When selecting our hotels for New York City, JSIndygirl and I quickly learned that the quickest option bay far was to book one night at a time using Hotwire or Priceline. We got very lucky, ending up with two great hotels. One was the Westin Times Square, featuring one of the best rooms I’ve ever stayed in. The other was the Shelburne Murray Hill which, while not as blatantly elegant as the Westin, proved to be an excellent place to stay for our first night in the city.

As its name suggests, the Shelburne sits in the middle of the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan. Located at Lexington and 37th, this hotel makes a convenient starting point for exploring neighborhoods in the mid and southern portions of Manhattan. The hotel is very close to the Empire State Building and within easy walking distance of many places to eat, drink, and explore in Chelsea and Greenwich. We enjoyed a scenic walk to our lunch at Otto Pizzeria in West Village and took a short stroll the next morning to get a delicious New York bagel.

The Shelburne is part of the Affinia chain of hotels which has five or six locations in New York and Chicago only. When doing our initial research, we noticed that all the hotels in this brand were very highly rated on review web sites and were thus pleased to end up with one. The standard room we had at this hotel normally costs $220, but we saved around $70 by booking with Priceline and bidding $150.

Check-In and Public Areas
We arrived at the hotel a couple hours before our scheduled check-in time and were greeted by a bellman in a top hat. At the front desk we were told we could have a smoking room immediately. Although neither of us smoke, the ability to stow our bags far outweighed the potential of a smoky room.

The Shelburne is a small boutique hotel but still boasts several amenities. It has a small but attractive lobby sitting area. Its leather seating and bright colors give it a modern look and feel. A large television is built directly into the wall and constantly plays the news. The Shelburne also has an in-hotel restaurant called Rare. If we hadn’t already had our meals planned, I would have been tempted to dine at Rare due to its focus on gourmet burgers. The restaurant and bar both looked basic but attractive. I understand that a rooftop garden is open seasonally for food and drink.

The Room
We piled into the small elevators, which were a bit shaky but did manage to get us to point B. Our room at the Shelburne was basic and showed its age a bit but still generally clean and pleasant. We had a lot of floor space in the bedroom, which included a desk, chair, television, and truly amazing bed. This bed gave us a much-needed fabulous night of sleep. Neither of us felt the other move all night! No bed we stayed in before or after on our trip even came close to living up to the comfort we enjoyed at the Shelburne Murray Hill.

Our room also had an antiquated kitchenette. This included the world’s smallest stove, a wee little fridge, and a microwave. Personally, I do not ever see an in-room kitchenette as a plus. Why would I cook on vacation? In New York City, particularly, such a feature seems totally impractical. Where would I get things to cook even if I wanted to cook? Is anyone really making soup at the Shelburne Murray Hill? JSIndygirl and I joked that instead of meeting DavidManning for dinner as planned, we should have him over for a home-cooked meal. To me, an in-room kitchenette is one more thing to keep clean and I worry that it invites bugs. Even if I did like in-room kitchenettes, I do not feel that this particular one would be a fine example, as everything looked a little...old and small.

We also had a wee little bathroom. Other than one errant black hair that I promptly wiped up and flushed down the toilet so as not to concern JSIndygirl, it seemed pretty clean. We had no problems with water temperature and pressure. The Shelburne Murray Hill does provide some toiletries. A word of warning, though – these musky man-smelling toiletries are the stinkiest I’ve ever experienced. After using them, I sort of felt I had been better off before showering.

Stink. Stank. Stunk.
Generally, things were going rather well at the Shelburne Murray Hill until we returned from touring in the afternoon of our first day. At that point, we noticed a terrible, awful odor in the hallway of the seventh floor, leading to our room. I have never smelled anything quite like this. Skunk came to mind, as did gas leak, body odor, and sewage. The smell lingered that day and the next and seemed to intensify. It also seemed change subtly, becoming bad in a different way each time we walked through it.

We had to walk through the hallway between six and eight times in our comings and goings, so this did actually have quite a bit of effect on my attitude toward this hotel. Honestly, the smell made me want to vomit and the hotel loses at least a star just because of it. At one point in the morning, as we were waiting for an empty elevator to take us down, I said that the hotel's star rating was falling right as we waited simply because of the total nastiness of the odor surrounding us.

Overall…
I didn’t dislike my stay at the Shelburne Murray Hill. The location was ideal and the price pretty decent. The bed was second to none. However, the smell in the hallway was truly terrible, and the room had a few minor issues. Without the stench I would have given the hotel 4 stars and gladly recommended it. With it, though, I have to go with a rating of 3.5 (rounded down to three) and say that I hope the Shelburne buys a bottle of Febreeze, ASAP. It’s too bad a perfectly good hotel experience was brought down by a stinky hallway.

Recommended: No