New York is having the best time in decades. It loves itself—of course—but the rest of the country is cheering too. It’s practically the nation’s “other capital.”
The fall is when you should visit the City That Never Sleeps. It’s the golden season when Wall Street’s gonzo traders tie up their yachts, Fifth Avenue becomes a parade ground for stylish window shoppers, and the summer interns hand their offices back to the stock-optioned suits.
Caravans of foreign dignitaries, escorted by the NYPD through midtown Manhattan’s tieups, commute between the Waldorf Towers and the United Nations as diplomats from some 200 countries gather for another windy debating session.
And—best of all—the air is crisp and business seems to move up a notch from incorrigibly brisk to pleasantly frantic.
Leave it to Hollywood to add a fourth dimension—controversy—to fall ’06 with the debut of the movie about the New York icon that isn’t there anymore, Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center. It scores high with most media critics for taste and authenticity (“See it if you can handle it,” as the ABC reviewer put it), but low with people who ask: “Do we need this when we were just beginning to come to grips with it?”
But you’ll have to look hard to find any long faces. New Yorkers, it’s worth remembering, just love to complain. And who knows it better than the billionaire mayor, Michael Bloomberg, who is on the receiving end of more fast balls and sliders than most politicians.
King Kong Town
With the agility to adapt for which New Yorkers are famous, the art deco Empire State Building at 34th Street is now the stand-in for the fallen Twin Towers, a glorious 75-year-old skyscraper with a King Kong image that fits New York just fine. Its 86th-floor outdoor observatory ($16) and 102nd-floor lookout ($14) are open until 2 a.m. if you want to beat the daytime crowds. (The 70th-floor Top of the Rock at Rockefeller Center—$17.50—provides another panoramic perch until midnight.)
If and when there’s terrorism—or crime—New Yorkers feel confident that Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, a man of few words who knows what he’s doing better than the Department of Homeland Security, will come to the rescue. When the cops do random bag searches in the subway, it’s all in the family, except for the occasional you’re-violating-my-rights squawk.
The grand vertical metropolis earns its sky-high popularity rating because of the total package, from New York’s domination of the arts (shed a tear for Paris, the runner-up) to its “irrational exuberance” as the global capital of finance (edging out London’s international-minded city).
And the city nonchalantly serves as the nation’s top corporate headquarters town as well.
Altogether, the alpha New Yorker you meet on the street packs in so much that the city makes even its nearest urban rivals look a bit wimpy. Who can beat “in a New York minute”? And who else can get away with outrageous Broadway prices such as the $238 for two good orchestra seats to see “the longest-running show in Broadway history”—The Phantom of the Opera—or any other musical or play?
Money Matters
The dark side of Broadway’s bright lights, in fact, is the cost of overnighting and dining in the city on business.
Hotel room rates run an average $200 per night with anything hovering around $100 a find and most fancier guest quarters in the $250 to $400 bracket. At the Four Seasons—the hotel, not the celebrity restaurant—the sticker price for either of the two one-bedroom penthouse Presidential Suites runs a cool $15,000 a night. (Better schedule an intimate strategy session in the suite for five or six of your senior VPs and split the bill.) The views are almost worth the price.
Business entertaining can eat up your travel budget. For instance, a steak and drinks at Del Frisco’s (West 49th) or The Palm (West 50th Street), both in the Rockefeller Center area, easily cost $100 per person. Try $300 to $500 per person for the tasting menus at star chef Masa Takayama’s Masa in the Time Warner Center.
Airport Arrival
Many New Yorkers look down on New Jersey as a place on another planet. (That’s what a water barrier like the Hudson can do to you.) But many financial professionals like flying into Newark (Liberty International) because they can get in and out of Wall Street fast through the Holland Tunnel (allow 45 to 60 minutes), even if it’s a slog through ugly industrial wasteland. If you’re heading for midtown Manhattan, you’ll drive through the Lincoln Tunnel.
Of the three New York airports, JFK is the farthest out—16 miles—and equally accessible to Wall Street or midtown Manhattan (45 to 90 minutes). La Guardia is closer to midtown Manhattan (45 to 60 minutes). On some flights into LaGuardia, you get a grand view of downtown New York’s towers and the Brooklyn Bridge.
