Richard Born and Ira Drukier of BD Hotels will open the Pod 39 hotel in New York City later this spring. A converted building on 39th Street-which once housed Allerton House, a residential hotel for men-will feature 367 cozy guestrooms, a lively communal space, casual dining, and an outdoor rooftop lounge. In the guestrooms, designer Vanessa Guilford-who designed the original Pod Hotel in New York-takes inspiration from space-confined modes of travel such as planes, trains, and ships, all set within a midcentury-modern scheme. Accommodations are outfitted with custom modular furnishings, gleaming surfaces, and window shutters in lieu of drapes. A bedside media hub connects to a wall-mounted flatscreen TV, while calendar wall clocks are inspired by the concourse displays and next train indicators. Meanwhile, baths feature partially frosted glass doors, terrazzo floors, white subway tile walls, a mirrored wall, and ceramic boat cleats that serve as towel pegs.
After passing through a vibrant red-tiled vestibule, guests will enter a high space with a “window box” reception desk, a coffee bar, and a “screening wall” where guest photos and videos are projected around the clock. Sliding glass doors open into the restaurant space. Straight ahead is an illuminated light box containing the elevators and, opposite that, an interactive wall of oversized iPads. Another set of sliding glass doors reveal the Pod 39 Great Room. Once the “Gentlemen’s Sitting Room,” the space retains its heritage (along with original terracotta floors, soaring ceiling, and large fireplace) as it becomes part restaurant-lounge, part library, part workspace, and part communal center. Seventeen floors above is the rooftop lounge, framed with brick arches and terra cotta columns while offering views of the river, lower-Manhattan skyline, Empire State building, and Chrysler building.
