Wythe Hotel

The Wythe set the template for the Brooklyn hotel when it opened in 2012 inside a 1901 cooperage on the Williamsburg waterfront: exposed brick, heavy timber ceilings, custom wallpaper, and factory windows that frame the Manhattan skyline across the river like a standing exhibition. The conversion kept the building's bones honest rather than polishing them away.

It still earns its reputation. Le Crocodile, the French brasserie off the lobby, and Bar Blondeau upstairs with its river-facing windows are destinations in their own right, and the surrounding blocks hold more good coffee, food, and vinyl than most entire cities. Ask for a skyline-facing room; the view at night is the postcard.