By Car or Bus to Manhattan
For a clear and complete rundown of transportation facilities at airports and into town, phone 800-AIR-RIDE (247-7433).
The slowest but cheapest road trips to Manhattan are the airport buses, which depart frequently. Fares: Newark, $14; JFK, $15; La Guardia, $10.
Fixed-price car service is a better bet than a taxi. One reliable company is Dial 7 (800-777-8888 or 212-777-7777) with a stable of cars at airports so you can pick one up on arrival without a reservation. Rates with tolls and a $5 tip: Newark, about $60 (off-peak) or $65 (peak); La Guardia, $40 or $45; JFK, $55 or $60.
Taxis are a mixed bag from Newark and LaGuardia—with the meter running while you endure stop-go traffic or total gridlock at rush hour (which is most of the day). Remember that New York is an island with bridge-and-tunnel tieups. If you’re coming from Newark, be prepared for a large $15 surcharge because your ride is interstate. JFK has a nice regulated flat fee of $45, plus toll and tip, from the airport to Manhattan—but it’s by the meter going to the airport.
Other options include the blue-van SuperShuttles (800-258-3826), usually available with or without a reservation. Rates: $17 to hotels, $19 to other addresses. But you may have a sightseeing trip in Manhattan that cuts into your business time if you’re the last person to be dropped off.
By Rail to Manhattan
If you can stand the hassle of a two-stage journey to save money, you can ride the JFK AirTrain to its terminus at the Jamaica Station and then transfer to the subway train that ends up in Penn Station. Fare: $7. Allow about 45 minutes. Not recommended for a fast-track business traveler.
From Newark, you can take its AirTrain to the Rail Link Station where you buy a ticket for any New Jersey Transit train that goes into Penn Station. Fare: $14. Allow about 30 minutes. Frequent travelers give it good reviews.
Getting Around
New York, like London, is a superb walking city. Not just a mind-boggling array of shops to browse, but also a sidewalk opp for checking out the people. Weird but wonderful! An unmelted pot of world citizenry. And people-watching is free.
Taxis remain a bargain, compared to those in other cities. But be prepared for the $1 surcharge at peak hours and back seats about as tight as coach on a jet. Tell the driver—Egyptian, Pakistani, Chinese, Honduran (Mexicans don’t seem to go for taxi work)—to get off his cell and just drive. (It’s against the licensing commission rules to phone while driving a cab.)
Rickshaws, some 300 of them operating mostly in the nearly square mile in midtown (42nd Street to 59th Street bounded by Third Avenue and Eighth Avenue), wiggle through traffic and get you around fast. But it may cost $20 to $25—negotiate before boarding.
The subway system, once you get the hang of it, is one of the most extensive and moderately priced of any in the world—$2 for short or long rides on its 240-mile network. If you think you’re riding with the unwashed hoi-poloi, think again—your neighborly straphanger on the Lexington line from Grand Central (where Greenwich commuters come in) to Wall Street may well be a gazillionaire hedge-fund manager just going to work.
Where To Stay
How you play the NYC hotel game depends on how high up the corporate ladder you are and the business contacts you expect to see.
In short, if you’re a senior vice-president, $300 on up for a hotel room is no hardship. And if you’re doing a deal where a prestigious address counts, you won’t mind paying for a room in one of the high-priced luxury hotels—with your boss’s blessing.
Don’t overlook other important tactical concerns such as your hotel’s location.
• You may want to be near your company’s headquarters or branch office—especially if it’s downtown in Wall Street. (It will cost $12 to $15 by taxi from a midtown hotel, plus time in traffic.)
• For sheer efficiency on a short visit, you may also want a hotel that has a first-class restaurant. (There are a fair number of those.)
• If your spouse or significant other is along, very common on New York business visits, you may want to hole up in a hotel close to the great shops along Fifth Avenue or Madison Avenue—from Barney’s at 60th Street to Ralph Lauren at 72nd Street.
For price breaks—beyond the “corporate rate”—surf the many hotel Web sites in addition to online travel agencies such as Expedia, Hotels.com, Orbitz, and Travelocity. But also research just what facilities a hotel really has, especially Wi-Fi and other state-of-the-art accessories for business work.
Reliable Hotels
Most full-service hotel chains have branches in New York where you can use your frequent-stay points.
