Thanks to Gothamist we know that there ar plans for a playground designed by Frank Gehry for the NYC Battery Park, the “Birthplace of NYC”. An excellent example of city marketing I would say.
NYC: Are you KIDding? A Gehry Playground
Category: USA
Behind Open Doors
Sometime somewhere in my newsreader I had seen a reference to her already, but today I stumbled again upon her Blog: Behind Open Doors, the personal Blog of another Hotelier, Yvonne Lembi-Detert, the owner of San Fransisco based Personality Hotels. Their site is also worthwhile to explore.
To see from the photo Yvonne is a real Bed Jumper.
Added 1st April 2007:
It appears the lady has shut down her Blog.
A funny Ritz Carlton Promotion
The Battery Park Ritz-Carlton in New York City makes a perfect pitch how to spend this year’s average Wall Street bonus.
According to BusinessWeek, the average Wall Street bonus in 2006 will be $137,580. Sure you could use the money to buy a luxury car, but how about sharing a once-in-a-lifetime evening with your closest friends and family at The Ritz-Carlton New York, Battery Park with the FRIENDS WITH MONEY package that includes the following amenities for 30 guests of your choosing:
- Overnight accommodations in The Ritz-Carlton Presidential Suite (2000 square feet) with spectacular panoramic views of New York Harbor and the Statue of Liberty.
- 15 Executive Suites for your closest family and friends with views of the city skyline or New York Harbor and the Statue of Liberty.
- Limousine round-trip transportation from home or airport for every guest.
- A 10-minute fireworks display specially designed by the famous Bay Fireworks Company. Experience the fireworks from the privacy of your Presidential Suite set to the music of your choice.
- Helicopter tours over New York City for all of your guests.
- Five-course dinner including gourmet delicacies such as foie gras, Kobe steak, lobster, and white truffle risotto. Finest wines from around the world paired with each course in the private level of the hotel’s 2 West restaurant. Plan the menu directly with the hotel’s French Master Chef.
- Dom Perignon and strawberries in every guest’s room upon arrival.
- 60-minute massage treatments for all guests.
- Each guest receives a Ritz-Carlton robe embroidered with his/her initials.
The FRIENDS WITH MONEY package is priced at $137,580 including taxes and gratuities. This price is based on 32 guests including 15 Executive Suites and The Ritz-Carlton Presidential Suite. This package is based on availability and subject to change. A 14-day non-refundable advance payment is required.
Thnks E-Hotelier.
Anti Cool: Ian Schrager again on a new tack
I am not sure whether now 60 years young New Yorker Ian Schrager is into yachts and yachting, but I do know for sure that Philippe Starck is (as is the other famous hotel creator Anouska Hempel, or Lady Weinberg). Ian has created a couple of hotels together with Philippe Starck. Hence the title.
In any case Schrager is a man of theater and renewing concepts and slogans.
In the seventies and eighties he creates renowned nightclubs, studio 54 and Palladium, where the rich and famous repose themselves. There the DJ phenomenon is born.
Then he changes tack and starts in hotels:
In 1984:
- He opens Morgans in New York city, “Home away from Home”,
- He sets up the Ian Schrager Hotel Group, now known as the Morgans Hotel Group.
I think Morgans was the first “Boutique” hotel.
Then, together with Philippe Starck,:
- Royalton, NYC, “Hotel as Theater” that at the same time put Philippe Starck on the map as a hotel designer,
- Hudson, NYC, “Hotel as Lifestyle”,
- Sanderson, London, “Lavish Urban Spa”,
- Sint Martenslane, London, “Urban Resort Reinvented”,
- Mondrian, West Hollywood (LA), “Sophisticated modern Urban Resort” and
- Delano South Beach, Miami, “Casual Chic Urban Resort”
In the middle of 2005 Schrager resigns a as CEO of Morgans Hotel Group, but remains tied with is as a consultant with a lucrative consulting contract (use of a luxurious private jet, a luxurious car, a luxurious secretary and free stays at the (then) 9 hotels of the group) and as a shareholder(?). The group comes in a financial dip due to 9/11 and the fact that mega hotel consortia start fighting themselves into the market for the hip and famous guests. Up to and including 2005 Morgans Hotel Group reports heavy loses. The first six-month period of 2006 after a financial reorganization with an IPO the results improve. The involvement of Schrager after the financial reorganization is not entirely clear.
However, recently, through his new Ian Schrager Company, and again on a new tack, Ian Schrager avails of one of the newest design hotels which recently was opened in New York city: Gramercy Park Hotel.
Now not the tight chic and sometimes contrary of Philippe Starck, but the “Anti Cool”, “Bohemian Eclectic” of Julian Schnabel, painter, sculptor, film director and musician. According to Schrager it became time for something else then the many times copied and now obsolete “Boutique Hotel”, “home Away From home”, “hip” etc.. Well, if you look well to the copper nails of the chair he is seated on, the style has something of Garcia’s Costes, L’Hotel and LeMeridien Des Indes….the style en vogue between roughly 1850 and 1890….a style which, here in the Netherlands, we simply call “Eclectic”…..
Moreover he now is heavily involved in developing very luxuriously apartments. One project is being developped next to the Gramercy park hotel. The owners of the very luxurious and expensive apartments can, if they want, use the hotel facilities. A phenomenon that we see also at other larger hotels.
When I listened to the his voice in an interview about his condo developments, I inadvertently have to think of The Godfather…
Funny to see Ian undergo the reverse development, from nightclub owner to hotelier to property tycoon, when it is usually the other way around: a property tycoon getting involved in the hotel business.
Last edited December 16, 2016
Not so sweet: Suite Scam
An article in USA Today warns you not to book anything you see advertised on the web without looking up references. Mala fide owners or tenants of dire blocks of apartments put an advertisement on a travel site. The innocent tourist thinks it’s a nice three star “suite”, books it, and arrives in a dump where the folding couch doesn’t fit even in the room, because once fold out it hits the kitchen sink.