HotelChatter

Smyth, which opened in February, has a very peppy feel to it upon entering. The lobby feels warmer than its sister hotel, the often too-cool for school 60 Thompson, and definitely more inviting than the cold concrete of Thompson LES. Helping the cozy feelings along are the staffers who were downright chipper.

Inside the rooms, however, the feeling was a bit anti-climactic. We had a deluxe king room overlooking West Broadway (and our friend's apartment on Chambers!) which had plenty of room; but aside from the bright red chair, it just felt a little limp. Or monotonous. Like, "here-is-your-room-see-what-we-put-in-it-we-have-all-that-you-need." Robotic, perhaps?

Of course it was comfortable and fortunately very quiet, given our street-facing view. And Mr. Z was super stoked on the bathroom shower. The bathroom is not quite entirely voyeuristic. While a person sleeping in the bed can definitely make out your shape in the shower, at the sink, and an inch or so of you on the toilet, not all your bits and pieces are clearly shown.

But teasing glimpses of the human body aside, Mr. Z really liked how the sink mirror extended about 10 inches into the shower so that he could shave while in the shower. As opposed to showering and then hopping out to shave in front of the sink. See, what you learn when you travel with a man?

For our part, the bathroom was nice but because of its openness when we stepped in there to turn on the light early in the morning, it awoke Mr. Z. He took it in stride, something we would not do if the situation had been reversed.

Other than that, our only other complaint about Smyth is that the paid Internet ($10) was down for an entire day. Fortunately, there is a Starbucks across the street. There's also a Le Pain Quotidien bakery on the other corner and the 1,2,3 subway is right out in front, which was awesome.

The hotel's restaurant is not open but there is tasty all-day room service and the lobby bar serves drinks and food as well. All in all, we'd definitely return to Smyth especially at the do-able rates of $145 that we recently saw on Quikbook.com (We actually paid $200.) Maybe next time we'll bring some party decorations to spice up the room.