When the Sailors' Home and Institute opened, there were 200 bedrooms and numerous social rooms, as well as amenities such as a chapel, an auditorium, and a bowling alley.

Over the years, the ground story has been used for various purposes, including as a bar and grill, a clubhouse, a nightclub, the off-Broadway Jane Street Theater, and a ballroom.

[8][9] Most of the hotel building is five stories tall, but there is a six-story polygonal tower at the southwest corner (facing Jane and West Streets).

[14] The eastern elevation is partially visible from the street and contains a fire escape, a chimney, string courses, and red-and-buff brick.

The westernmost bay contains a rectangular portico flanked by columns and pilasters; there is an entablature above, which in turn is topped by a balustrade with cartouches at either end.

A set of stone stairs with iron railings leads up to the portico, which contains brick panels on the side walls, as well as Guastavino tiles on the ceiling.

The main entrance, under the portico, consists of wood-and-glass double doors topped by a transom window, flanked by sidelights, and surrounded with a molding.

[9] Some of the rooms had portraits of European kings,[17] including Edward VII of England, Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, Wilhelm II of Germany, and Frederik VIII of Denmark.

[22][23] To compensate for the small size of the rooms, co-owner Sean MacPherson added "micro-luxury" features such as flat-screen TVs and free Wi-Fi.

[29][31] Originally, the building had amenities such as social rooms, cue sports tables, a swimming pool, a bowling alley, showers, a chapel, auditorium, bank, outfitting shop, and restaurant.

[15] The ground floor was used for commercial purposes starting in the 1930s, housing such varied tenants as a bar and grill, an office, a lunchroom, clubhouses, and a theater.

[42][43] The ASFS operated a boarding house at 190 Cherry Street, along the East River, from the early 1840s to 1903, when the New York City government acquired the structure and demolished it to make way for the Manhattan Bridge.

[42][44] After the Cherry Street boarding house was demolished, the ASFS decided to relocate to the West Side of Manhattan, where the maritime industry was busier.

[12] By that April, the ASFS had prepared plans for their own boarding house on Jane Street, which was to cost $225,000[48][49][50] and measure 135 by 65 ft (41 by 20 m).

[59][61] In its 1911 annual report, the ASFS wrote that the building was intended as "a bright, airy, comfortable place to sit without being annoyed by the fumes of liquor or soul-rasping profanity".

[62] By the early 1910s, the ASFS frequently had to request donations for its boarding house,[63][64] and the society's secretary began raising money for an addition in 1911.

By then, maritime activity on the adjacent section of the Hudson River had declined steeply due to the increasing popularity of air travel and containerization.

As a result, many maritime-related buildings on the shoreline were demolished; the Jane West was one of a few remaining maritime structures in the area by the late 20th century.

[84] The New York City Department of Social Services recorded 250 single men as living in the Jane West during late 1970.

[33] By that time, numerous art-related concerns were moving to the far western portion of West Village, and a gallery named Profile had opened within the hotel.

[95] The Westside Theater Company took over the Riverview's ballroom in mid-1997, renovating it for two months to accommodate the off-Broadway musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

The ballroom was in poor shape; the musical's composer Stephen Trask said: "When the toilets in bathrooms above us overflow and the ceiling leaks, people think that's part of the show.

[103][104] Operated by Carlos Quirarte and Matt Kliegman,[38][105] the nightclub was described by New York magazine as having "the most happening scene in town, luring everyone from Williamsburg stylists to Justin Theroux".

[108][109] The Jane's operators shuttered the ballroom pending the issuance of a permit,[110] but inspectors subsequently found more violations of city building codes.

[114] The New York Times reported that the ballroom had a "homey and generally permissive atmosphere" that attracted younger partygoers, including celebrities and models such as the Olsen twins, Lindsay Lohan, Paloma Elsesser, Julia Fox, and Richie Shazam.

[38] The hotelier Jeff Klein indicated in early 2022 that he would convert the Jane Hotel into an offshoot of the San Vicente Bungalows private club on the West Coast of the United States.

[18] The New York Observer and Chronicle wrote that the building had been "an experiment"; many of its features, such as rooms for cooks and stewards, had not been incorporated into earlier boarding houses.

[10] When the hotel was still known as the Riverview, a critic for the Evening Post of New Zealand wrote in 2000: "Its lamentable lack of an elevator, concierge who speaks English and too-few bathrooms situated several blocks away from the too-many bedrooms is as nought compared with the state of the room itself.

[122] During the hotel's renovation, a Times critic wrote that "the dingy lobby looked like the set of a 1970s Al Pacino film" but that the tiny room could have "passed for a luxury train cabin".

"[22] A writer for the Ottawa Citizen said that few hotels "have the peculiar charms of the Jane", which benefited from its proximity to major tourist attractions and nightlife.