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Travel Guide: New York
New York City Hotels:
Picking the Best Location
Whether you want a budget hotel in NYC or a deluxe one, this New York City hotel location information helps you make the right choice.
Picking the right neighborhood to stay in the New York City can make the difference between a safe, convenient, and enjoyable visit and one that is not.
The areas discussed correlate to the ones used on Priceline.com.
For general maps of these neighborhoods, click on
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And then click on the tiny maps to see larger versions. You'll also find links to suburban NYC maps.
1. Midtown East
2. Midtown West
3. Central Park South - Upper Midtown
4. Midtown South
5. Upper East Side
6. Upper West Side
7. Downtown - Wall Street Financial District - Lower Manhattan
8. JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark airports
1. Midtown East
In Midtown East, you'll find America’s corporate heart—its Citicorp and other headquarters, as well as Madison Avenue advertising firms. Many of New York's best restaurants, New York City boutique hotels, and upscale hotels such as the Waldorf Astoria are here. You'll also find those job applicants in the Trump Tower—at least when the series is not being filmed elsewhere.
There are very few less expensive hotels in this neighborhood.
In this very central location, you are close to the Theatre District, the best shops, Grand Central Station, Rockefeller Center, the United Nations, and much of what visitors come to New York to see and do.
Although Midtown East is considered one of the safer New York City neighborhoods, stay on busy streets at night.
Midtown East, Times Square, and Midtown West are New York's most popular hotel zones.
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2. Midtown West, Times Square, and Theatre District
Priceline usually divides this area into two zones, Midtown West and the Times Square Theatre District. Of all the central areas of New York City, Midtown West and Times Square Theatre District are the easiest places to find a top hotel at a moderate price.
Ah, Times Square—the "south central" portion of Midtown West. See the somewhat weird way that Priceline maps out this zone at
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Times Square has been significantly cleaned up, but elements of the old Times Square remain. Some people love this area, but others feel a bit uncomfortable in its kinetic environment. Nevertheless, most like being at a major hub of New York’s subway system.
The top hotels in this area—the Marriott Marquis, the New York Hilton, the Millennium Broadway, and the Sheraton Hotel & Towers—are in either in the Times Square Theatre District zone or in the eastern part of the Midtown West zone near Fifth Avenue.
These hotels are in good locations. The better hotels in Midtown West are also convenient to the places discussed in Central Park South and Midtown East.
In Midtown West and Times Square, less expensive accommodation tends to be toward the southwest—near the Port Authority Bus Terminal and Eight Avenue. This may not be a comfortable area for walking at night on less busy streets, although the young urban professionals moving into this are making it more vibrant.
3. Central Park South - Upper Midtown
For many travelers, the area just south of Central Park and to its immediate southeast makes an ideal place to stay. Here, you find the legendary Plaza, Parker Meridien, and other deluxe and first-class hotels.You can walk to Bloomingdales and Fifth Avenue shops, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney, as well as to many of the city’s best restaurants. Being adjacent to a great park adds some serenity to an otherwise very busy city.
Inexpensive and moderate hotels are much fewer here and tend to be located at the far western end of this district. You are still convenient to Lincoln Center, to the park, and to many fine (but less expensive) restaurants of the Upper West Side.
I like the Central Park South - Upper Midtown area. You'll especially like it if you enjoy walking.
4. Midtown South
The majority of Manhattan’s good quality budget and moderate cost hotels concentrate in the southern part of Midtown called Midtown South, especially near Penn Station (another focus of New York’s underground transportation) and in the eastern half of this area. If you fail elsewhere, this is the area to get your lower price on a hotel in NYC.Although you'll find Macy’s, the Empire State Building, Madison Square Garden, and other icons, Midtown South has lost much of its luster since the 1930’s and 1940’s. However, you are still centrally located to reach much of tourist NYC, including many fine restaurants and cafes at Union Square and in Greenwich Village to your south.
