The Plaza.

As The Great Gatsby, the most hyped movie since, well, Iron Man 3, steamrolls into theaters, two hotels are proudly trumpeting their Gatsby connections.

Most obvious is The Plaza. When Daisy suggests Gatsby, Tom, Jordan and Nick drive to Manhattan, they beeline for the Plaza, a favorite of F. Scott Fitzgerald and wife Zelda. “They lived at the Biltmore but drank cocktails at the Plaza – orange blossoms spiked with bootleg gin,” writes Sally Cline, author of Zelda: Her Voice in Paradise, in New York magazine. Ernest Hemingway once told Fitzgerald to “leave his liver to Princeton and his heart to the Plaza” – or so the Plaza website tells us.

The Plaza appears as a high-profile supporting player in the movie, even though the interior scenes depicting the hotel were recreated in a studio. That hasn’t stopped the hotel from happily linking its fortunes to the film – and Fitzgerald. (more…)

Cindy Crawford at the Sofitel.

What hotel wouldn’t kill to bring Charlize Theron, Cindy Crawford, Naomie Campbell, Christy Turlington, Uma Thurman, Ines de La Fressange, Jennifer Lopez and Britney Spears (on a good day) together in one room?

The prize goes to the Sofitel New York. It got the job done, never mind that the women are present in photographs taken by French photographer Gilles Bensimon.

Twenty-five celebrated beauties comprise Elles, a show of portraits mainly in black-and-white taken between 1993 and 2010 by the 69-year-old photographer and former international creative director of Elle magazine. (Halle Berry, Penelope Cruz, Catherine Deneuve and Audrey Hepburn are down the hall.) (more…)

Tomoko Sugimoto works the windows.

You’ don’t see many art galleries amidst the relentless array of shops, restaurants and bars in the Meatpacking District. (You don’t see many butchers, either, but that’s another story.)

So score one for the Shop at the Standard High Line NYC. This amusingly curated emporia sells hotel requisites like toothpaste, contact lens solution and magazines (a blend of American and foreign) but also showcases the work of contemporary artists. Besides stocking the shop with art that doesn’t cost a fortune – artist Ryan McGinness produced a deck of cards — featured participants paint the windows.

Window art means the artist has to show up to put brush – or marker – to glass.  We chanced by the Standard on Wednesday just as Tomoko Sugimoto, a Brooklyn artist and illustrator by way of Tokyo, was transforming the windows for her show “Through the Looking-Glass, and What I Found There,” on view through January 2013. (more…)

Companion — the inflatable version.

The last time we saw Companion, artist KAWS’s iconic cartoon character with big curly ears, Disney hands and a pair of Xs for eyes, he was a sculpture – a really big one. During the summer of 2011 his seated form, rendered in gray and white in steel, loomed 16-feet tall in front of The Standard hotel, hands over his eyes, the shyest character in town.

A year and change later he’s back in New York. This time he’s even bigger (and weighs a lot less). Look for him up in the air, hands covering eyes, at the 86^th annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

As far as we know, Companion is the first hotel sculpture (temporary or permanent) to morph into a Thanksgiving Day parade balloon. (more…)

Living large.

In the immortal words of Jo March in Little Women, “Christopher Columbus!”

There he was in all his statuesque glory, standing a dizzying 13 feet tall in the bird’s eye living room conceived, constructed (and decorated) by Japanese artist Tatzu Nishi in the center of Columbus Circle.

Since September 20, visitors have climbed up, up, up six flights of metal stairs to the pink-wallpapered lair where Italian sculptor Gaetano Russo’s 1892 marble rendering of Italy’s most famous sailor stands atop a coffee table littered with copies of The FT and The New York Times.  This week it was our turn (admission is free but by reservation), and we made the climb on a drizzly day.

Nishi creates short-term artworks by reimaging, and recontextualizing, public monuments in unexpected ways. In Villa Victoria, a pop-up hotel suite built around a statue of Queen Victoria in Liverpool, guests could actually spend the night. (more…)

Larger than life Gummy Bears? Models prepping for a fashion show? A Dublin artist’s outsize photos of New York?

You never know what will turn up in the windows of The Corner Space, the Roger Smith Hotel’s storefront on the corner of Lexington Avenue and 47^th Street. And that’s why we love looking in whenever we pass by.

Art under glass.

This week, through Friday November 16, a live art happening, courtesy the Thai Artists Alliance, is unfolding under glass from 9 am to 6 pm – and sometimes a little later as we discovered when we chanced by at 6:30 one night. (more…)

Caught at The Plaza.

As advertised: they really do have palms at The Plaza’s Palm Court. We spotted this one today, peeking out between closed French doors. It reminded us of a certain scene in Sixteen Candles. But it could just as easily be a palm’s version of a high-five.

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…)

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…)

Roses at Jumeirah Essex House.

“Florals? For spring? Ground breaking.” We hear you, Miranda Priestly. But strolling through a half dozen or so hotel lobbies, we couldn’t resist whipping out a camera and celebrating spring with flowers.

In the early and mid 20^th century a flower shop was a must at large urban hotels. Besides eye-catching blooms for the lobby, weddings and parties on the premises, the shop sent flowers to guest rooms on behalf of friends and associates (guests checked in for longer than a night or two in the years before air travel).  The shop also stocked the boutonnieres and corsages that were the mark of the well dressed.

Such shops are a rarity today, but the custom of dressing the lobby with fresh blooms lives on. (more…)