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? (more…)

"Glee" on screen at CaVa.

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.  A polished hotel staffer, uniformed in a navy blue blazer, smiles as Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison), the Lima, Ohio high school glee club advisor, checks in and says, “Welcome to the Intercontinental New York Times Square,” just in case viewers don’t recognize the hotel on their screen.

And just like that, one of New York’s newest hotels moves a step closer to hospitality’s big guys for whom on-screen appearances are like breathing, an august group that includes the Waldorf=Astoria, The Plaza and The Roosevelt. (more…)

Library by Designer Celerie Kemble.

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.

Not every show house is filled with magical rooms, but Kips Bay, currently in its 39^th year, does better than most. Still, magic is elusive. Most rooms in this year’s manse, an 1870 East Side townhouse whose occupants included Maurice Brill, owner of the famed Brill Building, and John Hay (Jock) Whitney, owner of The New York Herald Tribune, seemed more about decorating ca. 2011 than the stage craft that launches mind travel. (more…)

An Element kitchenette.

Back to the land isn’t a phrase that leaps to mind when I think of New York, especially anything having to do with Times Square.  So I was intrigued to learn that Element New York Times Square West, a skinny skyscraper looming over the Port Authority Bus Terminal with nary a barn nor pasture in sight, is about to begin offering guests the opportunity to have food delivered from Holton Farms, an eighth-generation family farm in Vermont. (more…)

The "new" hotel entrance.

We’ve followed the Grand Hyatt’s three-year march into the 21^st century since it began, and after what we saw on a recent visit it’s official – the glass and metal behemoth nudging Grand Central Station is edging closer to the finish line, shedding the last vestiges of shoulder pads, Dynasty and other creaky 80s trappings.

The lobby is the latest work in progress and at present it’s not pretty. (more…)

A Sofitel Seating Area.

Publicity is catnip to hotels. Still, we can’t imagine the Sofitel New York is thrilled with the reason it’s suddenly the most talked about hotel in town.

In case you were sequestered over the weekend, on Saturday afternoon International Monetary Fund managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn was pulled off a plane bound for Paris and arrested for sexually assaulting a 32-year-old maid in his suite at the Sofitel hours earlier. Strauss-Kahn had checked into Room 2806 on Friday. Though the rack rate is $3,000, the IMF has since said their leader paid $525 on Travelocity, news that will no doubt cause potential guests to flee the Sofitel reservations Web site and visit aggregators like Expedia, Orbitz and Quikbook.

Since opening in 2000, the Sofitel has been a favorite with European visitors, particularly the French, as well as government and corporate officials. (more…)

Pink Ginger Cosmo.

A Cosmo? In 2011?

We’re in the Lobby Lounge on the 35^th floor at the Mandarin Oriental. The city sprawls below on a gorgeous spring night. Actually, the lounge itself where the most drop-dead views unfold is full – it’s 7 pm and I didn’t reserve — so we[re are in the bar, a moody/modern/manly high-ceilinged lair lighted by filament bulbs and outfitted with white oak tables. We’re not far from the window and the vista, similar to being on an airplane as it homes in on its destination, is sufficiently breathtaking to not make us gulp — too much — at the $19 cocktails. But a Cosmo? (more…)

The Mondrian SoHo, Café Carlyle at the Carlyle Hotel and the Standard Hotel New York are stylish, newly minted places.  Last night, the architect behind the Standard, the designer of the Mondrian and the decorator who refurbished Café Carlyle talked about their work at the Museum of the City of New York.  Here are five cool facts we learned about each property. (more…)

Tea in the afternoon.

High tea and texting don’t mix. That, at least, is how we felt on a recent weekday afternoon as we sipped Lapsang Souchong and nibbled miniature sandwiches in the Gotham Lounge at The Peninsula hotel.

Afternoon tea at a hotel is something of an anachronism, a last link to a “What is the weekend?” world. It’s the anti-fast food, offering a civilized setting for a business meeting, a cozy chat or a vacation from the 21^st-century for an hour or two.

Its charm depends on getting the mix of old and new just right, a balancing act that’s oddly tricky. Too much tradition and high tea feels fusty.  Not enough and it’s not High Tea. (more…)