The JP Getty Gimlet

School isn’t a word that leaps to mind when we think of The Pierre. But six times a year the drinks team in the hotel’s Two E bar/lounge cooks up a specialty cocktail menu.  The night the drinks debut, Two E hosts a free mixology class where patrons can stop by, watch the team led by drinks maestro Sachin Hasan in action, and sample the new cocktails. Forget homework, but you can leave with a recipe or two.

You won’t see signs around the hotel touting the classes. But they’re not a secret, either, if you Like the hotel on Facebook.

We stopped by this week to bone up on the latest course — six classic cocktails refashioned for 21^st century tastes.

A row of stylish shot glasses that looked like bud vases dressed the big gold-leaf Two E bar for the occasion.   (more…)

The Warwick’s security blocks.

The Queen’s flag – or absence of it – announces whether or not she is in residence at Buckingham Palace. At large hotels flags flown above the entry perform a similar task, hinting that notables are in the house, whether a visiting government or a football team.

The only flags flying in front of the Warwick Hotel this week were the stars and stripes and the red Warwick banner. But anyone following current events who chanced by knew precisely who had checked in.

A fence of concrete police barriers — and a contingent of uniformed police officers — is a lot less subtle than a flag. Then again the paying guests included 140 visitors from Iran, among them President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in town for the opening of the 67^th session of the General Assembly. Interesting hotel choice by the Iranian delegation. Press baron William Randolph Hearst, never one to sidestep international tensions, built the hotel back in 1926.

A little more to the left . . .

Actually, the Belleclaire is getting an entire new lobby (and not a moment too soon).

But a chandelier this big commands more attention than a throw pillow. And we happened to stop by as it was being positioned into place.

The new lobby is reason to cheer. It harkens back to a time when the Belleclaire was a Big Deal – a very long time ago.

As indicated by the exuberant Art Nouveau-meets-Vienna Secession exterior, the hotel opened in 1903, a showpiece by architect Emory Roth, the Rem Koolhaas of his day. Other Emory hotels, known for their flamboyant topknots and multiple terraces, included the Warwick and the Beverly (now The Benjamin ) as well as landmark apartment towers like the San Remo and the Beresford. (more…)

Camera ready: Le Caprice at The Pierre.

You’re out of luck if you wanted to try the Eggs Benedict at  Le Caprice. The Pierre hotel’s gleaming by-the-numbers copy of the popular London brasserie closed earlier this year. (We wonder who got their hands on the gorgeous David Bailey photos of Jean Shrimpton that dressed the walls.)

But you can watch Richard Gere and Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, cast as a mercurial pair of financial sharks, power breakfast together at Le Caprice in Arbitrage, (more…)

Celebratory butter cream with chocolate filling.

Not many guests check into hotels long term unless you count inventor Nikola Tesla, who lived for a decade at The New Yorker, or Cole Porter, who stayed for years at the Waldorf (the hotel lent him a grand piano).

Staff members are another matter. Two or three decades of service are not unusual at large New York hotels. But five decades? (more…)

Leggy desk.

It takes a certain bravura for a hotel to name its rooms Spectacular, Fantastic and WOW.

W hotels have done this for over a decade, of course. Still, one person’s WOW is another’s meh. And what happens when age sets in, as it inevitably does? Nothing looks as forlorn as a trend-conscious hotel pushing ten without a facelift or, at the very least, fresh clothes and make-up.

A year ago W Union Square perched on this slippery slope. Its restaurant looked worn (we spotted a large rip in a leather banquette). Its guest rooms sported the dark woods and muted trappings that personified SoHo chic, ca 2000.  But that was 2011.

To celebrate its 12^th birthday this year W Union Square renovated big time – rooms, restaurant, banquet hall, nightspot, the works (the Living Room, aka lobby seating area, still stuck in the millenium, is up next). (more…)

Artist Daniel St. George (right) and assistant Max Decker painting the Andaz doors.

Sometimes a door isn’t just a door.

Last week the double doors leading to The Bar Downstairs at the Andaz 5^th Avenue were a work in progress (witness the protective plastic, brush-wielding artist, passersby taking pictures).

And this week? The doors are a mural — a witty, cartoon-inflected study of contemporary New York that toasts (and roasts) its subject in black, white and gold.  (Passersby are still taking pictures.)

Brooklyn artist Daniel St. George engineered the transformation. But he wasn’t the first to do so. In fact, St. George ushered in year two of tbd Art, the hotel’s rotating series that taps artists to splash their idea of New York — Today onto the hotel’s Fifth Avenue doors.

It’s a sweet deal. In addition to a chunk of prime real estate across the street from the New York Public Library – and a mere dozen blocks south of The Museum of Modern Art — each artist becomes an Artist in Residence, scoring a suite at the hotel during the time it takes to complete the work (alas for the artists, it’s mere days not weeks). (more…)

Fashions inside.

Once again New York Fashion Week breezes in, and suddenly Manhattan’s Upper West Side is uncharacteristically chic – at least until September 13.

The temporary white Mercedes Benz cube in Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park is the epicenter. More than 70 designers will show including Michael Kors, Nanette Lepore, Charlotte Ronson, J Mendel — and Tracy Reese, who designed the sleeveless rose brocade dress worn by Michele Obama for her speech at the Democratic National Convention.

Anyone who takes all that in deserves a drink — or lunch — a short walk from the cube.  A sampling of nearby hotels stand at the ready.

(more…)

What was the most watched movie in hotel rooms across the U.S. and Canada and in New York City last month?

Think blockbuster. And comics. Since August was too early for either The Amazing Spider-Man or The Dark Knight Rises to leave the big screen for hotel room flatpanels, that leaves one obvious winner – Marvel’s The Avengers. (more…)