customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

moreOnThisArticles

urlAlias

commentCount

sponsorType

authorLocations

authors

paywallTypes

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

socialHeadline

headline

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

publishedDate

additionalInfoBoxes

images

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

createdDate

sponsor

factSheets

series

knowledgeQuestion

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

copyrighted

customTimezone

liveContents

Tribune News Service

No matter what is trending in fashion, the uniform in New York has remained constant – any cut, any style, but make it black. The same has long been true of hotels in the city’s Manhattan area, with slick onyx, creamy white and neutral linens serving as reliable antidotes to the city’s sensory overload.
Not any more.
“If you think about what the consumer wants today, they don’t want beige,” says Elizabeth Mullins, managing director of The Fifth Avenue Hotel and chief operating officer of its parent company, Flâneur Hospitality.
“They want a hotel with soul.”
Mullins says this has been true ever since the Covid-19 pandemic left people wanting to reawaken their senses and “feel something” along their travels. Most commonly, they want to feel a sense of place. “But it’s hard to evoke much of anything when you’re beige,” she says.
With New York hotels suddenly awash in saturated hues, there is no more room for a sleepy hotel stay. Here is a look at the brightest, splashiest openings in the city.

1. The Fifth Avenue Hotel
This former Gilded Age mansion is a shockingly rare example of low-rise opulence, but this is less the preserved home of a turn-of-the-century tycoon and more of a fun-filled portal into Manhattan’s modern wonderland.
Do not judge this hotel by its traditionally styled lobby, with its elegantly draped double-height windows and crystal chandeliers – instead, form your opinion from the contents of two vintage hutches against the back wall: the cheeky curiosities include a single goldfish cracker in a “plastic baggie” made from crystal.
That sense of humour is a connecting theme for this hotel, fashioned with all sorts of winks and nods by the ever-whimsical designer Martin Brudnizki. In one hallway is a gallery wall of framed eyes – some painted, some drawn, some googly.
Its 153 rooms feature martini carts piled high with spirits and lemon biscuits, all from chef Andrew Carmellini, who runs the Café Carmellini restaurant downstairs.
Mercury glass panels behind the headboards create an optical illusion: they reflect the twinkle of star-shaped ceiling lights, making each room feel twice its actual size.
Rooms from US$709.

2. Warren Street Hotel
Designer Kit Kemp is the OG preacher of “anything but beige”, and her third New York City property for Firmdale Hotels is every bit as saturated and pattern-happy as its predecessors, the Whitby and Crosby Street.
The lobby can cure jet lag with its bursts of yellow, green and blue. Yet the double-paned, floor-to-ceiling windows in the rooms make for pin-drop-quiet sleep when you need it.
For fans of the UK-based brand, the overall look will be familiar: oversized headboards and upholstered dress forms in mix-and-match patterns are Kemp’s signatures.
The same is growing true about other design tropes she has adapted here, such as long displays of white porcelain pots adorned with mushrooms and fairies in glowing, red-painted nooks, or the colour-block leather stools at the bar.
Rooms from US$745.

3. Fouquet’s New York
Another Brudnizki special is this French-inflected 97-room gem that has already earned two Michelin Keys – awarded to hotels for outstanding stays – and whose pink-and-green colour palette was inspired by a box of macarons.
By one central staircase you will find a giant sculpture of a gorilla wearing a Team USA-inspired hat and holding the Eiffel Tower in its clenched fist. Custom toile wallpaper in the rooms feature New York street scenes interspersed with cheeky drawings of pigeons snatching croissants.
Thoughtful details abound, including green marble luggage benches built into little foyers.
Rooms from US$900.

4. Virgin Hotel NoMad
The most eye-catching space at the Virgin Hotel is hidden away on the third floor, around the corner from a coffee bar. Do a little exploring, though, and you will wonder how Everdene restaurant has stayed a New York secret. The food is solid, but the space itself feels like a rarefied haven.
On one side, rainbowlike bookshelves arch from floor to ceiling, filled with tomes in bright colours; on the other are swooping blue banquettes that face walls of windows and two massive outdoor terraces. One floor up is a rooftop pool decked out with black-and-white striped loungers, all with killer views of the Empire State Building.
That is a lot of amenities for a hotel with shockingly well-priced rooms – even the entry-level ones have separated, suite-like foyers, a brand standard designed to give solo female travellers extra privacy.
The Halo Salt Journey, which is a quick, 30-minute whirl in the Exhale spa’s Himalayan salt chamber, is worth a mention. Staff set you up with thigh-high Theragun compression boots and an LED face mask that stimulates collagen production while you recline in a zero-gravity chair; it is a wellness boost that makes you feel like you have gone straight to outer space.
Rooms from US$305.

