citizenM New York Bowery — Hotel in New York

I spent 13 straight nights at Citizenm Rotterdam, Paris Gare de Lyon, and London Victoria Station in March 2025. As a Mymembership member, premium views are comped if available when booked. Being from Los Angeles and so far from home I appreciate all those properties giving me straight-forward, honest and great service as well honoring premium view rooms. Mymembership expired in April. In June, I saw that there was a summer sale so I looked into Citizenm Bowery as I have considered staying there in the past primarily for the so-called panoramic view rooms. I was planning a trip to Spain and decided to make a night stopover in NYC from LA. I originally only planned a day or two in the city. I did some research on the Expedia app. I have been to NY the week of 4th of July so I know that rates tend to be lower and more room inventory. I noticed that citizenm bowery had some good rates for panoramic premium view rooms. I then went to the citizenm website to see there was a summer sale and decided to renew and pay Mymembership for a year knowing that premium views would be comped. I noticed 3 of the days were much lower rates than other dates which usually means they have many more rooms available. Because of this, I decided 3 nights instead of one and booked my flight to Barcelona from JFK on the 4th of July. I noticed something unusual on the app, it was asking what type of view I wanted either the Brooklyn and Soho but.... if I wanted a premium view I had to speak to an ambassador at check in? What? What is this? Jedi mind trick? (Later, I would realize that only did I not get a premium view room I didn't even get the best views from the standard rooms as there are windows in hallways where I could see for myself.) I am one to constantly check 3rd party sites and the citizenm site itself to see if prices have changed every few days before my travel dates. Every single time the panoramic view rooms were available for a higher rate, which ends up being much higher than my rate reserved a month in advance. I decided to change my flight and take a red-eye the night before because a 6am flight from LA means I won't be at the hotel until at least 4 pm. I wanted to make sure to get the premium room view as this was the basis for the entire reason why I decided to stop over in NY and do remote work before a Spain holiday. I get to the hotel at 10 am and the first thing I noticed outside was a homeless man sleeping on the hot pavement half naked. Later I realized the hotel is next to a homeless shelter. I enter and tell the ambassador I would like to check in. He says to come back at 2 pm and started to prepare tags for my luggage without asking if I wanted to store it. My main objective was to inquire and make it known about the premium room I requested with the app saying I needed to speak to an ambassador. I told him I do not want my bags checked in and that I am a member that reserved a premium view room. He then says to come back at 11 am. I go down to the lower lounge area and he returns 5 minutes later and says my room is ready. I go back up and only a young lady ambassador was there and she assisted me. She says that there is a room on the 8th floor or on the 19th floor but that room is an accessible room. I figured it was on the highest floor and that the room would have a premium view so I took that room not knowing this was not the room I reserved yet and got sidetracked. I had an option to cancel by 6 pm and could use free nights I have with a different major brand in case of emergency but travel fatigue and pressure was too much for me to deal with at the time. The room view was blocked on one side by their own building and the other side had construction workers who could see into the window and bed clearly. This room had a couch with stains all over it and the sink was the size of a ramen bowl. I was so tired and annoyed I fell asleep and woke up very upset. I called to front desk and ask if I could move into a premium view room the following day for my last 2 nights and was told they had nothing. I said I thought the accessible room was premium and I made it clear I wanted a premium room but now I feel totally deceived. The ambassadors seemed nice and trying to do their best but having stayed in 100s of hotel internationally and over a dozen in NYC these type of issues occur from the top down. It's a shamethat I get better treatment overseas than I do in my own country but that doesn't surprise me at all. Greed outweighs ethics snd integrity. Witnessing my own family businesses succeed and fail, one thing I know is that the foundation of success lies in customer service and satisfaction and not trying to make the quick profit and immediate monetary gains. Successful companies are loyal and vice versa. I was looking forward to and intended one night to chill on the rooftop bar w Scotch and to have a some meals but decided I would not spend another penny at the hotel. My loyalty with citizenm is over and done. No more trust.. I use to love NYC but that's done too. I was told all this conflicting nonsense of why I didn't get the premium room and won't get into details. Haha again I was offered an 8th floor room but! They have an 11th floor reserved for someone else but I can have it and offered to show it to me. I asked if its a good view and she says yes room 1108 is the same view of premium but just a floor lower because those rooms start on the 12th floor. I accepted as it was my only option besides staying put. I notice the room view was better so I accepted exhausting all my options. I started to question if the rooms directly above are panoramic view rooms. It was raining outside one day and very hot outside. Another reason I request high floor rooms is its much quiter and less street noise and interior building noise. You could clearly hear people walking around above and to the side and on the mornings the housekeeping staff speaking loudly to each other. My stay was so miserable and the antithesis of my citizenm Euro trip that I ended up canceling my flight to Spain and flew back home to LA. got a comp first class upgrade and still had anxiety and upset about my hotel experience the entire flight. Too late for pseudo-faux apologies. I almost never post negative experiences online but I have an obligation to be fair and share...

