The Renaissance New York Harlem: Our NYFW Home Base

By Darralynn Hutson

There is a difference between staying in a hotel and making a hotel your home base during New York Fashion Week.

For six days, the Renaissance New York Harlem was ours.

Located at 233 West 125th Street, the hotel put us in the middle of Harlem while giving us a place to regroup between runway shows, interviews and panels. The fifth floor became our meeting point. Victoria Lounge became our place to eat, talk and debrief. The staff became part of the experience.

I sat down with Milos Grujic-Quick, the hotel’s sales manager, to talk about the property, its role in Harlem and what it means to serve guests in a neighborhood with such a complicated and important history.

“I always tell the sales team that having people over for breakfast has been our bread and butter. We’re in the business of entertaining, connecting, and storytelling. That’s my personal approach to this work.

This is a people industry," says Milos Grujic-Quick. You can always sell a room — there’s going to be a bed, a mini fridge and a TV. But here, we want to create a feeling. We want our guests to experience something when they stay at the Renaissance — to feel the energy of Harlem, the history of the neighborhood and the personality of our hotel. That’s what it’s all about.

And that’s the thing with sales: pick up the phone, go visit your neighbor, invite them in for a croissant and coffee. Tell them a story. Build the relationship. Because that’s how you turn a hotel stay into an experience.”

The Rooms

The rooms are designed with the modern traveler in mind, with contemporary finishes and a clean, understated aesthetic. For a solo traveler, the room works. For two people sharing during Fashion Week, the footprint can feel tight, particularly when you are traveling with clothing, shoes, equipment and everything else required to do the job.

It is a typical New York hotel room. You do not plan to spend all day in it. You sleep, shower, change, recharge and head back out.

The bathroom becomes part of that equation when two people are sharing a room and working on completely different schedules. The walls are not especially forgiving either. You can hear your neighbor, including phone conversations, so consideration for the person next door goes a long way.

Five Floors Up

One of the hotel’s more interesting features is Victoria Lounge on the fifth floor.

It was where we ate and held our debriefs. If you order a cocktail here, consider yourself warned.

I also interviewed Mike Garlick, the restaurant manager and “face of the brand,” about the lounge and the hotel’s approach to hospitality.

 "We teach and train our team about our culture in addition to hospitality,” says Mike Garlick. “To work here, you have to understand Harlem’s history and the community we serve. Harlem was missing a place that feels elevated and sexy, but at the same time still feels like your neighborhood social spot. That’s what we want The Victoria to be, a place that feels distinctly Harlem, while also being connected to a full-service hotel."

The hotel provides guests with a $25 daily food and beverage voucher, giving you an opportunity to sample the menu each day of your stay. There is a catch: not much on the menu comes in under $25.

Hospitality in the Middle of Harlem

The most memorable part of the Renaissance was not the room or the menu.

It was the people. At all times of day and night, someone seemed willing to help.

The cleaning supervisor made sure we had what we needed. The bartenders were attentive. When something was not quite right, the staff did not make us feel as if we were asking for too much. They fixed it.

125th Street

Then there is the Harlem outside the front door.

Walk onto 125th Street and the polished environment of the hotel meets a very different reality. There are moments of visible mental illness, hardship and despair alongside the energy, commerce and history of one of New York’s most recognizable Black neighborhoods.

I do not think a hotel review should pretend that contrast does not exist.

"You have to leave the map, be spontaneous, just roam," says Grujic-Quick, but the entertainment in the Victoria is amazing. It has become a local pub. The people of Harlem are just beautiful; the colors the patterns and we have live jazz on Thursdays, on Fridays its R&B and the DJ Brunch is amazing. One of my favorite things here are the sunsets."

The Renaissance sits within Harlem rather than outside it. Guests are steps away from the neighborhood’s businesses, restaurants, culture and history. They are also confronted with some of the challenges facing the people who live and work there.

The Details

Even the elevators deserve a mention. Their design celebrates Harlem Renaissance greats including Josephine Baker, Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway.

The decor carries the property’s Harlem identity into spaces that could otherwise feel purely functional. Those details matter because they keep the hotel connected to its surroundings.

The Verdict

The Renaissance New York Harlem gave us what a NYFW home base should: a cozy place to land, a staff that understood history and hospitality and enough appeal to make the stay feel connected something bigger. The rooms require some strategy, and the food and beverage credit will not cover much of the menu, but the service, location and ambience made the hotel work.

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