In the few years since this hotel opened, it has proven to be the monarch of lower Manhattan. Nothing has changed since last inspection, and its popularity proves that this has become one of the city's most intriguing locations. The hotel fills the lowest 12 stories of a 39-story tower, with expensive condominiums topping out the rest.
The handsome steel, glass and brick building has a prominent porte cochere that provides plenty of protection for the streams of limousines dropping off and picking up well-heeled guests and residents. Handsome doormen and valets in top hats and cutaways escort guests inside. The reception and concierge desks are directly beside the entrance to the lobby, thus providing immediate response. Service is efficient and professional, and the well-trained staff is a team in the true sense of the word, albeit an occasionally snobby team. The lobby is a grand room displaying oversized works of art (works of glass in
particular), and farther in, window-walls reveal dramatic vistas of the promenade along the Hudson, with Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty in the distance.
All meals are served at 2 West Steakhouse, with lavish buffets and a la carte menus provided throughout the day. The bill of fare highlights updated American cuisine spiced with French accents. The stylish lobby lounge is spacious and clubby, with lots of natural wood and colorful art, all theatrically lit. A more dramatic seasonal bar, Rise, perches on the 14th floor and affords awe-inspiring sweeps of the Hudson and Lady Liberty, and a limited menu of Asian-inspired finger food is available.
Treatment rooms for beauty regimens and massages supplement the gym. Though the gym has tiny TVs attached to each treadmill and stair-stepper, the harbor 
views out the window are more impressive. Meeting space is among the best in the city, state-of-the-art and glamorous, with more views of the Statue of Liberty from some. The largest comfortably accommodates 350, and a dedicated business center, valet parking for $45 and one of the city's best concierges round out the amenities. Pets are pampered.
Keycards activate swift elevators, showing that security is a high priority here. The hallways upstairs are embellished with hand-blown glass and artistic photography. Guest rooms are among the largest in the city, appointed with plush sea-foam green or turquoise decor and fitted to world-class standards with roomy sitting areas, armchairs with ottomans, enormous desks, multi-line phones with voice mail, data ports and high-speed Internet access, and TVs and minibars concealed in armoires. Closets hold safes, robes, slippers, and irons and ironing boards. Baths are as big as some hotel rooms in this 
city, each with a magnifying mirror, hair dryer, scale, WC, soaking tub, stall shower with a massaging showerhead (and wonderful water pressure) and a good variety of toiletries. Rooms facing southwest are preferable for their views of the Statue of Liberty. They also supply telescopes. Rooms facing east scan the financial district's skyline, and those facing due north stare out at the vast emptiness that was the World Trade Center. Room service never stops, and twice-daily housekeeping, turndown, newspapers and complimentary shoeshine are provided.
This Ritz-Carlton is one of the chain's most popular, and for good reasons: service, style and a sensational location. Though traditionalists bemoan the closure of the once florid Regent Wall Street, this contemporary showplace trumpets a new era for lower Manhattan.
