Yes, it is true, this is not an April Fools' Day joke, we reserved a room tonight for the Greenwich Hotel opening, via the Greenwich Hotel website and though our reservation went through last week, late yesterday we received word that our reservation had been canceled at the request of the hotel. A phone call to the hotel's PR reps and the hotel itself confirmed that they were not going to let us sleep there tonight.
As loyal readers know we have been following the opening of the DeNiro/Drukier hotel project since the middle of 2004. We followed the constantly "coming soon" North Moore Street hotel through loud construction, name changes, name calling, and endless delays. So it should come as no surprise that today, the hotel's first day accepting guests, we had a reservation to stay at the hotel.
Many times you readers send us first photos and reviews, which we love. But other times a hotel is woven so deep into our sites fabric -- like when Gramercy Park opened, or back when Wynn Las Vegas opened, we decide to go to the public opening ourselves. We are, after all, hotel geeks. In these cases we simply use our credit card to book a room at the buzzworthy hotel and reviewed it as soon as we can for you, just like our readers and tipsters do for us.
Now that we know how pricey Bobby DeNiro's hotel will be ($725 a night!), it's time to wonder, "Where can we put that much money to good use?" First, a couple NYC options.
Good old Six Columbus has a King Suite available for $625, which is the property's priciest room. It comes with all the standard amenities plus two flat screen TVs and, of course, tons of square footage. Suites at The Bowery Hotel go for $750, where you get hardwood floors, 400 thread count sheets, marble bathrooms and other niceties like outdoor terraces with jacuzzis. The priciest suite at the Duane Street Hotel, in TriBeCa like DeNiro's place, is a "cheap" $536.
But why stop at just Manhattan? If you're gonna be throwing around this much coin, you might as well go somewhere far, far away. You can stay at the Explora Atacama for four nights for $3,140, which works out to $785 a night. Or you could explore Uruguay and Argentina from the Four Seasons Resort Carmelo, where giant riverview bungalows start at under $400 a night. That should leave some cash to refuel your private jet, rock star!
Amy over at NewYorkology reported yesterday that the Greenwich Hotel aka the Downtown Hotel by Robert DeNiro has finally got itself a website. And not only that, it's accepting reservations for April during DeNiro's Tribeca Film Festival then from May onward.
Reservations are available only April 1 through 20, and then from May 5 onward. All rooms listed thus far are for $725 a night. (The odd dates may be explained by the fact that the DeNiro-fueled Tribeca Film Festival is scheduled for April 23 to May 4 for 2008.)
$725 a night? Sheesh, Bobby obviously doesn't want any people outside of "his kind" (i.e. Hollywood and film elite) to stay here. And just when we began to think this "overbaked shit cookie" would never open, even more details have emerged.
What's going on at Robert DeNiro's Downtown Hotel? For such a buzz-worthy property, it's been eerily quiet the past six months. (Though the mysterious Down By The Hipster blog told us the hotel "will make the Bowery Hotel look like a Red Roof Inn.") We had to put on our reporter caps to dig up even the slightest bit of news.
But it's big news, at least to us: According to a spokesbot at NYC and Co., the hotel opening will be delayed until 2008. We originally had the opening date pegged for early this year, but the TriBeCa property is drifting closer and closer to 6 Columbus infamy. (A call over to Rockwell Group, the designer, hasn't been returned yet.)
According to the NYC & Company, New York City is adding nearly 5,000 new hotel rooms to its current inventory of 70,723 by the end of 2007. That is a lot of hotel rooms, right?
Regardless, we have way too much fun following all the supposed NYC hotel openings, and once in awhile these places even toss us a bone and sell rooms for half price during their opening phase--yeah, that is still about $250 a night in Manhattan. So it is time to rundown the most buzzworthy 2007 New York City hotel openings--according to us, of course. As always, these are scheduled openings, and scheduled can quickly turn into delayed or even dead projects.
Read more to get our prognostications on six Manhattan hotel openings HotelChatter will be keeping a watchful eye on in 07. We will update the story throughout the year as hoteliers open or delay their NYC openings.
[Note: Today is unofficially celebrity hotelier day.]
We don't quite get this. About.com assembled a list of Top 10 New Best Hotels for Romance for 2006 and listed at #8 is Robert DeNiro's Downtown Hotel in Tribeca, which we last reported wasn't opening until 2007.
Here's what About.com has to say:
Robert DeNiro is planning to add a hip new hotel to his downtown portfolio, which already includes the Screening Room and the Tribeca Film Institute. His boutique, seven-story, brick-and-terracotta hotel at North Moore and Greenwich Streets in the historic neighborhood is scheduled to open at the end of 2006. It will have 83 rooms and feature skylights, angled windows, and distinctive Manhattan manhole covers built into cornices.
With someone describing the place as an "overbaked shit cookie" we're not quite sure this place will exude romance. Maybe a sex toy package will do the trick?
Our friends over at Curbed are doing a most excellent HoodWatch mini-series on North Tribeca which is the future home of DeNiro's long anticipated Downtown Hotel. Way back in the Blogeozoic era (2004) we started anticipating DeNiro's downtown hospitality treat. We fully expected this place to open its doors by year end, however, yesterday's Curbed entry prompted us to make a call to a source close to the situation.
HotelChatter: Is the Downtown Hotel still opening this year? Secret Hotel Insider: Soon, I think. I know they are doing interiors now. Did you see those bricks? This is really rude, but they are shit brown are they not? HotelChatter: We've only seen jpegs, someone said it looks like an overbaked cookie. Secret Hotel Insider: An overbaked shit cookie. HotelChatter: Enough. Is it opening soon or not? Secret Hotel Insider: Let me check.
Long Pause. If we told you who our insider was checking with his or her secret identity would be compromised, and DeNiro would probably send Robert Duvall, Joe Pesci, or Ben Stiller out to strong arm our informant, and we can't have that.
Secret Hotel Insider: It says 2007. (Reads from an official sounding document) HotelChatter: Harumph--same document as last year, but now it says 2007. We really thought DeNiro wouldn't go Pomeranc on us. Secret Hotel Insider: Oh, give them a break, it will be open soon enough.
