Just back from a 5 night stay at On The Ave. The hotel is situated on the corner of West 77th st at Broadway a couple of blocks West of Central Park and the Museum of Natural History. Its in the Upper West side district which is a nice leafy residential neighbourhood and two blocks from the metro located on 79th. The red line runs straight down to Battery Park and Times Sq is only about 5 stops away. Theres a decent mini market accross the road selling everything and numerous smaller restaurants/ diners and starbucks etc.
I stayed in a standard room no 626 which overlooked Broadway. Rooms in New York are usually on the small side but the standard rooms here are very small making it difficult to move about when theres cases in the room or an ironing board set up.
The room was well equiped and nicely decorated in a contemporary style. Very large comfy bed, mini bar, flat screen wall mounted tv, cd/radio alarm. On the down side there was no room safe, heating/AC unit was incredibly noisy when switched on and could not be left on during the night due to the noise. The window was double glazed but for some reason let in a lot of cold air when closed and a lot of noise from the street. There is a fire station located opposite the front door of the hotel and quite often during the night would be woken by the noise of the sirens when they were going to calls.
Bathroom was a decent size and was well equiped with toiletries replaced every day and a good shower, no bath. Rooms were cleaned to a very high standard and very little noise from the corridors or from neighbouring rooms.
The hotel lacks some basic facilities, there is no bar or restaurant here but does have a decent but small gym located on the second floor with a couple of treadmills, couple of cross trainers, bike, and small weights area. There is a guest balcony on the 16th floor that guests can use at any time with some nice views of the New York skyline and Hudson river. I felt this space was a bit wasted as it would have been nice to have a small bar up here. This may be the case in summer, i dont know, as i dont suppose many folk sit out in minus temps at night lol
There are three computers located in the lobby with free internet access and free starbucks coffee every morning. Staff are very friendly too and were always happy to assist.
When choosing this hotel you have to decide what you want from your stay. If you want to be in the heart of all the action this is not the hotel for you. As I said earlier Times Sq is only about 5 stops away but if your travelling further south to say Empire State building or Statue of liberty youll probably have a 25 minute trip on the underground.
I did like the hotel and thought the rooms were nice but the noise at night from the street was a major issue and needs to be considered when choosing this hotel. I got a good room rate for my stay approx 100 GBP per night but would probably not stay here again.
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