The Peninsula New York – the dry hotel that outlasted its own liquor ban

On the corner of Fifth Avenue and 55th Street stands a 23-storey limestone-and-granite tower that opened on 1 October 1905 as the Gotham Hotel, its first guest the widow of a United States senator. The building survives today as The Peninsula New York, part of the Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels group since 1988, and was made a New York City Landmark the following year. The MICHELIN Guide awards it One Key. Behind the Beaux-Arts facade sit 219 rooms and suites, a restaurant designed by Yabu Pushelberg, a piano bar that keeps the hotel's old name, and a rooftop bar that returns, after a 2024 refit, to its original 1980s identity.

01The house

With its limestone carvings, copper cornice and Doric columns, the hotel was one of the first in New York to use steel-frame construction, designed by Hiss & Weekes as the Gotham Hotel to sit comfortably beside the 1900 University Club. The building is arranged in a "C" shape around a light court facing the Club to the south, and its guest list in the 1910s included the financier James J. Hill.

The Gotham did not survive its own temperance: unable to secure a liquor licence because it stood too close to the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, it went bankrupt within three years of opening. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company took the building over in 1932, renovating it in 1939 and running it as a residential apartment hotel until 1978. The hotel was renamed The Peninsula New York on reopening in 1988, once the old liquor laws had been reinterpreted, and was designated a New York City Landmark in 1989.

02Rooms and suites

The hotel counts 219 rooms and suites, including three Signature Suites, The Peninsula Suite and a newly renovated Grand Suite that ranges from just over 1,600 to 3,000 square feet with views over Fifth Avenue and Central Park. A property-wide refurbishment led by New York-based Bill Rooney Studio, completed in 2024, drew its colour palette and mood from Manhattan's Roaring Twenties while refreshing every guest room, the lobby, reception and the central Palm Court, now hung with a commissioned triptych by the artist Ricardo Mazal.

Insider tip

Two blocks from MoMA and Central Park; nearest subway Fifth Avenue–53rd Street.

Rooms were reworked with lighter furnishings and textiles, objets d'art and books, and updated with touch-screen tablets offering six languages alongside bedside panels for lighting and temperature. Guests arrive through a double-height lobby beneath a chandelier and up a marble staircase that long predates the brand's arrival on Fifth Avenue.

03Where to eat

Clement, the hotel's dining room overlooking Fifth Avenue, was designed by Yabu Pushelberg to feel like a run of rooms in a New York apartment rather than a single restaurant space, and is run by executive chef Malte Kontor, whose kitchen turns out contemporary American plates for breakfast, lunch and weekend brunch. The adjoining Clement Bar handles cocktails, while the Gotham Lounge, hung with pieces by local artists off the main lobby, runs as the hotel's piano bar and hosts its long-standing afternoon tea and Sunday Brunch Buffet.

04The bar

Above it all sits Pen Top, the rooftop bar that reclaimed its original 1980s name in the 2024 refit, having spent years as Salon de Ning. The new design, overseen by Bill Rooney Studio, reads like an artist's loft — heavy on greenery and plush sofas — and a new operable, louvered roof means the 23rd-floor space now runs indoors and out through every season, with classic and modern cocktails served against the Midtown skyline.

05Spa and wellbeing

The Peninsula Spa occupies the 21st floor, an unusual height for a hotel spa even in a city of towers, with treatment rooms built around a quiet, wood-toned design, a sauna, steam room and ice fountain, and a private suite with its own whirlpool. One floor above, the indoor pool is walled in glass on three sides, giving swimmers a view toward Fifth Avenue and the cornices of neighbouring buildings that few New York hotels can match. The hotel's rotating art collection, visible around its public spaces and corridors, has included work by Keith Haring and Ricardo Mazal, part of an ongoing Art in Resonance programme of artists in residence.

06The neighbourhood

The hotel sits two blocks from the Museum of Modern Art and its collection of more than 150,000 works, within easy walking distance of Central Park, Rockefeller Center and the flagship stores that line Fifth Avenue itself. The nearest subway stop is Fifth Avenue–53rd Street, served by the E and M trains, about a four-minute walk from the hotel's door.

07Making the most of a stay

Pen Top opens from 5pm, Tuesday to Saturday, and is worth booking ahead for a table with a skyline view; the hotel's own site also lists seasonal offers, including discounts for bookings made several weeks in advance.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.