My turn for the semi-cheap date night. I found a way around going to a nice place and still keeping it cheap: you are only allowed one drink. That was the deal to get us to the Jane Ballroom at the Jane Street Hotel.
There wasn’t a lot of research put into this place. In fact, I arranged date night to be on Wednesday night after work and around 4:00 the same day, I thought “oh f@#!. What am I going to do?” Co-worker to the rescue and the Jane Ballroom was recommended.
The Jane Ballroom is the bar for the Jane Street Hotel. The hotel itself has some interesting history, according to New York Magazine. It provided accommodation for sailors in the early 1900’s and was used to house Titanic survivors when they arrived in New York City. The Hotel has recently been redone by Eric Goode and Sean MacPherson (the same people who did the Maritime Hotel). The rooms are extremely small and most don’t have private bathrooms (although there are rooms with this option), but they’re comfortable and offer an economical way of staying in Manhattan.
The ballroom looks like someone’s 1920s parlor room decorated with everything they bought while traveling. We went in the evening, around 6:30, and I wished I could have showed up with red lipstick, pearls, and a flapper outfit. The prices are not the cheapest but I didn’t expect them to be.
Courtesy of http://thedizzyfizz.wordpress.com
My idea of keeping the date night cheap by only having one drink presented a whole new issue: my husband drinks two drinks to my one. It doesn’t matter about what he is ordering: a martini, beer, vodka sodas, wine; it’s always two to my one. Solution: he has to get the cheap drinks (like beer) and I get a glass of wine. Somehow it worked – to my surprise, my choice was actually a good first date night!
Semi-cheap days and nights in NYC 