. Maybe I was young and naive or maybe the management has changed. Either way, the focus of this hostel faded away a long time ago. The price is also expensive, so if you want a good hostel don't waste your time here.

I stayed in Jazz on the Park for a week in November 2005 as part of a University trip to NY. I am a student and have lived in student accommodation for three years, but Jazz on the Park is worse than anything I've ever witnessed. We originally had 12 people in our dorm, but three had to be moved out, as there was physically not enough room to open our suitcases. November in NY is not the warmest time of the year. We were provided with interesting green velvet blankets, which DO NOT keep you warm. When they did put the heating on it was so hot you couldn't breathe (or sleep for that matter). The showers are gross. For the duration of my stay I noticed that they had a cheesy/sweat smell. But that is to be expected when there are 30 people sharing 3 showers that don't get cleaned often (I didn't see a cleaner there once). You get electronic card keys, but they don't work and you need to get them reactivated, which leads me neatly onto possibly the worst part of this hostel: the staff. The staff don't know how to do anything. Generally they ignore you, even when you ask perfectly reasonable questions - such as "can I buy a phone card here?" It took the girl 10 minutes to inform me that no, they didn't have any left. Another interesting problem is with the card keys you get for your room. They don't work, so you have to get them reactivated. When I went to get mine reactivated the guy at the desk hit on me then took ages to reactivate my card. I had been awake too long to argue, but the sad fact was that I had gotten used to the general incompetence of the staff to be surprised. The free breakfast is nothing to shout about. I'm not fond of bagels and the alternatives were overpriced, so I usually didn't eat in the mornings. This hostel is not is a safe or nice area of NY, so don't go wandering around on your own at night. Or in the day. Just get on the subway and go downtown.