Great hotel but a few quirks
Our daughter is living in the Upper West Side and we wanted to visit her staying in a convenient, comfortable and reasonably priced hotel; the Belleclaire was a pretty good choice. The hotel location is excellent, just a few blocks from the subway, within walking distance of Central Park and Riverside Park and in an area of cafes and food shops. If Broadway is too busy then Amsterdam and Columbus are close at hand.
Staff were very helpful at check in and again any time we had a request. When my wife found the hairdryer was missing one was delivered to the room in minutes. House keeping was good and every one we spoke to was friendly.
Our room was a decent size a for New York hotel and very comfortable but here come the quirks. There was an old fashioned cast iron radiator which could take 10/15 minutes to warm up and then roasted us and likewise the shower sometimes needed to be run for 5 minutes before providing hot water. Let me be clear these did not cause real problems but did need a little adjustment. I was reminded of my stays in Scottish hotels rather than American ones. Our other problem was no coffee maker in our room - a first for us in America. Now there was excellent free coffee in the lobby but this was only available 7am-4pm. Arriving in to our room about 5pm after a hectic day in NY a reviving cup of tea or coffee would have been welcome. The lobby itself opened directly on to the street and in January was freezing and had limited seating but there were free newspapers.
We would definitely go back to the Belleclaire and if they put a coffee maker in the room the score goes up to 5 stars.