A renovated room at the Sheraton.

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.

Just shy of its 50^th birthday the Sheraton New York Hotel & Towers, a member of the second camp, is in the latter stages of “the largest renovation project in the history of the hotel,” says Mark Sanders, general manager. (more…)

Millesime at the Carlton Hotel.

An evocative movie, play, even art exhibition can make you hungry. Seeing Anything Goes, the bubbly, Tony-winning Cole Porter revival at the Stephen Sondheim Theater, put us in the mood for a Sidecar from the Blue Bar at the Algonquin.  Who knows? Ethel Merman and the original cast from 1934 could have followed the same path after their performances.

Our reaction to Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris was equally visceral: (more…)

Jumeirah's Rory McIlroy at the US Open.

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.

Since high-end golf pros double as billboards at tournaments, the US Open’s other big winner was Jumeirah Hotels and Resorts, which counts McIlroy as its Global Brand Ambassador. A winning golfer sporting a logo at a major is the next best thing to a TV ad during the Superbowl. Small wonder the Dubai-based hotel group, whose properties include Dubai’s iconic Burj al Arab and New York’s Jumeirah Essex House, prominently featured McIlroy and his trophy on its Web site the day after the big win.

Jumeirah’s portfolio includes international golf properties in addition to hotels. (more…)

The Vieux Carre.

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.

The above requirements mean dim lighting, no windows, dark woods and a muted palette, preferably blue to match the weather-inflicted mood. Since that describes the Royalton to a T, we headed to West 44^th Street. Our advice: if you want to be able to hear your companion, arrive early. By 8 pm the place assumes its nighttime guise as a hotel lobby doubling as a nightclub. But at 6:30 on a rainy holiday Monday evening, we had our pick of the cushy leather club chairs (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. (more…)

The Royalton iPad.

What’s the next hotel room amenity destined for the slag heap littered with CD players and tube TVs? Our guess: the in-room phone with its push-button call list for the concierge, room service and housekeeping.

At least, that’s how we felt after road testing the Royalton’s iPad, a slender, black-leather-framed amenity that sits on the desk in every room at the hotel, fully loaded and ready to multi-task. (more…)

Marilyn at the Washington Square Hotel

June 3^rd would have been Marilyn Monroe’s 85^th 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.

A salon in the rear of the low-key, Art Deco Greenwich Village hotel is transformed into a time-warp salute to Old Hollywood through September 1. (more…)