New Hotels Add To Scarce Big Apple Accommodations

<B> New Hotels Add To Scarce Big Apple Accommodations</B>

By Robert Selwitz

A second Fitzpatrick Hotel to be owned or operated by the Dublin-based Fitzpatrick Family Group has debuted at 141 East 44th St. The 155-room Fitzpatrick Grand Central Hotel joins the original 93-room Fitzpatrick Manhattan Hotel at 687 Lexington Ave., between 56th and 57th streets.

The new property features canopied beds, fax machines, state-of-the-art ISDN lines for swift internet access, and two line telephones with voice mail and dataports for computers. In addition to these Big Apple properties, the Fitzpatrick Family Group owns and operates Fitzpatrick Castle in Dublin, the Fitzpatrick Bunratty Hotel, and Fitzpatrick Hotel Cork.

Meanwhile, as a millennium present to New York, Homestead Village will debut three of its extended-stay properties in mid-Manhattan. These will be the first urban efforts for the Atlanta-based company, which currently operates more than 100 properties, generally in corporate-laden suburban sectors.

Homestead's schedule calls for its first Big Apple site, with 199 rooms, to open at 60 East 55th St., between Park and Madison, in early 2000. In summer or early fall, a 292-room property at 50 West 40th St., opposite Bryant Park, and a 221-room hotel at 205 East 45th St., just off Third Ave., will follow.