The Jane Hotel is the coolest, cheap hotel in New York

IT’S the same hotel the crew of the Titanic stayed in 1912 and it hasn’t changed much since then. The really amazing part though is the cost.

The eclectic Jane Hotel is a peak inside New York’s bohemian past.

FOR a hotel in one of New York City’s most glamorous locations, The Jane boasts an ironic history of catering for the down-and-out.

Beginning its life as an affordable refuge for sailors on shore leave, the six-storey, waterfront venue went on to shelter the surviving crew of the Titanic.

Fast-forward more than a century and the unassuming landmark now scoops up budget travellers adrift in one of the world’s most expensive cities.

To stay at The Jane is to go back to the time of the transatlantic tragedy, when thousands of passengers met their end aboard the luxury cruise liner in April, 1912.

Though it became rundown in its later years, the Hudson River venue avoided a similar fate.

Instead, its Lazarus moment came in 2008, when hoteliers Sean MacPherson and Eric Goode resurrected it as a nautical-themed hotel in Manhattan’s sought-after West Village.

“So many young people have a romanticised notion of bohemia New York, but have trouble finding it these days,” Sean MacPherson has said previously.

“Virtually all new Manhattan hotels seem to be versions of each other, high-end design palaces. By restoring the landmark hotel, rather than renovating it, we hope to resurrect an authentic slice of idiosyncratic New York.”

The rooms, corridors and amenities now hark back to its former clienteles’ seafaring past, right down to bathroom fixtures mimicking the helm of a ship.

The Jane’s wooden, lamplit halls are narrow and labyrinthine.

And its modest, Harry Potter-esque cabins (furnished in colours resembling Gryffindor’s red and gold) are perfectly designed for seamen accustomed to sleeping in the limited confines of a ship’s hull.

The Jane’s cheaper rooms are tiny single cabins.

Its 50 sq ft. bunk and single-bed cabins will turn-off tourists looking for top-shelf digs.

There’s limited space, no en suite with cute blocks of soap or small shampoo bottles, nor is there a loaded minibar.

Each room features basic creature comforts such as aircon, Wi-Fi, a small TV, phone and iPod dock.

Guests staying in single or bunk-bed rooms will have the novelty of knocking elbows with neighbours during their morning routines in the shared bathrooms.

Starting at $99 per night, the standard single-bed cabins are a tad more expensive than the 25c rate for early 20th century sailors — but still unlikely to break the bank of travellers more interested in splurging on the sites of NYC.

For those with a little more wiggle room in their wallets, The Jane also has Captains’ Cabins starting at $225 a night that have their own bathrooms and unobstructed views of the Hudson.

The Jane’s Captain’s cabin is much nicer.

After its tenure housing arrivals to one of the world’s busiest ports, the venue was bought by the YMCA, later becoming a hostel for New Yorkers in need of steady accommodation.

To this day The Jane still houses permanent residents from an arrangement under its previous life.

The hotel’s magnetism exudes from the history it celebrates.

As soon as the cheerful doorperson ushers you into the lobby you feel as though you have been thrust onto the set of Wes Anderson’s Grand Budapest Hotel.

It’s not a glamorous ode to the past, but a picture of faded glory.

The entrance to the Jane Hotel.

The nostalgia trickles down the wallpapered walls, past the peacock and deer’s head mounted high with other taxidermy trophies.

Ornately carved wood panels surround the reception desk, manned by staff clad in red bellhop uniforms standing in front of hundreds of room-key pigeonholes.

If you miss it on your way in, there is a stone fountain dedicated to the victims of the Titanic disaster.

Next to the lobby sprawls an exquisite ballroom with more taxidermy, towering pot plants, and faded lounges for guests to stretch their limbs more than their cabins allow.

The Jane Hotel ballroom feels like something from a Wes Anderson film.

The space once housed a memorial for the ill-fated liner but has since turned to more jovial uses.

Up until 2005 the ballroom was home to the offbeat Jane Street Theatre, where the rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, about a transgender punk singer, was born.

It now plays host to a steady stream of partygoers every night of the week, making use of the giant disco ball plucked straight from MacPherson’s LA home.

Revellers hoping to gulp down the night air in between cocktails can catch the lumbering lift to the rooftop bar, once the abode of drag superstar RuPaul.

Inside the rooftop bar.

Its teal walls appear scabby and pocked with exposed plaster, and the tuxedo-clad monkey manning the back-bar looks as though it would stalk the halls reanimated at night.

But just a few steps away is a balcony that captivates as much as it would’ve in the building’s infancy.

From there, you can soak in the glitzy skyline, and thank God you’re on dry land.

The view from the Jane Hotel rooftop. The most lavish hotel perks we could find