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Tags: 2006 Awards / Gramercy Park Hotel / Ian Schrager / Hotel Openings / → All Tags

Best Hotel Opening: Gramercy Park Hotel

Where: 2 Lexington Avenue [map], New York, ny, United States, 10010

Best Hotel Opening: Gramercy Park Hotel

No other hotel opening got as much press this year as Ian Schrager's long-awaited and supposed game-changing Gramercy Park Hotel, which surprisingly did open on time on August 8.

We were able to spend a night there during the hotel's opening week which we live-blogged for you all. Our time there was largely uneventful. We got the keys to the park, we took lots of photos, we had great service and even though the scary gothic sex dungeon theme scared the crap out of us, we slept pretty sound. With the lights on of course.

However, things really kicked into high gear around NYC's Fashion Week where the hotel hosted several parties and Ian sent down the decree that Paris Hilton and "her ilk" were not welcome there. Then he let in a convicted felon, a shoplifter and some girls with dubious dieting habits.

As for the game-changing, eh not so much. Now, the hotel is dealing with a predictable decline in service, too-high room rates and the Park Chinois restaurant has yet to open. The high could only last so long....