New York, United States

Public New York

Price per night from$272.88

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (inclusive of taxes and fees) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (USD272.88), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Public New York Photos

Style

Thrills, not frills

Setting

LES is more

Explore

More hotels in New York More hotels in United States

Set alongside the historic tenements of the Lower East Side, Public is an altogether new type of luxury hotel. The idea – the latest brainchild of revolutionary hotelier Ian Schrager – is to provide everything you want, but none of the unnecessary extras. So, you have to check in yourself and arrange your own mints on the pillow, but there’s plenty of upside too. New York-inspired dishes are wood-fired at Diego Munoz’s Popular, while Louis – a market/canteen hybrid – serves organic slow food, fast. Every room has floor-to-ceiling windows and ooh-that’s-clever mod cons, but for the best view of the city head to the Roof Bar – nothing beats a Manhattan above Manhattan.

Smith Extra

Get this when you book through us:

Free late check-out till 2pm.

Facilities

Photos Public New York facilities

Need to know

Rooms

367 rooms and 51 suites.

Check–Out

Noon. Earliest check-in, 3pm, but flexible, subject to availability.

More details

Rates include WiFi and fitness center access.

Also

There’s literally nowhere quite like Trade, the lobby-level boutique with a unique collection of clothing, books and accessories from independent suppliers. For last-minute gifts or just-because, grab a bouquet from the in-house florist.

At the hotel

Free WiFi throughout, gym, daily wellness classes like yoga, boxing, Pilates, meditation and HIIT ($15 per guest), private guest lounge. In rooms: 50-inch smart TV, Bose wireless speaker, Public bath products.

Our favourite rooms

It’s hard to overstate the satisfaction of waking up to see New York City through bedside floor-to-ceiling glass, so we’d recommend any of the Great View rooms. Best of all are the Loft Great View rooms, which give you a bit more floor space and a perch near the top of the tower.

Packing tips

If someone suggests a ‘digital detox’, tell them to zip it, and then tell your mum she’s not invited on this trip anyway. At Public, you'll need that phone to capture the 360° views.

Also

Some King rooms are adapted for guests with mobility issues; all rooms are accessible by lift.

Pet‐friendly

Abso-poodley, as long as the critter’s under 25lbs (11kg). There’s a flat fee of $100 a stay. See more pet-friendly hotels in New York.

Children

All ages welcome. Baby cots can be added to any room.

Food and Drink

Photos Public New York food and drink

Top Table

Gardens are an endangered species in downtown Manhattan, so take advantage with a table in the hotel’s candlelit courtyard. In winter, cosy up near the wood fires of the open kitchen, and watch the chefs at work.

Dress Code

Put away that trouser press – there’s no place for fusty formality here. Understated style rules, or anything fit for cutting shapes at the basement party later on.

Hotel restaurant

The menu devised by Diego Munoz for Popular is full of globally-inspired Peruvian dishes that combine the flavours of his homeland with Spanish, Moorish, Italian, Chinese and Japanese cuisines; perfect then, that this most multicultural of cities is home to just about every cuisine in the world. The wood-fired grill is the restaurant’s beating, burning heart, and the menu features roasted pollo a la brasa and duck leg fried rice, sublime cerviches and an abundance of fresh veggies. For munchies and lunchies, fill up at in-house canteen, Louis.

Hotel bar

With a quartet of bars to choose from, there’s no danger of running dry. First stop must be the Roof Bar, for inspired cocktails and inspiring views of just about every big-boy building in the city. There's a dark, minimalist bar called Two Fifteen, outfitted with candles, black crushed velvet furniture, and gothic-inspired interiors, making it the ideal spot for a pre-dinner aperitif or an elegant nightcap. The Lobby Bar takes care of co-workers and caffeine-hunters with artisan teas, coffees and cold-press juices; to mix things up, pick a spiked variant from the cocktail list. Down below, Artspace is a live performance venue and heady nightclub, featuring immersive experience screens and a state-of-the-art sound system, all rolled into one inviting basement.

