The Ritz-Carlton New York, Central Park

Rumpelmayer's, the café where generations of New York children were taken for hot chocolate and ice cream, once occupied the ground floor of 50 Central Park South. The building was the St. Moritz then, a hotel of 1930 by the architect Emery Roth, facing the southern edge of Central Park on the corner of Sixth Avenue. Since 2002 it has been The Ritz-Carlton New York, Central Park, and the view across the park is still the reason to stay.

History

The St. Moritz opened at the start of the Depression and spent most of the twentieth century among the best-known hotels on Central Park South, the stretch of 59th Street between Fifth Avenue and Columbus Circle. Its sidewalk café and Rumpelmayer's made it a fixture of the street, and its upper floors drew long-staying guests who wanted the park outside their windows. The hotel changed hands several times in the later decades of the century. At the end of the 1990s it closed for a full conversion, and The Ritz-Carlton opened in the remodelled building in 2002.

Architecture and design

Roth was one of the most prolific architects of interwar Manhattan, responsible for apartment houses such as the San Remo and the Beresford on Central Park West. The St. Moritz is a tall brick tower of the period, built to make the most of its frontage on the park. The conversion kept the shell and remade the interiors in the Ritz-Carlton's classic manner, with marble, wood panelling and traditional furniture, and with the windows given pride of place.

Rooms and suites

Rooms divide between those facing the park and those looking over the city. The park-view rooms are the ones to ask for, and the hotel has long placed telescopes in them so guests can look out across the treetops towards the reservoir and the towers of Central Park West and Fifth Avenue. Suites on the upper floors take in the whole sweep of the park. Club Level rooms give access to a private lounge with food and drinks through the day.

Dining

The hotel's restaurant has changed several times since 2002. The dining room and bar on the ground floor serve an American menu through the day, and the lounge is used for afternoon tea and cocktails. Room service matters more here than in many city hotels, since a good number of guests prefer to eat in front of the view.

Wellness

The spa is run with La Prairie, the Swiss skincare house, and offers facials and body treatments in a series of treatment rooms. A fitness centre completes the facilities.

Weddings and events

The hotel has rooms for private dining, meetings and receptions, suited to board meetings, rehearsal dinners and smaller weddings rather than very large banquets. Park-view suites are often taken for wedding preparations and for intimate celebrations.

Location

Central Park South is about as central as Manhattan gets for a visitor. The Plaza, Bergdorf Goodman and the shops of Fifth Avenue are a few blocks east, Carnegie Hall stands at Seventh Avenue and 57th Street, and Columbus Circle and Lincoln Center lie to the west. The horse-drawn carriages that tour the park wait at the kerb along the street, and the Sixth Avenue entrance to the park is across the road. For a luxury hotel in New York with the park as its front garden, there are few rivals on this street. The 57th Street station on Sixth Avenue and the Fifth Avenue station at 59th Street are close by, and JFK, LaGuardia and Newark are all reached by car.