Finding A Flophouse (The Naked City)

‘Finding a Flophouse’ is the latest column (October 14, 2024) from Coffin Ed‘s The Naked City column – featured exclusively on City Hub.

Finding a Flophouse

You are a visitor from interstate or overseas, maybe a backpacker on a budget, and you have just arrived in Sydney. It’s the mid-1960s and you require a place to stay for a few days — one that  needs to be cheap.

Luckily, the CBD offered numerous options at the time. The ruthless developers were only starting to tear down buildings and many of the old pubs and ‘private’ hotels were still standing. At the bottom end of Pitt Street, not far from the Haymarket and Railway Square there was an abundance of el cheapo options.

Mac’s Private Hotel, the Cosy Hotel and the Westend all offered a variety of basic no frills accommodation. At the lower end you got a room with a bed, sometimes a mirror and possibly somewhere to hang your clothes. The bathroom was shared and often there was no aircon or adequate heating in the winter. There might have been an old TV and a few lounge chairs in the foyer but not even a radio in the rooms. Most patrons simply wanted a place to crash out for the night and the added niceties we expect today like coffee making and shower gel were non existent.

Cleanliness was not always a priority and the seedier establishments were infamous for their bed bugs and other flesh eating crawlies. Not so at the very clean and comfortable People’s Palace at 398-406 Pitt Street, run by the Salvation Army and a haven for low income travellers.

First opened in 1899 it could accommodate 887 guests with a staff around 80. It was popular with families travelling from rural areas and also provided accommodation for homeless men, women and children. Finally demolished in 1988, with the façade retained, it attracted a stigma on the part of snobby wealthier Sydneysiders who regarded its patrons as those at the bottom of the social scale.

Flash forward to 2024 and nearly all the old style hotels, hostels and flophouses have long gone. If you want to bed down in Sydney for the night, the cheapest options – next to a park bench in Hyde Park – are the sleeping pods, which have become increasingly popular.

A night in one of these slightly claustrophobic capsules will set you back anywhere from $60 to $150 depending on the day and time of year. If you have ever seen Don Siegel’s 1978 classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers, you might have no desire to ever sleep in one – but apparently some people (i.e. those suffering claustromania) love them.

A night upstairs in an old-style pub, with a noisy band rocking underneath, used to be another great cheapie but the gentrification of so many CBD hotels has seen room prices hit between $150 and $200. For that you get pretty much the basics including a shared bathroom, but hang on: breakfast is often included – coffee, toast and a semi-stale croissant!

After the pubs you’ll find a multitude of three and four star hotels that offer rooms beginning around the $250 mark, bumped up on weekends and during peak holiday periods. Generally speaking you need to book months ahead to take advantage of cheaper rates and last minute bookings will often see room rates climbing to $350 and beyond.

When it comes to a Hunter S Thompson-esque, rock n roll/bohemian style experience of the past, there’s not much left in areas such as Kings Cross and Potts Point to romance about.

When the popular music dive the Manzil Room was raging in the early 80s, coked out interstate musicians had only to stumble up the stairs in the Bernly Hotel directly above, to find a welcoming bed at 3.00am. In the morning the room often resembled English artist Tracy Emin’s notorious bed installation, strewn with pizza boxes, bongs and empty bottles of JD –  a nightmare for the poor old house maid.

These days, the building remains but has been converted into an upmarket apartment hotel where their top two-bedroom apartment rents for around $800 on a Saturday night.

Anybody who has travelled to Southeast Asia will appreciate how much cheaper their hotels are and the kind of value they offer, like unique architecture and charm, lots of extras and often huge breakfast buffets. You can stay in a five star hotel just about anywhere for the price of a very average three star in Sydney.

Maybe we need to bring back the People’s Palace.