The Peninsula New York

Fifth Avenue at 55th Street, 1905. The Gotham Hotel opened that year as a 23-storey limestone tower in the Beaux-Arts manner, designed by the firm of Hiss and Weekes and planted directly across the avenue from the University Club and beside the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. The church caused the Gotham its first and most famous problem: New York law then forbade selling liquor within 200 feet of a place of worship, and the hotel went years without a licence. It passed through several owners and names before Pierre Cardin's group reopened it in 1987 as Maxim's de Paris. The Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels company bought it the following year and reopened it in 1988 as The Peninsula New York.

History

The Gotham was built in the same few seasons as the St. Regis, one block north, and the two towers were meant to answer each other across Fifth Avenue. The Peninsula closed the hotel in 1998 for a full rebuild of the interiors and reopened it later that year, and a second programme of room and suite renovations followed in the 2010s. The Hong Kong group has owned it outright since 1988, which is unusual in a city where most grand hotels have changed hands several times since.

Architecture and design

The exterior is the 1905 building: rusticated limestone at street level, a long shaft of pale brick and stone, and a deep cornice. The entrance on Fifth Avenue leads to a double staircase of marble under a tall ceiling, and the Gotham Lounge opens off the landing. The upper floors were rebuilt for the Peninsula with the group's standard bedside technology, but the proportions of the rooms still follow the 1905 window grid, so corner rooms have windows on two streets.

Rooms and suites

The hotel has around 235 rooms and suites, which is small for Fifth Avenue. Rooms are arranged with a working desk, a dressing area and marble bathrooms, and most suites face the avenue. The Peninsula Suite sits on an upper floor with views along Fifth Avenue towards Central Park. Many rooms on the east side look over 55th Street towards the St. Regis.

Dining

The Gotham Lounge, off the main staircase, serves afternoon tea and drinks through the day. The restaurant on the ground floor has changed name more than once since the 2010s, so check the current offer before booking a dinner. The hotel's best-known space is on the roof: Salon de Ning, a bar spread across the 23rd floor with two terraces, one facing Fifth Avenue and the other the midtown towers, which opens in the warm months.

Wellness

The Peninsula Spa occupies the top floors beneath the terraces. Its central feature is a glass-enclosed swimming pool with views over Fifth Avenue, one of very few hotel pools in Manhattan that sits at the top of the building rather than in its basement. A fitness centre and a sun terrace share the floor.

Weddings and events

Function rooms on the lower floors take meetings, dinners and wedding receptions of a modest size; this is not a hotel with a grand ballroom of the St. Regis kind, and large weddings are better placed elsewhere. The rooftop terraces are used for private receptions in summer. Small board meetings and product launches are the hotel's usual event business.

Location

Few addresses in Manhattan are as easy to explain. The hotel is on the west side of Fifth Avenue between 55th and 56th Streets, with Bergdorf Goodman and Tiffany two blocks north, MoMA one block west on 53rd Street and Central Park a five-minute walk up the avenue. The Fifth Avenue and 53rd Street subway station on the E and M lines is at the corner. Grand Central Terminal is a ten-minute walk south and east. For a luxury hotel in New York it has the particular advantage of a 1905 shell with 1998 plumbing, and a location that needs no taxi.