As an architect who actually spends some of his time designing hotels, I had heard about the Hudson.

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I am reposting this one because I found my photographs of the hotel which were missing when it was originally posted.  I have no idea why it took me 6 years to write this letter but the memories, particularly of the plate incident, are as clear as if it had been only last week.  I never did recive a reply but the letter was sent electronically. airline flight information I shall send a hard copy and see if I get a reply!
I am writing about a visit I made to your hotel a little while ago.  Actually, it was quite a big while.  OK, to be honest, it was six years ago but my mind has kept returning to those four days back in 2004 and I've decided to finally get it off my chest as it were, so here goes:
I should begin by explaining airline flight information that I am a regular visitor to New York.  Being a regular visitor, I have spent my fair share of time in some pretty nasty hotels so when, in 2004, I decided to bring my wife and my children, I thought it would be a good idea to avoid the usual hovels airline flight information and find somewhere 'interesting' to stay.
As an architect who actually spends some of his time designing hotels, I had heard about the Hudson.  Naturally airline flight information enough, I was aware that the hotel had been designed by that most renowned of self-publicists, Philippe Starck – he of the elegant airline flight information but perfectly useless lemon squeezer fame – and so I was assured that the hotel would be interesting (if rather over-priced).
This belief was encouraged by my familiarity the Sanderson Hotel in London, another of Starck's crimes airline flight information against humanity, where out of sheer curiosity, I had once chosen an appetiser consisting of a single prawn (you'd probably airline flight information call it a shrimp – what we English call a shrimp you would probably call a water flea) which turned out to be the biggest prawn/shrimp the world has ever seen.  It was probably fished from the outfall of a nuclear power station.  It was also perfectly airline flight information awful.  It tasted of nothing at all and had the texture of a ribbed condom (not that I've ever eaten one you understand, I'm using a little imagination for literary effect).
If the lighting level had been lower, the radioactive prawn/shrimp would probably have glowed in the dark!  And here we reach the point of my little sidetrack - it wasn't dark at the Sanderson.  I could see the prawn/shrimp (and everything else) without the aid of infra-red night goggles.
At night, your hotel has the darkest lobby of any hotel in the world (see photo left taken in daylight).  Monsieur Starck evidently couldn't figure out how to hang any more lights below the glass roof and so he simply didn't bother.
I must confess that my annoyance was somewhat offset by the fact that the hotel was hosting a modelling convention at the time so there was a degree of pleasure involved in constantly walking into people when most of the people were sweet-smelling six foot goddesses but I suspect that it would have been nicer to actually see them.   The problem was exacerbated when emerging from the famous bar with its brightly illuminated floor which had the effect of closing down the human iris to such a level that the minimal visibility in the lobby disappeared altogether. airline flight information For most of the time, the pitch black lobby was nothing more than a constant and completely unnecessary irritation.
It began within seconds of arrival when we discovered that you had managed to book my teenage son and daughter into a double room instead of the twin we had reserved.  The prospect of Pugsley and Veruka sharing a bed was the stuff of nightmares and it was probably airline flight information worth waiting the four hours or so that it took your staff to find them a twin bedded room and paying the obscene premium that they demanded.  When we finally were able to ascend to our bedrooms, I was suddenly aware just how fortunate the children had been.
I can report airline flight information that your double bedrooms are amongst the smallest and most dreadful airline flight information hotel bedrooms in the world. Second only to the Orient Express in dollars per square foot terms, they are smaller and more dreadful than all the other thousands of small and dreadful rooms in a city that has more small and dreadful hotel rooms than any other city on earth (including Tokyo).
I had no problem at all with the glass bathrooms.  My wife is a beautiful woman and I rather enjoyed standing on the bed and watching her take a shower.  Of course, I would have preferred to stand on the floor but there wasn't a bit of floor big enough to accommodate both of my modestly sized feet and I found that standing perpendicular airline flight information to the wall on one leg wasn't terribly comfortable.  It was just about possible to stand by the bed if I tucked my toes beneath the bed and had my heels against the wall but I was worried that if I fell forwards due to the exciting view in the bathroom, I might break both ankles – and that would have ruined the ice skating trip to Central Park planned for the next morning.
