Agree the staff were all wonderful (with the exception below). The bellman went above and beyond when we checked out by helping us across the street with our bags and waited with us for our Uber driver. Thank goodness he did because he ended up having to call the driver because the driver went to the wrong location. Needless to say, I tipped him properly for his excellent service.
I have no complaints about the inside of the hotel, the historical nature of the building is beautiful inside. Even a room on the street side was quiet enough for us at night. The unhoused people around the hotel do not bother me either, but I included that piece of information for anyone who does consider it a safety issue. My complaint is the amount of noise/traffic which hits you the minute you step out the front door. That made it feel very stressful for me personally. While I fully understand it is a big city which comes with noise (I have lived in Manhattan), there are much quieter streets/areas within walking distance of this specific location.
And I think I may have figured out the bottled water issue. It appears the hotel may have discontinued bottled water service and replaced it with water coolers and reusable containers (I think this occurred right before/during our visit). The day we arrived there were dozens of bottles of water sitting on a table in the common area as you got off the elevator on our floor. They were never there again during our stay. There was a stainless steel water bottle in our room and the employees directed us to a water cooler by the elevators.
We checked out yesterday and I do want to add a story about our last night. We were winding down and getting ready for bed around 11:00 pm when there was a loud commotion at our door. At first we didn't realize it was at our door because our room had an inner and outer door (unique layout as PP mentioned above). It soon became clear that it was our door and that someone was trying to get in our room. We could hear the card scan unsuccessfully (because we had pressed the electric privacy lock), and someone was trying to turn the door handle forcefully and started banging on the door. The peephole wasn't an actual peephole (I found out later) so I couldn't see who was out there. I yelled something like "who is it/who are you looking for" and a woman answered incoherently. She then started yelling "Carrie, I know you are in there because I can hear you" in English with a N American accent. I assumed she was drunk and lost. So I responded "you have the wrong room, I am not Carrie. This is not your room." She started yelling incoherently again and trying the door again, so I called the front desk.
This is where it got really weird. I was basically frantic at this point and said "someone is trying to get in my room and they are banging on the door!" The guy said "yes, we are sending someone up since you still can't get in your room." I replied "No no, that is wrong we have been in our room and no one else should be allowed in our room. We don't need help getting in the room. We do not know who is trying to get into our room." He didn't seem to understand what I was saying, so I repeated that a stranger was banging on my door trying to get in. He finally said "we will send security up to check." Based on the exact exchange at that time, my nephew and I both thought it sounded like they had actually given a key to our room to someone. At this point I told my 19 yo nephew (who works out and it is very fit) to come to the door with me so I could open it. The woman was still yelling at "Carrie to open the door." I kept yelling "there is no Carrie here, you're at the wrong room." I finally opened the door slightly while yelling "you have the wrong room." When she saw me, she had a very surprised look on her face. Not sure if that was because she realized I wasn't Carrie or if she was just surprised by the fact that the door finally opened. Because her overall face and demeanor indicated she wasn't fully coherent.
In the brief glance I got of her while I opened/shut the door, it appeared she was drunk, high, and/or mentally unstable. After that she didn't yell or try to open the door again. Security never checked on us, so I have no idea why that woman was at our door. I mentioned it at the front desk the next morning and the woman said "my colleague said something about someone trying to get in a room last night, that sounded so weird." I am a well traveled former flight attendant and I have never had any type of scary experience like that before. I am definitely not saying it had anything to do with this specific hotel, but the way they handled it was not great (neither was the way I handled it). My nephew and I are still not convinced that they didn't give this woman a key to our room; we had the electronic privacy option on which would have prevented the use of any key/pass, so we will never know. In hindsight, I should have immediately called back down to the front desk to confirm what had transpired. We were just so shocked and glad that she was gone that I didn't even think to call back down. (A couple of other things in hindsight: I will always check the peephole when I check into a room to be sure it works, and I will never open the door again like I did. I will wait for security.)
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