Oof, y'all, I have a lot to say about my stay and I've been thinking hard about how to word it as I really wish this place and its staff the best.
This is a historic, culturally-significant place that I think for many would be best visited and not stayed at. Maybe my 19-year-old self would have found this to be an experience worth having but at this point in my life, I was regretting my decision soon after I arrived.
The staff and owner were kind. But the place itself is being represented as full of historic charm, and frankly the charm has sort of faded from 'quirky' to 'grimey.' It was clear to me that they were doing the best job possible to keep the place clean on the surface level on a budget when what is needed is a deep clean and many replacements to an old building and rooms that of course in order to maintain them properly would need an expert level kind of repair. I totally understand that in order to save the true flavor of the place, that you don't want to just replace things with cheap modern alternatives. I cannot imagine myself staying here with my partner with whom you would share a bed or having an elder relative stay here. They would be very uncomfortable. I also didn't feel it was fair to run a place at this price given the state of the rooms. This was not a comfortable place to stay - especially during a heat wave and with a few straight days of terrible air quality due to fires (neither of which of course are in the control of the owner and staff). But there were no fans to avail of and then the only air that you could get for both Covid safety and air circulation was of course the smoky air through the window.
As previous reviewers stated, be aware that there are hills and a number of steep staircases to climb everyday to enter the hotel. This was do-able for me, but is not do-able for many. I imagine that some rooms are more worn than others. In my case, I was given a room that had not been used in many days, but this meant it was on the hottest side of the building, that the wifi didn't work within the room, in trade for less human traffic outside of my door. The metal rod jammed into place to hold a curtain fell multiple times that I just gave up trying to reattach it and left it down. The bed was lopsided and the metal springs of the bed itself were a true lesson in what bed comfort was like in decades past. While my sheets and towels were clearly clean, the carpet was clearly quite old and one of the pillows was disintegrating so that flakes of plastic/fabric were constantly crumbling out onto the bed and floor. The water coming out of the sink room was noticeably on/off brown color which meant that while I had brought a water bottle with built-in filter to save money and resources, I still ended up buying large jugs of water during my stay just to be safe. Lastly, I may or may not have gotten an allergic reaction to something in the bedding OR bedsheets - most likely a pillow.
In regards to Covid, no explicit mask mandate or rules were ever stated to me upon check in or at any other time. No staff explicitly confirmed that they were vaccinated, though I figured it safe to assume so. The only other person consistently wearing a mask in common areas aside from me was the owner and a couple of staff. The rest of the staff and tenants went without masks in common spaces which gave me immense anxiety. This is specifically not the fault of the hosts, but I think it's worth mentioning as you read through these reviews and assess your own risk assessment for staying in a place with shared shower and toilets.
Lastly, I intentionally rooted myself in this location and in this neighborhood to soak up Asian-American history. But you can honestly do that without necessarily staying in this location. But keep in mind that at this stage in the pandemic, Seattle like many if not all U.S. cities is hurting, and suffice to say that at certain times of day/night much of the surrounding area was grimey. If you're tolerance for public displays of violence, verbal arguments, public drug use in high, this may be something you can navigate with relative confidence. Frankly, if you were to stay at a corporate hotel in downtown Seattle, you wouldn't be escaping this reality anyhow. But it is a loud area to stay in. There is also a constant range of fire truck sirens, police sirens, helicopters above, planes above, alongside the city sounds. So if you're a light sleeper, this wouldn't be for you.
I really wanted to like this place. I would definitely advise folks to check it out for its historic and cultural value. But I would not stay here again.