The Essex House staff is flameproof: after all, these shenanigans have been written about here for years, it continues to this day and will no doubt be offered to you both on arrival and during your stay. Why SPG allows it to continue is beyond me, but continue it does.

And you'd come back for another dose of this?

Stay at the Sheraton Russell. There are eight million stories in the naked city. Here's mine: My dad used the Russell as his business base in NYC for 20-25 years. He died 20 years ago this year. I look a bit like him (not so unusual; given that I'm 1: his son and 2: how many variations on the-face-that-looks-like-the-map-of-Ireland are there anyway?) and maybe ten years ago; ten years after he died, at check-in one of the bellmen, an African-American man in his 60's, saw my name and city and asked, correctly as it were, if I was "Lenny's son" and what was he doing these days? While I had to tell him "not much", that's not something you get asked every day. The staff is happy. Not snotty. They stay - happily, it seems - at their jobs for years. It makes a difference in a place as brutally indifferent as New York.

So, repeat after me: The staff is great. The Plats get upgrades. Park Avenue is not - to me at least - a "less desirable" location. Yes, the views are indeed limited - as are most of the views from most of the rooms at the Essex House. Yes, the parking is a bit less than your car payment at both properties.

But the Sheraton Russell - for me anyway - wins hands down.