We stayed at the Ace Hotel New York at Broadway and 29th Street in Manhattan and started the morning at Stumptown Coffee on the ground floor. Room rates are lower than they once were, but the wear is obvious throughout the rooms, so visitors expecting the Ace Hotels of other cities may be disappointed. The ground-floor coffee bar, however, is still enough to give you a taste of New York with a single cup of coffee.
At the corner where Broadway meets 29th Street in Manhattan, the numbers "20 W 29TH" are mounted above a dark green door. This is the Ace Hotel New York, in a neighborhood between Midtown and the Flatiron District that is now called NoMad. The hotel opened in 2009 in the former Breslin Hotel building, constructed in 1904, and was once counted among the hippest hotels in New York. Last August, our reporter stayed one night and began the next day at Stumptown Coffee on the ground floor.
At a Glance
The Lobby Is Still Pure Ace
Step through the door and you enter a dim lobby lined with white columns. Round bulbs and green vines hang from the ceiling, and people with open laptops sit at long wooden tables. Letting people who aren't guests walk in with a cup of coffee to work or meet someone, using the hotel lobby like a neighborhood living room, is how Ace Hotel first made its name. That atmosphere remains today.
Lower Rates, but the Years Have Shown Up Too
The rooms are done up with black walls, a bed covered with a plaid blanket, artwork filling one wall, and a small radio and mugs. The wooden room card is engraved "29TH AT B'WAY." The props and sensibility that make an Ace Hotel are all still there.
But 17 years after opening, signs of age are visible throughout. Walls and furniture corners are worn, and the dim lighting makes the room look older than it is. Room rates have clearly come down. On booking sites, rates on some dates start anywhere from the high $100s to the $200s a night. Even so, guests who arrive expecting the Ace Hotels in other cities, such as Brooklyn or Los Angeles, may be disappointed. Reviews on travel sites frequently mention that "it needs some work" and that "every room is a different size." Guests should also check in advance for the mandatory "destination fee" charged on top of the room rate.
Still, the view is one of the hotel's clear strengths. Depending on the room, the Empire State Building fills the window head-on. When the sun goes down and the lights come on at the top of the building, even a worn room makes you feel you are right in the middle of New York.
Stumptown on the Ground Floor: One Cup Is Enough
The best part of this visit was not the room but the ground floor. Next to the hotel lobby on the 29th Street side is Stumptown Coffee, the coffee roaster that started in Portland, Oregon. Together with Ace Hotel, it helped make this neighborhood a coffee destination. Bags of beans and mugs are displayed behind the wooden counter, and a line forms in front of the baristas every morning.
Take a latte to the wooden shelf by the window, and yellow taxis, delivery trucks and commuters stream past the glass without pause. The coffee is good, but just standing at this window watching the morning on 29th Street is enough to make you feel you are in New York. That is reason enough to stop by for the ground-floor coffee even if you are not staying at the hotel.
To get there, it is one block from the 28th Street station on the N, R and W subway lines, and about a five-minute walk from 34th Street-Herald Square. It is also close to Koreatown on 32nd Street, making it easy to plan a Korean dinner followed by coffee. Hours change with the season and holidays, so check the Stumptown website before you go.