The Ludlow

CITY GUIDES | NEW YORK CITY

New York City Hotels That Are Genuinely One of One

These hotels ooze character: historic icons, design oddballs, and downtown hideouts.

By Eric Barton | Dec. 29, 2025

AUTHOR BIO: Eric Barton is editor of The Adventurist and a freelance journalist who has reviewed restaurants for more than two decades. Email him here.

New York has a special talent for charging you four hundred dollars a night to sleep inside a beige PowerPoint presentation. I understand why people book the chain, because it is reliable, and reliability is seductive when you are arriving on a delayed flight and your phone battery is in hospice care. I also understand the appeal of the “local loft” homestay, right up until you find the host’s leftover Chinese food in the fridge (true story) and the shower is a polite suggestion (also happened to me this summer).

When I come to New York City, I want a hotel with character and a point of view, which is a nicer way of saying I want a building that has lived a life. I want a lobby that makes me sit up straighter, a key that feels like it belongs to something, and a room that does not look like it was designed by a committee that only communicates in the word “elevated.” These are the hotels that feel like New York, which means they are opinionated, a little weird, and stubbornly themselves.

The Beekman, A Thompson Hotel

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This is the hotel I book when I want New York character without the “surprise” of a rental key taped under a planter. The nine-story atrium is the point, with cast-iron balconies stacked up toward a glass skylight that makes the whole place feel like it was built for lingering. Downstairs, Tom Colicchio’s Temple Court and the Bar Room give you a built-in excuse to stay put for dinner or a late drink, which matters because this corner of Lower Manhattan can go quiet when the suits go home.

Best for: People who want a dramatic lobby and a serious bar in Lower Manhattan

The Fifth Avenue Hotel

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The Fifth Avenue Hotel feels like a New York that’s still a city of manners, fireplaces, and people who know how to order a martini. It combines a restored mansion with a modern tower, and it treats food and drink like part of the stay, with Café Carmellini as the signature restaurant and the Portrait Bar as the “one more drink” trap I’ll gladly fall into. The address on West 28th Street puts it in a useful slice of Manhattan where it’s a short walk to a lot of the city.

Best for: A special-occasion hotel with a serious restaurant and bar

The Greenwich Hotel

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This is the Tribeca hotel I book when I want quiet luxury that still feels like New York. The Greenwich leans hard into craft and privacy, with no-two-alike rooms full of custom furnishings and details like handwoven rugs, plus a guest-only Drawing Room and courtyard where you can disappear with a drink and pretend you live here. The trump card is Shibui Spa downstairs, with a heated pool and the kind of serious calm that makes you consider canceling your dinner reservation, especially since the house car can handle short downtown trips when it’s available.

Best for: A low-key Tribeca stay with a spa and real privacy

Hotel Chelsea

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Hotel Chelsea is the rare icon that leans into its history without turning the building into a museum gift shop. The easiest move is to treat the hotel as its own small circuit: drinks at the Lobby Bar, dinner at El Quijote, and a downstairs meal at Teruko’s sushi bar, all without leaving the property. The location on West 23rd Street is out of Midtown chaos while close to everything.

Best for: A storied New York stay with built-in bars and restaurants

The Hoxton, Williamsburg

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The Hoxton, Williamsburg is proof that a hotel can be part of a brand and still feel like it belongs to its block. It lives inside a former Rosenwach water-tower factory and shows off the building’s raw-concrete bones. It has 175 rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows, and Manhattan-view rooms are like having the skyline as a roommate. But the real reason to stay here is to treat the whole place like a self-contained Williamsburg night out: K’Far in the lobby for coffee and Jerusalem bagels, Jaffa for cocktails and raw-bar energy, and Laser Wolf upstairs when you want live-fire skewers and a view that makes your phone automatically come out of your pocket.

Best for: People who want a Brooklyn stay with skyline views and a built-in food crawl

The Ludlow Hotel

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The Ludlow is where I stay when I want the Lower East Side right outside the door, but I do not want to come home to a room that feels like it was designed for an airport. IThe room list runs from a 195-square-foot Mini for solo trips to higher-floor lofts with balconies, including a Skybox Loft that promises 180-degree views of Manhattan. Downstairs, Dirty French is attached to the property, and the hotel’s lobby lounge and garden are stunners, which is convenient on nights when “going out” doesn’t mean leaving the property.

Best for: A Lower East Side stay with built-in dinner and drinks

The Jane Hotel

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More than a century later, The Jane is still taking bookings with the same pitch: ship-cabin rooms in a landmark by the Hudson, which means 100 Standard Cabins and 20 Bunk Bed Cabins with shared bathrooms, plus two Captain’s Cabins for those who don’t want to wait for a shower. The part that has changed is the nightlife mythology, because the Jane Ballroom and the rooftop closed in November 2022 as the building moved toward a private-club future. It is also renovating its food-and-beverage spaces, so I would book it as a budget West Village crash pad with a great address.

Best for: A West Village location on a budget

Nine Orchard

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Nine Orchard turns the old Jarmulowsky Bank into a 113-room downtown hotel that feels properly rooted in the neighborhood. The ground floor is doing real work as the all-day anchor and Swan Room as the cocktail-lounge upgrade. I like it because it splits the difference between Lower East Side grit and grown-up comfort, which is a hard line to walk in this part of town.

Best for: A downtown base with a great bar built in

SoHo House New York

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SoHo House New York is a members’ club first and a hotel second. It occupies a century-old former meatpacking warehouse, with 44 bedrooms, a rooftop pool, and a screening room that makes a random Tuesday night movie feel like an event you got away with. Booking a room gives access to events that are otherwise members-only, like talks and mini concerts that feel very much like a New York most of us never see.

Best for: A private-club weekend in the Meatpacking District

Wythe Hotel

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The Wythe is Williamsburg done in a way that still feels honest: big industrial bones, high ceilings, and a view of Manhattan that does not need a caption. The on-site lineup is the point, with Le Crocodile downstairs for an all-day brasserie mood and Bar Blondeau upstairs for skyline cocktails without fighting for a rooftop reservation across the river. I book it when I want Brooklyn energy but I still want a full-service hotel.

Best for: A Williamsburg stay with great dining and rooftop views