Kaboo Everything Kids's List: Kids Kaboo Travel

doubles from ¤542 10 THE MARK It's half a block away from Central Park, four from the Metropolitan, and had nearly $150m spent on it recently in a refurb by the swanky French designer Jacques Grange. The Mark's never going to be cheap, then. You get elegance and art deco for your money, with beautiful mirrored lifts and handmade furniture throughout, but room prices suggest they're keeping both eyes on the bottom line. 25 East 77th Street; 212 744 4300, themarkhotel.com

doubles from ¤539 9 THE SURREY Up on the Upper East Side, things are even more sophisticated. Lobbies are large, guests wealthy, doormen reverential. So it is here. The entrance hall is all marble and polish, but by the lift, there's a freestanding cabinet covered in graffiti. Rooms are big, and the posh suites, currently a riot of wires and workmen, will be fabulous, with saunas and TVs above the bath. Cafe Boulud, next door, does the food, and the Michelin-starred American French restaurant has a way with pud that's worth a reservation alone. Classy. 20 East 76th Street; 212 288 3700, thesurrey.com

doubles from ¤291 8 PIERRE The Pierre is on Fifth Avenue, two minutes from Bergdorf Goodman and overlooking Central Park. In terms of location, that's a winner. The ballroom is where Al Pacino did the tango with Gabrielle Anwar in Scent of a Woman, back in 1992. That's good too. That room's still there, but much of the rest of the building, a hotel since 1930, has been redone in an 18-month, $100m renovation. It's old-school opulent, with gilded carpets and chandeliers, while the Rotunda restaurant is frescoed to within an inch of its life. The 189 rooms are now a bit more modern, with surprisingly high ceilings, but the views of the park are why you'll fancy splashing out.

2 East 61st Street; 212 838 8000, tajhotels.com

doubles from ¤135, B&B 7 INK 48 The odd name is a nod to the original building, a former printing press in the middle of Hell's Kitchen, but Ink 48 will soon be better known for what's on the roof than what's on the business cards. The 16th-floor lounge and restaurant will become one of those places that good people like you and I won't be able to get into, because the queue of New York hotties will stretch round the block. Even as a building site, it's awesome — unobstructed views across the Hudson, 8th Avenue high-rises and the Empire State Building — and it has a 15-man outdoor hot tub from which to enjoy them, as well as space for a catwalk (obviously). The roof opens in January, but there are plenty of rooms available now, many with similar views. 653 11th Avenue/48th Street; 212 757 0088, ink48.com

doubles from ¤187 6 THE GRACE It's hard work, New York. All that shopping and walking and looking up. So what would be welcome is a gentle float in a pool, with perhaps the effort of a swim to the bar rewarded by another cocktail. That you can do all this in the Grace's lobby just cuts down on the legwork. There's a DJ, a sauna and a steam room there, too. The hotel is right off Times Square, with funky little rooms and a kiosk selling food and miniatures for you to stock your minibar with. Pop your head out of the lift at regular intervals to check out the different colour schemes on the floors — Austin Powers waves on one, zebra stripes on the next. 125 West 45th Street; 212 354 2323, room-matehotels.com

doubles from ¤204 5 DISTRIKT Here's something different: a hotel with a theme. The Distrikt pays homage to New York, with 32 floors styled on city neighbourhoods, from the financial district at the bottom to Harlem at the top. The place was a building site last week, but it's coming along — the living wall in the lobby will be laid with grass in the shape of Central Park, more than 10,000 shots of the city were taken for the collages on each floor, while the restaurant will team local produce with local beers. 342 West 40th Street; 877 424 6423, distrikthotel.com

doubles from ¤134 4 ACE What is it you want your choice of hotel to say about you? If it's "stylish, knowing, hip, witty and maybe even a bit sexy", then you want to stay at the Ace. Built in 1904 as the Breslin Hotel, and now thoroughly revamped, it sits in trendy NoMad (north of Madison Square Park), off Sixth Avenue. Inside, the lobby is all battered old sofas, warm wood, hot coffee and cool kids. The restaurant, the Breslin, is the new one from the British chef April Bloomfield, of NYC's Spotted Pig, and the breakfast, to use an Americanism, is to die for. The pastries and muffins, though, are worthy of resurrection. A number of the rooms have Smeg fridges instead of minibars, and there are in-room turntables or guitars, murals on the walls and boxer-style bathrobes in the wardrobes. Even basic bunk-bed rooms, sleeping two (¤102), are a decent size. 20 West 29th Street; 212 679 2222, acehotel.com

doubles from ¤168 3 STANDARD You probably know of André Balazs and his hip hotels in LA (Chateau Marmont, the Standard). Now, Manhattan gets its own Standard, riding the new High Line park in the Meatpacking District. From the ground it's a towering, not entirely attractive old building in a part of town that doesn't really do high-rise; inside, it's part kitsch, part futurism. It's fun, though: the 337 good-sized rooms have glorious views of either the Hudson or the city; the 18th-floor bar is a 1920s-style cocktail lounge, with vast windows and a glass-floored smokers' balcony; the beer garden has free ping pong; and the so-called spa, with hot tub, bar and decks, has a vending machine for his-and-hers swimsuits. 848 Washington Street; 212 645 4646, standardhotels.com

doubles from ¤358 2 JANE This is unquestionably the most bonkers hotel in New York. Here are just some of the reasons: 1) real people live in it. There are 50 full-time residents, including one old boy who's been there for 30 years. 2) Most of the rooms are microscopic. As in 50 sq ft. But at ¤67, with TV and WiFi, they're great value, and they get better because 3) some of them have bunk beds, so two of you can compare your claustrophobia for ¤84. Trouble is, 4) they don't have bathrooms. In fact, there are just two bathrooms (which means four showers and four toilets) per floor of 48 rooms. There are normal-sized rooms, too, called Captain's Cabins, which do have bathrooms. (The building used to be a sailors' hostel.) Oh, and 5) the communal areas are like stepping back into the 1920s — the bellboys wear pillbox hats and the ballroom drips with nudes and antique furniture. These areas are currently closed; phone for opening times.

113 Jane Street; 212 924 6700, thejanenyc. com

1 CROSBY STREET If I had an eccentric, stylish and rich uncle, Crosby Street is exactly what his mansion would look like. In the lobby, there's an enormous floating head made up of letters and a pair of dogs made up of The Beano. In fact, there's plenty of art about, much of it the work of the excellent Peter Clark, an English collagist. Elsewhere, Crosby Street has a screening room (and like its sister hotels in London, Charlotte Street and Covent Garden, will soon have a film club), a long bar and restaurant, and, downstairs, a polar-bear bookshelf guarding the meeting rooms. It has been designed to qualify as one of the first Leed (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified hotels in the city after its first year — hence the forthcoming rooftop vegetable garden.

79 Crosby Street; 00 1-212 226 6400, firmdale.com