By Terry
The Palace Hotel wedding breakfast.
Every publication under the sun has written about the upcoming April 29 nuptials of Prince William and Kate Middleton. And now it’s Overnight New York’s turn.
And why not? Weddings are fun. The timing is right. (That movie about William’s great-grandfather cleaned up at the Academy Awards.) And hotels here are getting into the act, even if New York seems a long leap from London. (more…)
By Terry
As a group, New York City hotels aren’t very green. It’s not for want of trying. Many reside in old buildings
The Element lobby.
constructed long before sustainability was on the radar. Yet almost weekly you hear of advances on the green front, from baby steps to strides.
In December the InterContinental New York Barclay, a 685-room hotel billeted in a Roaring 20s building, switched completely to wind-powered energy. Earlier this year the 899-room New York Palace, a stylish marriage of the historic Villard Houses (more…)
By Terry
The new sign.
Fashion is indeed fickle — even, apparently, when it comes to hotels. Consider the newly flagged Hilton New York/Fashion District. This fashion-themed high rise – so close to the Fashion Institute of Technology you can teeter over in mile-high Louboutins — opened officially April 5, 2010 as Fashion 26 — A Wyndham Hotel.
Wyndham, which has four other New York City properties including the newly flagged Dream and Night hotels, reveled in the hotel’s singular, theme-conscious look (mannequins in the window, side tables shaped like gigantic metal spools). “As we got into the development process, we realized we wanted something a little more unique,” Wyndham president Jeff Wagoner told an interviewer a while back. (more…)
By Terry
A Taipei-inspired dress.
For New York’s most style-obsessed hotels, Fashion Week is a gift. What better way to fill rooms during the dead of winter? W Hotels, a super-savvy marketer, goes a step further and embraces Fashion Week as an opportunity to fill rooms and strut its stuff.
Not only is W a sponsor of Fall 2011 Fashion Week, currently sashaying through its new(ish) Lincoln Center home through February 17, on Thursday night W unveiled its own collection, Global Glam Fall 2011, nine new looks designed to capture the ethos of three new W properties in Austin, Mexico City and Tapei.
Has W acquired a house designer, a Marc or Stella or Project Runway winner, to dream up clothes that complement its carefully honed cool? (more…)
By Terry
It’s the Top Ten list hotels dread. When Trip Advisor released its 2011 roster of the nation’s ten dirtiest
The Hotel Carter.
hotels complete with reader-supplied pictures — Cockroaches! Black stuff in the showers! Holes on the bathroom floor! – one New York hotel scored a place of dishonor near the top.
It’s a repeater. Time Square’s Carter Hotel, a fixture on Trip Advisor’s anti-hit list since the list began, is Number Four for the second year straight. That’s an improvement; prior to 2010, the hotel took the top spot with amazing consistency.
We’ve heard horror stories about the Carter for years. A stylish friend from California, booked by a clueless travel agent after she requested a “nice, not too expensive Theater District hotel,” spent a night a couple of years ago. (more…)
By Terry
Invasion of the Body Snatchers aside, Pod is a cool name for a budget hotel. To our ears, it sounds upbeat and hip, because what could be more upbeat, or hip, than a place that proudly admits its rooms are small and cheap? (more…)
