We have just stayed 6 nights at ON THE AVE HOTEL in a penthouse suite (1509). We last stayed at ON THE AVE two years ago (Oct 2010) in a panoramic deluxe room (1407) and loved our stay. I placed a positive review on Tripadvisor at the time. We were a group of six this time so we took three rooms but I will only review my experience based on the one room (penthouse suite).

At the time of booking the recent stay I was concerned about two issues. The first was the new construction next to the hotel and the second was the slipping standards of the hotel, both of these have been written about on Tripadvisor.

Starting with the first issue of the adjacent construction, I wrote to the hotel shortly after booking expressing my concern that I didn't want our stay affected by noise and dust. Angie, the Front Office Manager responded immediately in a positive way by confirming that we will be accommodated as far from the construction as possible, which i can happily say we were so I thank her very much for this.

On the second issue of slipping standards, we noticed this time that housekeeping was NOT up to the standards we would have liked. Our carpets were really badly stained (which puts me off a hotel room immediately as its so in your face). A water bottle from a previous guest was under our bed for our entire stay of 6 nights and there was a tube of the body wash (from the bathroom amenities) under the chest of drawers also for the duration of our stay. Also our shower blocked (rectified after reporting it), the shower leaked onto the bathroom floor and there was not a spare roll of toilet paper and no bath floor mats one day (both rectified after we called guest services) but these things shouldn't happen with a good well supervised housekeeping department.

The suite had no outdoor terrace furniture which disappointed us to a degree and the suite was very compact not really earning the title of a PENTHOUSE SUITE in my personal opinion but in keeping with the rate charged so this was not a big deal to us.

On checking out I was disappointed in the way the process was handled for the following reasons:

1/ We were not presented with our bill for checking. We were told what the total was and that was it. In all other hotels I have stayed at I have been given the bill for final review.
2/ The lady checking us out was confused about what we had already paid on check-in and what card (out of the two we used) had been charged already. She eventually sorted it out.
3/ To me this is the biggest mistake of all. The check-out staff member didn't ask us if we enjoyed our stay. I would have thought this was one of the most important and fundamental questions. Maybe it's not done in New York but I can't think of a hotel anywhere in the world where this question doesn't get asked. Does this mean that they don't really care?

Taking everything into consideration we still enjoyed our stay realizing that the rates are good for NYC for what we got. I really hope that the hotel will consider re-furbishing the rooms and lobby sometime so that we can stay there again.

The location is really great, and so are many of the nearby restaurants. Serafina's Restaurant in the hotel on the ground floor offers good food (we ate there twice).

We had a very large room with 2 double beds, very comfortable. We apreciated the place of this hotel, as it is very close from central parc and quiet. (the carpet could be renovated). We would also recommend the restaurant Serafini which is very good.

From the outrageous rates,to the rooms that are the size of a coffin,and the staff that is very unaccommodating,this hotel was a nightmare.The one thing that was good about this hotel,was everything in the room was within arms reach.Beware,hotels in downtown NYC are price gouging due to super storm Sandy.Prices are triple,if not more for a room.Disgusting

This hotel came highly recommended. The location couldn't be better - close to Central Park, Lincoln Center, American Museum and tons of great restaurants. Our room (two double beds) was a bit bigger than average for New York. but.............it faced a construction site where the work began at 6:30 AM! When I mentioned this to the desk person, he just shrugged. Oh well. Bed was very comfortable and the room was clean but for the carpet, which was full of stains and pretty uninviting. I stay in New York a lot and this just wasn't a $400 a night experience. (The base room rate of under $300 very quickly escalates to $400 with tax, wi-fi fee and a charge for an extra bed.)