Where to Stay for $39 a Night in New York City? In a Yellow Cab: VIDEO

 

Where to Stay for $39 a Night in New York City? In a Yellow Cab

 

Jonathan Powley listed a former taxi, a 2002 Honda Odyssey, on Airbnb as a vacation rental. It has no bathroom but offers views of Manhattan from Long Island City, Queens. Credit Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York Times 

By JESSE COBURNSEPT. 11, 2016
Jonathan Powley listed a former taxi, a 2002 Honda Odyssey, on Airbnb as a vacation rental. It has no bathroom but offers views of Manhattan from Long Island City, Queens. Credit Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York Times  
It may have a great view of Manhattan, but this vacation rental sits in parking spaces in Long Island City, Queens, and has no bathroom. And it has a bit of that old car smell.

 

Still, Jonathan Powley’s  listing on Airbnb does have its perks. The views really are fantastic, and at $39 a night ($49 on Fridays and Saturdays), visitors to New York City would be hard pressed to find a cheaper accommodation. The rental, though, is actually a decommissioned yellow cab with a bed in the back.

 

“People spend anniversaries in there,” Mr. Powley, who lives in Long Island City, said. “It’s very romantic.”

Mr. Powley said the taxi and the motor homes he had previously listed on the vacation rental website were in demand. The taxi was booked for most nights that he made it available, he said, and it had attracted visitors from as far as Singapore and as near as Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn.

 

The price is the primary appeal of the taxi, some guests said, because even low-end hotels in the city can cost hundreds of dollars a night. Mr. Powley’s offering represents a cheap refuge, however unusual, for the cash-conscious traveler.

 

“It’s fun to be able to say that you slept in a cab,” Tabitha Akins, 29, a former guest, said. “On purpose anyway.”

Mr. Powley, a stand-up comedian from Pennsylvania, said he draws on his undergraduate degree in hotel and restaurant management to create a comfortable, immersive environment for guests.

 

For each reservation, Mr. Powley outfits the former taxi with a yellow tray, yellow mugs, yellow roses and bananas.

Credit Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York Times 

 

The back seats of the former taxi, a 2002 Honda Odyssey minivan, were replaced with a full-size mattress covered with black and yellow sheets. For each reservation, a yellow tray is outfitted with yellow mugs, yellow roses and bananas — “because they’re yellow,” Mr. Powley said.

 

Guests may wear the yellow slippers, embossed with images of taxis, which Mr. Powley places atop the yellow floor mats and the yellow hats with checkered brims that read “New York Taxi.”

 

“You can always make people’s experiences better,” Mr. Powley said of his taxi-themed embellishments. “It’s not just like, ‘Hey, here’s a van, sleep in it.’”

 

Ms. Akins, a fashion stylist who lives in Brooklyn, stayed in the taxi last summer with her husband and their dog.

Despite the tight quarters, Ms. Akins said she slept well. She said she rarely finds herself in yellow cabs otherwise.

“We’re more of the Uber and Lyft variety,” she said.

 

 

 

Mr. Powley said he thought of the idea in December 2014, when he was selling Christmas trees. A mobile home he had bought to help his workers keep warm had needed repairs, and he thought he could rent it out to pay for the cost.

 

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