My husband and I stayed at the Greenwich Hotel on a recent trip to New York - the hotel was chosen mostly for its location. Ok, and the fact it is owned by Robert de Niro. Fairly unassuming from the outside, the hotel has a wonderful ambiance inside - the eclectic decor combines African, Asian and European influences, includes some of De Niro's own paintings (who new he painted?) and the overall feel is one of cosy and warm - useful, given that during our visit the temperatures dropped below freezing (and probably the only time is will be this cold in New York this winter!). The hotel has an amazing lounge area where you can eat all your meals, or linger over coffee in front of the fire. The adjacent restaurant served excellent breakfasts, and the service was perfect. The resident pastry chef is a genius, and is clearly a major drawcard for the very fashionable New York set that eat at the restaurant.
Our room was right at the bottom end of the price scale, and it was still reasonably expensive, given that it was small. Although the hotel is aiming for a more intimate appeal, and therefore each room is apparently different, I did feel that for our particular room they may have run out of the good furniture - my bedside table was a black steel thing that could have come from Walmart. The TV had very limited channels - I expected more from a hotel of this calibre - and the remote control was temperamental at best, which meant that to get to a preferred channel, I had to surf through all the previous ones to get to it. The TV listing guide also bore no resemblance to channels as they appeared on TV. We had some difficulties with the electronic room keys, being locked out on three occasions when the keys stopped working.
The bathroom was lovely - and the shower superb, as were the ample and fragrant toiletries.
A big bonus was that all the in-room snacks and drinks (except for the alcoholic beverages) were free - and abundant.
My complaints are minor really - however, given that this is not a cheap a hotel, I think that these small issues should be attended to.
- Greenwich Hotel New York City