5. W Union Square
Nothing stays cool for 20 years, not even the original downtown New York location of the world’s first hip hotel brand. But as W’s devotees have grown older and more sophisticated, so, too, have its properties.
Nowhere will that be more visible than at this fully redesigned global flagship, slated to wrap its four-year-long renovation in November after numerous lengthy delays.
Part of that is simply shifting the colours to richer and more saturated tones, such as the forest green carpeting and orange leather headboards that stretch all the way to the ceiling in many of the hotel’s 256 rooms.
Downstairs, a sizeable gym with a Peloton “studio space” is done in green-and-yellow checkerboard tile; on the second floor, a Beaux Arts “Living Room” replete with ornamental plaster work gets a dose of fun from a mod, ochre-toned fireplace shaped like a giant rainbow.
It is refined and smart but with a cheeky edge – a little like New York itself.
Rooms from US$550.


The best new hotels in Manhattan, New York, are colourful and make people ‘feel something’

Death of mainland cyclist in Hong Kong sparks calls for road safety publicity boost

What’s on in Hong Kong on National Day? Fireworks, panda-themed deals and free transport

2 Thais, 2 Indonesians caught with drugs in Bali face death penalty

Tourism

The Mansion Suite’s living room in The Fifth Avenue Hotel. Photo: Instagram/@thefifthavenuehotel

The exterior of The Fifth Avenue Hotel, one of five new hotel openings in New York that are packed with “soul” for a fun stay. Photo: Instagram/@thefifthavenuehotel

A deluxe junior suite at Warren Street Hotel. Photo: Warren Street Hotel 

Fouquet’s New York is a 97-room gem that has already earned two Michelin Keys. Photo: Instagram/@fouquets.newyork

Virgin Hotel NoMad Everdene’s restaurant is worth a visit for the vibes alone. Photo: Virgin Hotels

W Union Square is slated to wrap its four-year-long renovation in November after numerous lengthy delays. Photo: W Union Square

New York to the Hudson Valley, cycling from urban jungle to a land of white picket fences

Cyclists and pedestrians take the Walkway Over the Hudson bike path, part of the Empire State Trail, in upstate New York. Photo: Shutterstock

People look out from the Edge observation deck at 30 Hudson Yards over Midtown and Lower Manhattan, and the Hudson River. Photo: Shutterstock

Suburbia in the Hudson Valley. Photo: Shutterstock

The entrance sign to Sleepy Hollow is one of the few in the town that does not display an illustration of a decapitated man on a horse. Photo: Shutterstock

Lyndhurst Manor in Tarrytown. Photo: Shutterstock

South Division Street in downtown Peekskill. Photo: Shutterstock

Virgin Galactic solicits space tourism interest in Asia, with flights priced at US$600,000

Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity takes flight in May 2018. Photo: AFP

The Virgin Galactic spacecraft VSS Unity (left) parks outside Spaceport America in New Mexico. The Richard Branson-founded venture is now discreetly soliciting interest in Asia for its space tourism flights, which will restart on new spaceships in 2026. Photo: Virgin Galactic

The VSS Unity (middle) is carried by a Virgin MotherShip (VMS) Eve on its way into space. Photo: Virgin Galactic

Richard Branson founded Virgin Galactic in 2004. Photo: AFP

Stay in Beatles’ suite, use band entrance in US hotel deal marking Fab Four’s stay in 1964

The Beatles wave to a crowd as they arrive in the United States for their 1964 North American tour. Photo: Getty Images

The Edgewater Hotel in Seattle, where the Beatles stayed during their 1964 North American tour. Sixty years later, the hotel is celebrating the Fab Four with a special package. Photo: The Edgewater Hotel/TNS

The Beatles fish out of the window of The Edgewater Hotel, in Seattle, in 1964. Photo: TNS

The Beatles suite at The Edgewater Hotel. Photo: The Edgewater Hotel/TNS

Rubber ducks riding high from Hong Kong to hotel rooms to cruise ships. Why so?

Artist Florentijn Hofman’s Double Duck installation in Hong Kong in 2023.   Photo: May Tse

Artist Florentijn Hofman’s Double Duck in Hong Kong in 2023. From luxury hotel rooms to cruise ships to Hofman’s art installation, rubber ducks have earned a place in our hearts. Photo: May Tse

Douglas the Duck at Mandarin Oriental Mayfair. 

A rubber duck art installation at Ngong Ping Village, Lantau Island, Hong Kong. Photo: Sam Tsang

German airline Lufthansa’s rubber duck in celebration of an international football tournament.

Lufthansa’s duck was introduced in the bathrooms at the Lufthansa First Class Terminal at Germany’s Frankfurt airport.

Amsterdam Duck Store sells many themed rubber ducks.

Lifestyle

Travel & Leisure

We take a look at some of the brightest, most colourful hotels recently opened in New York, each packed with ‘soul’ for a fun stay


We take a look at some of the brightest, most colourful hotels recently opened in New York, each packed with ‘soul’ for a fun stay.


Luxury Hotels

United States