Perhaps someone can explain to me “stay at the YMCA”? I’ve been in a number of YMCAs over the decades, but I’ve never been to one that allowed people to stay there. Perhaps someone could educate me.
YMCA & YWCA one were hostelries for indigent men and women, respectively. They morphed into unisex low-cost gyms.
The Young Men's Christian Association used to operate hotels--and it may still do so. In 1978, I stayed at the YMCA Hotel in San Francisco. The accommodations were spartan--a bed and a small room, with a communal bathroom that served the whole floor--but they were inexpensive. The facility, built in 1928, allowed free parking and was conveniently located in the Tenderloin District, near Union Square. This was back when San Francisco was still an exciting and fun place to visit.
The building is still there, but it seems to have been converted to an apartment house.
“Perhaps someone can explain to me “stay at the YMCA”? I’ve been in a number of YMCAs over the decades, but I’ve never been to one that allowed people to stay there. Perhaps someone could educate me.”
First, you need to learn how to google.
There were a few YMCA hotels nationally. I stayed in the San Francisco YMCA for a night, a long time ago. My main memory of the visit, apart from the gay truck driver who tried to pick me up, was listening to a pianist in a room off the lobby play Rachmaninoff preludes. He wasn't bad.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YMCA_Hotel_(San_Francisco,_California)