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Like a date whose insipidness you’d ignore in favor of certain physical endowments, the bar adjacent to Novotel’s 9th floor lobby is decidedly drab—but the view. Second-honeymooners and coach-class business travelers plunked down in the small bar’s electric-blue stools may feel like they’ve never left JFK given the pile carpet patterned with amoebic squiggles and the triformed columns jutting from the underlit noodle-shaped surfaces. You certainly wouldn’t blame someone for expecting a 747 to appear in the floor-to-ceiling windows. Instead, what they’ll see outside on the wide concrete terrace—starkly appointed with plastic, faux terra-cotta couches—are office towers to the north, a gym’s pool to the east, and a head-on view of the Great White Way to the south. Look beyond the taxis streaming toward the 1 Times Square building and pretend it’s New Year’s Eve: It’s going to take that sort of stretch of the imagination to make your California Zinfadel exciting. — Daniel Maurer