As with the Times Square and Midtown West neighborhoods, the very cheapest hotels tend to be toward Eighth Avenue to the west. Here especially, stay on busy streets.
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5. Upper East Side
One of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the world, the largely residential Upper East Side offers more tranquility than other areas of Manhattan, but you'll never forget that you are in a great city.Call Upper East Side art central. Here you find the “the big three"— The Metropolitan, the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Guggenheim (Museum of Modern Art), and the Whitney, as well as other museums.
Walking is a joy here, either along Fifth Avenue, into the park (keeping to busy areas), or along the many brownstone-dominated side streets. During tulip season, be sure to walk along Park Avenue.
Naturally, inexpensive accommodation is considerably harder, if not impossible, to find here, even when you use Priceline. In fact, the continued conversion of hotels to condos in this area has made the situation worse.
6. Upper West Side
Young professionals and students love the largely residential Upper West Side neighborhood.
There are not many hotels here and no fancy ones (although the Trump International Hotel in the Central Park South zone stands nearby), and you'll have to commute by subway to many attractions.
Nevertheless, you'll have Central Park directly to your east and Lincoln Center to your immediate south. Moreover, the main north-south streets are filled with fine small cafes and restaurants appealing to a less affluent crowd, as well as many other places to enjoy an evening.
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7. Downtown - SoHo - Financial District
New Yorkers still call this area downtown, but in reality downtown has steadily been moving north to what is now Midtown since New York City last served as capital of the United States in 1790.
Set back by 9/11, the core of the Wall Street area (also called the Financial District or Lower Manhattan) has been becoming more residential, as buildings are converted by Donald Trump and others, which makes its deluxe hotel district safer at night due to more people being on the streets.
On the other hand, less expensive hotels in this district are interspersed away from Wall Street often in the midst of or adjacent to less safe neighborhoods at night.
The destruction of much of the World Trade Center complex and late 2008 and 2009 downturn in the economy has hit this area hard, as investment banking firms and others have cut back. This may allow you some of the best deals on top hotels available anywhere in the city.
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If you stay in this area, you'll have fun exploring nearby Chinatown, Little Italy, the Staten Island ferry, Ellis Island, Battery Park, harbor cruises, and the New York Stock Exchange.
You will also find many of Manhattan’s most trendy music clubs and hip new cafes in TRIBECA and SoHo.
Otherwise, you'll be a bit isolated from tourist activities such as the best shopping, main museums, and theatre district.
All in all, stay in this zone if you use the best hotels and plan to spend much of your time in this area. You can easily reach Midtown by subway, but these may be crowded and uncomfortable during peak periods. Reaching Midtown by taxi can be time consuming and expensive.
8. LaGuardia, Newark, and JFK airports
First-class hotels at the airports are considerably less expensive than those in Manhattan—sometimes remarkably so.
For the pocket full of money saved, you may decide to spend some time commuting back and forth to Manhattan from an airport hotel.
Although LaGuardia Airport is closer to Midtown Manhattan, JFK Airport is easiest to reach via a convenient AirTrain connection to all its terminals, including the one for hotel transfer vans. Connect from any subway stop in NYC to the JFK AirTrain. (We prefer the express "E" subway line from the AirTrain stop at Jamaica station to Midtown, but you may also use the "A" train from AirTrain's stop at Howard Beach or Long Island Railway service from Jamaica to Penn Station.)
For the best bargains though, try the hotels around Newark Airport.
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A word about Hotwire and Priceline.com
Everyone has heard horror stories about New York City hotel prices, and sadly most are true. Nevertheless, there are two easy ways to reduce the cost of quality accommodation and those are Hotwire.comWith Priceline, you bid on a star-quality range in a neighborhood. This feature works well since most people want particular amenities, price, and neighborhood, rather than a specific hotel.
Click here if you would like to learn more about placing a bid.
Have a great time in New York City!