Midtown and Uptown: For starters (not necessarily with a chain connection), try the business-traveler-oriented Crowne Plaza or Sheraton Manhattan on Times Square; the hip Paramount in the theater district, Le Parker Meridien near Carnegie Hall that’s popular with TV and Hollywood types; the showcase Trump International Hotel & Tower facing Central Park and near Lincoln Center; the new opulent Mandarin Oriental 35 floors up at the Time Warner Center with park views; Courtyard by Marriott on West 40th and on Third Avenue midtown; the all-suite Benjamin near Grand Central with a concierge who specializes in sleep therapy in case stress keeps you awake; the popular Grand Hyatt attached to Grand Central Station; the Millennium UN Plaza on the east side near the United Nations with a diplomat-and-spy bar scene; the snooty Loews Regency on Park Avenue where the “power breakfast” was born; and the Mark in the Upper East Side’s social whirl.
Downtown below 42nd Street: the Tribeca Grand (named after the upscale Tribeca district) with a large screening room for the film crowd; the Mercer in Soho often compared to Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont and equipped with star-chef Jean-George Vongerichten’s celeb Mercer Kitchen; and the Ritz-Carlton Battery Park near Wall Street with telescopes in guestrooms for viewing the Statue of Liberty and harbor traffic.
Hotel Hits
The hotel business is really—in many ways—the real estate business, and no more so than in New York where hotel operators are converting hotels like the landmark Plaza (closed until 2007) into mostly corporate or “residential”condos. And your employer may own one or two. Maybe you can overnight there instead of at a hotel. Ask him/her.
All of that gamesmanship aside, New York has some hotel hits worth staying at—or at least visiting for a cocktail with a business contact. Most have excellent restaurants.
• The Four Seasons on 57th Street is monumental in size, marble in execution, and magnificently equipped with one of the city’s finest martini bars. It is definitely anti-cozy, except in its all-important and spacious guestrooms. A lot of people think the hotel is the best nationwide—and super-star architect I. M. Pei would surely agree.
Restaurant: Fifty Seven (stylish younger guests with more concern for fashion than food), but upstaged in mid-August by the arrival of Michelin three-star chef Joel Robuchon to open his signature L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon, where you dine at a counter—casual but costly.
• If you’ve been in one of Europe’s palace hotels, with elaborate Greco-Roman touches and baroque details, you’ll see an American version at the St. Regis on 55th Street—a rather boutique hotel in its own way.
Restaurant: King Cole Bar (swanky with a Maxfield Parrish painting as superb as the drinks and the all-American food).
• The buzz emanating from the Gansevoort since it alighted from outer space at 13th Street and 9th Avenue in the trendy Meat-Packing District (see more below) has been deafening. The media noise is applause for this streamlined confection, complete with a pool up top that practically qualifies the hotel as an in-town resort. The deluxe rooms have bay-window seating nooks and step-out balconies along with feather beds, umpty-thread-count Egyptian cotton linens (your life depends on the count), and a Best Buy cluster of gadgetry. Already a getaway for movie stars and celeb musicians.
Restaurant: Ono (an exotic Japanese mirage with steaks and sushi plus style for dessert)
• Princess Diana made the Carlyle her New York hideaway, like so many Brits before her, and its lobby and guestrooms are a fabulous display of flowers and antique pieces, accented by the society-beloved Bemelmans Bar. Celebs like the Kennedys long ago bought apartments in the hotel’s upper reaches with superb views of Central Park.
Restaurant: Restaurant Carlyle (comfortable, creative French cuisine in a room that’s as swanky as Claridge’s).
• Hotelier innovator Ian Schrager’s Hudson Hotel features a daredevil design, highlighted by star designer Philippe Starck’s vision of a new “urban adventure” that might be called the 21st century lifestyle. The hotel on 58th Street, near Lincoln Center, includes a library, billiard table, disco and smallish guestrooms with every detail (some electronic) calculated for its shape and color.
Restaurant: Hudson Cafeteria (“the Harry Potter look—like an old castle—with Harvard Square food,” as the maitre d’ puts it).
• If you pine for opulent spa treatments in a three-story tour de force with sky views of New York’s intriguing and imaginative rooftops along Fifth Avenue (and a spa bar suitable for Cannes), the answer is the Peninsula on Fifth Avenue at 55th Street. It pulls you into an escapist dream—forget business—in the midst of the classically bustling New York.