Last orders

Popular: 7am-11am for breakfast, 6pm-11pm for dinner and 11am-3pm for weekend brunch. The Lobby Bar: 11am-11pm. Two Fifteen: 8pm to late, Wednesday to Saturday. The Roof Bar: 5pm-2am. Artspace 10pm to late, Friday and Saturday. Louis; 7am to 10pm daily.

Room service

Room schmervice. In keeping with the ethos of cutting out traditional hotel frills, there’s no wheeling of cloches along the corridors here. Instead, order takeout from Louis, and pop down to the lobby to pick it up.

Location

Photos Public New York location
Address
Public New York
215 Chrystie St
New York
10002
United States

The hotel is just south of Houston Street, in Manhattan’s hip Lower East Side neighbourhood. Soho, Chinatown, Little Italy and the East Village are all within a few minutes’ walk.

Planes

Manhattan is too packed with skyscraper-sardines to squeeze in an airport, but there are four to choose from in NYC’s other boroughs. LaGuardia is the closest (25 minutes by taxi), JFK is the largest (50 minutes by taxi), and Newark (45 minutes by taxi) is over the water in New Jersey, so at least you can tick off an extra state while you’re at it. An honorary mention goes to Stewart airport, which is a 90-minute drive away, but has direct flights to the cities around the UK; to get to Manhattan, take the shuttle bus or Amtrak train. For a helping hand with flights or transfers, call the Smith24 team at any time of day or night.

Trains

The nearest Subway station is Second Avenue, with F-line trains north through the spine of Manhattan and south to Brooklyn. For intercity travel, head to Pennsylvania or Grand Central; they’re both around 25 minutes away by taxi or Subway.

Automobiles

Driving here is best left to the professionals, but if you insist on your own wheels, the best deals on car hire are usually at the airports; call Smith24 and we’ll arrange it for you. There’s a car park two blocks from the hotel which charges $38 a night.

Other

Transatlantic cruise ships dock at the terminal in Brooklyn, just across the harbour from Lady Liberty herself. From there, it’s around 20 minutes in a taxi to the hotel.

Worth getting out of bed for

Shops, shops, shops – and we’re talking independent designers and vintage fashion here, although all the big-name brands are just down the road in Soho. Assembly stocks a mighty collection of boutique labels and own-brand items, while Claw & Co has graphic tees and throwback treasures curated by local graffiti artist, Claw Money. For your art fix, hit up the building-block-shaped New Museum, or exhibition-hop around the Lower East Side’s 30 or so private galleries – a couple of favourites are the ever-provocative Invisible-Exports (89 Eldridge Street) and the artist-run 47 Canal (291 Grand Street). Take a trip to the 19th-century New York with a guided tour of the preserved Tenement Museum, or just explore the city that never sleeps, snoozes or even pauses for breath, with a walk around Chinatown and Little Italy.

Local restaurants

Of all the noodles in New York, some of the very best are found paddling in the cockle-warming broths at Ivan Ramen (25 Clinton Street). Jack’s Wife Freda (224 Lafayette Street) whips up simple Middle Eastern and Mediterranean dishes in an upbeat café atmosphere, while classic bistro Dirty French has all the answers when it comes to hanger steak, suckling pig and duck à l’orange – it’s at the Ludlow Hotel (180 Ludlow Street), where the digs are none too shabby either, by the way. For superfoods and sharing boards, look no further than the meat-free Butcher’s Daughter (19 Kenmare Street).

Local cafés

Whatever you do, don’t leave without a helping of lox, latkes and pickled herring at timeless Jewish kitchen Russ and Daughters Café (127 Orchard Street). Harry met Sally at Katz's Delicatessen (205 E Houston St), so have what she had, or failing that, the signature reuben sandwich, packed with 30-day-cured pastrami. There are three huge, fluffy, pancake-shaped reasons you can’t beat brunch at Clinton Street Baking Company (4 Clinton Street) – they come stacked in a maple syrup-soaked tower and topped with a ladle of jammy blueberries or chunks of banana and walnut.

