Hi,
We finally booked lodging in NYC for the Christmas holidays. We wanted a full kitchen. Sounds like a great apartment on 212 West 72nd St near Broadway. We are paying 95.00 per night. Does anyone know exactly where this is? I hear there is a Chinese restuarant on the 1st floor. It's 2 blocks fr; the historic bldg where John Lennon was shot. Appreciate any feedback!!! Thanks

Nice location, good neighborhood. Lots of restaurants, right near a beautiful part of Central Park (at that entrance is Strawberry Fields where Oko and the city have created a memorial for John, keep going down the path and you'll hit the lake; there's a restaurant at the boathouse and the square with the fountain is a great place to sit and people watch). You can also walk across the park, and up through it, to get to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (at 81st Street on 5th Ave.) Have a great time. (B'way is a busy street, so may be some noise, but, hey, you're in NYC, always lots of noise everywhere).

Hi AV,
how did you book this apartment? Sounds like a great deal!

mv: 212 w.72nd is located on the south side of 72nd between Broadway and West End Avenue. The Chinese restaurant on the first floor is the West End Cottage. Someone else may be able to tell you something about the actual building.

Subway stop on 72nd and Broadway will wisk you to Times Square in minutes. If you're looking for good, cheap, fast and not fancy Cuban Chinese food, try La Caridad on Broadway and 78th Street, it's a neighborhood institution.

You should have a meal at La Caridad - order the ropa vieja with yellow rice and red beans with maduros...finish it off with flan and cafe con leche...hotel is in a good location - neighborhood good and diverse.

What service did you use to find this place?

Thanks everyone for your helpful comments. I used Hospitality.com for and a real nice guy named Rig helped me.

Ummm..I've seen folks mention hospitality.com, but I've never once been able to access a viable site--it says that the server contains "no useful information" (I can say that about a LOT of websites!)...

anyone have a clue?

At La Caridad, I also like picadillo, which is chopped beef in a nicely flavored red sauce with olives in it, with yellow rice and black beans. To me it is best apprecited with a side order of fried sweet bananas (there are 2 kinds as you may know, one sweet one not) and the hot sauce you'll find on the table added to all the food esp. the bananas.

If you want to build up your fat layer for the oncoming winter, the rice with sausage, or with chorizo, I forget how they list it, is also incredibly wonderful, & again I recommend the same overall meal plan (beans, sauce, etc.). + the cafe con l. & flan recommended already.

I once had a schedule that brought me there at lunchtime twice a week. Bliss.

Maduros are the sweet fried plantains and tostones are the ones that are not sweet.

Great neighborhood. Other good restaurants (you can look them up in www.zagat.com): Metsovo (Greek), Gabrielas (Mexican), Diwan Curry House (Indian), Marika (fancier new American).

I tried Hospitality .com and received same message as Moira .

The website is http://hospitalityco.com/

We used Hospitality about two years ago and were very very pleased with our full kitchen apartment at about 49th/Lex.