PUBLIC New York

Always amazing. The rooms are all well-appointed, and the blackout curtains are effective. Filtered water station on every floor. The rooms all have a bench and table that work well for video calls. Super friendly staff... Noel and Peter at the cafe are the best!

I liked the hotel, some of the people I was traveling with were not as thrilled with it. The location was pretty good - we could walk pretty easily to NYU (bookstore & Dental School - about 30 minute walks) & it was easy to Uber to Battery Park (walkable, but about an hours walk) or Times Square (about an hours walks), but not as close to our class as we were informed. Checkin was strange (no true desk, just a bunch of iPads to do a self-checkin (but there was someone there to help). We didn’t use it, but a nice bar area on the main floor, a larger bar above it & a very nice rooftop bar. The rooms were a little smaller, but very functional and I didn’t feel “compressed” in it. I thought it looked a bit “IKEA” in the furniture, but it was a nice bright wood color, very fresh & clean looking. A couple of the people in our group complained that they thought the hallways were slightly dark/dim. I’ve stayed at other hotels in NYC & frequently have been able to hear sirens & street noise (even if on a high floor), & I didn’t really have that staying here. There was a man when we were checking in asking about the 2nd floor bar & if it was open/having music on Sunday night, because he said they were on the 3rd floor & could hear the noise/music from the bar through the floor of their room all night long. I personally wouldn’t avoid this hotel, but as I said there were some quirks with checkin & a few of my colleagues had a couple questions.

I wish I could give 0 stars. Worst hotel experience in my life, and I'm including $2 hostels around the globe. The Public needs to decide whether it's a nightclub or a hotel, but it can't be the latter while it's trying to be the former. The offenses started the second we walked into the lobby to discover a dystopian bank of unmanned iPads in place of a front desk and human employees. The message is clear from the jump: the Public does not care about hospitality; it cares about profit. (Honestly the issues had really started before we arrived as I had called the week before to request an early check-in and spoke with someone who said she was putting a note in my file to try to get me a room around 1pm, but who then suggested I should try calling the hotel directly to make sure. I said, I thought that's what I did and requested the direct line and the number she gave me was in fact the number I had called. When I pointed that out she stuttered and said, oh well you should call during business hours when someone will be manning that line. I asked what the business hours were, she said 9 to 5, and I pointed out that it was 4:30. She was silent, basically acknowledging that someone at the hotel should have answered the number I called when I called. Someone was slacking. I should have canceled my reservation at that moment and booked elsewhere.) Anyway, of course when I tried to check myself in (quite the indignity when paying $700/night!) the iPad made no mention of an early check-in. I had to wander around to find an employee to "help" but they offered no assistance, just that we could check in at 3pm. I was in town for the Brooklyn Half Marathon and needed to go across the river to pick up my race packet which was the whole reason I requested the early check-in, so now my ability to do that was in jeopardy despite me trying to plan ahead. That same unhelpful and dour employee said we could store our bags - read that the way I wrote it: he said we could store our bags. He didn't offer to store them. He pointed us to self-serve pay lockers on the second floor. Again, the Public does not do hospitality, it does shake downs of all its misguided guests. So we lugged our luggage up to the second floor where we found all of the lockers full. We wandered around and found another glum employee who said, there's more lockers in the basement. So we dragged our stuff two flights down to a very dark and creepy basement, the kind of space I would not have felt comfortable alone as a small woman. And those lockers were all full too. We schlepped back up to the second floor where at least there were places to sit. Finally, as my bpm and blood pressure spiked, a moderately helpful person appeared and offered to actually store our bags in a closet. Why no one else offered this in the half hour we'd been getting our steps in up and down and around this unwelcoming place I do not know but we gave him the bags and went out to do some necessary pre-race grocery shopping. At 3pm we went back to the iPad kiosk Brave New World lobby and I checked in and printed my own keycards which truly felt so insulting. Again for $700/night on my day off I was basically manning office supplies with absolutely no customer service. We got up to our room on the 4th floor directly over the front door and it was exceedingly meh. All of the decor at the Public is outdated and cheap looking, neon lights and fake-luxe. We had to ditch our stuff quickly and run to grab a train to Brooklyn to get my race bib before the expo closed and then to make a 5pm dinner reservation. (Early pre-race dinner before a 4:30am wake up.) Back at the hotel we wound down and I tried to get to sleep early but was woken up shortly after midnight by people yelling in the hallway. And here is where the real nightmare of Club Public starts. Long and irate story short: I didn't get back to sleep until close to 3am for a grand total of around three hours of sleep the night before a race. Spoiler alert: I ran and felt like garbage. Now awake I noticed there was EDM music playing quite loud under us. I tried to get back to sleep but the music started getting louder and every 30 seconds or so wasted people would scream and shriek. When we checked in I'd gotten a text instructing me to text that number should we need anything during our stay because, ya know, no front desk. I think this is all by design because the Public is actually in the nightclub business and does not want its abused guests to have any way to actually complain. I texted the number about the music and someone responded that it was street noise and they couldn't do anything about it. So now I was awake in the middle of the night, four hours before my alarm would go, with bass blasting in my room, and being gaslit by the liar who was working the text disservice line. I used my awake time to scan the Public's social media and found that they had advertised a DJ that night, I looked at the DJ's social media and sound and yep, that was 1000000% what I was hearing. I responded to the texter that it was not street noise but the nightclub the hotel was operating under my bed. They spat back some unhelpful subtextual eff you bs and between that and the sleep deprivation the Karen ESQ. in me was triggered. For while I live in DC I am in fact a NY licensed attorney. I scoured NYC and NYS' hotel duties of service regs and noise ordinances, downloaded a decibel reader, and began taking screenshots of the readings in our room which were well above the legal limit. I then cited those laws and regs and offered the texter screenshots of the noise violations and their disposition changed quickly. They sent an angry response about how the club was legal and had all its inspections or licenses or some nonsense. But miracle of miracles the music got quieter, because it was in the Public's power to turn it down and stop torturing people the whole time. I got back to sleep but only for around 90 more minutes. The race was miserable and not that anyone cares (certainly not anyone at the Public, like pretty sure the iPads DGAF) but this was my first time getting to actually train for a race in years after a hip fracture, hip surgery, and nerve damage. And the Public Hotel ruined it. All the work I put in rebuilding thrown completely out the window because the Public hates its guests.

Recently stayed here to visit someone living in the Lower East Side. Good location near breakfast spots (Son del North, Russ & Daughters) and lively bars/restaurants. The street noise outside, from the rooftop, and in the hallways on weekends was definitely loud enough to hear inside the room but nothing too bad. Hotel and room interior is very pleasing and the blackout shade works very well. Beds are comfortable but keep in mind they are mattresses on the ground with no headboard. Rooms are small but have really good views of the city and are perfect for a younger crowd.

My daughter and I were visiting my son who lives in the East Village. The location was perfect for our visit. Easy access to our favorite spots in SoHo, Nolita, East and West Village as well as train access to Brooklyn. Accommodations were clean, quiet and comfortable. Plenty of amenities and staff was friendly and accommodating. Would definitely stay again!