The hotel's latest show.

New York hotels discovered eons ago that empty walls and fine art go together like poached eggs and Hollandaise. Consider the Audubon and Piranesi prints in the Carlyle guest rooms. Or the contemporary art by one-time residents like Larry Rivers and Susan Olmetti blanketing the Chelsea Hotel lobby.

So many hotels boast noteworthy art we’ll revisit the subject from time to time. For now, picture the black marble lobby of the Jumeirah Essex House, the 509-room, 78-year-old Art Deco tower overlooking Central Park. (more…)

Vincente Wolf's DIFFA table.

We love design shows, and this is one of our favorites. (Full disclosure: we moderated the show’s New York Times design seminars, but we’d love it anyway.)

What’s not to love? Top-flight designers like Ralph Lauren, Rauber + Rauber, David Rockwell and Vincente Wolf fashioned glamorous table settings for DIFFA’s annual Dining by Design exhibition. More than 100 artists showed their work in the new Artist’s Project at the adjoining Pier 92. Restaurants like Eataly, Junoon, Print at Ink48 hotel and Make my Cake sent chefs to demonstrate – and pass around — everything from Italian delicacies to cupcakes. (more…)

Where the parade won't be in 2012

Thanksgiving 2012 may seem a long way off, but for those who plan ahead, like parade organizers, it might as well be next week. Last week Macy’s long-term planners dropped a bombshell – due to construction to the pedestrian plazas throughout Times Square, the parade will be rerouted down Sixth Avenue for 2012 and 2013, bypassing a patch of New York as famous as the Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty combined.

Hotels like the Warwick, Jumeirah Essex House, Ritz Carlton Central Park, New York Hilton, Eventi and Residence Inn Times Square will no doubt give thanks. But others won’t. (more…)

Nightcap at the Benjamin's National Bar

In case you didn’t know, we just wrapped up National Sleep Awareness Week, which culminated at 2 am on March 13^th, the day we “spring forward” and return to Daylight Savings Time, one hour blearier (but oh, those long evenings).

It’s not exactly a national holiday, but don’t tell the Benjamin Hotel in midtown, which has celebrated sleep awareness for a decade.  (more…)

Like a glass of ice water on a sweltering day – or a hot fudge sundae any day – a hotel restroom can be a welcome sight. And if said restroom is super-clean, easy to find and flaunts some style, so much the better.  We found five hotel restrooms in Times Square that fit the bill as well as two honorable mentions. Keep these in mind when you’re in the area; you’ll thank us. (more…)

The Waldorf's Hall of Mirrors

It isn’t easy to steal a scene from Matt Damon and Emily Blunt. But the Waldorf=Astoria in all its Art Deco glory does precisely that during the early scenes of The Adjustment Bureau, the new sci-fi-tinged thriller that opened this weekend. After all, there’s not a lot, living or inanimate, that can compete with the Waldorf’s vaunted Hall of Mirrors, patterned after the original in Versailles,  in terms of jaw-drop wonder.

It gives away none of the twisty-turny plot to tell you the early scenes are set at the hotel – its elevator bank, carpeted staircases on the Lexington Avenue side, ballroom and, of course, the Hall of Mirrors. (more…)

Trilby -- on the outside looking in.

The Cooper Square, the chilly-chic East Village hotel that looks like it belongs in Dubai, is less than three years old, but already its restaurant is in the try, try again stage.

First came LA celebrity chef Govind Armstrong’s Table 8. Trendy and self-conscious, it lasted less than a year. Next up, Faustina. But even chef Scott Conant’s stylish Italian cooking couldn’t warm up that hard-edged dining room, so not the East Village. (more…)

We love travel shows. Under one roof you can step into a discord-free United Nations and get a taste (often literally) of dozens of countries without flashing a passport or suffering jetlag.

With representatives from more than 70 countries and 15 states – and that’s not counting cruise ships, hotel chains and tour operators – The New York Times Travel Show delivered a chunk of the world to the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center this past weekend. We toured for six hours. Here’s what we tasted. (more…)