When hotel historians – hey, they’re out there somewhere — look back on 2012, they’ll say what we already know: it was, for the most part, a very good year.

Bookish: the NoMad library.

New York City boasts 91,500 hotel rooms – up from 90,000 in 2011. Put another way, 29 million hotel room nights were sold in New York City in 2012.

Manhattan’s newest hotels were among its cleverest (cheers to the NoMad, Conrad New York, Pod 39 and TRYP New York Times Square South). And hotels you’d actually want to visit are popping up in the outer boroughs – even Staten Island – with Brooklyn (and the hipster Wythe) leading the charge.

No one will say 2012 was always easy. Killer hurricanes that flood lobbies, kill the lights and uproot guests when nearby building cranes become unhinged don’t blow in every year (we hope).  But as we slip into 2013, for most hotels – and current guests — Sandy is mere memory.

Here is our second annual list of what struck us as the best of the new. (more…)

It’s been a tough week for New York, the city’s hotels and guests staying – or trying to stay – here.  What was it like when the lobby flooded? How did guests react? How bad was the damage? And what can we expect next?

The view from Zone A

Marriott room with a view — closed for now.

It was like flipping a switch.

On Monday night, almost on the stroke of 8 p.m., the tidal wave surged, and water unleashed by Hurricane Sandy hit land. It gobbled up West Street in front of the Marriott New York Downtown and pushed up through the drains. It rushed in through the hotel’s closed doors, flooding the basement and surging up the steps leading to the lobby.  Within 15 minutes three inches of water blanketed the lobby’s polished marble floor. (more…)

Not tonight: the Ritz Carlton closed temporarily by Hurricane Sandy.

A hotel with room service, 24-hour movies, a big soaking tub and a comfy lobby lounge doesn’t strike us as a bad place to be in a storm.

“I’ll watch the hurricane through my hotel room hot tub window,” writes a guest at The Out/NYC on the Hotelchatter website.

Still, Scary Sandy, or #sandynyc if you’re following Twitter, is doing what hurricanes do – making a mess of things for thousands of people, including those at New York City hotels.

Worst hit were those at hotels in the low-lying area’s of New York’s southern tip, or Zone A, where flooding is most likely to occur. Just 14 months ago, Mean Irene forced a coterie of hotels at the tip of Manhattan to evacuate guests and close until the storm blew over. (more…)

Healthy and sustainably sourced, too.

Hotels like to advertise that they offer all the comforts of home, only better. So why is it so hard to find healthy items like cage-free eggs, low-fat milk and grass-fed beef in the restaurants of most large full-service hotels?

Hyatt Hotels aims to change that and lots more. This week the company unveiled Food. Thoughtfully Sourced. Carefully Served, a soup to nuts food philosophy that in essence overhauls the entire food and beverage service for all Hyatt full service brands. The triple-tined aim is

to serve food that is locally sourced, harvested from sustainable sources and healthy to boot.

As you know if you’ve visited the restaurants at Hyatt’s New York City properties including the Grand Hyatt, healthy, locally sourced offerings have nibbled their way onto the menus – and into Hyatt culture — for a while. (The Andaz Wall Street even hosts a twice-weekly farmers market during warm months.) (more…)

Hyatt Lex48 lounge.

Come early January, slow season at the city’s hotels, New York’s record-breaking tally of 90,000 hotel rooms may seem more like a glut than a victory lap.

What to do with all those rooms? Take a tip from Macy’s – or New York’s wildly successful Restaurant Week – and orchestrate a sale.

The first ever Hotel Week runs from January 6 through 15 at eight hotels, namely those with ties to the New York public relations firm that dreamed up the idea. (more…)

The Suite Spa Cart.

The new Hyatt 48Lex is a small, upscale hotel that offers guests everything you’d expect, from a restaurant and room service to a well-equipped fitness center – everything, that is, except a spa. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get a hot stone massage or an herbal facial without leaving the premises.

48Lex is the latest in a small contingent of hotels, including the Andaz Wall Street and the Grand Hyatt, offering the Cart – a spa on wheels outfitted with the basics a therapist needs to administer spa treatments in a hotel room.

The Cart looks like a rolling room service table, but instead of Eggs Benedict under a silver dome look for a facial steamer, magnifying lamp and towel warmer, a warming shelf for heating stones or wraps, (more…)

Ritz Carlton lobby -- closed temporarily by Hurricane Irene.

And a most unwelcome guest she is.

Flooding concerns in low-lying areas of Manhattan prompted several hotels at the island’s southern tip to close this weekend for city-mandated evacuation, including the Ritz Carlton New York Battery Park, the Andaz Wall Street, the New York Marriott Downtown and the tiny Wall Street Inn. And just like that, more than 1,000 hotel rooms dropped off the city’s radar.

Fortunately, no homeless guests have been reported. New York hotels are rarely at 100 per capacity in the waning days of August, particularly business hotels near Wall Street. The Andaz, Ritz Carlton and Marriott are affiliated with hotels uptown (phone calls to the Marriott Downtown were routed to the Marriott Marquis, the Times Square behemoth).

(more…)

Yotel's check-in computers.

The massive, inquisition-style check-in desk, once as basic to hotels as beds, pillows and running water, occupies a spot high on the endangered amenity list. But so, in some cases, do check-in staff members.

First came hotels like the Fitzpatrick Manhattan, where guests are seated at a small table opposite a staff member. Call it check-in as tete-a-tete, where conversation ensues and amenities are explained before the guest rises and heads for the room. (more…)