The Brand-New And Verbose W New York Downtown

August 16, 2010 at 4:09 PM | by Myra Ellen | Comment (1)

Our very own hotel Agent Zero returns with yet another review. Her not-real name is Myra Ellen and she's our version of Alex Goran who travels once a week for business, usually along the Eastern seaboard. Every so often, she'll be dropping in with her latest hotel and travel observations. In this episode, she's going all Gordon Gekko on us.

In the time that it will take a Hotelchatterer to read this review, the staff at the new W New York Downtown will still be reciting their W-mandated greeting, that run-on greeting/question filled with queries about your wishes and their ability to do whatever. It is perhaps the single most annoying thing about the hotel.

Here's some advice to the Starwood folks: frequent guests of W Hotels should have a live-action option of "press * to skip this greeting". It would save many from the embarrassment of repeatedly being on either the giving or receiving end of that monologue.

The brand-new 58-story property is located as equidistant to Ground Zero as the political football Park51 project (aka Cordoba House, aka Ground Zero Mosque, aka former Burlington Coat Factory), a fact worth noting if only to highlight that the area is being decidedly developed.

The hotel is also located on a short, hard to find block just south of Ground Zero. Its entrance is actually on a different street (Albany Street) than its listed address (Washington Street). Calling the hotel to clarify the directions takes five times longer than it should, for the reason mentioned in the above paragraph.

Despite that hassle, I appreciated the courtesy and professionalism of all of the staff -- the doormen, the front desk staff, the room service personnel, even the mysteriously lingering lobby personnel.

The brand-newness of the property was evident throughout the room, such as the showerhead that had clearly never been used, the still-stiff closet door, the fresh copies of Veranda and Dwell magazines on the window seat whose spines had never been cracked. Its amenities were familiar: the $8 water, the plush bathrobe, the Bliss products, the, um, Pringles...you know the chain-hotel drill.

The hotel calls its design "classic-modernist with a punk-minimalist twist." I'd call it Bladerunner with accents of blinding neon and red. The 5th floor lobby-level is blindingly lit -- a good excuse to keep sunglasses on if you're doing the incognito thing. The guest room hallways feel pitch dark as one's pupils try to adjust from the lobby. The rooms have lightning bolt-style recessed flourescents above the bed, bathroom mirror, and desk. The hotel refers to this room lighting as "innovatively intricate" with an "illusionary 3D effect." The discriminating traveler may simply refer to it as "how quickly can I turn that off?"

At night, minus the neon and lit simply from outside, the corner room was quiet and the king bed perfect. The daytime construction noise from Ground Zero was less disruptive than traffic noise in certain midtown hotels. I was able to easily conduct business calls in the morning. Business types should take note: one of my colleagues spent the first few minutes of our call mocking the hotel's greeting. (He even claimed to have transcribed it for future use.)

Obviously this isn't specific to the crisp, clean W Downtown only, but it feels like this staff -- as professional, courteous, and responsive as the men and women were -- are reciting their lines more slowly and with more deliberation.

So seriously, Starwood, let's agree to a safe word to knock off the clumsy cadences and let everyone cut to the chase. That's my wish.

Myra Ellen stayed here at the business write-off expense of $389 a night.

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