We finally got around to seeing the year’s top fashion documentary Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel.  In the spirit of her fabled Why Don’t’ You lists that spiced up an earlier iteration of Harper’s Bazaar, we offer Overnight New York’s Why Don’t You: the NYC Hotel holiday version. Here’s what to see and do at New York hotels while the holidays are still humming.

Take holiday tea at The Peninsula Forget petite fours. The Peninsula New York serves up a special holiday tea that’s as seasonal as Santa (or midnight champagne).  Brightening the pastry plate are bite-size fruit cake, crescent macarons, peppermint chocolate cupcakes and eggnog pecan tarts. A special children’s tea includes snowman marshmallows, peppermint cupcakes and Christmas cookies.

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We’re deep into the season of bright shiny objects. Some of the prettiest, cleverest, liveliest, happiest, wittiest – you get the idea — hang from the branches of New York City’s hotel trees. For a dose of instant cheer, check out our top trees of 2012.

Big Tree — This towering faux fir looks utterly at home in the lobby of the Four Seasons New York. (more…)

Honest Abe, the gingerbread version.

Who needs bricks and mortar – or limestone and chisels – when you’ve got gingerbread? Or to rephrase, ever wondered what the Lincoln Memorial, Kyoto’s Toji Tower or the Sphinx might look like as edible holiday sculptures?

The answers, just in case we’ve struck a chord, are on view along with three other fanciful-but-recognizable gingerbread concoctions in the fourth annual exhibition of holiday gingerbread creations at Le Parker Meridien hotel.

As in previous years, the city’s top bakeries and restaurants cooked up clever brown-cookie creations, on view in the hotel’s 56^th Street atrium through January 3. And perhaps inspired by the year’s theme of Landmarks Around the World, this batch – each example clad in protective Plexiglas and planted atop a podium — is nothing short of monumental. (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…)

The Knave cafe — closed again until further notice.

Earlier this year Le Parker Meridien was forced to close its stylish Knave café for a month.  A freak accident at a construction site next door broke a wall and soaked the floor with liquid concrete, startling early morning guests sipping espressos and nibbling croissants.

Yesterday the hotel was once again a casualty of a construction mishap at another building. (Hurricane Sandy had a hand in this one.) As widely reported, a giant crane at the new One57 luxury apartment high rise came loose during the storm and was left dangling precariously over 57^th Street – across the street from Le Parker Meridien. Amid concerns that the crane could come crashing down — or swing into hotel room windows, hotel guests were forced to evacuate. The hotel is empty until further notice. (Two nearby hotels, the smaller Salisbury and West 57th Street by Hilton Club, were also evacuated.) (more…)

Cooked to order.

Long before Shake Shack – and the $32 Daniel Boulud truffle burger – there was Burger Joint, the hole-in-the-wall hamburger heaven tucked behind a velvet curtain in a corner of Le Parker Meridien.  This week it celebrates its tenth birthday.

In a city where lunch at a hotel restaurant rarely costs less than $25 – and dinner costs a lot more — Burger Joint stands apart. (more…)

Knave — as it was.

Talk about a double whammy. First came the news that Le Parker Meridien’s new next-door neighbor will be a new 296-room boutique hotel.  Then yesterday morning the new neighbor invaded Parker Meridien’s turf.

As guests sipped espresso and nibbled croissants at the hotel’s stylish Knave cafe just before noon, liquid concrete from the new building broke through the wall and flooded the room.

The “concrete lava” was up to a foot deep and moved tables and chairs, according to witness reports in The New York Post.  As stunned guests fled, construction workers rushed in with wheelbarrows to remove the invasive material.

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Sex, drugs and fluffy pillows. Think about it, dude. Rock musicians spend a lot of time on the road. The lucky ones score suites in some of the world’s best hotels. Those that don’t often crash in intriguingly oddball places. And things happen. Rooms get trashed. TVs get tossed into the pool. Harleys get driven into the lobby.

In short, there’s a lot of rock history lurking in hotel rooms around the world – enough to fill a book, or at least a new guidebook like Rock & Roll Hotels (Punk Publishing; British pounds10.99). In this cloth-covered, 198-page volume, slim enough to slip into a pocket, backpack or guitar case, British music promoter Greg Simmons escorts the reader through 45 rock-tinged hotels in Europe, North America and the Pacific. The result is well researched, trivia enriched and fun. (more…)

We love the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. A classic liminal period, it’s an opportunity to work less (or not at all), see a movie, read a book, catch your breath. And if you’re like us, you’ll probably stop by a hotel (or two). Here are 10 worth checking out even if you don’t check in. (more…)

Occupy North Pole.

After Occupy Wall Street could Occupy North Pole be far behind? Hey, elves have issues, too. And they’re writ large in gingerbread, gumdrops, icing and candy canes on a stand-out gingerbread house on view in the third annual show of gingerbread creations – houses and otherwise – at Le Parker Meridien hotel.

Brandishing signs like “Make Candy Not War” and “Visions of Sugar Plums Won’t Feed My Elfin Kids!!” cookie elves voice their demands peaceably atop mounds of white icing in front of Santa’s merrily decorated gingerbread workshop by Tribeca Treats, a specialty bakery. (more…)