Terry Trucco

Hyatt’s New Hypo-Allergenic Rooms Help Guests With Allergies Breathe Easier

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Once upon a time, no hotel room was complete without an ashtray. Non-smoking rooms eventually appeared and, voila, room categories were born.

Now the choices for guests booking at a small but growing number of hotels include a third category   — the hypo-allergenic room, cleansed within an inch of its life of nearly all surface and air-born impurities. For the estimated one in five people afflicted with allergies or asthma, this is news worth noting.

This month Hyatt became the first hotel chain to mount a grand-scale effort to purify its rooms – at least some of them. More than 60 full-service Hyatts currently offer the brand’s new Respire Hypo-Allergenic rooms, including the Andaz Fifth Avenue, Andaz Wall Street and Grand Hyatt, whose entire 29th floor is pure Respire, in New York. Read more

Terry Trucco

Now Playing at the Crosby Street: A Hip Sunday Night Film Club at a SoHo Hotel

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Almost as many New York City hotels have screening rooms as spas. But it’s a lot easier to visit a hotel spa than to settle in with a bag of popcorn for a movie in a hotel screening room. Read more

Terry Trucco

Socialites, Lapsang Soochang and Carla Bruni — A Night at The Carlyle

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The uniformed attendants posted behind a discrete desk in the grand black-and-white lobby were impeccably polite.  But check-in wasn’t unspooling quite as I expected. The man next to me, owner of a blue blazer and a belligerent British accent, waved a sheet of paper and demanded to know what the devil these bloody charges were.

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Terry Trucco

What Does the 2010 Michelin Guide Think of NYC Hotel Restaurants?

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We don’t own a car, and we definitely don’t spend much time thinking about tires.  But as long-time fans of London’s Bibendum restaurant and follower of the red-coated Michelin restaurant guides, the French tire maker and its well-padded mascot have insinuated themselves into our lives. Read more

Terry Trucco

The Paramount Tweaks its Signature Lobby — Again

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Last year Time Square’s Paramount hotel underwent major surgery.  And not a moment too soon.  Once quirky and cool, the Paramount was conceived in the early 1990s by hotelier Ian Schrager and designer Philippe Starck as the hotel equivalent of Target, offering chic on the cheap. A decade later, cheap had trounced chic, and the place was a dirty, neglected mess. Read more

Terry Trucco

The Royalton’s Un-extreme (Visual) Makeover — Or Did They Really Do Anything to the Place?

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Hotels are notorious for tardiness when it comes to everything from opening their doors to refurbishing the lobby. But not the Royalton. Read more