Tag Archive for: New York Hilton

Terry Trucco

A New Hotel with Great Views of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

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For 364 days of the year the most desirable rooms at the new Courtyard Marriott Manhattan/Herald Square are those with views of the Empire State Building. But that changes on Thanksgiving Day.

The new 167-room hotel has the good fortune to sit on the corner of Sixth Avenue and West 35th Street, a block away from Macy’s Department Store and directly above the street where Snoopy, Hello Kitty and all the other balloons, floats and bands pass by in the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Read more

Terry Trucco

Is Hotel Room Service on the Way Out — And Do You Care?

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The news last week that the New York Hilton-Midtown plans to stop offering room service later this summer was a shocker. Envisioning a big player like the 1,980-room Hilton without food-bearing, cart-pushing servers is, at first blush, like imagining a hotel without fresh towels or porters or doors that lock.

Room service has been a basic amenity since it was popularized by the Waldorf Hotel, the 1893 forebear of the Waldorf=Astoria.

I know I’m a fan. I can recall a litany of memorable room service deliveries from a romantic breakfast for two at the Four Seasons New York, complete with a rolling white-clothed table bearing lemon ricotta pancakes nestled in a warming cupboard, to the midnight coffee – in a silver pot next to an orchid in a bud vase – my jetlagged husband and I poured happily at Honolulu’s Royal Hawaiian. Read more

Terry Trucco

How The New York Hilton Is Cultivating a Green Roof in the Middle of Midtown Manhattan

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In observation of Earth Day (and Month), we pause for a quick pulse check on how New York City hotels are doing on the green front. Read more

Terry Trucco

Lose That Zapper: Hotel Room Channel Surfing on a Mobile Device Is Here

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Add the TV zapper to the list of hotel room amenities one step closer to the junk heap.

Last week LodgeNet, the largest provider of in-room entertainment, introduced a new app that lets hotel guests use their smartphones to operate the TV. The free LodgeNet Mobile App turns an iPhone, iPad or Android into a hotel room remote control that does it all —  turns the TV on and off, adjusts the sound and accesses free TV, on-demand TV and pay-per-view movies.  The app also serves up information about the hotel and local events, restaurants, maps and attractions. Read more

Terry Trucco

All You Need to Know About Pumpkins

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The official bloom of Thanksgiving? The pumpkin, of course. So in honor of this noble gourd, equally agreeable embellishing a tabletop, a soup or a pie, we bring you Overnight New York’s pumpkin fast facts and show how two hotels, the Jumeirah Essex House and New York Hilton, displayed the big orange guys this year. Read more

Terry Trucco

Are iPads The Next New “It” Item at Hotels? The Morgans Group Thinks So

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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