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…)

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).

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