St. James Hotel

We stayed at a vintage hotel in downtown San Diego, the Hotel St. James, in the Gaslamp area which was really fun to walk around in at night, very lively.
One of the cool things is that you can actually go up on the roof! This is a picture of the rooftop sign, but I flipped it around so you can read it.
.Here is a view from the roof at night, that very bright glow was the San Diego Padres stadium (Petco Park). The boys found the game on tv and then were looking out the window, for some reason that was highly amusing.
Here's that strange city at night glow, where no stars are visible and it never really gets dark. A country person (like me) notices and misses that after a while.
This is the Wyatt Earp building which was around the corner. I thought it was really unusual.

I guess he had a saloon or some such here.
Wouldn't it be cool to go up in those small rooms at the very top? They all windows.

It just really stood out and I had to stop and do the touristy thing and take some pictures. Look at all that great detail!

I liked the lobby of our hotel, we had to use the car valet (since parking is pricey there in the city, it actually worked out cheaper), which involved a bit of waiting so I took advantage and took some pictures.

Like the cool pressed ceiling and chandelier.

The long view of the lobby.

A stained glass picture over the elevators.

Speaking of the elevators, they were very unique, the cage door kind, that you had to, get this, open yourself! Along with a super heavy door at each floor to open too. It was really neat, they were slow though, but a little plate in the elevator told about how they were the fastest on the West Coast at one point and were quite a tourist attraction. Funny huh? In the reviews I read on hotels.com, some of the guests complained about the elevators being slow or the doors being manually operated, which I found really sad. The whole point of staying in a historic hotel is stuff like this, sheesh!

My favorite thing in the room didn't even get used, the radiator! Too bad they had to have that ugly red plastic sign behind it warning you that it would get hot. I suppose not everyone knows that these days...

I'm glad that we chose to stay here rather than in one of the more updated places, seems worthwhile to seek out something old and unique.