The Cosmopolitan Hotel at the corner of Chambers Street and West Broadway has embarked on a new chapter in its long history. The building dates from 1838. A hotel called the "Cosmopolitan" opened in that building in 1845 and is said to be the oldest extant hotel in New York City.

Known as a budget hotel, the Cosmo has already gotten Frette linens for its beds and C.O. Bigelow toiletries in its bathrooms. Now, it's about to get new furniture, custom-designed wallpaper with ships, top hats and corsets (a reference to the Gay Nineties) and bathrooms with stall showers inset with reproductions in the tile of a 19th-century map of lower Manhattan. And it will still be a budget hotel, though not so much of a budget hotel as before.

"It will still be priced under other neighborhood hotels," said Ronny Apfel, CFO of the Triumph Hotel group, under whose brand the Cosmopolitan now operates.

The Triumph Hotel group is a collection of six historic hotels that have had various owners but that, as of an announcement on Feb. 13, are now operating as one brand. The members of the group are the Iroquois New York, the Hotel Chandler, the Hotel Belleclaire, the Gershwin and the Washington Jefferson in addition to the Cosmopolitan.

There will be reciprocal loyalty programs, room and lobby upgrades, a combined marketing program and a central reservation facility, though each hotel will also retain the ability to book directly.

When a building has been around for more than 170 years, things have happened in it, especially if it's a hotel. "We want to find out if there's any truth to the rumor that Abraham Lincoln slept here," said Apfel.

The redecorated lobby.

Maybe he did, maybe he didn't - but there are plenty of well-documented Cosmo stories.

There were the two marshals from what was then called the "Oklahoma Territory," for instance, Frank Merrick and William Nix, who arrived at the hotel in July 1895 with Mrs. Nix and a prisoner named John G. Bittell, convicted of forgery, who they were supposed to deliver to a penitentiary. The marshals locked Bittell in a room at the Cosmopolitan not realizing that with a spring lock on the door all Bittell had to do was turn the knob and walk out, which he did. While his captors were in the hotel dining room, Bittell went into the bar and had a drink and then disappeared down Chambers Street.

"Nix and his wife will return to Oklahoma in a day or two, but Merrick will remain here a month and hunt for Bittell," The New York Times reported (July 13, 1895).

This is only one of many Cosmopolitan tales. There was the disgruntled handyman who was also a pyromaniac and dropped a piece of burning paper down the waste chute. There were the robbers who booked into the Cosmo, climbed to the roof, and lowered themselves down into the office of a jeweler in a neighboring building, "making off with nearly $10,000 worth of loot." There were a couple of suicides. There were assignations.

A standard guest room, not yet renovated.

Now the Cosmopolitan is completely safe and respectable. No funny stuff. It now has a small gym. It has room service from The Kitchenette at 156 Chambers St., and is seeking new tenants for what was formerly Craig Bero's Cosmopolitan Caf� at 125 Chambers St. (it closed in January) and the nail salon next door.

It expects to break ground in 60 to 90 days for a building on West Broadway that will be occupied by the Cafeteria restaurant, which has a well-regarded outpost in Chelsea and serves comfort food.

And it has 131 rooms, whose price varies with the season. For this coming weekend, you could get a standard room with a double bed for $119 a night.