Stay here! It's a shining example of a boutique Manhattan hotel. We (and all of our guests) stayed here when we got married, and all 100+ of them only had great things to say. We now stay here exclusively, in the half-dozen or so times that life has brought us back to New York in the past year or so. Their staff is always the definition of courteous and professional (shout-out to Eloy, and I'm sorry I can't remember anyone else's name at the moment), the rooms are well done, clean, and spacious for the price, and the location is absolutely perfect, no matter the reason for your visit.

I always check reviews on tripadvisor prior to booking anything for the first time, and most of the time, I find myself baffled with the negative reviews a place receives. While a lot of reviewers on Tripadvisor consider themselves "veterans" of the hospitality world, I think that many of them have unrealistic expectations, i.e. D A from Florida: if you want a private Manhattan balcony with its own couch, table and chairs, or a living room with dining table for 6, then your expectations are way out of whack for a $200/night room located in one of the most high-rent districts in the entire world. If those things are important to you, then book a presidential suite at the St. Regis. And be prepared to spend about 10 times as much. Anyone complaining about high prices or a lack of space is obviously a virgin to NYC hotels.

Just a few notes for the customer service reps who seem to do a good job monitoring the feedback on this site: I do wish that the wifi was free (and not $15 per night, yikes), since for many people who are unfortunately always tethered to their professions, it is as much of a necessity as electricity is. Also, the picture quality on the TV is terrible (though this is completely common in just about all hotels), but I don't watch a lot of TV anyway. Last, they could really use an upgrade to their elevators, since they can only be described as slow at best. These are really my only complaints, and they certainly don't keep On The Ave from being my first-choice hotel in this wonderful city. Always a pleasure :-)

My husband and I loved this hotel. The location, easy access to the train, amazing style, finishes and decor, and the most comfy bed sheets make this hotel our choice place to stay while in NYC. We felt so at home here. The cleanliness is impeccable. The bathroom finishes are beautiful. And the overall customer service from start to finish is efficient, innovative and state of the art. I honestly have nothing bad to say!

Our disappointment started when we couldn't find the hotel. The address is on Broadway so you would expect to find some sign of the hotel on Broadway. No such luck. They put in a restaurant which took up the entire front of the building, so the entrance was on 77th St.. I was born and raised in NYC so I should have no problems finding someplace, neither the driver or I could easily find this place. Check in went very well and then we went to our room which was supposed to be a "Panaramic Deluxe" with views of the city sights. We had a view of another hotel being built and all the noise associated with construction. We paid extra for a balcony and the balcony was the size of a cigarette carton with no furniture. We had a super small room with 1 chair, no desk, no table of any kind. They advertise bathrobes in the room, none. Then say they are supplied on request. They advertise a public balcony on the 14th floor-it was closed and did not have any furniture. The room was a total disappointment. I would not return or recommend this hotel.

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).