For Hotels Week, writer/comedian Megan Koester spent a dark night of the soul in Vermont Square's Snooty Fox Motor Inn. Today she explores its down-on-its-luck kin along Western Avenue.
The motels of South Western Avenue are infrequently Yelped. Admitting that you've patronized one opens you up to a world of judgment; most folks, logically, choose not to. Googling them, you'll find very few traces of their existence. In a world where absolutely everything and everyone has an online presence, they may as well not exist. But they do.
In the midday sun, they're eerily silent. Their signage is interchangeable. No weapons. No drugs. No solicitation. They reserve the right to refuse service. They are under surveillance by the Los Angeles Police Department. Many rent by the hour. In spite of the anonymity one would expect from such motels, security cameras are everywhere. The cameras, by and large, capture nothing. They shoot cars, but never their owners. The occasional maid, vacuuming at 4 pm, is the only person you see—the only proof that these places are open for business. (4 pm ... that's a reasonable time for someone to vacate a motel, no?)
—Megan Koester
· Hotels Week 2014 [Curbed LA]
· One Depressing Night at the $12-an-Hour Snooty Fox Motor Inn [Curbed LA]
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