Here, everything is little, no-frills, and worn: the stairway, the rooms, the charm. And correspondingly, the rates. There’s usually barely enough storage space, a TV mounted on an armature, a basic writing desk, teeny clean bathrooms, and firm beds, albeit ones covered with dowdy bedspreads. Basement rooms don’t have windows. Forget the lack of a lift and all the ways it’s dated and slipping year by year. Its footing on Monmouth Street, steps from a rainbow of pubs, boutiques, and food clustering around Covent Garden (light sleepers be warned), is without comparison, and you can’t pay less for a West End bed that doesn’t charge by the hour. The target guests for this old-school holdout, such as students traveling on a dime, know who they are.