The Beekman, A Thompson Hotel

The Hotel

The Beekman occupies an 1881 cast iron building in Lower Manhattan, steps from the Brooklyn Bridge, City Hall, and the entrance ramps to every borough. The building's most extraordinary feature — a nine-storey atrium with a pyramidal skylight that floods the interior with reflected light — was hidden under a false ceiling for decades and revealed during the hotel's 2016 renovation. Standing at its base and looking upward through the ironwork tiers to the glass apex is one of the genuinely memorable interior experiences New York currently offers.

The rooms wrap the atrium on ascending floors, with interiors designed by Martin Brudnizki in a palette of warm golds, deep greens, and the dark woods that complement the building's Victorian bones. Corner rooms at upper floors overlook the atrium on one side and the Financial District or Brooklyn Bridge on the other. The King Suites are particularly well-considered: sitting areas that feel genuinely usable, bathrooms finished in grey marble with freestanding tubs, and bedding that achieves the rare quality of simultaneously looking correct and sleeping correctly.

Tom Colicchio's Temple Court restaurant operates in the hotel's ground-floor dining room with a menu grounded in American ingredients and executed with the precision of a kitchen that has no interest in shortcuts. The bar — a Victorian room of dark wood and brass — is one of the finest drinking environments in Lower Manhattan, which is saying something now that the Financial District has become a genuine destination neighbourhood. Augustine, the separate brasserie at the hotel's Nassau Street entrance, serves breakfast through late evening with a French bistro menu that covers the same geography without attempting the same altitude.

The location is not Midtown, and guests who book here have usually made a considered choice. The Brooklyn Bridge is a twelve-minute walk. The 9/11 Memorial is six minutes. The subway connections here are among the most comprehensive in the city. For guests with business in Lower Manhattan's financial corridor, the proximity eliminates the commute entirely. For guests without business commitments, the neighbourhood's galleries, markets, and waterfront provide a version of New York that feels distinct from the tourist circuit.

Best for Business

For business travellers with obligations in Lower Manhattan's financial and legal districts, The Beekman eliminates the most expensive commodity in New York: time. Wall Street is an eight-minute walk. The meeting space is serious — properly equipped private dining rooms and a dedicated events floor — and Temple Court provides a dining backdrop that can anchor a client dinner without requiring a Midtown excursion. The rooms are spacious enough to work in, and the building's prestige communicates authority to clients who notice these things. Which, in this neighbourhood, most of them do.

Rates from $420/night. Check availability on TheBeekman.com.