"Loopy Doopy" lobby.

Walking into the new Conrad New York hotel gave us weird déjà vu.

Greeting us at the top of a wide marble staircase was Sol LeWitt’s towering Loopy Doopy, a feast of purple swirls plotted on a blue grid. But what was it doing on that wall?

We’d seen the space before, of course. The Conrad occupies the 16-story brick structure built in 2000 to house an outskirts-of-the-Financial District outpost of Embassy Suites. We spent a night and wrote about it shortly after it opened. Then as now, Loopy Doopy, 100 feet tall and 80 feet wide, was entrancing and imposing (it gobbled up 100 gallons of paint). But the lobby looked so altered, with  futuristic furniture lighted from beneath and bursts of orange punctuating the cool gray and white surroundings, the mural’s location seemed different, too. (more…)

First, a word about the name. Even with “south” tacked on, associating a hotel on West 35^th Street with Times Square is a stretch, especially a hotel situated between 8^th and 9^th avenues. But once you accept that TRYP is a lot closer to Madison Square Garden and Macy’s than to where the New Year’s Eve ball drops, things get interesting. (more…)

Lola -- the fragrance.

Can a perfume bottle inspire a hotel? The thought never occurred to us until we visited Lola, a sleek new hotel in an old brick and stone building in the East 20s. But oh, those colors. The moody/glam lobby – and guest rooms and website – are ablaze in purple, scarlet, navy and yellow. And so is Lola, the Marc Jacobs fragrance in the whimsical bottle crowned with a plastic flower.  Like the bottle, the hotel has style.

No one mentioned perfume when we asked how the hotel got its name, which it adopted on December 1. “Louise Brooks lived here at one time. Wasn’t she in a movie called Lola?” a staff member said. That was Lulu, but an intriguing connection nonetheless. (more…)

The 2011 holiday tree.

Last year the Grand Hyatt New York, in the throes of a massive renovation, strung holiday lights from the construction scaffolding. This year the scaffolding is history, and a towering Christmas tree constructed from glass balls brings on the cheer.

A $130 million renovation is worth cheering – in part because it’s finished (the work unfolded in phases over three years). But the changes are smart, embracing nearly every inch of this midtown behemoth. “We’ve modernized,” said Mark Pardue, general manager, at a party celebrating the new building.

What they really did was de-Trump the place. (more…)

The Hotel Americano.

What can a hotel do about a less than perfect location? Wait it out, if you happen to be the Hotel Americano. Planted on 27^th Street way out west between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues, this uber-chic new boutique is smack in the middle of Chelsea’s art gallery and club scene and a short hop from Chelsea Piers’ sports facilities – an area that’s also bereft of subway stops and frequent bus service.

But in June, the popular High Line extended its elevated reach from 20^th to 30^nd Street. (more…)

Standard equipment: dishwasher and mini-fridge.

Is the latest, must-have luxury hotel accoutrement a dishwasher?

We wondered after a recent tour of the new Hyatt 48Lex, a 116-room glass box with the moniker of a chain hotel and the heart – and size — of a boutique. The first thing you see as you enter is a butler’s pantry outfitted with gleaming versions of the expected (stainless steel sink, microwave, mini fridge) and a pair of surprises.  A clever cabinet swings open to display a superbly stocked, mirror-backed bar (full-size bottles instead of minis). And a Fisher-Paykel stainless steel dishwasher drawer nestles under a cupboard.

Our idea of a vacation is not washing dishes, but you get the idea. The rooms at 48Lex exude a pied a terre vibe, from the parade of wines and glasses to the dishwasher. (more…)

The Nolitan lounge.

One day a parking lot, the next day a hotel. Okay, the Nolitan wasn’t built in a day. But after years when new hotels mostly grew out of old buildings, New York’s latest properties are rising from the ground up. Consider the Mondrian SoHo, Yotel Times Square, Dream Downtown and the James, to name a few.

The 55-room Nolitan, which opened this week, joins this group with one big difference. This is the first hotel in Nolita, the crunchy, east-of-SoHo neighborhood that nudges Chinatown and Little Italy (hence the North of Little Italy moniker).  (more…)

After: the new Paramount Bar bar.

As a Paramount fan since its cheap-chic Philippe Starck/Ian Schrager days, we mourned the hotel’s fall into disrepair in the 2000s and cheered its renovation in 2009. But we disagreed with some design decisions. Apparently we weren’t alone. The renovated Paramount keeps getting tweaked – and better.

First came the lobby (big improvement; see our previous blog). And now – not a moment too soon — the ground-floor bar.   (more…)

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…)

The lobby's faux fireplace.

Harlem isn’t known for hotels. In fact, it’s main headliner, the white brick Hotel Theresa – guests included Louis Armstrong, Malcolm X, Little Richard, Josephine Baker and Fidel Castro — closed in 1967.

Aloft Harlem aims to change that. On December 2, this tall, skinny link in Starwood’s fast-growing chain of hip-on-the-cheap hotels – think W on a budget – opens its big glass doors. And just like that, 124 rooms north of Central Park are yours for the asking – and $239 a night through the end of the year.

With 40 outposts from Abu Dhabi to Austin, Alofts pop up all over the world. But Harlem is the first New York foray (look for Aloft Brooklyn sometime next year). (more…)