The simple, unfussy style of New York’s newest boutique hotel, The Time, is designed to provide a sleek contrast to the bright lights, noise and clutter of Manhattan’s theatre district. This it achieves.
So low-key is the plate glass exterior that my taxi driver managed to drive straight past it and it took several minutes to work out where the door was.
After wandering by mistake into the hotel’s ground-floor brasserie Ieventually found the glass elevator to carry me up to the first-floor lobby.
The hotel’s director of sales and marketing, Deborah Lewis, explained to me that Times Square gives the hotel its name and its primary design motif – the square which is found throughout the hotel. The fact that Times Square is not a square, just a busy traffic intersection, is neither here nor there, Iassumeit’s the concept which counts.
The man behind the hotel’s contemporary design is Adam Tihany who was also responsible for the King David Hotel in Jerusalem and several restaurants in New York. All guest rooms are decorated in one of three primary colours and, depending on the colour scheme of the room, there are amenities to match.
For example, guests staying in a yellow-themed room can expect bananas, pineapples and yellow jellybabies to grace their bedside table alongside the Bose wave radio.
The hotel is even working with a Boston-based perfumier to invent a red, blue and yellow scent to be placed in guest rooms which will capture the essence of each colour.
On a more practical level, rooms will also offer fax machines, web TV (it is only the second hotel in New York to offer this facility), dual-line telephones with data ports and 18hr room service and concierge.
Unfortunately, The Time is running a little late. It had its soft opening on April 12 and is currently offering preview rates to guests who don’t mind sharing the lift with the occasional workman in overalls.