Already well-established celebrity hangs, from Padma Lakshmi to The LoRon (our new name for the Lohan-Ronson couple), to star-spangled soirees for Ashton Kutcher and even Weinstein brawls, these two are perched atop the A-List.
According to BlackBook, The Gramercy is:
"hosting the launch party for The Rachel Zoe Project on Thursday... the Gramercy is a veritable vending machine of skinny girls air-kissing."
Also you may not want to (or want to) miss this one:
"Intermix is celebrating 15 years of fashion at the Bowery Hotel on Saturday. Expect Olsens."
While we were totally preoccupied with the Olympics, other sporting events have been getting prepared in the background: like the US Open, which had its big Players' Party on Friday night at the Empire Hotel in New York.
While an awful lot of non-tennis-playing celebrities paraded around the Empire, a big slab of attention did go to the rightful stars: Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams both turned up in pretty eye-catching color that was kinda hard to miss.
Apparently the party was held on the Empire's pool and bar deck on the rooftop but we don't have any reports of tennis players being thrown in the pool. Pity.
New York's Bryant Park Hotel has got in with its own Facebook page while it's still early enough to be cool. We reckon any hotel who doesn't get onto Facebook this year will end up looking pretty slow.
As far as Facebook pages go, well, they all look pretty standard, and when we last checked the Bryant Park had just 21 fans (and since they're all based in New York we're guessing they're staff). They do have a good photo album of hotel pics up, though, and they've started writing about specials on their Wall, along with posting links to write-ups of the hotel.
The current "Facebook special"--well, it's mentioned there at least--is $289 a night plus taxes for summer rates. We're thinking there should be a discount if you become a Facebook fan of the hotel.
The Brownstoner blog checked out Brooklyn's newest hotel, The Nu Hotel, and was "positively surprised" by what they saw.
They didn't try to get too cute with the design, keeping it light and modern, made the room sizes decent (helped by the fact that the building was originally designed as a condo) and priced it right; it's also in the best location of any hotel in the borough that we can think of, with Smith Street at its doorstep.
Speaking of pricing, the introductory room rates are so reasonable, at $199 during the week and $149 on the weekends. Let's just hope this hotel wisely chooses to forgo obnoxious gaming advertecture.
Could the Thompson LES actually pull it off? We're less than six weeks from a reported July 15 open, and East Village Podcasts has the latest report from downtown:
The constructionaires at Thompson LES finally covered most of the insulation on the north side of the new hotel. Are $450 hotel rooms nearly available?
Maybe! And at a discount, too. We've mentioned Quikbook as a way to score good deals on Thompson Hotels, but this time it's the hotel itself offering 'em up.
A search for July 15 turns up a standard room for $299 plus taxes, while a "King Studio" goes for $339+. That's better than Quikbook's offer of $359. Though who knows if the hotel will, you know, actually be open when you arrive.
You know the scene. You open the door to your brand new hotel room, run over to the window, open the blinds and bam, you are hit with the anti-view. Maybe you are looking down a dirty alley, witnessing a drug deal, staring at an air shaft in the face, or seeing a brick wall. Whatever you are viewing it is not extremely pleasurable. Help out your fellow hotel mavens by uploading your anti-views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number with the not-so-easy-on-the-eyes view.
We've been thinking warm glowing thoughts about the Le Parker Meridien in New York since we heard about their Wii workout facilities, but that was until we got this tip-off from L Mermaid. She took her mother for a Mother's Day break to the Big Apple and they booked a room worth an extra $50 to get an upgrade to a park view room.
But this is the view of the park from their upgraded room. Agreed, we can see just a little bit of park, but clearly the scaffolding and construction is the main feature of this view, and it's probably not worth an extra $50.
To make matters worse, when they checked in (admittedly a little late after bus problems) the front desk clerk didn't even want to give them a park view room--he said they hadn't paid enough. The next day they spoke to someone friendlier and decided to move to a suite with a city view. That sounds like it was a good decision.
We were teased with some nice weather last week, but unfortunately as we head into Memorial Day weekend, the weather gods have crapped on us again.
When it turns nice again, here's a bunch of hotels with rooftop bars to enjoy. Remember: Some places require a room key and some don't. And contrary to popular belief the Pod Hotel, pictured, just has a rooftop deck--and it's BYOB.
Reality shows about hotels definitely don't work, but we have a suspicion that at least one documentary film about a hotel will be good. "Hotel Gramercy Park" has been playing this week at the Tribeca Film Festival, and it has its final screening tonight.
Director Douglas Keeve went inside the downtown landmark as Ian Schrager prepared the hotel for its grand re-opening. Keeve gives previous owners, the Weissberg family, plenty of screen time, and he tells the story of why the hotel has such a prominent place in New York's history.
If you're not gonna make the screening tonight, Jaunted has some ideas for enjoying the hotel and the surrounding neighborhood, including its namesake private park.
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by annie0007
