Dream Downtown Hotel in the Chelsea Neighborhood of New York

Dream Downtown Hotel is a 184,000 sq. ft. (17,000 m²) boutique hotel in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City. The 12-story building, designed by Partner Frank Fusaro, includes 316 guestrooms, two restaurants, rooftop and VIP lounges, outdoor pool and pool bar, a gym, event space, and ground floor retail. The building was designed in 1966 for the Maritime Union and it has been recently turned into a hotel.

During the redevelopment process, the building has presented opportunities as well as constraints for the designers. The original façade was provided with porthole windows, specific to vessels, in order to emphasize the original destination of the building. Not only have these round windows been preserved but they have become essential for the image of the hotel by the surreal print that they create.

The original construction by the way it was designed, offer limited possibilities of natural light. In order to remove this shortcoming for the future hotel, there were removed four floors from the center of the building and in the new space there was developed a terrace with pool and beach. There also were built new windows and balconies and two new floors with rooms on the south side. On the rooftop, to the north, was created a lounge and terrace closed in glass.

The glass bottom pool, dotted with portholes of its own, allows guests in the lobby glimpses through the water to the outside (and vice versa), and connects the spaces in an ethereal way. Light wells framed in teak between the lobby, pool and lower levels allow the guest to be transported between spaces. Two hundred hand blown glass globes float through the lobby and congregate over The Marble Lane restaurant filling the space with a light cloud. Enjoy the Dream Downtown Hotel photos! Photography Bruce Damonte, Philip Ennis