Other than the Upper East Side (east of Central Park, above 60th Street) and Lower Manhattan (south of Canal), it doesn't really matter where your hotel is as you stay in Manhattan. And even then, a lot of people don't find it too inconvenient to stay way downtown in the Financial District/Battery Park City area since most of Manhattan's subway lines converge down there. But just be aware that it's still a relative ghost town after dark. The subway makes it very convenient to stay almost anywhere, and you could even look at hotels in Brooklyn and Queens if you really need to save money.

Just avoid most New Jersey hotels. The trade-off in price savings is not worth the extra travel time.

Just a small correction - Risotteria is on Bleecker Street between 6th and 7th Avenues - which is in the West Village, not Soho.

Doug Stallings, do you think it is safe for two women to take the subway at night in Manhattan? I have always been hesitant to do this...

I'm 25 and took a solo vacation to New York City over Christmas. I took the subway back to the hotel (in Tribeca) from the theatre every night for 3 nights (around 11-midnight), and I never felt unsafe. If the subway seemed a little empty, I would get on the car that had the conductor. I always made sure I knew where I was going, and what exit from the platform was best. Bad things happen, but for the most part it is perfectly fine to take the subway after dark.

I would not hesitate to tell two women to take the subway at night. If you find yourself on a train, you'll see that they are pretty full up until midnight (as are most of the stations in Manhattan), even during the week.

After 2 or 3 am, the crowds thin out dramatically, and then you might want to make sure you get in car where there are several people. But the subway system is as safe as any part of the city.

Ironically, most of the headline-grabbing subway crimes in the past few years have happened during the day. So it's not that the subway system here is completely free from crime, but I think you're as safe in the train as anywhere.

While the subway in Manhattan is very safe we don;t take it after about midnight - just because the trains run so much less frequently - perhaps every 20 minutes - and you would be home by cab by the time the train arrives.