SoHo Garden Hotel

The hotel is not easy to spot -- it has an unassuming entrance on a busy street. The front desk, due to the hotel's size, is rarely visited by more than one guest at a time, and is flanked by an interactive screen kiosk that acts as a concierge. There are also two iPads for guest use. There's a chalkboard jauntily decorated with the weather report and food and drink suggestions; this along with bright yellow and blue paint adds the kind of young cheerfulness that one might find in a hostel.The lobby area is small but there are a few seating areas, as well as bar stools where guests can plop down with the guidebook or laptop -- Wi-Fi is free here as well as in the rest of the hotel. Music from Top 40 bands can be heard from speakers, and tile floors look sharp against the two stainless steel elevators. European couples, twenty- or thirty-something travelers, and the occasional business traveler can be found here. It’s rare to see many others, except in the lobby while they are checking in, or at the elevator. The real action takes place as soon as one steps out the door onto busy Canal Street.

SoHo Garden Hotel sits on a busy downtown intersection of Canal Street and Broadway, and therefore the biggest complaint for hotel guests is noise pollution from traffic barreling down both streets. What the location does afford, however, is an urban feel with close proximity (walking distance) to trendy neighborhoods like SoHo and Tribeca. If that's not enough choice for food and drink, Chinatown and Little Italy are easy to get to via foot. Guests can also walk a bit farther to get to One World Trade Center and the 9/11 memorial, as well as West, Greenwich, and East Villages.To get to other areas of the city, the Canal Street station is right in front of the hotel entrance for the N, Q, R, J and 6 trains. Taxis are pretty common on both streets as well. As for getting to the hotel from the airport, taxis may have a hard time knowing the name of this hotel –- make sure to have the intersection memorized beforehand.Canal Street is known for shopping with a number of stands that sell knock-offs. It is not unusual to have vendors trying to lure people off the street to their stalls to check out the goods.

This 70-room hotel rises nine floors in a historic cast-iron building with tall ceilings and large windows that let in natural light and some traffic noise. The hotel opened in 2012 and all the furniture was new at opening, including the pillow-top mattresses that are dressed in white Egyptian cotton linens and duvets. All rooms also come with gray carpeting, compact work desks, iPod Docks, 27-inch flat-screen TVs, coffeemakers, ice buckets, and free Wi-Fi. Small cupboard-like closets have an iron and board, safe (no charge), and a small area to hang clothes.Six room types offer various bed types, including two twin beds, one full bed, one queen bed, or one king bed. Depending on the room type, the bathroom may have a tub/shower combo or walk-in shower only, and some have more counter space than others.The accessible rooms have extra large bathrooms and a pretty open room layout.The Executive King Room is the corner unit (one per floor) with extra light from two walls of windows and views that face both west and north.It's rare, but due to the small size of the hotel, guests may not always get the room type that they book online.

This is a small hotel with limited amenities. The 24-hour staff (usually just one person manning the front desk at a time) is there to welcome guests and offer local advice for the surrounding neighborhoods. To the right of this area is a concierge screen kiosk for more suggestions, as well as a stand-up business center with two iPads free to use for guests.On the lower level of the hotel is the manager's office and a vending area for snacks and drinks. On the floors above (accessed by two elevators) there are ice machines and vending machines that sell tech-related items like earphones and phone chargers. Hallways are decorated with paintings from a local artist.Though the lobby doesn't have a bar or restaurant, dining options are plentiful in the area. One can find basic chain names on Canal Street, but it is not too far of a walk to get to some excellent restaurants and bars in TriBeCa, SoHo, Little Italy, and Chinatown -- a broad stomping ground for foodies.The management team is working on a potential rooftop deck.