Hilton New York Honored With a 'Green Street' Award. Really.
Swarming with smog, exhaust, and buzzing with the din of taxis in neutral, New York's Avenue of the Americas is hardly a location we think of as being environmentally-considerate. A work in progress, maybe, with a little cheerleading needed to nudge it in the right direction.
The "Green Street" Award was established by the Avenue of the Americas Association to inspire the thoroughfare's tenants to think eco and find new ways to close the loop. This year, the Hilton New York was honored, and not just because it hosted the ceremony in its Trianon Ballroom last week.
Innovative eco-hotels are normally found bourgeois bohemian neighborhoods like the West Village or SoHo, so when we caught wind of this news we were looking for certifiable proof of the Hilton's investment in going green. According to the Avenue's Association, proof came in the form of a futuristic, energy-saving PureCell system that uses electric power to power the hotel and heat water, which has accounted for 6% of the hotel's consumption since being installed. It is also three times more energy efficient than a normal electric grid and operates 24-hours per day.
As we mentioned, this is a gentle nudge in the right direction. But we're really hoping that Hilton, being one of the world's most recognizable chain names and having the largest hotel in New York City, uses the award as an opportunity to take more significant strides toward sustainability. In other words, it's not a free pass, but a call to action. Could a large-scale LEED makeover be in its future? Will they take a cue from or their slightly hipper, alt-neighborhood counterparts? Only time will tell, but in the meantime the PureCell system will continue to power the Hilton, while nearby, the painfully energy-sucking lights of Times Square continue to burn brightly.
[Photo: celikins]
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