Cultural Stays: The Prince Kitano & The Arlo Hotels as NYC Art Destinations

Located at 66 Park Avenue, the recently renovated Prince Kitano New York is Seibu Prince Hotels & Resorts’ first foray in the greatest city in the world and a primary lodging for the country’s dignitaries and business leaders (Pritzker Award winning architect Shigeru Ban was spotted at breakfast recently).

The lobby is illuminated with Akari Light fixtures by Isamu Noguchi, and in the center, sits a bronze sculpture by Colombian artist Fernando Botero, which has been there for generations. A pat on its head is rumored to bring good fortune, which can be found when you go upstairs to your comfortable, quiet, and subtly elegant quarters. 

With 109 guest rooms and another 50 suites, you can choose between modest splendor or spacious luxury, like the Deluxe Junior which features contemporary design elements like Dark Emperador stone finish, hair-on hide leather upholstery, and Spanish marble countertops. Rooms start at $594, with suites ranging from $814 to $1,521.

The views are epic, but the real action is in the basement. That’s where you’ll find hakubai, a gourmet experience centered on the Japanese tradition of kaiseki– an eleven course meal. 

Chef Jun Hiramatsu, head chef Keisuke Otsuka, and pastry chefs Tadashi Netsu and Mariko Hosokawa constitute the team behind this otherworldly dining experience consisting of seasonal meats and seafood sourced from local and Japanese purveyors. 

The hotel’s Midtown location puts guests at walking distance from cultural institutions like The Morgan Library, just a block south, where you’ll find illuminated manuscripts, authors' original manuscripts, sheets music, drawings, photographs, paintings, maps, and other objects accumulated by legendary financier J.P. Morgan. 

About a half mile uptown, you’ll find Rockefeller Center, ground zero for Art Deco enthusiasts. Originally meant to be home to the Metropolitan Opera when it was commissioned in the 1930s, its 19 office buildings (including NBC Studios and Radio City Music Hall), surround a cafe turned ice rink in the winter, with a looming statue of Prometheus and, during the holidays, an eighty foot Christmas tree. 

It sits opposite St. Patrick’s Cathedral, built fifty years earlier in the Gothic Revival style. The target of three attempted bombings in the early part of the 20th Century, it was targeted by a copy-cat arson in the wake of the Notre Dame fire in 2019. 

A couple blocks east of The Kitano is the Chrysler Building, an Art Deco masterpiece with a facade featuring decorative eagles, hood ornaments, hubcaps, and fenders, but most of all, its crown of Nirosta steel, ribbed and riveted in a radiating sunburst pattern incorporating triangular vaulted windows. Stop by the lobby and feast your eyes on the Art Deco mural of Manhattan. 

From there, it’s a short stroll to the Waldorf lobby for a drink next to Cole Porter’s personal piano which he dubbed “High Society.” A few blocks south, one can catch the crosstown shuttle out of Grand Central Terminal (a stunning Beaux-Arts structure dating to 1913), to get to Times Square for a Broadway show. 

While MoMA and The Met boast the world’s most encyclopedic one-two punch of western art, to see what today’s practitioners are up to, head downtown to Soho. 

The Arlo, a boutique hotel about a block from the Holland Tunnel, is a short walk from blue-chip galleries like Deitch Projects, an institution since 1996, David Zwirner in Tribeca, and the Drawing Center, a museum and showspace founded by Martha Beck, former assistant curator of drawings at MoMA. 

If you’re not in the market for art, then browse the many boutiques, or replenish your stamina at a sidewalk cafe. Conveniently located by the 1, 2, A, C, E trains, you can be anywhere in Manhattan in less than an hour. 

Go with someone you love if you opt for the “cozy bunk.” Starting at $235, it comes with a bed and barely enough room to swing a cat. Deeper pockets can opt for the Suite, featuring a king bedroom, built-in closet, and separate living room with a city view terrace. With 350 square feet, there’s plenty of room to swing several cats. And, you’ll be happy to know that felines are welcome– two pets per room for a daily fee of $20 each. 

Open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, Lindens on the first floor is the place to sample selections from the raw bar while sipping local craft beer, a glass of organic wine, or a smart cocktail. Lucky Hour Menu includes a raw bar of east and west coast oysters, and a dozen oysters with a half bottle of champagne or manzanilla sherry. 

If that doesn’t get your head spinning, have another at Foxtail, a speak-easy built on modern mixology, or the Rooftop cocktail lounge with views of Midtown to the north, the Freedom Tower to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. 

Uptown or downtown, the city is always an adventure. If you’ve been there before (and who hasn’t?), it changes so rapidly that a return trip offers new experiences. “New York is not a city, it’s a world,” said Truman Capote. And, if you’re going to see the world, you’re going to need some rest. The Prince Kitano and The Arlo are just the place for it.