“Man is made for something better than disturbing dirt.” Oscar Wilde

I'm climbing up the stairs for the first time to The Hotel and thinking about the reply I got during a conversation with a constable during a walking tour of East Hastings.

A couple of weeks ago, I had been invited by one of the retired Inspectors to go on a walk-around of the area. He had been taking small groups of police hopefuls from the judo classes out. The night it was offered, a handful of us gathered at the downtown office and headed out with a couple of constables escorting us.

I had asked what had surprised her when she started working in District One. We kept walking with the group, then stopped to wait at the corner of Hastings and Main, watching the people gathered in front of the Carnegie Center.

"The dirtiness", she finally replied. "Just how dirty everything gets down here."

At The Hotel, I've been buzzed in through the glass and metal bars, up cracked narrow lino steps. The walls are plaster and embossed, like in some of the fancier furniture stores a few blocks away in Yaletown. I don't think 'Pre-Reno Flophouse' is the mood they want to evoke. I reach the top of the stairs, turn a blind corner and see the front desk.