Our Pandemic Escape to the Bowery 50 Hotel, a JDV by Hyatt Hotel, in Chinatown, NYC.

I know it seems like light years ago, but I spent three nights at the Bowery 50 Hotel in December and I wanted to share my thoughts on the experience and my review of the hotel. During the pandemic, I was slow to write posts (if at all) so pardon my delay.

Let me set the mood. From the lockdown in March 2020 through the beginning of November 2020, I worked remotely from home (as did my partner in crime, Dave). In November, there was a temporary decrease in the number of Covid-19 cases in New York City and I was directed to physically report to work two of the five days each week. I was not happy about this. I was scared to travel on public transportation. On many days, I walked the six miles from my apartment to work (which I rather enjoyed, but it took a lot of time).

This is where the Bowery 50 Hotel, a JDV by Hyatt hotel, comes in. You see, the Bowery 50 Hotel is in Chinatown, NYC, which is only a few blocks from my office. Plus, the hotel, which is a category 5 Hyatt hotel, had prices incredibly low last December (after all, no one was traveling at the time). So, my idea was that we would stay at the hotel for a few nights and that I would walk back and forth to work from there.

Then, in late November, there was yet another surge in Covid-19 cases. We were once again informed that we could work remotely from home full time. Since I no longer needed to be downtown to go to my office, and I was still rather nervous to be anywhere near other humans, I pondered whether we should cancel the reservation.

But then, I received a pivotal email from the Senior Sales Manager of the hotel, Mr. Sang Choi:

Greetings from Hotel 50 Bowery!  First, thank you for being an elite member of World of Hyatt and your constant support of Hyatt Hotels. 

I noticed you’ll be staying with us for the first time this Saturday, Nov. 28^th through Tuesday, Dec. 1^st.  We are excited to have you with us.  I also want to confirm that we will make sure your room has foam pillows and 2 luggage racks.  We have your arrival time as 1pm.  Do you need a late checkout on Tuesday?  If so, let me know as you are entitled to a 4pm late check out.  Complimentary daily breakfast is also available to you as well.

I took the liberty to provide our best upgrade for you, to one of our Bowery Suites located on one of our top 3 floors!  Here is a link to a 3D tour so you can have a better idea of your suite for this weekend – Bowery Suite 3D Tour

If there is anything else we can do for you, please don’t hesitate to contact me at anytime!

Have a safe and healthy Thanksgiving and looking forward to having you at Hotel 50 Bowery.

Sang

The email brought tears of joy to my eyes. Is that not the perfect showing of hospitality? After a letter like that, how could I not go to the hotel? I said to Dave that we could pretend to live there in that lovely suite for a few days, stay clear of people, and perhaps save our sanity. Since we would have a suite, we’d be able to work and eat comfortably in the living area. So, we packed up our suitcases, masks, gloves and sanitary wipes and we went on a little 3-day trip to Chinatown. I also brought my  MacBook Air, since I was going to work remotely from the hotel (while only a few blocks from my office).  This all sounds kind of comical (or perhaps, for those who really know me, it sounds very typical for me), but it really was a good decision.

We drove to the hotel and parked on a public street about a mile away. Check-in was easy, and we felt as comfortable as we could with the Covid precautions taken by the hotel.

The lobby is not spacious, but there was sufficient room between guests.

Our suite, the Bowery Suite, was very nice and quite “livable.” To the right was the living room, and to the left was the bedroom.

This is the living room area.

We were treated to a bottle of wine (Leese-Fitch Cabernet Sauvignon) and Evian water.

The remote was wrapped up!

This is the bedroom.

There were two bathrooms. Both had what we called A LOO WITH A VIEW! One of the toilets didn’t work very well, but it wasn’t a huge problem since we had a second one. And we liked the Jonathan Adler toiletries a lot.

Check out the view from the suite!

When we were at the hotel, there was complementary coffee for guests (discussed below). The restaurant was closed, but as globalists, we were allowed to choose from four or five breakfast entries which the hotel got from a nearby diner. Below is the bagel with cream cheese and lox and bacon and eggs with hash browns. It was just fine for us. I believe the breakfast option is handled differently now, though I’m not exactly sure what it is.

Complimentary coffee was served on the second floor adjacent to a lounge area (where one could work) and an outdoor patio. This area also has a lot of historical information about Chinatown which I believe is from the Museum of Chinese in America. This area is really well designed, and has lots of outlets for people to set up their laptops.

This is the outdoor patio (across the street from the entrance to the Manhattan Bridge).

We went for long walks – the location of the hotel is perfect for discovery! We also went to the gym – which has plenty of space and modern equipment (including two Peloton bikes).

The hotel also has a rooftop bar called the Crown. We only went up there to take a look at it. I don’t think that we were quite ready for prime time drinking at bars yet – but I’d love to return there for a drink one night.

As for food, there are great restaurants everywhere in Chinatown. Before our little trip, we watched a Youtube video by the Fung Brothers entitled The Best Cheap Eats Hidden Gems in New York and loved it. We decided to go to some of the restaurants they reviewed in their videos. We then brought the food back to the hotel and ate dinners in our hotel suite – it was a lot of fun!

In closing, I want to mention that we eventually got to meet Mr. Sang Choi (the author of the original email) in person and that he was charming and every bit as gracious and helpful in person as he seemed to be in his email. I hope he goes far.

This was a very good experience – and I would not hesitate to recommend the hotel to others.