Restaurant: the Fives (“American and French dishes—call it Mid-Atlantic,” an assistant manager explained) and Pen-Top Bar & Terrace.
Hotel Chat Room
After the hotel room drought a few years ago, New York has every Donald Trump in town racing to open hotels—mostly the small, creative kind where lobbies become social-interactive practice rooms. Playing to the party spirit. Or are they just pickup joints—also meaning places where business travelers may begin chatting with a nobody and discover he’s a somebody worth doing a deal with?…Starwood didn’t quite know what it was starting when it loaded NYC with nearly a half dozen “W” hotels…Surprises are features of the new boutique hotel cult—there’s a hotel called the Library with rooms designated by the Dewey Decimal system and named after scholarly topics like Germanic Religion, Poetry and Psychology…Don’t you yearn for a hotel with a familiar look—atrium, elevator banks and all—like the massive Marriott Marquis in Times Square, originally described by nasty critics as a Cape Canaveral launch pad for space shoots but praised by Marriott managers for its incredible profitability—and convenience to the Jacob Javits Convention Center…Up top is a revolving restaurant—not many of those around nationwide—that keeps conventioneers happy with the views of Times Square and other Big Apple allures. Guess what? It’s called The View…The art deco, regal Waldorf-Astoria, an ancient, is awesome compared to the new hotel waffles that come off the design grill…About the only NYC hotel that occupies the highest floors of a skyscraper—very common in Chicago and San Francisco—is the relatively new Mandarin Oriental.
Business Entertaining
As Tim Zagat, founder and CEO of Zagat Surveys, says (see separate Q & A profile in Frequent Flyer), New York is the world’s restaurant capital—with more diversity and depth than any other city’s restaurant collection.
Some of his choices for business entertaining, found in the Zagat Survey’s 2006—New York City Restaurants ($13.95): Le Bernardin (in Rockefeller Center, “the high art of seafood subtlety” beautifully served and rated No. 1 in the Zagat Survey), Gotham Bar & Grill (Alfred Portale’s New American cuisine in Greenwich Village on 12th Street), Union Square Café (the 20-year veteran polished by restaurant impresario Danny Meyer), Milos (Greek seafood delivered from “heavenly Mount Olympus,” near Carnegie Hall), and Bayard’s (French-American cuisine in India House, circa 185, near Wall Street).
Not to be overlooked: the third incarnation of legendary restaurateur Sirio Maccioni’s Le Cirque, formerly at the Palace Hotel opposite St. Patrick’s Cathedral, now more solemnly located on 58th Street at Lexington Avenue on the first floor of the new Bloomberg corporate headquarters, which the mayor uses to house his businesses.
Clubland
The New York district that makes headlines in the tabloids is not far south of Times Square—it’s Chelsea, once a staid collection of townhouses on quiet streets, now the hub of New York’s gay community and GenX after-dark fun seekers with nightclubs sprouting in the industrial buildings and garages between 14th Street and 30th Street near the Hudson River. In daylight hours, the late risers who run Chelsea’s many trendy art galleries awaken in time to show off and sell their paintings, sculptures and “installations”—and not at bargain prices.
Celebrityvilles
Drop down a few more blocks to the enclave just south of 14th Street, and you’re in the Meatpacking District, named after what’s hardly there any more—meat—and now replaced with theatrical bistros, clubs and shops. The top restaurant show is star chef Jean Georges Vongerichten’s theatrical Spice Market, at Ninth Avenue and 13th Street, with Thai-Malay street food in a spectacular duplex setting.
Soho? The once cutting-edge boutique area of brick-and-iron buildings south of Houston Street? Still there. Still entrancing. Its Mercer Hotel feeds and beds celebs like Russell Crowe (who paid a heavy price for hurling a phone at a desk clerk). But in the 1990s Chelsea turned into a new and exciting art gallery beehive, leaving Soho’s commercial buildings to be taken over by “young” ad and public-relations agencies and Internet/software startups.
Post-9/11 Renaissance
So it goes in the evolving city as New York stops five years of political and architectural wrangling and starts building (as of last April 27) the Freedom Tower to replace the destroyed Twin Towers that made a 16-acre hole in the ground. Fittingly, it will be New York’s—and possibly the world’s—tallest spire.
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