Aman New York

Warren and Wetmore put the Crown Building up for August Heckscher between 1920 and 1922, French Renaissance over a nine-story base, an octagonal tower under a steep pyramid roof, and a gold-plated rooster turning on top of it until 1942, when it came down for the war's scrap drives. The Museum of Modern Art opened in six rooms on the twelfth floor in November 1929 and stayed until 1932. Douglas Leigh gilded and lit the crown in 1983, and the city landmarked the building in 2024.

The restoration Jean-Michel Gathy began in 2017 opened in August 2022, leaving 83 suites on the floors below the lobby, the smallest around 718 square feet and none of them without a working fireplace. Ceilings reach nearly eleven feet over oak and walnut, bronze and blackened steel. Backlit rice paper panels sit inside pivoting louvre doors that shut the bath and its free-standing oval tub off from the bedroom. One of the Homes opens onto a terrace with an infinity pool facing Central Park. A butler comes with every stay.

The lobby runs double height, Peter Gentenaar's paper and bamboo sculptures hanging between four stone columns, and off it a wraparound terrace of 7,000 square feet sets a circular fire pit inside a square reflecting pool. A retractable glass roof keeps it open all year.

Below, the spa takes three floors and 25,000 square feet, a hammam and a banya in two private houses beside a 65-foot pool, and the jazz club runs deeper still, the one room here that admits anyone. It is underground.