The search for the best hotels in New York City isn’t exactly the easiest endeavor. Why? Because there are so many options—like, 705 to be exact. Even the best attempts at narrowing it down leave choices upon choices. Want to stay in midtown? Cool, there are 114 hotels in that neighborhood alone. Plan to splurge on a five-star hotel? Take your pick from over 122! Boutique more your style? Wonderful—Manhattan has 76 independently operated properties with under 200 rooms.
So, we here at Vogue decided to make a shortlist of where to stay in the Big Apple. Some are recent openings, others haute haunts steeped in history. Some are in trendy non-touristy locales, some sit in the heart of it all. Some you stay at for the scene, others are ideal for not being seen at all. But the common denominator among them? They’re all, well, cool.
Without further ado, the best hotels in New York City.
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If the Carlyle ever closed, an iconic bit of the city would be lost along with it—that’s how synonymous this storied hotel is with the soul of New York. It’s where Princess Diana stayed during her royal visit in the 1980s, and where her son Prince William returned with his new bride Kate Middleton two decades later. John F. Kennedy stayed there so much that it was dubbed the “New York White House.” After he was assassinated, Jackie lived there for three months. Bemelmans—named after Madeline creator Ludwig Bemelmans, who painted murals on its walls—remains the most famous bar in the city. There’s a documentary about it, books about it, and even a clothing line about it.
That doesn’t mean it’s outdated or stuffy, by the way: with interiors by Thierry Despont and Tony Chi, the Carlyle encompasses both old-world charm and the modern day.
