Is This The Best Bathtub For Rich People To Flaunt Obscene Income Inequality In NYC?

You can't put a price on luxury.

When I think back on the New York City bathtubs I have known, the picture is...not particularly inspiring, but also pretty typical I think. My longest-standing bathtub relationship ran three years, in which the tub was probably cleaned fewer times than I can count on a hand. On the rare, post-bleach occasion, it offered an adequate bathing experience: Sure, the tiny window sat a person's height above the basin itself, and looked out on a pungent poultry processing plant and a reliably crowded bar, but as long as you didn't mind stewing in the shadows and relative filth, it'd do.

After that came the much smaller tub in the much smaller bathroom: a travel-sized, pepto pink number hunkered in a cramped, windowless room. My roommate at the time enjoyed taking hours-long night baths, so I guess the set-up worked for someone. Anyway, because most of us live inside a hamster ball's worth of space—wherein the "bathtub" is a hose floating high over the toilet, itself situated in the kitchen, which is really just an extension of the livingbedroom—I have always taken it for granted that New York is for showers. But according to a NY Times investigation, aptly filed to "things that rich people enjoy," this is an extremely plebeian assumption.

If you are fancy enough to pay for a hotel room in a city where you already pay thrice what you should in rent, and if you are fancy enough to do that just 'cause you could really use some you time, then your best possible option reportedly lives in the Riverhouse Suite at 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge. It checks all the bath-time musts on the Times bath-time rubric, have a look:

This tub has a view so dazzling that Walt Whitman wrote a nine-part poem about it. Floor-to-ceiling sliding-glass windows invite in the bewildered gaze of the East River—close enough to feel the afternoon breeze, far enough to ensure privacy from peeping ferry-takers. The tub itself is cleaved from a single block of granite surrounded by two inches of counter space for whatever iced beverage you are sipping. ...

The water at 1 Hotel is piped in through an extensive filtration system, as a decadent and largely unnecessary gesture, for "additional safety against biological contamination," according to the hotel's press representative. It rushes forth from a curved gunmetal faucet that was imported (from Canarsie) and splashes on the granite basin of the tub in the manner of rainfall against a mountainside. The bath is housed in a kind of slate-wall and glass enclosure in the middle of the bedroom; the windows can be opened for a plein air effect. The tub takes 10 minutes to fill, which gives you plenty of time for a pre-soak shower.

Also, and this is very important, the tub bears no traces of previous murders.

So, how much would you pay for the privilege of marinating in a carnage-free, carved stone bathtub, high in the sky in DUMBO, for 24 hours (or more!) because the hotel does not yet offer a pro-rated soaking rate? What is the most you would pay to wash like a king? Please take into account, the suite also boasts an indoor hammock for your Instagram needs, a yoga mat, sheepskins on every surface, and a Nespresso machine. Additionally, it affords visitors what seems like unlimited access to Influencers. (AND would-be influencers.)

With all that in mind, does $7,000, or roughly half a year's rent, per night sound like too much? No? Then perhaps I have not effectively made my case: Splash around in this luxury tub over on the NY Times, in a suite that goes for up to $7K a night. Meanwhile, I will be weeping in my literal water closet.