PRICE:
Frommer's Highly Recommended

It might be the middle of January and the wind chills are below zero, but one look at the exterior of the Metropolitan and a walk inside the retro-cool lobby and you'll think you are in Miami Beach around 1961. That's because the hotel was designed in 1961 by the renowned architect Morris Lapidus, the man responsible for Miami's legendary Fontainebleau and Eden Roc hotels. But in 1961, were you given fresh-baked chocolate-chip cookies upon check-in? Most recently a Loews Hotel, in 2004 the Doubletree brand (cookies and all) took over the hotel and poured $35 million into renovations updating the Art Deco feel throughout the hotel. The lobby is now stocked with mod furniture on which guests can lounge and surf the Internet on their laptops (the public spaces have wireless capability). Guest rooms are on the smallish side and even with the renovations (including LCD televisions) still have a cookie-cutter, motel feel to them, but the beds are, like other Doubletree properties, extremely comfortable, guaranteeing the \"Sweet Dreams by Doubletree Sleep Experience.\" The renovations and the exemplary Doubletree service are a huge improvement on what the hotel once offered and now it's a good mid-price option in the middle of Manhattan.

Copyright: Excerpted from Frommer's New York City 2008, (c) 2008, Wiley Publishing, Inc.

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