“FiDi” has found new life. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Lower Manhattan was a war zone; many worried that the Financial District would spiral into a long decline. But its vintage office buildings are filling with creative companies and thousands of residents, mostly young and affluent, have moved in.
And visitors are coming, too, largely to see the National September 11 Memorial and Museum. Nearby, Q&A Hotel has settled in on four levels of a 67-storey, art-deco skyscraper on Pine Street. Built in 1932 as the Cities Service Building, the tower was designed to compete in height with the now-famous Chrysler Building – and the lobby on Pine Street, a riot of candy-coloured marble and jaunty aluminum ornaments, will take you back to that era. (On a grimmer note, the lobby decor still bears the name of the building’s former owners AIG, major players in the 2008 financial meltdown.)
This is the first hotel from local apartment operators Furnished Quarters and the place offers a proposition that will suit long-stay visitors – huge rooms with full kitchens – but amenities are sketchy. The hotel has its own lobby at one end of the building. Here you can sit on a (fake) Arne Jacobsen chair while friendly staff do a low-key check-in. Then it’s a few steps to the elevator and up to the 123 suites on floors three to six.
LOCATION, LOCATION
The Financial District is where New York City began; the tip of the island of Manhattan is still threaded with narrow streets laid out in the 17th century, when this was New Amsterdam and Wall Street was Waal Straat. For visitors today, the main draw is the World Trade Center complex. It is about 800 metres from the hotel; the walk takes you through two centuries of America’s grandest corporate architecture, past the Federal Reserve with its subterranean stash of gold and the historic Trinity Church. Also within walking distance are Battery Park, with its cluster of museums; ferries to the Statue of Liberty and the new Governors Island park; and stops on almost every subway line.
DESIGN
First things first: the rooms are preposterously large. My two-bedroom suite was nearly 1,400 square feet – but even the smallest suite is 500 square feet, double the size of other hotel rooms in the area. The interior design, by Benjamin Noriega-Ortiz, is generically boutique-hotel-ish and its black-grey-and-white palette helps provide some respite from the city outside. Each room includes an illustration from a patent to help stir your creativity; my room’s was a submarine from 1902.
On the other hand, the details are not well resolved; couches are uncomfortable, dining chairs and tables don’t fit together comfortably, the TV has two remotes with a combined 82 buttons.
BEST AMENITY
The La Palestra-branded fitness centre in the basement is cavernous and stocked with a huge array of equipment.
IF I COULD CHANGE ONE THING
Light and noise pollution are real problems. Manhattan hotel rooms generally have heavy blinds and curtains to avoid that problem; here, the skimpy plastic Venetian blinds are useless. It’s a strange oversight in a newly opened property.
WHO YOU’LL MEET
European tourists seeking room to stretch out; business travellers settling in for long stints.
EAT IN OR EAT OUT
There’s no restaurant yet and no minibar service; the fully equipped kitchens make it easy to prepare breakfast or even (should you feel like it) an actual meal, groceries can be delivered to your room. Every morning, coffee and pastries are available, but a restaurant in the tip of the building – to be run by the Spotted Pig team of Ken Friedman and chef April Bloomfield – isn’t scheduled to open until 2017.
Q&A Hotel; 70 Pine St., New York; 123 suites from $279 (U.S.) a night; qandahotel.com.
The writer was a guest of the hotel.