National Limited, Alan said it very well for me so far as the blackout experience is concerned. Thank God it was enough of an oldie goldie to have windows that open. What an ordeal. None of it, of course, the hotel's fault.
I recommend the hotel without hesitation, though it is not fancy and the rooms are sort of small. It does not have a full service restaurant but world-famous Lindy's is next door and NYC is full of eating places so who needs it in the hotel. .....I urgently suggest to check out the various websites like hotels.com, expedia, travelocity, etc to get really good rates. I paid only $85 per night, a genuine steal in NYC(and most other cities as well).
They refunded us one night's difference due to the catastrope. Since I had booked online through one of the above, I had to get my refund by contacting the dot.com people not from the hotel directly(since I had not paid them directly). But hopefully you will not have to endure such a thing.
The proximity go Penn Station makes it a winner handsdown. You cannot go wrong.
I will be staying there again to and from Canada this September. I cannot wait to see what it is like with lights, TV, telephone, toilet, bathtub,elevator, air conditioning, halls that you can see it to walk in, people you don't have to walk into in the dark and scream like a panther(each of you), :lol: :lol: :lol:
Actually I did have one good night there before the blackout and things partially came back on the night before my departure. Alan stayed in touch with me about what Amtrak was up to, and, as it turned out my return trip home was completely unaffected. That shower I took in my deluxe bedroom was the first I had had in two or three steaming hot days--and the food--what a relief.
If you read the earlier posts on this forum, my old time favorite NYC hotel for various reasons was the Paramount....won't go into all that.....but my hotel of choice from now on is the Penn, partly because I intend to do more commuter train riding in the future than ever in the past, so needing to be near the station during the course of my trip is helpful.
And if I had stayed at the Paramount, my old favorite, I would probably have had to spend the night on the streets, as Alan pointed out.
Yup, if you don't mind climbing 13 stories(or more, for some unlucky people) in the dark (I was in room 1319, have not forgotten that) the Pennsy is your deal. :lol:
(Who EVER remembers their hotel room number?)