Some renovations are the hospitality equivalent of an out-patient procedure – new bed dressings, curtains, carpeting and TVs. Others are tantamount to a quadruple bypass — deep-dish metamorphoses that entail messy stuff, like ripping out showers, furnishings and climate systems. Read more
An evocative movie, play, even art exhibition can make you hungry. Read more
For anyone who follows golf, June 19, 2011 will be remembered as Rory McIlroy Day, thanks to the charming, unaffected 22-year-old golfer from Northern Ireland who won the US Open with a spectacular 16-under-par 268. Read more
We’re in the early stages of summer roof bar season, but no one would call most of New York’s recent nights balmy or sweet. So this week we offer a weather haven, a hotel bar where you can order a drink with a dash of glam and forget the gloom swirling around outdoors. Read more
You know summer’s here when hotels start rolling out outsize outdoor sculptures, the warm-weather equivalent of the holiday tree. A big dog and a big boy on view all summer offer a taste of art and amusement, not to mention countless photo ops, in midtown and downtown. Read more
What’s the next hotel room amenity destined for the slag heap littered with CD players and tube TVs? My guess: the in-room phone with its push-button call list for the concierge, room service and housekeeping. Read more
June 3rd would have been Marilyn Monroe’s 85th birthday. Since film legends never really die, Hollywood photographer Murray Garrett celebrated with a show of seldom seen – and in several cases never before seen – black-and-white images of the 1950’s most celebrated blonde at the Washington Square Hotel. Read more
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?
Talk about savvy product placement.
One of the first sights on screen during the much balleyhooed season finale of “Glee” this week was the lobby of the Intercontinental New York Times Square, the 36-story glass skyscraper that opened last July. Read more
We like decorator show houses for many of the same reasons we like hotels. The best show house rooms are fantasy rooms, a designer’s vision for an imaginary occupant. When a designer gets it right, you’re transported to another world where you can try on a different life, albeit fleetingly, just as you do in an evocative hotel room. Read more