Many older guests will have a range of unguents, pills and potions needing shelf space – although from the state of my son’s bathroom this is also a common enough need amongst the vainer youth of today, and the bathroom is short on space for these. However the masculine finishes work well here, with slate floors with dark grout lines and grey painted walls setting off the white china sanitaryware well, giving the whole bathroom a sense of the dramatic. When will every budget hotel in Europe have the glorious power that came from the shower here? Floor size of the bedrooms is limited due to the small overall building footprint, but apart from the bathrooms the clever design does not make a guest aware of this, and the rooms seem to have quite generous space, apart from the suite where a mistake in positioning of the bathroom door results in the bedhead wall being squeezed so that the bed ends up against the wall – deciding who climbs over whom can be fun when young but can get to be a pain if you are not in the mood for fun…

Also in the suite the inclusion of two very large TV’s makes the space seem smaller, whilst it should have been possible to design the area so that one served both bedroom and living room The suites take up the top floor and have large balconies with stunning views of the water towers of Manhattan, and of the Empire State building eight or nine blocks away.

The quality of the finishes is good, and the metal framed furniture promises longevity for the casegoods. The artwork echoes the industrial theme with the images being of details of the Brooklyn Bridge, strongly framed and fitting well with the industrial feel of the scheme. Each Four Point Hotel will have its own identity whilst sharing the house graphics and corporate identity. The design team have strong ideas and have produced a strong interior image, giving undoubted presence to this first of brand. With this strong an identity and better than a Lodge-type hotel in that the offering is full service, but with a price comparable, the chain promises to be attractive to both the tourist and business markets.