AER Lingus cabin crew are not impressed by the fact that Edgar Allen Poe or Humphrey Bogart once lived in Manhattan's Upper West Side. "So did John Lennon, and he was shot," was the response of a SIPTU committee member, Ms Monica Whitaker.
On the first night cabin crews were assigned to the Lucerne Hotel they witnessed a woman being mugged outside the door and had to comfort her while waiting for police to arrive. For the workforce, most of whose members are young and female, security is a big issue.
The dispute over where cabin crews should stay has been depicted as fairly trivial. Many people think the workers should be grateful to be able to stay anywhere in Manhattan.
But a cabin crew member on a 44 hour round trip to New York will spend almost half of the time at work, including about 15 hours in the air. Much of the rest will be spent trying to catch up on sleep.
"The Lucerne is a lobby and rooms, not a hotel," says Ms Whitaker. There is no room service, restaurant or even ironing boards to press uniforms for the return flight. The rooms used by cabin crew are so small that a suitcase has to be opened on the bed, she says. For an hour there is also an overlap in shifts, and two people have to share a room.
The Chaz Wilson restaurant next door hosts jazz sessions until closing time at 2 a.m. With "paper thin" walls, the Lucerne is not a good place to catch up on sleep.
Meals can be delivered from nearby restaurants, but they must be collected from the lobby. That takes Ms Whitaker back to the security issue.
In contrast, the other hotel used by Aer Lingus, the Metro, has a large lobby, room service, lounge and library. More importantly, it is located in midtown Manhattan, which has a much lower crime rate. Precinct returns there show there were no rapes, three murders and 150 robberies last year. The Lucerne is in the 22nd Precinct, which reported 18 rapes, five murders and 306 robberies.
Aer Lingus accepts that the current accommodation is much poorer than that provided in the Marriott Vista at the World Trade Centre up to last August. It says the real villains are New York hoteliers, who have pushed rents too high.
It is now costing the airline $175,000 (£106,700) a year more to keep crews in the downmarket Lucerne and Metro than in the Vista eight months ago. Last September Aer Lingus moved crews to the Crown Plaza on Long Island, 35 miles from New York, to save rent. The company says it has now returned to Manhattan to honour a commitment to SIPTU that it would do so as soon as it was commercially feasible.
It says concerns about security are unfounded. The Lucerne was vetted by its security experts.
The chairwoman of the cabin crew section of SIPTU, Ms Joan Loughnane, said: "We agreed to a big downgrading with the Metro, but that is where we draw the line."
Aer Lingus says it cannot afford anything better.