Tag Archive for: Grand Hyatt New York

Terry Trucco

Ace it! New York’s Best Hotels If You’re Going to the U.S. Open

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This post was updated for the 2019 U.S Open

With Wimbledon 2019 in the books, our tennis thoughts bounce to hard surfaces and the best hotels if you’re going to the U.S. Open.

So long, strawberries. Hello, hot dogs!

The 50th annual U.S. Open unfurls from August 26 through September 8.

In theory, you can stay at any hotel in New York City and get yourself to the sprawling Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Queens (the easiest, and cheapest, way is to catch the 7 subway train at Grand Central Station for Mets-Willets Point Station). But these hotels, for wildly different reasons, put a special spin on New York’s biggest tennis event. Read more

Terry Trucco

The Best of the New at NYC Hotels, 2012 Edition

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When hotel historians – hey, they’re out there somewhere — look back on 2012, they’ll say what we already know: it was, for the most part, a very good year. New York City boasts 91,500 hotel rooms – up from 90,000 in 2011. Put another way, 29 million hotel room nights were sold in New York City in 2012. Read more

Terry Trucco

Weekend Drink (And Hold the Alcohol): Zero-Proof Cocktails at the Grand Hyatt

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Yuzu-Raspberry Thyme Sparkling Lemonade is this weekend’s drink. It’s a sweet/tart mash-up that’s tasty and alcohol-free, but first an explainer.

Not so long ago an intriguing zero-proof drink was as likely to be served at a hotel bar as a hot fudge sundae. We know. We drank a lot of Shirley Temples when we were pregnant.

But increasingly alcohol-free drinks have leapt past snoozey staples like ginger ale and club soda with lime and muscled onto the cocktail menu brandishing A-list ingredients, stylish glassware and, no surprise, champagne prices (hold the champagne). Read more

Terry Trucco

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

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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

Terry Trucco

The Grand Hyatt New York’s Top-to-Bottom Renovation Reaches the Finish Line

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Last year the Grand Hyatt New York, in the throes of a massive renovation, strung holiday lights from the construction scaffolding. This year the scaffolding is history, and a towering Christmas tree constructed from glass balls brings on the cheer.

A $130 million renovation is worth cheering – in part because it’s finished (the work unfolded in phases over three years). But the changes are smart, embracing nearly every inch of this midtown behemoth. “We’ve modernized,” said Mark Pardue, general manager, at a party celebrating the new building.

What they really did was un-Trump the place. Read more

Terry Trucco

The Algonquin Gets Set to Close for Refurbishment in Early 2012

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Historic hotels have their charms – the evocative architecture, the whiff of time travel, the (often) dazzling out-of-the-past guests lists. But there’s nothing charming about historic plumbing, which could be one reason the Algonquin, New York’s oldest operating hotel, is closing for four months of renovations beginning on January 1, 2012. Read more

Terry Trucco

Your Hotel Doesn’t Have a Spa? No Worries — Select Spa-less Hotels Now Offer Treatments

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The new Hyatt 48Lex is a small, upscale hotel that offers guests everything you’d expect, from a restaurant and room service to a well-equipped fitness center – everything, that is, except a spa.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t get a hot stone massage or an herbal facial without leaving the premises. Read more

Terry Trucco

Who Needs a Bartender (or a Chef)? These Three NYC Hotels Put You to Work (In a Good Way)

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Don’t tip the Yotel robot

That much-discussed Yobot robotic arm that grabs and stores your luggage at the soon-to-open Yotel Times Square got us thinking about other nifty labor saving devices – as in the saving of the hotel staff’s labor – around town.

We visited three hotels with clever do-it-yourself amenities, read the instructions and pushed the appropriate buttons. How did we fare?

Read more

Terry Trucco

The Finish Line’s in Sight for the Grand Hyatt New York’s Big Renovation

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We’ve followed the Grand Hyatt’s three-year march into the 21st century since it began, and after what we saw on a recent visit it’s official – the glass and metal behemoth nudging Grand Central Station is edging closer to the finish line, shedding the last vestiges of shoulder pads, Dynasty and other creaky 80s trappings. Read more

Terry Trucco

To Your Health With The Grand Hyatt New York’s New Craft Cocktails Menu

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Cocktails as health drinks? In our dreams.

Still, every day, it seems, another hotel bar announces an ingredients purge.  Out with processed juices, prefab mixes and high fructose corn syrups. In with fresh squeezed juice, mint leaves and sliced fruit. Read more