London Hotel - Is Bankside a good location? Or stick with Sloane Square?
 

Just came across the citizenM Bankside which is opening up shortly very close to the Tate Modern. Looks like a funky place that my teen daughter might enjoy, the rates are excellent and I like the extras like free wi-fi and refrigerator. We are booked into the Sloane Square so I'm comparing the two (which is pretty funny since they're total opposites!). Sloane Square is much much pricier, but you can't beat having the tube right across the street. The closest tube in Bankside is Southwark on the Jubilee line, or we could walk across the Millenium Bridge. I would love to hear your thoughts.

Well I'm a big fan of the Sloane Square, love the location and the hotel too of course!

I hope someone comments on the hotel or the area as this hotel is very close to where my daughter will be working, and might work for our visit in late September.

If it's like the other Citizen M's, the rooms are SMALL - and their PR even seems to indicate this - with little hanging/storage space. Would be fine for a short stay but if I stay somewhere for a week or so I like to have space to put things. Doesn't seem "funky" but more ultra - modern.
As for the area it is in the middle of nowhere IMHO - we always go to the Tate Modern when we visit and it's a trek.

PS note the hotel isn't open yet and isn't planned to open till just before the Olympics so it COULD be delayed.

Thanks mztery!! That's exactly what I was looking for. Yes, the rooms look small but do seem very well organized. And the price was about $1400 cheaper than the Sloane Square, yikes! So I figured it was worth investigating. If the area is fabulous, then it would be an easy choice, with the major disadvantage being a bit farther from the Tube. So those are my considerations.

I've never been to London, but I've been studying tube maps and I'm surprised to hear you say that the area around the Tate Modern is the middle of nowhere. Is it too residential or industrial or what? Is the Jubilee line inconvenient for getting to areas that first-time tourists would want to see?

>>I'm surprised to hear you say that the area around the Tate Modern is the middle of nowhere. Is it too residential or industrial or what? <<

So am I. But it was essentially a business and working district for a long time, and it's really only since Tate Modern and the Millennium Bridge that it's really taken off as somewhere of interest to visitors. Nowadays, the area of interest to most people is concentrated into a narrow strip along the river and back to Southwark Street, which is a busy main road, lined mostly with offices and increasingly hotels - indeed the CitizenM hotel is a conversion from business premises on Lavington St, just on the other side of the main road. Here, the general look of the street, like most of the area back to the railway lines, is fairly anonymous business premises, small businesses and workshops. Further south, it's historically working-class social housing and small terraces, which is increasingly gentrifying. What the area doesn't have is Sloane Square's history and concentration of upmarket - and perhaps, depending on the teenager, stuffy and up themselves - shops and restaurants, or much in the way of parks and gardens.

>>Is the Jubilee line inconvenient for getting to areas that first-time tourists would want to see?<<

No, far from it. Moreover, Southwark St has bus RV1 running along it, which was established precisely to serve the increasing number of visitors in that area.

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/gettingaro...wark-10324.pdf

I don't like Bankside (Suki: it was an industrial area in the 19th and most of the 20th centuries: Tate Modern is a refurbished 1950s power station, and its immediate hinterland mostly support stuff, though heavily Blitzed and postwar reconstruction endlessly delayed by debates about what to do with so much space so close to the centre. Pre-19th century it was a red light district, for much the same reasons theatres were put up there in Elizabthan times. Post 1980 redevelopment is alright and reasonably sensitive, but soul-less and over-dependent on big visitor draws like the Tate and Globe and pokey blocks of "urban living" flats, rather than the warrens of smallish businesses that make up most of London)

OTOH, the draws are there because the area's fabulously connected by riverside footpaths and bridges to the rest of London, and they've attracted a lot of (too often a bit plastic and chain-y for my tastes) bars and eateries, as well as encouraging the rebirth and improvement of a few decent old pubs. It's handy by foot for the world's pre-eminent complex of real theatres (the several auditoria in National Theatre, the Old Vic and, if you like that sort of thing, the Globe), the pretty decent National Film Theatre, the extraordinary range of music in the South Bank centre and the Royal Festival Hall and the slightly contrived range of "street" entertainment, from bookstalls to skateboarding along the river path.

Which means it's out of the way of a lot of the crap West End franchise musicals illiterates are endlessly determined to fork out absurd sums for, but probably has a wider choice of decent art galleries, concert halls and theatres than anywhere on earth outside London. All affordable or free.

Bankside's a lot nearer, and quicker to get to, most things visitors want to see and do than the ghastly tourist ghetto along Gloucester Rd so often recommended here, and it's nothing like as dominated by hotels as the other tourist ghetto in Bloomsbury. I've never used Southwark tube in my life, because I (and most other visitors) have practically always walked to the area from somewhere else in town. Relative distances from tube stations really don't matter when most things are walkable anyway.

It just doesn't feel London-y. But I certainly wouldn't fork out $1400 more than I needed to to stay somewhere else - and most Londoners would say Sloane Square (for decades, shorthand for where nice but dim girls and boys from the comfier shires spend daddy's money on a pretty flat) isn't very Londony either.

In central London (and the South Bank, and the area 200 yards or so inshore, is definitely central) "middle of nowhere" is just an absurd label, telling you more about its user than the place he's describing.

Suki - I stayed late at the Tate Modern one night and walking back to the tube in the dark alone was just a bit creepy, as it was mostly deserted. Kind of a warehouse area.

flanneruk, yes I know the Sloane is expensive for a week (much higher rates during the Olympics), but it met criteria -- safe neighborhood, can walk wherever we need to go, tube, nice hotel/amenities. That being said, I'm still keeping an eye out for something else that may come up either because it's new or a last-minute cancellation. South Bank/Bankside area seemed to be worth looking into. I'm not the ultra-modern hotel type, so it would've been a bit of an adventure with the "pod" bathroom!

Thanks for the information. My daughter will be working for 6 months in London and and the office is fairly close to the Southwark station. I'm not sure yet where she will be living but I hope she comes up with something soon. She arrives July 5th.

Much as I love Southbank I'd prefer to stay at Sloane Square.

lot of shops and service neaby and with good transport to anywhere.Walk to nearby pubs and many restaurants