New York - The Iroquois Hotel

Arriving at the Iroquois Hotel in New York one may wonder at how such a small façade, sandwiched between the restaurants and offices of 44^th Street, houses 114 luxury guest rooms.

Alas, there is no Dr Who “Tardis” effect here. For the little folks of The Borrowers or Lilliput, the shoe box accomodation of The Iroquois may be perfect. For the Gullivers among us, these rooms are very claustrophobic.

We checked in to an Executive King room at a whopping $519 per night + 13.625 tax. This equates to close on $600 – Room Only.

In fairness, the hotel web site makes no mention of the size of the rooms. This should have aroused our suspicions as American hotels normally make a big thing about room size. However, the web site does describe the bathrooms:

“Our elegant bathrooms feature wall to ceiling Italian marble”

Maybe they do, but in order to appreciate this splendour one ideally has to stand back. As the bathroom seemed to be barely 1 metre wide this was not possible. Our elegant bathroom was a narrow corridor, with a small bath at one end and loo at the other.

The claustrophobia was heightened by the proximity of other room windows, a bit like one of those 50’s movies where everyone lived on top of each other in balmy New York summers. The room directly opposite was even smaller than ours and we did wonder at how the two very large guests in the room moved around.

The web site goes on to boast:

“Added indulgences include sparkling water in room upon arrival (this camel prefers the healthier flat kind), and turn down service with le beige chocolates..”

Well, a turn down service should be taken as given, and, at $600 per night, are we really going to be wowed by a bedtime chocolate?

Apparently the hotel restaurant (Triomphe) is very highly regarded but we didn’t try it so can’t comment. The bar was small but had good ambience. They certainly don’t expect many of the 200 or so guests the hotel can accommodate to spend much time there.

As a base it is very well located, but as a night time roof over your head it is extremely expensive, even with the kudos of having had James Dean live in the hotel between 1951 and 1953.

The Iroquois
49 West 44^th Street
(Between 5^th and Sixth Avenues)
New York