Three ways to stay in New York like you live here
If you want a kitchen, room to spread out and a place that feels like an apartment, New York gives you three options, and the rules for each are different. An apartment-style hotel rents by the night with staff in the building. A short-term rental is a private home or apartment booked for fewer than 30 days. A furnished monthly rental is a lease of 30 days or more.
We're the first kind, so read this with that in mind. We'll be straight about where the other two make more sense.
What changed for short-term rentals in 2023
Short-term rentals in New York City now have to be registered with the city. On January 9, 2022, the city adopted Local Law 18, the Short-Term Rental Registration Law. It requires hosts to register with the Mayor's Office of Special Enforcement and prohibits booking platforms, including Airbnb, VRBO and Booking.com, from processing transactions for unregistered short-term rentals. Enforcement began on September 5, 2023.
Two things are exempt: rentals of 30 consecutive days or more, and units in Class B multiple dwellings that the city has approved for legal short-term occupancy. The city also keeps a Prohibited Buildings List of addresses where short-term rentals aren't allowed at all. If you're booking a private apartment for a week, it's worth checking the listing shows a registration before you pay.
How our studios work
We book by the night, from one night up. Select studios keep a kitchenette that's actually equipped. The Queen Studio, about 215 square feet, has a two-burner cooktop, microwave, freezer, toaster, cookware, plates and utensils, a Nespresso machine and daily housekeeping. The King Studio, 334 square feet, adds a lounge area and the same kind of kitchenette. Laundry is on site, which is what a long stay actually needs.
Our team is on site until 11pm. Check-in is after 3pm with a government-issued ID and the card you booked with, and if you arrive early and your suite isn't ready, we'll hold your bags. Downstairs is the Raines Law Room, our cocktail bar, closed Sundays. Prices are in US dollars with 14.75% hospitality taxes added.
What we're not: there's no big gym and no restaurant beyond the bar. We're 33 suites in a 1920s building that was a Williams College club, each one designed with the artist William Engel, and nothing repeats. This is New York, made residential.
The honest trade-offs
A private short-term rental can give you more square footage or a second bedroom, which our studios don't. A monthly furnished rental can make sense for a stay of a month or longer, and it sits outside the registration rules entirely. What you give up with both is the building: nobody at a desk when the key doesn't work, no one holding your luggage, no bar downstairs.
Our studios suit stays from a few nights to a few weeks, for one or two people who want to cook breakfast, do a load of laundry and still have someone in the building to ask. Bryant Park is a short walk west and Grand Central a few minutes on foot. Ask us about longer stays when you book.