Marriott NY Marquis Hotel

This is my hotel during the 2nd International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC) sponsored by the Heartland Institute last March 8-10 this year. It's right in front of Times Square.

The ground floor is just the entrance to the hotel, 4 revolving doors (2 each in the front and the back) and a long table for the building security officers. The hotel reception is on the 8th floor, the 2nd to 4th floors are for shops. The 5th floor is for various meeting and function rooms, the 6th floor is the grand ballroom. I dont know what's on the 7th floor, I did not bother to visit.

The hotel is a huge building, about 45 storeys high, my room was on the 34th floor. From the ground to the 45th floor, there is an open space in the middle of the building, the "hollow" is much wider from the 9th to the 45th floors.

Elevators. In many hotels, guests have vin cards for their rooms, and the cards have to be swiped in the elevators. People who have no cards mean they are not guests of the hotel and the elevators will not move. At Marriott NY Marquis, there are about 14 high speed elevators, about 8 are made of glass so that guests can view the entire building from within, from the ground to the top floor. The other 4 or 6 elevators are made of steel, no view of the building from within.

Guests push the floor where they wish to go in a number keypad on a wall, and the number keypads will direct the guests or visitors which of the 14 elevators (labeled elevators A to N, I think) they can take. Once inside the elevator, there are only 2 prominent buttons to push: door close or door open, although the doors open or close automatically. All elevatos have monitor screens, about 2/3 are for some news updates, the other 1/3 of the screen are for ads. So guests will have little "idle" time as there are information to chew or entertain ads to view even inside the elevators!

The rooms are nice (mine has 2 beds), the tv is wide (Korean LG). There are no mini-bars (maybe in other rooms), only bottled water are available in the room ($5 and $10 for the small and big bottles).

High speed internet connection for 24 hours, noon to noon, plus unlimited calls (I think) for any of the 50 states in the US, are available for $17++. For me it's expensive, so I did not use the service.

This is my 2nd visit to NYC (the first was in 2004) but it's my first time to stay in a hotel there. I stayed with my American friend, Vince Boudreau's house, in uptown NY in my first visit. And I was very glad to stay in a big hotel right in front of Times Square!