Hi, anyone give me the lowdown on this hotel on Upper West Side, also any background on the area generally. From research appears quite a way from the sights, whats best way to get about?

Stayed for two nights on W94th Street in September.Y eh it is away from lower Manhatten but we enjoyed the walk down through Central Park down to Times Square and then took the sightseeing bus to other places getting off were we chose. I'd say Times Square was about a 20 to 30 minute walk down Broadway from here. At night we frequented Amsterdam Ave which is just around the corner from W94th St and parallel to Broadway. There were loads of bars and restaurants in this area to such an extent that we never ventured away from here at night. One other thing, the area was packed but we felt completely safe and everyone including the bouncers was very friendly and polite.

I lived on 100th street in that area for 5 years. While it's a little removed from the major sights in NYC, the west side on the 90s and 100s is a very pleasant residential restaurants with lots of low key restaurants and bars. It's also close to the upper parts of central park which are not as crowded as the lower bits and have more natural landscaping.

You can get to downtown locations easily with the 1/2/3/9 on 96 and B'way, or the B/C on 96 and CPW.

It is very safe; in five years of living in that area and walking around at all hours of the day, nothing remotely bad ever happened to me.

Some of my favorite restaurants in that area that I miss now that I'm no longer in NYC are, Gennaro (Italian, 93 and Amsterdam), Awash (Ethiopian, 106 & Amsterdam), Metisse (French, 105 btw B'way & Amsterdam) & a Peruvian place that I can't remember the name now (93 or 94 at Amsterdam).

As for nightlife, as I said it's a very lowkey area. My favorite bar was Underground (107 & B'way) on a Sunday. Throughout the last year, it was never too crowded and full of interesting people and you always got to meet and chat with new people. Recently, NYT ran a long article on what a cool place Underground is, so it might not be that good anymore. Dive Bar at 95? & Amsterdam (looks like the name suggests) is nice too. For serious or trendy nightlife, you have to go further downtown.

All in all, it's a very pleasant neighborhood and I miss it already...

I stayed there for 4 nights last September. The accomodation was very basic, and it was a long way out of the city centre. However, I discovered that hotel accomodation in New York is not as good for value as in the rest of the country. The Quality Hotel was the cheapest hotel I could find over the internet.

The subway station was v.close, the Hudson river is just a short walk away, as well as Central Park, also one of the tour bus companies had a stop near the hotel.

As an aside, I also stayed a night in the Best Western hotel near Penn Station. Do you remember that scene from 'Coming to America' with Eddie Murphy, where he is first shown to his new lodgings in Queens, and he is taken aback at the view out the window, the landlord shrugs and says 'the last tenant was blind'- that was the view I had from the Best Western- a brick wall! It was v. central though.