ROOMS:  Due to a missing window lever that had broken the window’s seal and exposed the room to the city’s incessant cacophony, we were very quickly offered our choice of either a similar room at the hotel’s rear—or a high-floor suite facing the street.  Was there any question as to which we’d choose?  That suite—number 60, on the sixth floor—was exactly the sort of Manhattan pied à terre people dream about and covet. With its artwork by French photographer Guy Bourdin, and Eero Saarinen inspired tulip chairs and table, as well as two immense flat-screen TV’s, iPod docking station, upholstered bench, maple burl coffee table, and animal hide on the gray carpet, the three-room suite was ready for its close-up in Architectural Digest.  The oversized black-tiled bathroom evoked an updated “classic six” Manhattan apartment with its combination of classic and cool style.  The luscious toiletries were by fresh—and the white towels so plush and clean fragranced as to merit repeated inhalations.  As for housekeeping, the attention to cleanliness was impeccable. 

PUBLIC SPACES:  Designed by Stephen Sclaroff as a sort of homage to those sunken living rooms seen in Bond films from the Sixties, the well-edited intimate lobby is the sort of urban sanctuary where iPods and Macbooks are de rigueur as ambitious artsy types stare through the plate glass window across 58^th Street at the Time Warner Center.  Off the lobby is the Blue Ribbon Bar, an oasis of Asian calm and an extension of the in-house restaurant, Blue Ribbon Sushi Bar & Grill, yet another of the successful chefs-at-rest Blue Ribbon refuges.  It’s the sort of place that percolates with insider energy at two a.m.—and you’re happy to be there, soaking up culinary secrets. 

BREAKFAST:  Is served in the Blue Ribbon Sushi Bar & Grill until ten-thirty am—an hour that found us luxuriating in the heavenly bed upstairs—and therefore, we took breakfast, er—brunch, elsewhere. 

PERSONNEL: Accommodating, to say the least—given how quickly both the front desk manager and others responded to our plight with the aforementioned inoperative room window.  Furthermore, the doorboys and the deskgirls were as cheerful as they were adorable—often releasing the elevator for us, rather than forcing us to use our room cards.  And whenever we needed anything in our luxuriant suite—hangars, towels, facecloths—their attention to our needs was immediate.  Who wouldn’t want to hire them all to staff one’s own home? 

LOCATION:  Perfection.  Absolutely perfect.  A quick walk to the theatres, and on the fringe of the Park, and across the street from Whole Foods, and—really, let’s face it—this location is exactly where you’d ask your realtor to search for your own Manhattan pied à terre. 

OVERVIEW: With only 88 guest rooms and suites, 6 Columbus radiates a welcome calm amidst the manic madness of midtown.  There’s a genuine warmth emanating from the staff, which complements the feeling one has of entering a hotel that appears to double as a members club for artists and bon vivants.  And yet, that sense of belonging at 6 Columbus is low-key and without attitude: the consequence of a confidence that comes from believing in what you’re doing—and doing it right.