10002 Travel Guide
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The Hotel on Rivington Wants to Bring Sexy Back
We know, we know, you’ve probably all had enough of Kayne West by now, what with the news that “I’ma Let You Finish T-shirts” are now on sale. But the star of this little tale is actually his lady friend, Amber Rose.
The set? The Hotel on Rivington. The Ford Model and the Lower East Side hotel both appear in a fashion spread in the latest issue of ELLE, although the chicks over at Jezebel were dismayed that the shoot was “asinine” and “ass-centric.”
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Rachel Zoe Thinks Thompson LES Is 'Kind of Awesome'
Rachel Zoe, stylist to celebs like Anne Hathaway and Cameron Diaz and star of Bravo's The Rachel Zoe Project, set up camp at the Thompson LES Hotel in New York for Fashion Week.
But the super-skinny stylista didn't have time to swim in the Andy Warhol-bottomed pool. Team Zoe was too busy averting fashion disasters like nip slips and ugly taffeta trains in the Thompson Loft, the penthouse suite on the 18th and 19th floors of the hotel. "This is kind of awesome," Zoe said as she looked around the duplex. She and her hubby, Rodger, admired the exposed concrete ceilings and columns.
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Hotel On Rivington's Restaurant Re-Opens With $22 Margaritas
While the last few weeks have thrown all the hotel restaurant publicity into The Standard's court with the opening of The Standard Grill, another spot managed to get off its feet as well: The Hotel on Rivington's cursed space now known as Levant East at THOR.
Formerly just known as THOR, and no good for anything beyond drinks and continental breakfast, the restaurant is hoping to breathe life back into its stale spot in the otherwise-happening neighborhood of NYC's Lower East Side. However, when we look at the menu, we see nothing but another dead end.
The "combination of classic French Bistro meeting American Spa," which doesn't sound much appetizing the begin with, is serving up $22 margaritas, a burger and fries for $18, a side of mac & cheese for $10, and lounge bottle service starting from $350. Sure there's a bunch of French items on the menu as well, but we'd rather head to an actual French restaurant in the city — outside of an LES hotel — for that.
[Photo: Hotel on Rivington]
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Thompson LES' Shang Gets a Fly New Website
We told you back in early March that the dudes behind Thompson Hotels had gotten together to form a restaurant group called Do Not Disturb, which is now managing the restaurant soon to be known as 'Zentan' inside DC's Donovan House (formerly known as 'Cha'), the food and nightlife venues at Thompson LES (Shang, Above Allen), as well as the restos in Gild Hall, the Hollywood Roosevelt and the upcoming Thompson Toronto.
Zentan inside Donovan House is set to open up on June 8th with Susur Lee's name on the place (as opposed to Todd English's, who was originally the face of Cha) — and Susur Lee's other Thompson restaurant, Shang, now is showing off a hot, hot new website. It's got menus, all the requisite look-at-our-celeb-chef promotional goodness, press clippings and a pretty decent image gallery. Was this the first order of business for the Do Not Disturb group?
Uh, maybe they could go do a bit of work on the Zentan website next. It's a little bit... naked.
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Thompson LES Really, Really Needs to Keep It Down
Wow. We waited and waited and waited for the Thompson LES' outdoor pool — yes, the one with Andy Warhol's face at the bottom — to open up. And now that it has, we feel so bad for the hotel's neighbors that we wouldn't be opposed to it being taken away.
A tipster for Vanishing New York, who is a resident of the backside tenements that face the Thompson LES pool, participated in a community meeting that was held to address the "excessive noise" coming out of the hotel:
"People were upset about the pool noise," the tipster reported. The hotel hosted a pool party last week and "it was disgustingly loud."
Uh, yeah. As you can see in this vid that the same tipster send into VNY, loud doesn't even begin to cover it.
At the community meeting, Thompson LES managers offered to "put sound meters in resident's apartments" to me more cognizant of the noise levels — and they promised to email neighboring residents with a schedule of upcoming events. Oy. That will help. Not.
More neighbor complaints about the Thompson LES' nightlife scene are on The Lo-Down; examples include annoying fleets of black SUV's on the streets and drunky-drunks stumbling around on the street.
Thompson LES: keep it down. Thompson LES party guests: uh, keep it together.
[Photo: NY Mag]
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What's the Deal With Dining at The Hotel on Rivington?
Poor Hotel on Rivington; the beautiful, airy space on its first floor (otherwise known as its restaurant) has been through a hellish five years with its chefs and its ever-changing identity. According to Down By the Hipster, the curse continues as THOR switches up its chefs yet again to bring in Matt Levine, owner of New York's notoriously "secret" lounge The Eldridge.
Since we have our own history with the THOR restaurant space, including but not limited to private parties and continental breakfasts, we sincerely hope that Levine makes it work when he re-opens the space in 3-4 weeks time. As it stands now, the hotel itself and even its second-floor lounge with pool table attracts a healthy stream of Euro-chic hipsters, but the restaurant sends them running for the hills (or SoHo). Let's think of this THOR switch-up like the movie Field of Dreams; give the Lower East Siders and the tourists who love them a place high-priced and yet faux-grungy enough to make them feel happy and comfy. De-fancify it, and they will come.
