New York City

There was never any question the legendary Hotel Chelsea would eventually face a significant update; it’s good for the Chelsea, and for New York, that it fell to Sean MacPherson to do it, along with partners Ira Drukier and Richard Born. MacPherson’s other hotels around town — the Marlton, the Bowery, the Maritime and more — help usher the romance of old New York into the modern era in a way that’s nostalgic but also authentic. And in the Chelsea, in particular, there’s much to be nostalgic about.

What do we know about the Greenwich Hotel? It’s got a celebrity owner (none other than Robert DeNiro), a prime Tribeca location, impeccable design credentials courtesy of one of New York’s top firms, Grayling Design, and some truly obsessive construction, having something to do with thousands of very expensive handmade bricks. Now there’s no question that all these things make for great press, but do they mean anything to the guests? Of course they do.

Whether or not the phrase Dimes Square means anything to you, you’ll appreciate the mini-neighborhood Nine Orchard calls home. Here, at the east end of Canal Street, where the Lower East Side meets Chinatown, there’s a buzz that’s reminiscent of some of Downtown’s earlier golden ages — and, in Nine Orchard itself, there’s a hotel with enough character and personality to become a proper neighborhood institution.

André Balazs’s line of Standard hotels took its time getting to New York. Now it seems they were waiting for something big, and this is it — for a group that’s made its name with clever renovations, a ground-up new build is a major undertaking.

Williamsburg has been a big deal for well over a decade now, it’s true, but from a boutique-hotel perspective this neighborhood is just getting started. And while the Wythe Hotel may not have been the first, it’s the one against which all future Brooklyn boutiques will be measured. Not because it won’t ever be topped, necessarily, but because it’s rare for a hotel to so completely exemplify the character of the neighborhood it calls home.

For their first hotel in New York, Pendry — the urban luxury-hotel imprint of the Montage Resorts brand — is staking out new territory. Manhattan West is part of the huge Hudson Yards Redevelopment that’s changed the face of Midtown’s west side, and the Pendry Manhattan West, occupying an undulating glass tower by architects Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, shifts the city’s luxury-hospitality center of gravity a bit further towards the Hudson.

From the outside it’s clear enough that the Bowery Hotel is a relatively recent addition to the neighborhood, but what’s inside is such a faithful homage to classic New York you’d be forgiven for starting to think it’s been here forever. Its eclectic, bohemian look helped usher in a new kind of romance in boutique-hotel style, and the timelessness of its aesthetic means the romance is still fresh long after the glossy minimalism of some of its contemporaries has begun to fade.

Here’s a hotel that plays against type in NoMad, a neighborhood that’s heavy with historical associations. While many Manhattan hotels are still aiming for a sort of upper-crust prewar atmosphere, MADE Hotel looks like something straight out of present-day Brooklyn. And with its minimalist décor, modernist design, modular fixtures, and unapologetically unfinished surfaces, its rooms look right up to date – like the Williamsburg loft apartment of your design-magazine dreams.

The Maritime Hotel was designed in 1966 for the National Maritime Union; hence its name, and its nautical theme. Today it is one of New York’s hipster hangouts, owing as much to its location (just off the Meatpacking District) as to the charms of the hotel itself.

In general it’s true that we’re skeptical about the idea of hotel chains. But we tend to forget our principles when we’re talking about the Firmdale group. Their six London hotels are six of the best hotels anywhere, and they can’t help but be similar; aside from the obvious fact that they all share the same city, they all just as obviously share the same general philosophy of what a hotel ought to be — which they owe to their owners, Tim and Kit Kemp. And a part of that is visual, a natural family resemblance based on their all having been decorated by the very recognizable Kit.

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