New York is a city of infinite choice but when one of the choices is a place that a lower east side base to work and party, then Ian Schrager has made the perfect hotel for you.

Hotel PUBLIC is more than a hotel it is a party base on the Lower East Side

AMBIENCE >

PUBLIC rises from a nondescript slice of Chrystie Street as a minimalist shard of glass and concrete, but the moment you glide up the illuminated escalators, the mood flips from austere to electric. Inside, Ian Schrager’s “tough lux” brief translates as raw materials softened with plush textures, warm lighting and considered planting, all choreographed to feel more like a scene than a lobby. The social spaces hum from mid‑afternoon, with laptops and Negronis sharing tables, then switch gears after dark as DJs, skyline views and queues for the elevators to The Roof set a decidedly see‑and‑be‑seen tempo.

The location is Lower East Side, but with Nolita and SoHo a short walk west and the Second Avenue subway just a couple of minutes away, you are well‑placed for cross‑town exploration without sacrificing downtown edge. Floor‑to‑ceiling glass across public spaces and many rooms draws the city right into the frame, so you are constantly aware of New York as both backdrop and co‑conspirator.

SLEEP >

Rooms at PUBLIC are compact by design but cleverly calibrated: think 367 keys spread across 11 room types, from pared‑back queens through to skyline‑drunk penthouses. The aesthetic is calm and Scandinavian‑leaning—bleached wood, crisp white bedding, integrated storage and large windows—deliberately stripped of froufrou in favour of light, sightlines and tech. In‑room controls sit at the bedside, allowing you to manage lights, blinds and climate without leaving the duvet, while fast, free Wi‑Fi keeps work and streaming painless.

Soundproofing is generally good for a hotel that leans so heavily into nightlife, but if you are sensitive, it is worth requesting a higher floor away from the elevators and Artspace. Bathrooms continue the minimal brief—glass, pale stone, streamlined fixtures—feeling more wet‑room than spa, but rain showers and good water pressure tick the right post‑red‑eye boxes. Accessible rooms are available, with widened doorways, grab bars and lowered fixtures, and there is a dog‑friendly policy for smaller pups, reinforcing the hotel’s urban‑lifestyle positioning.

EAT >

Food at PUBLIC carries the imprimatur of Jean‑Georges Vongerichten, whose team oversees multiple outlets on site, from casual market‑style options to more composed restaurant offerings. The lobby‑level market is the day‑time workhorse: coffee, pastries, salads and hot dishes that suit both laptop working lunches and quick pre‑meeting refuels without the formality of sit‑down service. As the day stretches on, the energy shifts towards more polished plates and shared dishes that feel rooted in New York but travel comfortably through global flavours—a reflection of the brand’s “accessible luxury” ethos.

There is no traditional room service in the old‑school sense, part of Schrager’s strategy to trim legacy hotel frills in favour of better rates and buzzier public spaces. Instead you are gently nudged downstairs to eat in company, or to ferry your own carefully boxed dinner back upstairs, which works if you buy into the hotel’s social‑first philosophy but may frustrate guests arriving late and craving privacy.

DRINK >

This is where PUBLIC leans all the way into its Studio 54 DNA, with an entire vertical stack of bars tuned to different moments of the night. The Roof, up on the 18th floor, is the headline act: Manhattan skyline views, floor‑to‑ceiling glass, a central bar and a dance‑ready crowd, with DJs and a cocktail list designed for golden‑hour photos and late‑night rounds. Two Fifteen takes things lower‑lit and more intimate—a glamorous, modern cocktail bar with live sounds several nights a week, where martinis and vinyl share equal billing.

Downstairs, the Pisco Bar injects Latin energy with pisco sours, fruit‑forward mixes and a room that reliably tips from conversation into dance floor as the night deepens. Artspace, the hotel’s avant‑garde performance venue, doubles as a high‑capacity club with world‑class DJs, multimedia visuals and the kind of sound system that makes it abundantly clear that PUBLIC is not, and never pretended to be, a quiet business hotel. This is more “stay where you plan to go out” than “retreat after a long day uptown.”

WORKOUT >

PUBLIC’s fitness centre is open 24 hours, which suits both jet‑lagged Australians and New Yorkers squeezing in a session between meetings and midnight sets. Expect a well‑equipped gym rather than a holistic wellness temple: cardio machines, including Peloton bikes, strength‑training kit and enough floor space for stretching or a quick body‑weight circuit.

What rounds things out are the regular rooftop‑adjacent wellness sessions woven into the weekly programming—yoga, Pilates, breathwork and core sculpt on the 17th floor—bringing daylight, skyline views and a degree of community to what could otherwise feel purely functional. There is no spa, pool or extensive thermal suite, so if your ritual skews towards hammams and hydrotherapy, you will need to look elsewhere in the city for that layer of indulgence.

PLAY >

If you subscribe to the idea that the most interesting thing about a hotel is the people it attracts, PUBLIC is compelling. The escalators alone have become a minor Instagram motif, and the mix at the top—locals, creatives, international weekenders—gives the public floors a constant sense of motion. Programming is dense: nightly DJ sets at The Roof or Two Fifteen, big‑name nights and parties at Artspace, and an events calendar that runs from live music to fashion‑adjacent happenings.

Step outside and Sara D. Roosevelt Park softens the urban edges across the street, while Nolita, SoHo and the Lower East Side’s galleries, bars and restaurants fan out within comfortable walking distance. The Second Avenue subway keeps the rest of Manhattan within easy reach, though the real temptation is to treat PUBLIC as both base and evening destination, layering your own itinerary around its nocturnal spine.

CONCLUSION >

PUBLIC is not the hotel you book if you want to retreat from New York; it is the hotel you choose when you want to lean into it. Light‑filled, carefully edited rooms, a genuinely useful location and a hospitality concept that collapses the line between guest, local and nightlife make it a strong fit for design‑literate travellers who are as interested in atmosphere as they are in amenities.

For many years Ian Schrager’s San Francisco Hotel “The CLIFT” was my SF city base, it was a place of style and whimsy, both destination and briefly home away from home. The PUBLIC fills a similar role though I wonder if I am getting a little to old to make this my NYC base and it is slightly better for those still looking to party!

PUBLIC slots neatly into a broader New York itinerary that might also include slower, more overtly luxurious stays uptown or in Brooklyn: use PUBLIC for its views, energy and cultural proximity, then decamp elsewhere if you need a restorative break. If you had to reduce its proposition to a single image, it would be this: the city unfurling beyond the glass at The Roof as a DJ cues up, and you suddenly realise your “hotel nightcap” has quietly become the main event.

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Image Credit | ALMANAK & Public

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