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Phone: 215-563-7474

Street Address: 135 South 17th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103

Location Rating: Excellent Location In Center City's Ritzy Section

Lobby Appearance: Their doorman has an unusual, distinct uniform. Watch out for that step as you enter and exit. The lobby area is small. It looks like things will be fine.

Room Appearance: It's an old room, but it is in excellent condition. I saw room 403. It was comfortable, felt relaxing, and had a good corner-view of Walnut Street. And the room lighting was ample and comfortable.

Useful Nearby Businesses: There is free internet access right across the street at the new ING cafe. They use it as a platform to sell their banking services. The neighborhood is very upscale. Trendy fashion stores. Expensive restaurants. Art galleries. And other businesses.

Hotel Restaurants: Connected to the lobby is "Jolly's." It's a bar and is a bit noisy with locals after the work hours. On the other side of the lobby is "Redhead Piano Bar." It is small, dark and everything is black. Jolly's looked nicer.

Other Amenities: A fitness room is on the second floor. It had 2 running machines, 1 bike machine, 1 stair step machine, a muscle building contraption with weights, but no free weights. The fitness room has good views of Walnut Street. They have a business center. The one guest room I saw had a 25 inch TV, iron, ironing board, hair dryer, bathrobe, coffee maker, big bed, climate control.

Would I Stay Here? Yes, and I would enjoy being able to just step outside to be on this block of Walnut Street. It is an excellent location and its nice to be able to easily experience this part of downtown Philadelphia.

Comments: The guy at the front desk said he couldn't show me the rooms since nobody else was there, so he gave me a key card to this one room. That was nice. I turned on all the lights, looked over the features, closely looked at the bathroom, checked out the view and struggled with taking my notes. I guess I spent too long there! The maintenance guy came to get me. I felt like a criminal when I returned to the front desk. I guess he had second thoughts - was I taking a nap? Using the bathroom? Pocketing things? Geez...

The building dates back to 1904, and the hotel came to be in 1971. It has 139 rooms and one room is handicap accessible. The hotel has two floors set aside for smokers.

The two key points about this hotel:

1. Excellent location close to Rittenhouse Square Park.

2. The room I saw was a little bit old, but it is a quality room and I felt comfortable there.

The high quality, and much newer Sofitel Hotel is also just steps away.

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