Hotel QT

Lobby,  Room-Mate Grace

Hotel QT has changed owners – founder Andre Balazs is now longer in charge – and its name to Room-Mate Grace. Following the Room-Mate conceit of naming hotels after "interesting women", aside from being a no-frills boutique hotel, Grace is also supposedly an "Acclaimed international concert performer, her true passion is to create a variety of 'concertos'  which combine yada yada yada, inviting the public to explore the richness of the human experience". Leaving aside the marketing piffle, the hotel is actually better than the conceit. It's that rare beast: an affordable trendy boutique hotel in New York City.
Situated at 125 West 45th Street, the Room-Mate Grace is literally within spitting distance of Times Square. Bryant Park, Rockefeller Center and Times Square are all short walks away. So you won't find many more central New York hotels.
It has been described (rather unkindly) as an upscale hostel, and the reception area doubles as a 24-hour shop (see picture). Grace's downside is that she doesn't have a restaurant – though take-away menus are thoughtfully provided – no room service and her breakfast is more of a cold collation than an early morning treat. Still, you can breakfast until noon and frolic around the indoor pool (with a DJ most nights) until the early hours. If consuming cocktails surrounded by bikini-clad beauties and scantily-clad jocks is your thing, you'll love Grace, even if it is a far cry from concertos and enriching the human experience.
All 139 rooms come with pillow-top mattresses on platform beds with storage underneath. Cordless telephones with two-line phones are standard, as are 25 inch flat-screen TVs, with CDs or DVD players, depending on your standard of room. Standard rooms have a shower but no bath tub, lucury rooms come with luxury bathrooms. No matter what your room type you will receive free wireless internet throughout the hotel and free local calls. A nice touch is the iPhone docking port – iHome.
It's a young person's hotel and discounts are offered for the under-25s.
Hotel QT is dead. Long live Room-Mate Grace.