[Photo: THOR]
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Thompson LES Shows Off Above Allen Space with Ronson Party
Yeah, this is a rendering of Above Allen and it sucks. Any real photos of AA? Email us.
Alas, there were no chunks of twice recently died red locks of hair lying anywhere near the Thompson LES hotel. At the Made with Love Charlotte Ronson and Shoshanna Russ swimwear debut celebration hosted by Lucky Magazine, the only Lindsay that dared to bare (a little leg that is) at the hip downtown hotel was Lipstick Jungle's Lindsay Price.
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Stay For Less at Thompson LES
Whether or not you're heading to Europe this summer, might we remind you that trips to New York City are actually more affordable this year than last. The latest hotel to join the deals fray is Thompson LES, now offering three nights for the price of two so long as you book before April 30.
If you arrive on a Sunday, Monday, or a Tuesday, you can have a Queen Superior room for $475 for three nights. Or you can get the Studio Suite with a king bed for $650 for three nights.
The deal also includes complimentary breakfast in the SHANG restaurant, a 2pm late checkout and a Thompson LES gift bag that includes promotions and/or discounts to Sigerson Morrison (shoes), The New Musuem, Tommy Guns Salon, Earnest Sewn (jeans), SHANG, Kiki de Montparnesse and Kiehl's.
If you can splurge, we say book the Studio Suite. It has more room. See our review from last August for an in-depth look.
Use code APRILLES to book before April 30. The promo is based on availability and good for stays through August 31, 2009.
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New Sneaks for Spring at The Hotel on Rivington
Have you finished shopping for your summer wardrobe yet? The Hotel on Rivington (THOR) has, and they're back with an updated look for the season, starting from the soles up.
In December, the hotel's spiffy staff began sporting DC shoes, leading off with the low, black leather Sector 7s to compliment the Ted Baker uniforms. Nonetheless, shoes wear down and so spring sees replacements in the form of the DC LIFE dress sneaker in a fresh red colorway intended to match the scarlet carpeting of the hotel's dramatic entrance.
Again, the kicks come from a collection of DC styles that "features models, constructions, and materials found nowhere else in the DC line and is offered exclusively at a very select group of fine retailers worldwide." We're especially loving the perforated leather for letting tired hotel worker's feet breathe, but how will the guests take to being out-dressed by the hotel staff?
[Photos: DC Shoes and The Hotel on Rivington]
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Blake Lively Hits Up Hotel on Rivington
Gossip Girl here. With two of our favorite Upper East Siders abandoning Park Avenue for palm trees out on the left coast — that is, Ed Westwick (Chuck Bass) and Vanessa (Jessica Szohr) canoodling at the Hollywood Roosevelt — at what hotspots might we expect to find the likes of the other Gossip Girl-ers? Where are Lonely Boy, Little J, Queen B., Nate — and Miss Serena?
It seems at least one more cast member has made a big trip of her own and done the unthinkable: gone below 14th Street. Serena would never go so far downtown — well, not without Lonely Boy, at least.
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Shang is Shangalicious, But Not Recession-Friendly
The New York Post's Steve Cuozzo is giving the thumbs-up "mmm-mmm good" to newly-opened Thompson LES' Shang Restaurant. He calls the chic eatery "an all-over-the-map mix'n'match of Chinese, Japanese, Malaysian and American styles and ingredients."
The only thing the Post really knocks is Shang's goofy PR statement that attempts to set the atmosphere: "Chinese wallpaper with erotica designs more than 600 years old creates a tantalizing escape." Yeah, perhaps they should hire a better copy writer. We're not sure what is tantalizing about 600-year-old erotica.
Otherwise, the food created by Hong Kong-born chef Susur Lee of the Toronto epicurean scene and who apparently "boldly matched TV's 'Iron Chef' Bobby Flay platter for platter to a culinary draw" is tasty by Cuozzo's palate, even though the timing for the restaurant's opening may not have been ideal.
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The Thompson LES: What Kind of F'ery is This?
Two of us here at HotelChatter have stayed at the Thompson LES since it opened this summer — once in its early days and once quite recently — and have loved it. We dug the design of the rooms (both rooms were Studio Suites), were impressed with the service and have been recommending the hotel to our friends and readers all over the place, especially since the rates have been totally killer for a luxury boutique hotel in Manhattan.
But now we're thinking that perhaps we spoke too soon. We received a reader review today from someone very close to us — a seasoned traveler who happens to be a hospitality industry executive (not in the hotel biz) — who stayed at the Thompson LES recently and had an entirely different experience. He stayed in a Superior Queen room (which he paid $259 for) and hated it. From the looks of the photos he sent along, we can almost understand why; it's hard to believe it's the same hotel.
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