Entering the Hotel Grace for the first time, you could be forgiven for mistaking it for a sweet shop. That’s because the front desk is dressed in the guise of - and actually doubles as - a kiosk, selling magazines, cigarettes and sodas. Opened in 2005 by Andre Balazs - whose portfolio includes Chateau Marmont and the Standard hotels in Los Angeles - Hotel Grace is not your typical Times Square bolthole by any measure.

The facilities
Falling somewhere in between an upscale hostel and a waggish, few-frills boutique hotel property, Hotel Grace boasts some of the most inexpensive rooms in midtown Manhattan. Yet its rates belie its stylish signature. Sure, there’s no restaurant (take-away menus are provided), no room service and no business centre. Instead, you are treated to a Scandinavian-style lobby bar with a chic indoor pool as its centrepiece.

With reduced rates offered to under-25s, a buzzing bar scene and a crossroads-of-the-world location, this is hardly the place to come and get away from it all - despite the hotel’s name, which winks at the phrase “On the quiet.”

The rooms
Unlike far too many boutique hotels, Hotel Grace doesn’t short-change on the private spaces. Each of the 140 guest rooms - remodelled from a former office block - has its own size and shape. The standards are 200-240 square feet, though some of the deluxes, at 270 square feet, feel more like junior suites. The three junior suites themselves are simply more of the same on a slightly bigger scale.

Instead of endless toiletries, turndown service and bath robes, Hotel Grace showcases modern-day comforts like plasma-screen TVs, secured WiFi access (you pick up your free password at check-in), and iHome radio-alarm clocks (bring your own iPod). Bathroom design is based on open flowing spaces, with toilet, wash and shower areas bleeding into one another. But the real spark of imagination is the leather platform beds - and the well-soundproofed rooms.