My Great Idea
Feb. 15th, 2006 04:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miss_pryssOK, so I've had this idea percolating in my brain for a while, and I was thinking about it again today, so I thought I'd tell you all about it.
I want to open a chain of nap hotels. These would be small facilities around NYC with little cubbies that people can rent for some small fee per hour. Each cubby is just big enough for a basic pallet/matress that you can nap on.
I thought of this because I often find myself out and about in the city, running errands or meeting friends, with an hour or so to kill and a powerful urge to nap or at least sit down and read a book. And there's no place to do that. Or maybe I suddenly don't feel so good and I want to lie down. Where can I go?
Nap hotel. I'm thinking nearly fully-automated, with self-sterilizing rooms like those European public toilets. One person per cube--strictly enforced--to avoid becoming a resource only for people looking for a place for a quickie. There's no way to prevent people from using their cube to wank, but the automated sterilization between customers should take care of that problem.
Here's what the experience would be like: You've met some friends for brunch, and they had to run off so now you've got two and a half hours to kill before you meet your boyfriend for a movie. Your time-killing options are Barnes & Noble, Starbucks, and... Miss Priss's Nap Hotel. You know there's a Nap Hotel ten blocks north of you, so you walk up there 'cause those pancakes really wore you out.
When you arrive at the 2nd-floor site, you're greeted at the front desk by a friendly, polite receptionist who signs you into a room and lets you choose your own pillow and blanket. The tiny little room she shows you into has no window, but there's a light on the ceiling with a dial so you can control the light level. There's a vent and a thermostat so you can control the temperature. And there's a speaker on the wall with ten different white noise/ambient sound tracks to choose from. The room's surfaces are all made of smooth white plastic.
You take your shoes off and hang your coat on the door hook. You sit down on the squashy, soft bed which takes up 80% of the floor space in the room, set the sound to "soothing ocean waves", adjust the temperature and the light, and then curl up under the fleece blanket and drift off.
One hour later, a soft chime sounds and a little button lights up. You decide you want to nap for another hour, and you hit the "snooze" button. When it chimes again, you wake up, gather up your stuff, grab the pillow and blanket, and leave the room. When you close the door behind you, a light on the door turns red and you can make out a rumble and whirr. Inside the room, the waterproof mattress is being stripped of its cover, the air vent is closing, and the entire room is being flooded with boiling hot soapy water, then violently air-dried. Once it's dry, the mattress gets another cover and the light on the door turns green. The room is ready for another napper.
You dump your pillow into the bin marked "pillows" and do the same with your blanket -- they'll both go to the wash before they go back into circulation. The receptionist took your $10 deposit for the first hour, and now you settle up with her for the second -- $20 for a two-hour nap in a silent, dark, quiet, private room. On your way out you grab a card with a list of all the Nap Hotel locations in Manhattan and stash it in your wallet for future reference.
You emerge out onto Broadway, blinking in the light. You're refreshed and ready for an evening of playing footsie at the movies with your boy.
I want to open a chain of nap hotels. These would be small facilities around NYC with little cubbies that people can rent for some small fee per hour. Each cubby is just big enough for a basic pallet/matress that you can nap on.
I thought of this because I often find myself out and about in the city, running errands or meeting friends, with an hour or so to kill and a powerful urge to nap or at least sit down and read a book. And there's no place to do that. Or maybe I suddenly don't feel so good and I want to lie down. Where can I go?
Nap hotel. I'm thinking nearly fully-automated, with self-sterilizing rooms like those European public toilets. One person per cube--strictly enforced--to avoid becoming a resource only for people looking for a place for a quickie. There's no way to prevent people from using their cube to wank, but the automated sterilization between customers should take care of that problem.
Here's what the experience would be like: You've met some friends for brunch, and they had to run off so now you've got two and a half hours to kill before you meet your boyfriend for a movie. Your time-killing options are Barnes & Noble, Starbucks, and... Miss Priss's Nap Hotel. You know there's a Nap Hotel ten blocks north of you, so you walk up there 'cause those pancakes really wore you out.
When you arrive at the 2nd-floor site, you're greeted at the front desk by a friendly, polite receptionist who signs you into a room and lets you choose your own pillow and blanket. The tiny little room she shows you into has no window, but there's a light on the ceiling with a dial so you can control the light level. There's a vent and a thermostat so you can control the temperature. And there's a speaker on the wall with ten different white noise/ambient sound tracks to choose from. The room's surfaces are all made of smooth white plastic.
You take your shoes off and hang your coat on the door hook. You sit down on the squashy, soft bed which takes up 80% of the floor space in the room, set the sound to "soothing ocean waves", adjust the temperature and the light, and then curl up under the fleece blanket and drift off.
One hour later, a soft chime sounds and a little button lights up. You decide you want to nap for another hour, and you hit the "snooze" button. When it chimes again, you wake up, gather up your stuff, grab the pillow and blanket, and leave the room. When you close the door behind you, a light on the door turns red and you can make out a rumble and whirr. Inside the room, the waterproof mattress is being stripped of its cover, the air vent is closing, and the entire room is being flooded with boiling hot soapy water, then violently air-dried. Once it's dry, the mattress gets another cover and the light on the door turns green. The room is ready for another napper.
You dump your pillow into the bin marked "pillows" and do the same with your blanket -- they'll both go to the wash before they go back into circulation. The receptionist took your $10 deposit for the first hour, and now you settle up with her for the second -- $20 for a two-hour nap in a silent, dark, quiet, private room. On your way out you grab a card with a list of all the Nap Hotel locations in Manhattan and stash it in your wallet for future reference.
You emerge out onto Broadway, blinking in the light. You're refreshed and ready for an evening of playing footsie at the movies with your boy.
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no subject
Date: 2006-02-15 10:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-15 10:21 pm (UTC)Yeah, see, the hygiene is really important to the success of this whole venture, I think. You have to be completely confident, when you walk into a room, that every trace of the previous inhabitant has been scoured away. Otherwise it just wouldn't work.
delightful!
Date: 2006-02-15 10:15 pm (UTC)Re: delightful!
Date: 2006-02-15 10:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-15 10:54 pm (UTC)Yes, I would definitely patronize this hypothetical establishment--if it didn't usually take me two hours to fall asleep in the first place.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-16 01:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-16 03:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-16 03:12 pm (UTC)I'm thinking, along the lines of the hammock room that Kormantic suggested, this establishment could have different grades of luxury/price. Full rooms as described in my post being the most expensive, followed by coffin-rooms like in Japan, and then a hammock room or some similar arrangement for just a couple dollars an hour.
And you're so right about college campuses being a perfect location. If only I had had such a luxury when I was in college.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-16 02:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-16 03:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-16 03:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-16 03:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-16 03:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-16 03:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-16 07:47 am (UTC)Luckily, kids grow up, so my need for such a place has vanished.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-16 03:26 pm (UTC)