In a building designed to blend in with the 19th Century warehouses that surround it, you’ll find 86 rooms and suites spread over 11 floors. Each has floor-to-ceiling windows and is studded with Indian antiques. Discreet chintzy touches are speckled among the otherwise urbane furnishings.
The first-floor Meadow Suite has its own roof terrace planted with native American grasses – appealing to celebrities with eco-concerns such as Richard Gere. The top-floor suites offer the same level of glamour but more privacy and better views.
The first US hotel from the British Firmdale group, it offers guests their own drawing room with an honesty bar where they can help themselves to drinks. There’s also a private cinema, a surprisingly rare asset for a New York hotel. It helps bring in a good supply of celebrities – Lindsay Lohan and Emma Stone have been here for screenings in recent months.
On the roof is a herb garden and four chickens named after boroughs of New York City – Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx and Manhattan – housed in their very own mock-Tudor hen house.
Particularly nice is the shaded courtyard at the centre, typical of a hotel that’s more about serenity than being part of a scene. In good weather it acts as an offshoot of the hotel’s restaurant.
Location report: The Crosby Street Hotel is in Nolita which, in acronym-loving New York, stands for North of Little Italy. It is in the heart of downtown Manhattan and is surrounded by the loft apartments of the rich and famous – Samuel L. Jackson has an apartment across the road. It’s a stone’s throw from Balthazar, the French-style brasserie that has served as SoHo’s celebrity refuge centre for more than a decade. A few steps away is Elizabeth Street, home to some of Manhattan’s most desirable boutiques.
Key attraction: Lots of New York hotels decide to include abit of art in the lobby, but at Crosby Street it’s a set of papier-mache dogs decked out in the Beano, underlining that, at heart, this is a posh, slightly bohemian part of England in downtown New York.
It’s hugely popular with British actors – including Jude Law, Daniel Craig and his wife Rachel Weisz. Alexa Chung and Carey Mulligan have also booked in for a taste of home. In the news: Demi Moore holed up here late last year after the collapse of her marriage to Ashton Kutcher.
In April, one of the hotel’s chickens, Brooklyn, escaped from the hotel, only to land on the roof terrace belonging to Kelly Ripa, a TV talk-show host who lives next to the hotel. It was rescued and returned to its coop, but not before making headline news in celebrity and roof-terrace-obsessed New York.
