The Times Square EDITION

Times Square is arguably the most famous place in America, and its busiest crossroads as well. And to say that it’s stylistically and culturally challenged would be putting it extremely diplomatically. If there’s a hotelier who can make Midtown cool, it’s Ian Schrager, who created Studio 54 and then followed it up with some of the earliest and most iconic boutique hotels in the world. And if you’ve got any doubt, it’ll be dispelled the moment you pass through the doors of The Times Square EDITION.

It’s both high-end and high-design, authentically stylish and unapologetically luxe. The public spaces aren’t just inviting, they (crucially) look great in pictures, too. And the rooms couldn’t stand in starker contrast to the scene on the streets of Times Square below; they’re meant to evoke the quiet, secluded calm of a yacht’s cabin, and their subtle color palette, in white and metallic tones, blends harmoniously with whatever personal style you bring to it.

As impressive as they undeniably are, in a Schrager hotel the rooms are only part of the equation. A hotel like this lives and dies by its public spaces, and this one has held nothing back — 701West is the fine-dining restaurant where chef John Fraser’s vegetable-forward prix-fixe menu is served in a vibrant and elegant space, while the Terrace Restaurant displays Mr. Fraser’s more casual brasserie/chophouse side. And the anchor of the hotel’s nightlife offerings is Paradise Club, a modern cabaret featuring regular performances by the Brooklyn-based nightlife collective House of Yes.