New York hotel rooms are small, expensive and broadly similar. What varies enormously is where they are, and that decision shapes the trip more than anything on the room’s amenity list. A hotel that is twenty minutes further out costs less and adds forty minutes of travel to every day; a hotel in the middle of everything costs more and puts you in a district with nowhere to eat.
Here is what each realistic option is actually like.
Midtown
Suits: first-time visitors, short trips, anyone with a Broadway habit.
You can walk to a remarkable proportion of what you came for, and every subway line passes through. The hotel supply is enormous, which keeps prices lower than the location would suggest anywhere else in the world.
The cost is atmosphere. Midtown is an office district that empties at seven, the pavements are crowded with other visitors, and the food within two blocks of most hotels is chain restaurants at a markup. You will not stumble across anything.
Within Midtown: west of Eighth Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen is the best compromise — cheaper, close to the theatres, and with an actual neighbourhood full of good, inexpensive restaurants. Murray Hill and the East 30s are quieter and duller. Immediately around Times Square is the loudest and least pleasant.
Lower Manhattan and the Financial District
Suits: second trips, quiet sleepers, anyone flying into JFK on the A train.
Old office towers converted to hotels, which means unusually large rooms for New York. Very quiet at night, excellent transport, close to the ferries, the 9/11 Memorial and the Brooklyn Bridge. Usually cheaper than Midtown.
The downside is that the dining scene is thin and a lot of it closes when the offices do. Weekends can feel deserted, which some people love.
Greenwich Village, SoHo and the Lower East Side
Suits: people who want to be in a neighbourhood rather than near attractions.
This is the most pleasant part of Manhattan to stay in and the least practical. The streets are low-rise and walkable, the restaurants are excellent, and the evenings happen where you are staying rather than somewhere you have to travel to.
The trade-off is transport. Downtown subway coverage is good north–south and poor crosstown, and getting to the Upper East Side museums takes real time. Hotels here are boutique and expensive, and the Lower East Side is genuinely loud from Thursday to Sunday.
Upper West Side and Upper East Side
Suits: families, repeat visitors, anyone whose trip is museum-heavy.
Residential, calm, safe, with proper supermarkets and neighbourhood restaurants. The Met, the Natural History Museum and Central Park are on the doorstep.
The catch is that you are twenty to thirty minutes from downtown and you will feel it every evening. The Upper East Side east of Lexington is now well served by the Second Avenue Q line, which changed the calculation considerably.
Brooklyn
Suits: anyone on a second visit, anyone on a budget, anyone who wants the city rather than the sights.
Downtown Brooklyn and Brooklyn Heights are the practical choice — several subway lines, one or two stops from Lower Manhattan, and considerably cheaper than equivalent Manhattan hotels. DUMBO is beautiful and pricier.
Williamsburg is one L stop from 14th Street and has the best food and nightlife of any of these options, plus the ferry. It is a bad base if your itinerary is Midtown-heavy.
Park Slope and Prospect Heights are lovely, family-friendly and about thirty-five minutes from Midtown.
Long Island City, Queens
Suits: budget travellers who still want speed.
One subway stop from Grand Central on the 7, or a ferry ride to Midtown East. New hotel towers with large rooms, routinely 30 to 40 per cent below Manhattan rates for the same standard. The neighbourhood itself is a mix of new towers, warehouses and a genuinely good waterfront park with the best Manhattan skyline view in the city.
It is not charming. It is extremely well connected and cheap, and for a lot of trips that is the right trade.
Harlem
Suits: travellers who want a neighbourhood and a lower price, and are happy on the subway.
Brownstones, the Apollo, excellent food, real character, and express trains that get you to Midtown in fifteen minutes. Hotel and short-let supply is limited but growing, and prices are well below anything comparable downtown.
Jersey City and Hoboken
Suits: the tightest budgets, and anyone flying into Newark.
The PATH train runs 24 hours to the World Trade Center and 33rd Street and takes about ten to fifteen minutes. Hotels are markedly cheaper. The catch is that you are in a different state, the PATH is a separate fare from the subway, and the psychological distance is larger than the actual one.
Practical points that apply everywhere
Rooms are small. A standard New York double is often 200 to 250 square feet. This is normal and not a mistake on the booking.
Resort and facility fees are mandatory nightly charges added on top of the rate at a lot of New York hotels. Check the total before booking, not the headline.
Taxes add roughly 15 per cent plus a small per-night charge.
Short-term lets under thirty days are heavily restricted in New York City under Local Law 18. Legal listings require the host to be present and registered. A whole apartment advertised for three nights is very likely illegal, and cancellations at short notice do happen.
Noise. Ask for a high floor away from the street. Rubbish collection in Manhattan happens at night and it is loud.
Air conditioning in older hotels is often a through-wall unit that runs loudly. If you are a light sleeper, it is worth asking.