Ring in the new!

We love the Olympics regardless of where they occur, but we’re especially jazzed that they’re in London this year. As the capital city of a country steeped in theater – Shakespeare, anyone? — London knows how to put on a show, with royals and rock stars to boot. So bring it on!

Most New York hotels will tune their bar TVs to Olympic events, including the Ritz Carlton New York Battery Park, the Warwick New York and the Marriott New York Downtown (16 screens and counting so you can watch the Mets or Yankees when you’ve OD’d on wrestling).

But a handful are going for the gold with special screens, drinks and meals. Here a sampling of what we found. (more…)

The Standard’s BMOC.

What is it with The Standard’s outdoor sculpture choices?

Last summer Companion (Passing Through), an enormous rendering of artist KAWS’ signature cartoon boy seated and covering his eyes, loomed 16 feet over the hotel plaza and posed irresistible questions.  Was he shy? Scared? Averting his gaze from the hotel’s infamous floor-to-ceiling windows?

Another summer, another sculpture.  This week Big Kastenmann, aka Big Box Man, by Austrian surrealist artist Erwin Wurm appeared on the plaza, even bigger (18 feet tall, 1.6 tons) and just as deliciously puzzling.  Rendered in aluminum and pink enamel, the sculpture is headless, posing the same questions as Companion. (We can’t wait to see the hotel comes up with next summer.) (more…)

Give me Liberty . . .

There’s nothing shy about the Statue of Liberty, standing proud and tall on her very own island. It’s just that in a city of skyscrapers she’s not exactly the tallest act in town. But starting on October 28 you’ll be able to see more of her — and more of the view from her island — than in years when Lady Liberty’s crown reopens after a year of renovations. Or to quote pageant coach Victor Melling in Miss Congeniality, “‘You ‘are’ the crown!”

The crown will be open each week from Thursday through Sunday. You can take a ferry from Battery Park in lower Manhattan or Liberty State Park in New Jersey. Ferries run daily from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Our favorite way to see Ms. Liberty is from a hotel, of course, even if we’re not as close as, say, Robert Cummings in Saboteur.  (more…)

Beats gooey nachos: retro sweets.

We love watching old movies in hotel screening rooms, the ultimate anti-multiplex (the chairs! the sound system! the champagne!).

Last month W New York Downtown initiated “New York in Film,” a smart if brief summer series of old movies curated by savvy New Yorkers. And just like that W joined the (too) small society of New York hotels, including the Crosby Street Hotel and Tribeca Grand, that screen movies to anyone who purchases a ticket, not just red carpeters and opening nighers.

Round one was Sweet Charity, chosen – and chatted up — by fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi. On July 31, the series wraps with Midnight Cowboy (1969), John Schlesinger’s dark drama with Dustin Hoffman as Ratso Rizzo and Jon Voight as John Buck, hand-picked by director Spike Lee who calls the movie “an example of how New York can be so glorious and painful at the same time.” (more…)

Ancient trio.

If you’re on top of drinks trends, you know all about barrel-aged cocktails, mixed drinks like Negronis and Old Fashioneds poured into barrels and left for weeks or months to oxidize and absorb flavor and color from their woody casings, much like whiskey and wine.

You also know the trendlet’s history – how Jeffery Morgenthaler, a Portland, Oregon bartender with an avid blog following, sampled a mature Manhattan in London at Tony Conigliaro’s 69 Colebrooke Row bar in 2009 and had a hosanna! moment.

Describing the drink as “sublime and subtle,” he elected to try it at home. But instead of aging a Manhattan in a glass bottle, like Conigliaro, he decided “bigger equals better” and opted for large-batch Negronis in an oak barrel.

The result? Bliss in a barrel. (more…)

Clean at the Conrad.

First came washable duvet covers that replaced heavy, dry-clean-only bedspreads and lowered the “oogie factor,” as one hotel executive so aptly described, well, you know.

Then came apps that turn smartphones into TV channel changers, meaning you don’t have to grab a germ-bomb zapper every five minutes.

But what about those spare pillows and blankets stashed on a shelf in the closet? (more…)

On sale, limited time only.

New York is the capital of sample sales for everything from designer T-shirts to sofas, so why not hotels? During early July Pod 39, the new East 39^th Street sibling to the original Pod Hotel, aka Pod 51, is offering guests a chance to “sample” the new hotel for $85 a night.

The sale runs through the week of July 9, as we discovered on the hotel website (the hotel soft-opened this week, as reported in Hotelchatter). Prices inch up to $129 the week of July 16, but that’s still less than you’ll pay at this time next year (and a lot sooner). (more…)

Dip in.

What does summer taste like? Popsicles, if you’re 10 years old. And if you’re in double decades?

How about a cool goblet of Prosecco with a boozy, Day-Glo popsicle plopped inside like a swizzle stick?

Prosecco & Popsicles headlines the bar menu at the Conrad New York’s new rooftop bar, aptly named Loopy Doopy (the name comes from a towering mural by Sol LeWitt in the lobby, but never mind).  The pops come in flavors like Strawberry Grey Goose Citron and Mango & Guava Malibu Coconut. And from the look of the hotel’s sun-drenched bar on a recent Saturday afternoon, they’re a hit – even at $16 a pop. Every third person was holding one, it seemed, including me (Watermelon 10 Cane Rum Mojito).

It was delectable, though half the fun was watching its creation. The Prosecco is on tap at the bar – just like Brooklyn Lager. (more…)

You know it’s summer when you’ve got action movies at the multiplex and comedies in hotel rooms.

Hotel guests across the nation watched 21 Jump Street, about two hapless undercover cops sent back to high school to bring down a drug ring, more than any other pay-to-view movie last month. And in New York City hotels, American Reunion, the class reunion of the all-grown-up American Pie crowd, led the pack, with 21 Jump Street, nipping at its heels.  In other words, high school ruled from coast to coast – just in time for graduation. (more…)