New York’s
New Affordable Hotels
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Visitors to Gotham City can choose from a bevy of wallet-friendly hotels that also happen to be tasteful in design. When selecting a New York City hotel, take the advice of legendary Harper’s Bazaar editor Diana Vreeland, who said, “You gotta have style. It helps you get up in the morning.”
By Jeryl Brunner
Yet you know that a sleek armoire and high-thread-count linens are typically code for steep rates. That’s changing. A recent batch of New York City hotels combines aesthetics with economy, offering refreshingly stylish rooms in which to park your Pradas, starting as low as $99 a night.
Set across the street from the Hudson River Park, a fetching waterfront promenade, the West Village Jane hotel (from $99; www.thejanenyc.com) has narrow, wood-paneled rooms inspired by luxury train compartments. Artfully designed to use every inch of space, the 50-square-foot rooms contain built-in drawers, flat-panel TVs, and DVD players. Bathrooms at the Jane are shared, but the new, larger Captain’s Cabins have private ones.
One block from Madison Square Park and the Shake Shack hamburger joint in the Flatiron District, the MAve Hotel’s (from $199; www.themavehotel.com) red wave walls, polished chrome, crystal chandeliers,\ and white marble floors provide a dramatic setting. Guest rooms include residential touches like bamboo wood floors, mahogany furnishings,\ and original abstract New York City-themed artwork from emerging artists. Complimentary breakfast items are offered each morning in the lobby, or you can walk to the nearby farmers market in Union Square.
To create the Ace Hotel (from $159; www.acehotel.com/newyork), design firm Roman & Williams (who worked on the private home of Gwyneth Paltrow) mixes custom and vintage furnishings with recycled materials. An 18-foot laboratory table with a slate top serves as a communal gathering spot in the lobby, and plumbing pipes have been fashioned into clothes racks in the guest rooms. Located in the Garment District, some rooms at the Ace include turntables and vinyl records.
Inspired by Manhattan itself, the Distrikt Hotel (from $239; www.distrikthotel.com) has recently opened on West 40th Street in the Theater District. The property embraces the look and spirit of the borough with neighborhood-themed floors from the Financial District to Harlem represented in digital photo collages by artist Chris Rubino.
Also in Midtown, the newly renovated Best Western President Hotel (from $159; www.bestwestern.com) features presidential-themed rooms with Pop Art paintings of U.S. Presidents and traditional busts of George Washington.
Originally built in the 1920s by Empire State Building architect Arthur Loomis Harmon, the Romanesque-style, redbrick Renaissance New York Hotel 57 (from $179; www.hotel57.com), located on the posh East Side on buzzing Lexington Ave., recently underwent a $40-million renovation. One-of-a-kind designs include a blown glass fireplace and glass-enclosed spiral staircase created by Jordan Mozer.
