Sipping a martini or Manhattan in a gold-lit banquette at the Carlyle’s Bemelmans Bar is possibly the ultimate in urban sophistication.

Check in to this brick gothic revival favourite for a taste of old New York. The former seminary (which was built on part of the estate owned by Twas the Night Before Christmas author Clement Clarke Moore) has 60 rooms, with period fireplaces and mantels, antique furniture and carpets, and reproduction 19th-century wallpaper.

This elegant five-star hotel just off Madison Avenue provides white-glove service to its guests and has just 74 guest rooms, with sophisticated decor from London architect Mark Pinney and American interior designer Michael S Smith.

Get caught between the moon and New York City by staying in one of this five-star hotel’s 244 guest rooms and suites (all above the 35th floor sky lobby), which deliver floor-to-ceiling windows and views of either the south side of Central Park or the Hudson River and West Side towers.

Soundproof windows, goose-down duvets and hand-drawn clouds on the wallpaper insulate guests from the thrumming buzz of Central Park South at this 1930 landmark hotel — all the better to allow the senses to be filled with wide open views of Central Park stretching away uptown.

This neo-Italian Renaissance pad in midtown Manhattan was designed by the beaux-arts architects McKim, Mead & White and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Evelyn’s lobby is full of nods to the Jazz Age, from art deco brass rails to syncopated designs on the glass lights to velvet — all notes that are echoed in the sophisticated Bar Benno, with its large marble bar and tubular lights and Benno restaurant.

This landmark boutique hotel, just steps from the heart of the Theater District and Times Square, was designed by architect Stanford White (of McKim, Mead & White) for the Lambs in 1905, a theatrical club whose members included the Barrymores, Charlie Chaplin and Cecil B DeMille.

This modern hotel’s greenery-filled atrium is a nod to the neighbourhood’s wholesale florists and nurseries whose wares often line the streets — expect everything from evergreen shrubs to palms to peonies.

It’s hard to beat this modern hotel’s location on Fifth Avenue directly across from the grand New York Public Library and its two marble lions, Patience and Fortitude. The lobby library even has a rotating book collection curated by the local librarians across the street.

Every one of the 183 rooms at this Williamsburg hotel has a balcony and floor-to-ceiling windows — all the better to take in the Manhattan skyline just across the East River, along with much of Brooklyn.

The Langham brings distinction to a fairly anonymous stretch of Fifth Avenue, with its sleek, modern lobby, curving swathes of roses that seem to rise from the street, and serious modern art collection.

Built inside Brooklyn Bridge Park (part of a public-private partnership that funds the park), this hotel takes its green credentials very seriously, from reclaimed timbers on the lobby floors to living green walls to grey water recycling.

The red tasselled room keys are the first hint that this isn’t just a hotel, it’s an experience — the baronial splendour of the lobby and its layered rugs, plush velvet couches, antique lamps and grand fireplace provide plenty others.

This standout melds English country house comfort with hip downtown vibes, ensconcing guests in a maximalist expression of textiles and oversized works of art throughout the public areas and 86 rooms and suites.

This slick hotel was the first of its kind to open in SoHo and its enduring glamour is a testament to its devotion to design and service.

The striking atrium at the heart of this historic building is lined with nine floors of ornate, cast-iron railings and topped with a skylight that illuminates the striking mosaic tiled floor and faded Persian carpets in the public Bar Room down below.

The Ace Hotel draws a neighbourhood crowd to the mix-and-match tables and couches in its large central lobby and bar for Stumptown coffee and cocktails, which lends the space a genuine buzz that you can’t find elsewhere.

This is a hotel tailor-made for those who expect a bit more style from where they stay in the city. Gothic and brooding, the former millinery is in Manhattan’s Garment District, which once provided 70 per cent of all women’s clothing in the US.