Operamission Checks in With Performances of Handel’s Baroque Opera ALMIRA in the Gershwin Hotel Lobby

“I’ve always thought it was a ridiculous name for a prison. Sing Sing. I mean, it sounds more like it should be an opera house or something.”   — Holly Golightly

And the Gershwin Hotel? It sounds like there should be music playing or something.  Maybe even opera. Read more

The Pierre’s Two E Bar Unveils Specialty Cocktails Inspired by Famous Women (Think Cleopatra and Eleanor Roosevelt)

The Eleanor Roosevelt.

The Eleanor Roosevelt.

Ah, Memorial Day Weekend – the ideal time to kick back with a start-of-summer cocktail, something refreshing and light with a touch of sweetness, like a drink made with . . . scotch?

The Two E Bar at The Pierre, a velvety, windowless lair that is one of our favorite midtown hotel bars, cooks up specialty drinks menus eight times a year. Read more

All About Overnight New York: We Chat with Wandering Educations, the Smart Website for Teachers, about New York, Hotels and Our Website and Blog

You read correctly. This blog item is about us. Wandering Educators, the savvy online community where teachers share travel experiences and expertise, interviewed us this week. Read more

A Night at the Stylish NoMad Hotel

To get straight to the point, the room was delectable. My favorite hotels are ones where you can open the door and slip into a different life. And the life on offer at The NoMad? I felt like I had walked into a fin de siecle Parisian pied-a-terre with contemporary plumbing and a hint of time travel.

A guest room at the NoMad

White walls, black moldings, sash windows swathed in white curtains that kissed the floor – yes, yes, yes. But what pumped the pulse was the claw-footed bathtub parked nonchalantly next to the polished mahogany writing desk. Proust would have felt at home here once he figured out how to work the TV and iHome docking station.

A porter in a Thom Brown-inspired suit, his long hair pulled into a curly topknot, had accompanied me to the room. Though able and willing to carry an overnight bag, I was glad he was there. The room was oddly confusing.

In the entry, painted black and no bigger than a gasp, a stack of leather trunks hid the minibar and safe. The stall shower stood demurely behind a heavy blue brocade screen planted opposite the king-size bed.  On the wall next to the shower a mirror in a gilded frame hung above the washstand.

But where was the toilet? For a heartbeat I wondered if  it was down the hall. (At $325  for anAtelier room, I wasn’t expecting The Pod.) But no. My guide turned a brass knob to open the screen’s cleverly camouflaged door and – voilaa pint-size water closet appeared, with black walls, a dual-flush Geberit toilet and a fetching little sink in the corner.

Long before it opened in late March, the NoMad Hotel beamed out across the radar. There’s the pedigree. The hotel is the first born of the Sydel Group headed by Andrew Zobler, a former partner at Andre Balazs Properties and head of acquisitions for the Starwood Group.

Commandeering the restaurant are chef Daniel Humm and restaurateur Will Guidara, the team behind Eleven Madison Park.

But the hotel’s appearance, embracing classic decorative flourishes rarely seen in contemporary New York boutique hotels like opulent textiles, oriental rugs and polished mahogany furniture is what makes the NoMad feel original.

Taking their cues from the boisterous elegance of the century-old building’s Beaux Arts exterior,  the developers tapped Jacques Garcia, a French architect and interior designer known for conjuring atmospheric Parisian properties like the Hotel Odeon Saint Germain, and turned him loose on the former office building. The result: a new interior that looks old, or at least old the way 21st-century guests might imagine it. (Anyone who has visited Paris’s Carnavalet Museum knows Proust didn’t sleep in a king-size bed.)

My room, not surprisingly, proved ideal for holing up. The Frette bathrobe was thick and comfy. The pillow-top bed, dressed in crisp Sferra sheets and backed by a handsome brown leather headboard, was the full Goldilocks – not too soft, not too hard. And the reclaimed maple floor, polished to a high-beam gloss? Gorgeous, like the pale Herit rug that warmed it.

Amusing details appeared almost everywhere I gazed — the painted metal waste-basket,  a stylish take on an Edwardian coal bin; the square bedside tables enveloped in black velvet; the shallow polished mahogany bookcase that supported the flatpanel LG TV.

The TV, unfortunately, wasn’t so amusing. I could only get a handful of the channels and nothing of the promised premium. A call to the front desk brought an engineer to my door within ten minutes. He fiddled with the set, said he’d adjust it from a master control, then paid a second visit, all in vain. Long story short: the front desk offered to move me to another room the next day (too bad, I was only there for one night).

So in my Proustian Parisian flat I did low-tech Proustian things. I took a bubble bath gazing out the window (and up at the Empire State Building, its topknot lighted green). I read into the wee hours, curled up in a distressed leather chair straight out of a London supper club. I slept like a log.

And the next morning I ate a big breakfast – an excellent, if pricey, Crab Benedict ($22) with good, strong coffee. In the dining room, another glamorous fabric-swathed lair with chairs upholstered in gold silk brocade, a steel gray sky beamed through the skylight. That channeled Paris, too.

The NoMad Hotel, 1170 Broadway at 28th Street, New York, NY 10001; 212 212 796 1500. Rooms start at $295 (and quickly escalate in price).

 

 

 

To Your Health: The Hyatt Rolls Out Stylish New Menus of Locally and Sustainably Sourced Food

Hotels like to advertise that they offer all the comforts of home, only better. So why is it so hard to find healthy items like cage-free eggs, low-fat milk and grass-fed beef in the restaurants of most large full-service hotels? Read more

New York Hotel Sightings Abound on the Hit TV Show “Smash”

Carlton's star turn.

Carlton’s star turn.

Why is Smash, the hit NBC series about the creation of a Broadway musical, our favorite television show this season? We can’t recall a TV show or movie with scenes shot at more New York City hotels. Read more

LobbyFriend, a New Travel App, Aims to Bring Social Media to Your Hotel Lobby

Hotel guests fall into two categories – those who want to meet and mingle with other guests and those who can’t think of anything worse. Read more

Pass the Popcorn: The Most Watched Hotel Room Movies in April 2012

New Yorkers like to think they’re different from the rest of the country, but does that go for the movies watched in New York City hotel rooms?

Not in April. Last month’s ten top Hollywood movies – we don’t keep track of the other kind – viewed in hotel rooms throughout the nation were identical to the top ten screened in New York City hotel rooms. Read more