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Somber news for visitors to New York who hate the hotel experience: Airbnb, a service by which a tenant not using their apartment for a few days can rent it out to another party, has run afoul of the “illegal hotel” law. That’s the one that forbids you to run a rogue bed-and-breakfast out of your closet, or, I guess, in any way profit from the space you are renting for residential purposes.

After introducing “living room” chic to the LA hotel scene with the opening of Palihouse Holloway West Hollywood in 2012, Avi Brosh has headed for sea and sand for the brand’s second opening. In an opulent 1927 Moorish revival building--a designated historic landmark--the new Palihouse Santa Monica has an even cozier feel than its WeHo counterpart (which, by the way, has become a magnet for celebs like Lauren Conrad and Gerard Butler). Lavishly landscaped outside, a charmingly historic atmosphere prevails inside, with beamed ceilings, stuccoed walls, tiled floors and arched doorways.

The Buddha says, "Dwell not in the past, but do concentrate the mind on the present moment." But if the past is a foreign country, it is returning now to home's loving embrace. It was but seventeen years ago (1996, to be precise) that the first Buddha Bar opened on Paris' rue Boissy d'Anglais--and as its journey since has taken it from Dubai to Dakar, Amsterdam to Evian-les-Bains, the circle is now closed, as the George V Eatertainment Group opens the City of Light's first Buddha Bar Hotel. Taking position amongst the swish boutiques along the rue du Faubourg Saint Honore, it arises as a palpable tribute to BB founder and visionary Raymond Visan, who passed on in 2010.

Memorial Day Weekend is just days away. Do you have plans yet? You could do the typically debauched thing, eating, drinking, dancing, and carousing, all for your own pleasure. But if you head out to Ruschmeyer's in Montauk, you could do all of those same things, but for a good cause. Two good causes, actually. On Sunday, May 26, the grown-up summer camp-themed resort is hosting an event called the Rockaway Plate Lunch Truck Yard Party, and it kicks off Ruschmeyer's summer-long series of Reggae Sundays parties. A percentage of the proceeds will go to support two charities, the Rockaway Plate Lunch Truck, which works to "fill plates and build spirits" with a food truck staffed by top New York restaurants, and Waves for Water, which provides clean water for those without access to it. They're both noble causes, and it won't hurt a bit to support them, as this party's hosted by Mike D (of the legendary Beastie Boys) and designer Robert McKinley, while the tunes will be provided by DJ's Mike D, Stretch Armstrong, and Tito Cruz. You like reggae? Good, because you'll get your fill with a irie set by the Easy Skanking Band. And you thought skanking was hard. 

I went to a walkthrough of the recently-opened Hyatt Union Square on Fourth Avenue between 12th and 13th Streets last night, to see what the first new hotel in the neighborhood in more than a decade looks like. As it happens, in many ways it looks like every other Hyatt I've visited. I mean that in a good way. The hotel boasts tastefully-furnished guest rooms, a friendly, helpful staff, and clean, airy public spaces: the kind of place that takes some of the pain out of business travel and adds a premium of pleasure to leisurely jaunts. This being franchise-averse Manhattan, though, it has a few cool downtown twists to help it fit into the Union Square area, which I've always considered the real heart of New York for people who actually live here (sorry, Times Square). Exhibit A: a cool sculpture by Brinton Jaecks called "Hypnagogia" (above) in the hotel's independently-operated restaurant, The Fourth, featuring a series of discarded beds connected by hand-carved wooden chains. I looked at the sculpture, hanging as the massive, slightly twisted centerpiece to the two-level, three-meal restaurant, and wondered to myself: is Hyatt letting its freak flag fly? Maybe a little.

Having not quite weathered the economic tumble, the St John Hotel was snapped up by Singapore hotelier Peng Loh's Unlisted Collection--and is now newly unveiled as the rather elegantly marquee'd One Leicester Street (yes, that's the address). Michelin-starred St John chef Tom Harris remains, but virtually the entirety of the place has been jazzed with a striking new aesthetic identity. Drawing on the sort of minimalist but warmly inviting sexiness of Shanghai sister hotel The Waterhouse, it's all muted greys, oak parquet flooring, copper pendant lamps, and lots of white, and white, and more white.

Decisively ramping up the revitalization of the previously downtrodden King's Cross area (once immortalized in song by the Pet Shop Boys with the rather mournful lyrical characterization, "Dead and wounded on either side"), the reopening of the storied Great Northern Hotel is the result of a £40 million renovation program undertaken by developer Jeremy Robson. A classic marker of the grand 19th Century transport boom, it was actually London's first (1854) railway lodging. Now Archer Humphryes Architects have given it a painstakingly sympathetic 21 Century makeover. And to be sure, little expense was spared returning the Great Northern Hotel to its glory days, in careful collaboration with English Heritage. 

Shanghai continues apace as a center of unabated urban expansion with the opening of the glamorous new Mandarin Oriental Pudong. And as an unapologetic acknowledgment of China's place as the universe's most insatiable contemporary art market, the hotel's 4000 strong (would we kid you?) art collection, as curated by the renowned Art Front Gallery, might inspire a few "gallery-with-rooms" observations. But this is a Mandarin Oriental, after all, so for those with sufficient dosh, its hospitality credentials are pretty much unassailable.