What We Liked: The staff, and we’d like to especially acknowledge Franny from Housekeeping for her exceptional servicing of our room; Yvette who staffed phone requests because her voice and manner conveyed warmth, friendliness, and helpfulness; and also Tyrone, from the hotel’s Round Table Restaurant, who exuded friendliness, helpfulness, and sincerity with all guests. They exemplified excellence in the hospitality industry. The historical significance. It is the oldest hotel in NYC and has a literary pedigree with its association with Dorothy Parker and others. The Blue Bar (My husband was impressed with one of the personable bartenders, the blue light, and the absolutely wonderful caricatures on the walls.) The hotel’s $30 daily Resort Fee could be used in the restaurant and bar. Despite being small, the room was attractive and clean. What To Know: I am a Marriott Bonvoy Gold Elite Member, and at check-in I was disappointed that no upgrade was available. Only suites were available. Sigh. If the view from the window is important, you may not want to stay in #509. Outside the window, the only view was of massive equipment. The Round Table, the restaurant in the hotel, has wonderful service, the decor is lovely, and we loved the music from the American Songbook. The quality of the food varies from one to dish to another. We enjoyed the excellent Caesar Salad, the Calamari, perfectly prepared Negroni cocktail (my husband said it was better than the one he makes, and that is saying something), and the very fresh bread. We recommend skipping the cheesecake (pitiful) and the ribeye (mediocre).

This is a fantastic historic hotel with lovely rooms, a fantastic restaurant, the Blue Bar and a great lobby! Everyone from the Bell Men, Door Men, Bar & Wait staff and room attendants were wonderful & went out of their way to learn our names and anticipate our needs. I Wish I could say the same for the front desk staff, they were always pre-occupied, rude and surely. It is. Rey strange to me that the people actually “helping” people don’t seem to like or want to help guests. I would definitely stay here again, but I will let management know of this gross negligence. An example was we asked for a laundry bag and they said it was in our room, no it isn’t, yes it is, no, it isn’t. Well it should be, come down and get one. ( could they have sent it up?) When we went down they just pointed us to the Bell Man, anything we asked we felt like we were children being scolded. We are also Platinum members and asked for a late check out, they said no we weren’t, we had to stay 3 more nights (which we had). They can’t give us a late check out. Ordinarily we would have let it go but they were all so rude, like our loyalty meant nothing to them but a headache and we felt belittled. We called Bonvoy and they confirmed that we were indeed Platinum and congratulated us and apologized for the Algonquins behavior.

Beautiful hotel, incredible service and prime NYE location. There is a lot of charm in the historical architecture and design within the hotel. The doorman was extremely helpful and we were escorted to our room and they ensured we knew how to operate everything within the room.