Tall, vertical, on a narrow slice of 43rd Street in the heart of Times Square, a new Hyatt Hotel opened softly earlier this month. This Sunday, December 22, it will rollout T-45 Diner next to the ground floor lobby.
In late January, the Hyatt Times Square New York will open its rooftop bar and lounge, just in time for the Super Bowl, which will be hosted across the Hudson River at MetLife Stadium. I took a tour of the 54-story sky-bar, which is under the final phase of construction. It opens to an outdoor, rooftop deck—the highest outdoor deck in the city for entertainment—with full southern panoramic view. It’s stunning, especially at night.
To the east, a few blocks away, the steeple of the Chrysler Building reaches for the sky. Downtown to the south, sandwich between the LEED-Platinum Bank of America Tower and Condé Nast Building in the foreground, a clear view of the new World Trade Center. To the west, the bustle of Times Square can be seen, if not heard, with an aerial view of where the New Year Ball will drop on the December 31 countdown to 2014.
Besides the real estate mantra of location, location, location, which the Hyatt Times Square nails, when a guest enters the hotel from the lights, crowds, and noise of the world’s street neighborhood, the lobby serves as a transition into a more serene, soothing environment.
Designed with Amenities in Mind
George Wong Design is the architect who designed the Hyatt’s interiors with SPAN Architecture contributing to the lobby and the rooftop bar and lounge.
What’s great about the lobby—and I have been involved in a few high-end, luxury buildings as a construction manager over the years—the architect used metal with a deep brown patina in a lattice-work of what, at first glance, appears to be wooden slats one would find on an classic yacht. The use of metal, which has high recycled content, are just some of the nice green touches the designer has imbued into the hotel.
The hallways are carpeted and wallpapered with mauve, earth-tone colors with pastel accents, again achieving the goal of relaxation. The rooms and suites reflect the ambiance of the halls and lobby, they also optimize space with nothing larger than queen-size beds, elegant Spartan furniture, and functional charging stations for the new mobile device world we live in.
What’s also great about the Hyatt Times Square, it has no more than eleven rooms per floor, for a total of 487 non-smoking guestrooms, including 49 suites. On the second floor is 8,000 SF of flexible meeting and event space with a 1,012 SF outdoor Terrence on the conference level, while above it is a full-scale spa and fitness center, opened 24/7, with free weights and state-of-the-art cardio machines.
For architect George Wong, it appears hotel interiors, particularly the Hyatt, is a passion of his, having designed the interiors of more than a dozen hotels, including nine Hyatts around the world, from China and India, to United States and Mexico, the Millennium Hotel Bar in Hangzhou, and 40/40 Club for the Palazzo Hotel at the Venetian in Las Vegas, to name a few.
For travelers from those parts of the world and others, the Hyatt Times Square should become a destination of choice to be ground in a vertical city.