Local bars

Outside the four walls and four bars at the hotel itself, pair small-batch organic wines with East Coast oysters at the intimate Ten Bells (247 Broome Street). For cocktails, push open the plain grey door at 134 Eldridge Street and pull up a stool at speakeasy Attaboy, or head to the slightly-unhinged cocktail lounge Please Don’t Tell (113 St Marks Place). Next door is Crif Dogs, for a late-night sausage-in-a-bun sensation.

Reviews

Photos Public New York reviews
Lucy Laucht

Anonymous review

By Lucy Laucht, Photographer and serial wanderer

It’s high summer when I arrive. The New York skyline shimmers through heat haze, the air is soupy and even the rats are beginning to look fed up. So, it’s with relief I find myself delivered into the cool, calm expanse of Public’s lobby.

Public, just off the Bowery and smack dab in the middle of everything (figuratively) hot right now, is the latest Big Idea from veteran hotelier Ian Schrager.

He’s calling it ‘accessible luxury’ and it challenges the very essence of what we know a hotel experience to be. There are no irritating check-in queues, for instance. Rather, you check in via your phone beforehand and roaming staff will provide a room key within seconds of your arrival.

Room service is gone, replaced here by Louis: an organic café-restaurant serving takeout in paper bags (and the best poke bowl I’ve ever had). In lieu of a concierge, there’s Public advisors – 24/7 hosts, and authorities on all things cultural. Late checkout? No problem – a nominal fee will keep your room till 5pm. Gone is the stuffy corporate air of yesteryear, this is a hotel for the people.

I ascend to my room via a neon-copper colored escalator (possibly the first Instagram-famous escalator?) and a dark, James Turrell-esque corridor. My room is a Queen View and it’s a bright, yacht-like space of white, curved wood and marble.

I wake one night to see a full moon gracing the spire of One World Trade, the city charging forward below me; horns, sirens, the collective sound of eight million air conditioners on full, while I am blissfully above it all.

The food doesn’t disappoint, either. Public Kitchen, the hotel’s restaurant – helmed by renowned chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten – is a nod to the best of ‘New York’ food. The bright and spacious dining room opens to an expansive outdoor terrace, a rarity in these parts. The clientele is beautiful and so are the dishes.

For laidback dining, the aforementioned Louis – part grocery, part coffee shop, part DIY room service – offers gourmet, organic slow-food in a fast and casual way. Communal tables lend a convivial atmosphere and my fellow diners are not your typical hotel guests but instead a mix of creatives on MacBooks, efficient business types, chic travellers (and dare I say it, the ‘gypset’) – the result of an intentional act to blur the lines between work and fun; business and culture.

This combination is particularly evident in the lobby bar where the vast room becomes something of a co-working space, flooded with natural light and filled with freelancers lined up along the long wooden desks replete with power hook-ups, super-fast free WiFi and endless supplies of kombucha.

Bright, airy conference rooms give way to communal sitting areas designed to inspire connectivity and collaboration. There’s a huge emphasis on dwell spaces – areas for people to chill, hangout, take meetings, read books, connect and meet others. I love how the hotel fosters this sense of community.

The Roof, on the 18th floor, is a self-proclaimed ‘crazy bar’ that appears to float – suspended high above the iconic skyline. Panoramic views and top-notch cocktails make the bar a late-night hotspot, hosting guest DJs from around the world.  

Every detail has been meticulously considered. Trade, a new retail concept located on the ground floor, is no exception. It’s a honeypot for all things beautiful – cult cosmetics brands, APC pieces, delicate jewelry by emerging designers – that would ordinarily take days to uncover in a new city, all conveniently housed in one beautiful space.

This is a hotel run by people fluent in the new language of travel. They understand people are seeking experience, a sense of place and the need for an emotional connection but without the price tag of traditional luxury hotels (rooms here start at $200).

At Public, all aspects of hotel life have been dismantled and rebuilt; it’s hugely exciting and it will no doubt change the industry. It’s a tough call but it might just be my favorite hotel in New York City. And soon it’ll be yours, too.

 

You’ll also find Public New York in:

Book now

Price per night from $223.48

Hotels nearby

Villas nearby