Stay at the Mark, Pedal to the Park
With all the new bike lanes around town and the imminent launch of the Paris-style CitiBike system, two-wheeling it to the park won’t exactly be a novelty this summer. Then again, how many times are you actually going to go to the trouble of packing a gourmet picnic and pedaling with your partner to Strawberry Fields?
Enter the Mark Hotel, which is kicking off a summer program that gives guests access to a fleet of fashionable new black bicycles, equipped with helmets and baskets, along with prepacked picnics from the hotel’s chef, Jean-Georges Vongerichten. The lunches (think fruit and cheese plates or shrimp and avocado salads) come packed with champagne (shh!) and Pellegrino, a blanket, plates, cutlery, glasses, and a bottle cooler, all of which fits in the front basket of one of the bikes.
Follow the picnic with a siesta in your room back at the Mark, and you’ll have what sounds like an utterly perfect staycation to us. Of course, most of the hotel’s guests aren’t lucky enough to live here, and for them the bikes also come with a well-curated guide to the neighborhood’s best galleries, shops, and restaurants. You’re free to use it to do a little shopping after your nap.
The Mark Hotel: 25 East 77th Street, 212.744.4300
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