Starwood Hotels and Resorts, Inc. (NYSE: HOT) announced that it will grow its New York City portfolio by 50% this year and open more hotels in New York in 2010 than any other city in the world.  Today, Starwood operates 12 hotels in the Big Apple across six of its nine distinct and compelling brands. The company s NYC boom will result in 18 high-caliber Starwood hotels including the debut of Starwood s two newest brands in Manhattan Aloft and Element. The company s bullish focus on NYC is illustrative of its meaningful global growth strategy Starwood is on track to open more than 80 hotels in key markets around the world this year.