CompareNew York
Aman New York for the spa, Four Seasons Hotel New York for the location.
New York, USA · Aman
The three-floor spa with Banya, Hammam and cold plunge terraces gets the strongest reactions of the whole stay.
Aman New York is a city-centre property with a jazz club, spa suites with fireplaces, and an indoor pool.
Read the full verdictNew York, USA · Four Seasons
A few minutes from Central Park with the Garden restaurant and TY Bar on site, this is as good as Midtown addresses get.
An I.M. Pei-designed limestone tower on East 57th Street, steps from Central Park, reopened in late 2024 after an extended closure.
Read the full verdictOut of 20
Overall
Overall: Aman New York 15 out of 20, Four Seasons Hotel New York Not in collection.Service +1.5 Why
Service: Aman New York 13.5 out of 20, Four Seasons Hotel New York 15 out of 20.Aman New York: Front desk and spa staff get praised by name in some stays, but a real share of guests report a missing butler, mixed-up reservations, and slow callbacks.
Four Seasons Hotel New York: Staff are named and praised often, Joel and Milton among them, but a phone rep’s crack about the $85,000 suite and a lobby confrontation over affordability show real gaps.
Rooms & Design +6 Why
Rooms & Design: Aman New York 18.5 out of 20, Four Seasons Hotel New York 12.5 out of 20.Four Seasons Hotel New York: Rooms are called spacious with strong views, but several 2025 guests still found 90s-era bathrooms, faux flowers and worn fixtures despite the reopening.
Location +2 Why
Location: Aman New York 16 out of 20, Four Seasons Hotel New York 18 out of 20.Aman New York: The 57th Street address puts you next to Fifth Avenue shopping, but the lobby sits on the 14th floor and many guest rooms below it get poor views.
Four Seasons Hotel New York: A few minutes from Central Park with the Garden restaurant and TY Bar on site, this is as good as Midtown addresses get.
Dining +0.5 Why
Dining: Aman New York 14 out of 20, Four Seasons Hotel New York 14.5 out of 20.Aman New York: Guests call the food fine rather than special for the price, and one wedding-anniversary checkout was disrupted by a lobby flooding incident and billing confusion.
Wellness +7.5 Why
Wellness: Aman New York 17.5 out of 20, Four Seasons Hotel New York 10 out of 20.Aman New York: The three-floor spa with Banya, Hammam and cold plunge terraces gets the strongest reactions of the whole stay, though the pool has run cold and the pool windows are painted over.
Four Seasons Hotel New York: The gym is small even by New York standards and there is no full spa, just limited third-party treatments guests skip.
Strengths of Aman New York
Strengths of Four Seasons Hotel New York
Trade-offs of Aman New York
Trade-offs of Four Seasons Hotel New York
Only at Aman New York
Only at Four Seasons Hotel New York
The Crown Building has stood on 57th Street since 1921, and Aman turned it into one of the best-designed hotel shells in the city. Jean-Michel Gathy's interiors are dark, warm and tactile, the base Deluxe Suite runs a genuinely large 725 square feet with a working fireplace, and the soundproofing is strong enough that you can watch a fire truck pass outside and hear nothing. The three-floor spa with its Banya and Hammam suites gets more genuine enthusiasm from guests than almost anything else on the property, cold plunge terraces and all.
Where it gets complicated is everything Aman built its name on outside the room. Several guests who've stayed at other Amans describe a butler service that's advertised but doesn't really exist, a concierge that lost a scheduled dinner reservation entirely, and a front desk that can feel like a well-run five-star chain rather than the anticipatory, name-remembering service the brand promises elsewhere. One couple celebrating a tenth anniversary got a chaotic, unresolved checkout after a lobby flooding issue; another found the pool disappointingly cold with no complimentary access to the cold plunge or jacuzzi unless you book the paid Banya treatment. The food is consistently described as good but not memorable, which stings less in a city with this many restaurants but still doesn't match the price tag.
Book it if you want a quiet, beautifully built room to retreat to in Midtown and you're not counting on Aman's resort-level hand-holding to show up. The rooms alone justify a stay for anyone who values a genuinely soundproofed, well-finished space over a livelier boutique address. If personal recognition and a fully realized butler relationship are the point of paying Aman prices, that's inconsistent here. Go for the room and the spa.
The address is unbeatable: five minutes from Central Park, an I.M. Pei limestone tower whose lobby still stops people mid-step. That's the case for booking, and it's a real one. But this reopened in stages through 2024 and 2025 after a long closure, and what came back is uneven. Some rooms have been refreshed with clean, calm layouts and standout bathrooms; other guests, in the same year, walked into rooms with the same shower fixtures and faux orchids as before the closure. That's not a small gap.
Service is where the split really shows. Most people who write about this hotel talk about a specific person who made their stay: Milton at breakfast, Christina G. arranging a birthday surprise, a bellman named Eddie. But there's also a front-desk phone rep who volunteered the price of the Ty Warner Penthouse to a caller who'd asked a simple question about a TV, and a lobby incident where a guest was accused of not looking like she could afford to be there. The staff can be genuinely excellent, and the hotel has let a couple of ugly moments happen at the door. There's no full spa currently, just a limited third-party setup most guests skip, and the gym is small for the category.
Book it for the location, the Garden restaurant, and the chance of a room that's actually been redone: ask specifically about a renovated floor before you commit. If a fully modernized room matters more than the address, the Downtown Four Seasons or the Carlyle are worth pricing against this one first. For a Central Park view and that lobby, this still earns its place.
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Aman New York: The three-floor spa with Banya, Hammam and cold plunge terraces gets the strongest reactions of the whole stay. Four Seasons Hotel New York: A few minutes from Central Park with the Garden restaurant and TY Bar on site, this is as good as Midtown addresses get.
Aman New York is ahead on the spa. Four Seasons Hotel New York is ahead on where it puts you. Aman New York adds Wellness, Design and Romantic; Four Seasons Hotel New York adds Culinary. Both are tagged Urban, Architecture and Heritage.
Aman New York leads on this. Aman New York: The three-floor spa with Banya, Hammam and cold plunge terraces gets the strongest reactions of the whole stay, though the pool has run cold and the pool windows are painted over. Four Seasons Hotel New York: The gym is small even by New York standards and there is no full spa, just limited third-party treatments guests skip.
Four Seasons Hotel New York leads on this. Aman New York: The 57th Street address puts you next to Fifth Avenue shopping, but the lobby sits on the 14th floor and many guest rooms below it get poor views. Four Seasons Hotel New York: A few minutes from Central Park with the Garden restaurant and TY Bar on site, this is as good as Midtown addresses get.
Both are in New York, about 292 m apart — close enough that the choice is the hotel, not the neighbourhood.
