We’ve gone a bit overboard with holiday hoopla this month. But how do you pass up a gingerbread house that’s a grand-scale replica of the Jumeirah Essex House Hotel and stands ten feet tall? Read more
Yes, the boughs of the holiday tree at the Intercontinental New York Barclay Hotel are undeniably green. But so, it turns out, are the little white lights. Read more
What to do with that leftover turkey, gravy and cranberry sauce sitting in the ‘fridge? If you run an Italian restaurant, there’s an obvious solution: make pizza. Read more
We love the sneak peek aspect of trade shows, so we bee-lined to the recent International Hotel, Motel and Restaurant Show at Javits Center. Seeing the panoply of items hotels can choose from prompts reactions from what took them so long to what were they thinking? Read more
Harlem isn’t known for hotels. In fact, it’s main headliner, the white brick Hotel Theresa – guests included Louis Armstrong, Malcolm X, Little Richard, Josephine Baker and Fidel Castro — closed in 1967. Read more
Can you tweet a wine tasting?
Three top sommeliers from Four Seasons hotels aims to find out on November 17. That night, at 7 pm New York time, anyone anywhere can log onto Twitter, search for hashtag #FSWine, raise a glass (crystal or virtual) and join the online discussion that ensues in what’s billed as the first ever online wine tasting at Four Seasons. Read more
Not so long ago, New York hotel bars were almost like supper clubs without the supper, a classic mix of martinis and live music, part Bobby Short, part Fabulous Baker Boys. For the price of a drink or two or three, a pianist, harpist or jazz trio would entertain you before you headed upstairs or back home. Read more
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
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
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.