Hotel at a Glance: The Gatsby Hotel

Situated right at the border of some of Manhattan’s most exciting neighborhoods—including the Lower East Side, East Village, Nolita, and SoHo—The Gatsby Hotel offers convenient access to all styles of tourism in NYC. Guests can hop on the nearby F train to explore some of the outer boroughs or set foot to pavement to visit nearby sites like The Bowery Electric, Katz’s Delicatessen, and a wide range of shops.

• Lounge or work in a comfortable room with window views of the surrounding neighborhood, as well as an flat-screen TV and coffee maker.
• Grab a cup of joe or a mug of steaming tea, served complimentary to all guests.
• Surf the web using the hotel’s complimentary Wi-Fi.
• Pump some iron at the nearby fitness center, with an additional cost for entry.

Manhattan’s Lower East Side: Chic Boutiques, Restaurant Row, and Contemporary-Art Galleries

If you were a German, Irish, Polish, or Jewish immigrant coming to America in pursuit of a better life in the 19th or early 20th century, odds were good that you’d wind up sharing space in an overcrowded tenement building on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The neighborhood—one of the city’s oldest—was a refuge for New York’s newest and poorest residents for generations. You can learn more at the Tenement Museum, located in a five-story brick building that once housed some 7,000 working-class immigrants.

In recent years, the Lower East Side’s identity as a welcome mat for newcomers has shifted as gentrification began to reshape the neighborhood. Pushcarts and rundown storefronts have given way to trendy boutiques along Orchard Street and a chic “restaurant row” on Clinton Street. What’s more, the relocation of the New Museum has attracted a slew of contemporary-art galleries. Some of the old mainstays have stuck around, though, including Katz’s Delicatessen and Russ & Daughters, which has been selling premium smoked fish, bagels, and other specialty foods since 1914.