Update 03/03: Reverting back to my old rating because Room 823 (the room I was moved to) didn’t have hot water. So I had to take a cold shower this morning. And housekeeping put the same shower gel in the AM & PM bottles. They both smelled rancid. And the 20% discount the hotel manager promised me for my troubles did not appear on my invoice when I checked out. Mind you, I didn’t even ask for a discount, I just wanted my room and toiletries to meet the hotel’s standards.

Update 03/02: I spoke to a manager in-person this morning and was moved to a different room. All is well now. Increasing my rating from 1 to 3 stars. Still minus 2 stars just for the hassle.

Original Review 03/01: I really hate to leave this review because I’m a loyal citizen of CitizenM hotels, I have a membership and I book direct, not through third party sites. Also, this isn’t my first stay at this property but my experience hasn’t been favorable either time. I likely won’t be returning. I’ll stay at the Time Square location instead. I stayed at CitizenM Bowery in January 2024 (2 months ago) and they were performing an IT system upgrade so my tv and tablet weren’t working properly and my room key didn’t work so I had to go back to the front desk and have someone come up and help. I was given two additional drink vouchers for the troubles, which was nice, but honestly I don’t care about freebies, I prefer if things just work the way that they’re intended to the first time. My current stay Feb 29 - March 3, 2024 I’m in Room 1109 and the hand soap and AM shower gel both smell rancid while the PM shower gel and lotion smell fine. I don’t understand the inconsistency. Also, my room wasn’t cleaned properly upon check-in. There was black kinky/tightly coiled hair in my bed. My hair is long, brown, and has loose waves. I’ll add a photo here of the hair in the bed and a photo of myself for reference. Yesterday, (my second day here) my room wasn’t cleaned either, and the front desk told me it’s because I didn’t request it in the app and blamed it on the pandemic. I’ve stayed at multiple CitizenM hotels around the world in the last 5 months (post-pandemic) and I’ve never had to request my room be cleaned. It was always cleaned by default unless I had my Do Not Disturb sign on the exterior doorknob. This morning the handheld shower head fell apart in my hand and water came out forcefully like a fire truck water-hose. Almost took my eye out.

When I called downstairs to complain and asked to be moved to another room. I was told since it’s the weekend they can’t guarantee another room, but they offered me free breakfast and a complimentary late check-out. My flight leaves tomorrow at 7am so a late check-out won’t do anything for me and I don’t each breakfast. I eat one meal a day, either lunch or dinner. A manager is supposed to be contacting me. Again, I just want things to work as intended and to get what I pay for. Nothing more or less. If they can’t clean the rooms and maintain the shower and can’t move me to a suitable room, then just transfer me to the other CitizenM in...

We stayed at the Hotel for 5 days and were very disappointed with the overall experience.

Rooms: First of all: the rooms are tiny. Unless you are traveling alone or only for a couple of days with two carry ons max you will hardly be able to move around in the room. The storage underneath the bed would not fit either of our larger bags. There were six hangers and two small shelves above to put the clothes during the stay. The room was not clean when we arrived. Between the mattress topper and the wall underneath the window were several different kinds of hairs. Underneath the thin bedsheet were several visible spots in the topper itself. We decided not to complain because at least the bedsheet itself was clean and we were very tired when we arrived and simply wanted to go to bed. The room was supposed to be cleaned once during our stay. We ended up only getting new towels. The bed was made using the old bedsheets. Neither the floor nor the bathroom were cleaned. As NYC is a large city and not every area is clean (especially not the are around the hotel), a mopping of the floor at least once during our stay would have been the least thing to expect in a hotel with a 4 Star Rating! As we were out and about during the day complaining when we got back was not an option as it was also our second to last day there. The room temperature and tv could only be operated via the iPad in the room, which was super impractical as one had to choose each channel individually. The little space next to the tv was then filled with 3 books on a shelf.

Rooftop bar: The Rooftop bar has a great view on downtown and midtown and we would definitely recommend going there as it was not crowded and the views were simply stunning, especially at night.

Area: The area is not the best. There were so many addicts and homeless people in front of the hotel on the public plaza and on the entire block. Some just laid in the middle of the sidewalk. Some times we had to walk a detour because a homeless shelter gave out food or other nevessities and the entire sidewalk was blocked. Garbage is spread out onto the streets. At least there is a security guard on site once it gets later. The elevators also do require to present a keycard if one wants to go on the bedroom floors or the rooftop.

Staff: Most of the staff won’t even bother to say hello even after wishing them a good morning. We checked in and checked out on our own. The entire experience gave off hostel vibes in a trying too hard to be trendy environment.

The staff on the rooftop bar however was very nice.

Conclusion: Overall this 4 Star hotel gave us hostel vibes. If a trendy hotel and the SoHo/Nolita area is a top priority this might be a hotel worth looking into. For exploring the city for the first time we would recommend a different area. We will most certainly...