After the Times' recent front-page exposé that rent in New York is apparently expensive, requiring tenants to have multiple roommates or live in non-standard housing — who knew? — Metro New York today follows up with a tale of hipsters finding suitably hip solutions to the city's affordable-housing crunch. It seems a Lower East Side couple, Jessica Delfino and her boyfriend, have retrofitted their nine-by-fifteen-foot living room as a stand-alone mini-suite, and they're renting it out at $70 a night: the world's smallest boutique hotel. Wacky! And not a bad business model, considering this is the second free PR plug the place gets this year. But the funny thing is, neither of those PR hits tell the whole story.

Should you choose to stay chez Delfino, you should probably get to know the hosts a little better; after all, you'll be practically bunking with them. Jessica is a singer, comedian, and performance artist. Her big hit is called "My Pussy Is Magic," and her touring act involves urinating on a pizza. We're not saying this automatically renders her a bad hotelier, but it does make the scandalized anecdote she shares with Metro (about a German guest who walked around naked) a bit tame. As for the boyfriend, who remains nameless in both pieces about the hotel, well, it's Christopher X. Brodeur, the political activist who's done a bit of jail time for protesting Giuliani and crashing the 9/11 Commission hearings. He also ran for mayor on the Green Party ticket in 2001. So, Four Seasons this may not be, but a stay at Delfino's hotel comes with at least two guaranteed celebrity sightings.

A Room, Not Always Of One's Own [Metro NY]
Related:
"My Pussy Is Magic" [Jessica Delfino, YouTube, NSFW]
New York City Renters Cope With Squeeze [NYT]