Anthea Gerrie takes Manhattan at the Gansevoort Meatpacking Hotel which made New York’s Meatpacking district chic.
Uptown used to be the place to stay in New York when Lower Manhattan was purely the commercial hub of the city’s busiest and buzziest borough. But the Gansevoort Hotel changed all that 20 years ago by transforming the once-grungy Meatpacking District into a haven of chic. Now the beef-dispatchers have departed, leaving a thoroughly gentrified new neighbourhood turned over to the the cleaner 21st century pursuits of cocktail-sipping, boutique browsing and hanging out with the coolest kids in town.
Now reborn as the Gansevoort Meatpacking, this hotel which gave Manhattan a giant shake-up has become one of the city ’s top visitor addresses. It has attracted major institutions like the Whitney Museum of American Art, which moved miles downtown to alight within view of the hotel, one of the many riverside landmarks on its horizon. The High Line, New York City’s beautiful urban pedestrian park dazzlingly sited on a disused elevated railway line, passes by close enough to climb aboard, while the 14th Street subway is less than a five-minute stroll away.
Step off the broad cobblestoned boulevard into which this end of 9th Avenue peters out, and the dramatic multi-million-dollar renovation of the hotel is immediately evident at lobby level. There’s a Banksy, a work by New York street artist Richard Hambleton and an attractive streetside cafe, Coffee & Cocktails, which fields a European vibe in both decor and menu.
There is also a somewhat less remarkable ground-floor restaurant, but the real glory of Gansevoort Meatpacking is the guest rooms. Mine, with a huge picture window overlooking the Hudson, was glamour personified, with its retro armchair from which to enjoy the view and a sofa on which to perch, back to the window, to enjoy coffee on a handsome marble coffee table.
My king-sized bed was dressed in pure white cotton with classy dark blue piping which matched the artfully distressed feature wall behind it, the rug warming the wooden floor and accent cushions on the sofa. It had a chrome yellow accent cushion of its own, and an elegant illuminated dark wooden headboard as dramatic backdrop. The dresser beneath the huge television had a built-in fridge and cocktail cabinet and plenty of room for the coffee machine delivered free with capsules on demand.
While winter was not the time to use the high-level pool and terrace which must buzz like a beehive all summer long, the rooftop bar is a hive of activity all year round, offers panoramic views of Lower Manhattan and has its own menu as an alternative to the sushi bar and omakase dining which make up the rest of the hotel’s food offering.
Not to be missed is a visit to the Whitney, which has a superb collection of Edward Hoppers, Georgia O’Keeffes and other legendary American artists as well as top-flight temporary exhibitions, an excellent cafe at ground floor level serving pastries from the on-site bakery and thrilling views with outdoor sculpture from higher floors. From the museum, climb to the start of the High Lane and walk all the way up to 34th Street, where the newish Hudson Yards development offers some eye-popping architecture and the city’s highest outdoor viewing deck, Edge, 100 floors up.
While Hudson Yards offers a full mall’s worth of mainstream shopping, Meatpacking is the place for classy individual boutiques and branches of designer emporia including Restoration Hardware. Turn left out of the hotel past the street art to reach the West Village, a few minutes’ stroll away via quirkily elegant residential buildings lining quiet streets along which you nevertheless sense an underlying buzz. Next time I’ll take Lower West Manhattan on future trips to the Big Apple, given half a chance.
Tell Me More About Gansevoort Meatpacking Hotel
Gansevoort Meatpacking Hotel 18 9th Avenue, New York, NY 10014
T: +1 212 206 6700
Rooms from $535
For more information on what to see and do in the area please visit NYC Tourism
Anthea Gerrie travelled from London to New York with Norse Atlantic Airways a new low-cost airline serving JFK.