At night, the size of the bedrooms became even more of an issue.  During the day, the regular opening of the bedroom door admitted airline flight information fresh supplies of oxygen into the room.  During the night, opening the door every so often to prevent asphyxiation was tiresome to say the least.  Any 'nocturnal activity' would obviously use up the oxygen in no time at all and as it didn't seem appropriate to indulge ourselves with the door ajar, we very quickly gave that up as a bad job.  We tried briefly airline flight information to persuade the children to swap rooms but having been obliged airline flight information to throw a tantrum to get the larger room in the first place; they were having none of that.
We are all familiar with the shared heritage and cultural common ground airline flight information between our two peoples.  Having spent so much time in the USA, I have grown to love the people and I can count many Americans amongst my very best friends.  Since the Mayflower sailed from our shores however, two fundamentally important cultural differences have developed between Europeans and Americans (ignoring airline flight information the fact that Americans wear padding and crash helmets to play a sissy form of rugby and then have the brass neck to call it football!).
First, we like our coffee to taste of coffee.  The quantity of coffee we use to make a single cup is enough to supply American coffee to the whole of the Upper West Side of New York for a week.  America's obsession with diluting coffee to homeopathic levels airline flight information remains a complete mystery to us.  The global spread of Starbucks  we regard as a scourge airline flight information on the face of the planet.  It's like Swine Flu, only more virulent.  We need at least a dozen triple-tall-lattés to get the vaguest of caffeine hits.
Second, Europeans like their food served piping hot (unless it's a salad).  That is to say we like to see steam rising from our plates.  In Europe, millions of plates of food are returned to kitchens daily  because hotels and restaurants have allowed food to cool beyond the point where you no longer have to blow on it to prevent blisters on your palate.  Blowing on our food is an important part of the whole culinary experience for us Europeans.  With this in mind, we heat our plates before we put food on them.   Serving hot food on a cold plate is the equivalent of farting noisily at the boss's dinner table at whilst telling him that his wife is butt-ugly.  You just don't do it (even if she is).
So, to return to our story, imagine my reaction when, after an evening of walking into walls (and models) and a night of oxygen-deprived frustration, I saunter into the breakfast buffet to find both urine-coloured coffee and a pile of plates that have only recently been removed from the refrigerator!
In the circumstances, I was very calm, and surprisingly polite.  The coffee wasn't going to be a problem because I have been doing this long enough to secrete sachets of instant coffee airline flight information about my person when travelling in the United States.  I was going to need help with the plates however.
I don't know why, but I was definitely in the mood for some scrambled egg.  The problem was that it was at least fifteen feet from the buffet to my table and I reckoned that as soon as the scrambled egg hit the freezing cold plate, it would probably only travel about four feet before it was stone cold and disgusting.
The reaction of the young man behind the counter was utterly fascinating.  His eyebrows went up for a few seconds, then down for a few more.  He put his head on one side, then he opened his mouth but no sound came out.  He looked like he had seen or heard something quite incredible and completely outside his experience.  Eventually, he uttered "A hot plate?"  "Yes", I replied.  "Just a plate – like, on its own - that's, like, hot?"  "Indeed", I said.
He wandered off and conferred with the other white cotton-clad staff behind the counter and after several minutes of whispered consultation and head-scratching, he returned with a colossal copper pan roughly two feet in diameter and proceeded to pour into it several gallons of ice cold water.  He then lit one of the gas rings and placed the pan on the hob.  For the next ten minutes, we both watched the empty pan as the water slowly progressed from cold to tepid.  He then used a pair of giant tongs to carefully lift a plate from the freezing stack and lower it gently into the pan.  Then we watched it some more.
Had the guy been b