Eurostars Wall Street Rating: 3.0 Pearls

Lower Manhattan, Manhattan, New York City

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Surrounded by office buildings and boardered by the East River, the Eurostars Wall Street is on a quiet street, but it is just one block south of the handful of retail shops, upscale restaurants, bars, and free summer music concerts at the South Street Seaport.

In the skyscraper-packed southern tip of Manhattan, Wall Street traders weave between tourists along narrow, historic streets. Home to City Hall, the New York Stock Exchange, the cobblestoned streets of South Street Seaport, Ground Zero, the Brooklyn Bridge, and ferries to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, Lower Manhattan is a premier tourist destination.

But the area generally shuts down after the Wall Street market closes, and there's scarce activity on the weekends. Shopping is of the bargain-hunting variety -- though the locally loved Century 21 has incredible designer deals -- and there are considerably fewer restaurants and bars than in most of Manhattan. Still, there are ample subway lines that will take you anywhere in the city, and the swank arts and nightlife scenes in SoHo and the Lower East Side are only a $5 to $10 cab ride away.

• Three blocks from the 2, 3 subway lines; four blocks from the J, M, Z lines; five blocks from the 4, 5 lines -- easy access to anywhere in the city
• 35-minute subway ride to Central Park
• 25-minute subway ride to Times Square
• 25-minute subway ride to the Empire State Building and Rockefeller Center
• 10-minute walk to the ferry terminal to visit the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island
• 35-minute subway ride to the American Museum of Natural History
• 40-minute subway ride to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the "Met") and a 25-minute subway ride to the Museum of Modern Art (the "MoMA")

A Deluxe Room

• Standard rooms start at 230 square feet, about average for a New York hotel room, and have a queen-size bed
• Executive and Deluxe rooms, and kitchen-equipped suites offer more space -- 300, 320, and 350 square feet, respectively -- and fridges and microwaves.
• 32-inch flat-screen TV
• Free Wi-Fi
• Tarocco bath products, a lesser-known brand

New York has three nearby airports: JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark (in New Jersey). Getting to town from JFK or LaGuardia is usually more convenient than getting there from Newark, but travel times are heavily dependent on the time of day and traffic conditions. From JFK, a taxi to anywhere in Manhattan costs a flat rate of $45 and takes around an hour in average conditions. From LaGuardia, a metered cab ride to midtown Manhattan costs about $40 and can take 30 minutes if traffic is light, three times that if it's bad. Rides from Newark cost at least $40 (plus tolls) and can take more than 90 minutes. It's customary to tip your driver 15 to 25 percent.

Those looking to save some cash can use the privately run shuttle buses that are available at all three airports for about $14 per person. For more information on the shuttles, go to Super Shuttle or New York Airport Service. Public transit is also available for as little as $7 per person, but travel can take up to two hours and involve a lot of lugging bags up and down stairways.

For mass-transit directions right to the hotel, check out HopStop.com.