King Cole Bar After a $100 million restoration, New York's St. Regis Hotel is just as much of an old-school New York icon as it’s always been. Pass by Italian marble, gilded moldings and a gleaming chandelier in the hotel's lobby to the King Cole Bar, which houses a famous 1906 Maxfield Parrish Art Nouveau mural, complete with "fiddlers three." Mixological lore has it that the so-called "Red Snapper" drink came over from Harry's New York Bar in Paris and eventually morphed into the Bloody Mary, King Cole's signature cocktail. Beyond this claim to fame, this is the place for making good impressions and stimulating conversation, and even if you’re capable of neither, be heartened that the lighting will flatter you, the beer nuts are the best you’ll ever have (almonds, macadamia nuts and green wasabi peas are on offer), and your top-shelf liquor cocktail will be stiff (as will be the bar tab – trust me on this; about $125 for 4 cocktails including tax and tip). The scene can be subdued and tinkling or downright hectic at peak hours, since this is a rather small space. If you're lucky enough to secure a table at the banquette, settle in and sip slowly as the Old Guard and the Well-Maintained parade in and out. They serve the best Cobb salad I've ever had in my life.
On my latest visit I noticed a lot of “older” gentlemen in bespoke tailored suits flirting with/being courted by much younger unaccompanied women, if you get my drift. Dress Code: No shorts or sneakers after 5pm. No hats at any time. Don't come here if you can't make an entrance looking like one of the monied set; you'll spoil the ambiance.
If "mere alcohol doesn't thrill you at all," a celebrated afternoon tea is served in the hotel’s Astor Court room to the accompaniment of the requisite harpist.
The St. Regis is a Starwood hotel property located at 2 East 55th Street (at 5th Avenue) in mid-town Manhattan. Built in 1904 by (Colonel) John Jacob Astor IV, the great grandson of the country’s first multi-millionaire, the St. Regis is a Beaux Arts landmark. When it was built, this was the tallest hotel in the city.
The front desk and lobby are all marble and gilt (check out the ceiling frescoes), and even the standard guest rooms boast elaborate chandeliers (and a nightly rate of $850 or so; Internet access is extra, and you’ll have to upgrade from a basic room [lowly shower/tub combinations] if you want a genuine soaking tub). The hotel’s 24-hour butlers wear tails and white gloves and anachronistic charm on their sleeves, but they can also help with any and all modern conundrums, such as hooking up your iPod to play through your room’s surround sound system (in case you left the kids at home). Reassuring, no? The lobby seating areas boast elaborate period paneling and carved marble fireplaces, just like home. In a demonstration of silly pretension, door handles in some of the public spaces are marked with brass rectangles in French, so you’d better know a “tirez” from a “poussez.” I’m not kidding.
Chanin Building 122 East 42nd Street at Lexington Avenue
Irwin Chanin was an architect and real estate developer who had visited Paris in 1925, taking in the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes. He was so inspired when he returned that he immediately set out to incorporate these forms and motifs in his current projects. Not yet a registered architect, he worked with the firm of Sloan and Robertson to fashion his crowning achievement, the Chanin Building, which notably rose 56 floors in 1927 between the extant Grand Central Terminal and the future Chrysler Building. Its construction cost exceeded $14 million at the time, and the entire structure was erected in just 205 days.
The Chanin Building represents a turn away from the Beaux Arts style of Grand Central Terminal towards a more humanistic and modern imagery appropriate to the industrial age. In particular, the facade illustrates the introduction of colored glass, stone and metal on the exterior of tall buildings. Materials such as bronze, marble and terra-cotta are used in inventive and exuberant ways. Inside the lobby, the walls are decorated with reliefs by set-designer Jacques Delamarre and Renee Chambellan that represent "The City of Opportunity" and "The Active Life of the Individual," the latter a reference to Irwin Chanin's own rise from childhood poverty to power and wealth.
Above the base, the building's steel frame is clad in buff brick and terra cotta and is set back (starting at the 22nd floor) in conformance with the 1916 Zoning Law. At the top, it is capped by a dramatic crenelated feature that was once illuminated at night. To attract tenants, Chanin provided centralized services at the base of the building including an underground connection to Grand Central Terminal and ground-floor retail spaces.
The detail on this office building is some of the most exquisite French-inspired Art-Deco ornament ever created in New York. On the outside is a band of stylized terra-cotta with curving and angular leaf-like forms, and a frieze over the storefronts that was meant both to entertain and educate. It depicts the theory of evolution – the frieze starts with amoebae and then the amoebae become jellyfish, the jellyfish become fish, the fish become geese, and there it stops abruptly. At that point, the theory was too controversial to continue! This bronze frieze at street level depicts the sea and the tower rising majestically above it as land. The street level blandness of the Chrysler Building is a poor relation to the rich ornamentation visible to pedestrians as they approach the Chanin Building.
The main lobby boasts beautiful elevator doors that use the same goose motif used outside. A client would take one of the elevators to the top floor, to Chanin's office. But before entering his office, the guest had to pass through a pair of bronze gates that were every bit as much a part of the building's story. The gates represented the greatness of the city, with its art and commerce and its tremendous dynamism. Decorative elements included gears, which signify the industrial prominence of a great city like New York. And, at the top, in the center, a violin splits in half, indicating the cultural life of the city. Included are dynamic electrical bolts that shoot through, indicating the city's dynamism. None of this would have been possible without a great deal of money, so these gates rest on piles of gold coins. Amazing. Irwin Chanin ran his real estate empire from his private office in the Chanin Building up until a month before his death in 1988.
There was a private cinema theater on the 50th floor, as well as a viewing roof, neither of which is accessible anymore. At one time a bus depot with a rotating turntable was located on the ground floor. Overshadowed by the neighboring Chrysler Building, Chanin’s glorious edifice still had a tremendous influence on the future Rockefeller Center complex and remains a monument to the Art-Deco style. Trivia: In the summer of 2007 a Con Ed steam pipe ruptured within the building, and the explosion resulted in the temporary closing of the Chanin Building. 120 windows were broken, and the New York Fire Department teams caused much damage as they responded to the crisis. As well, there was significant water damage caused by the steam explosion. The building reopened on July 30, 2007, a scant ten days after the steam pipe rupture. No physical evidence of the explosion remains.
In 1915 Brooklyn native Irwin Chanin (1891-1988) graduated from Cooper Union college, located in the East Village area of Manhattan. In 1981 Cooper Union named its school of architecture after him: The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at The Cooper Union. The school ranks among the top five architecture study programs in the United States. In the span of his 96 years, Chanin designed, developed and built apartment buildings, movie palaces and Broadway theatres. From 1931 until his death, Chanin lived at the Century, a 400-unit apartment building he built in Manhattan.
From bottom to top: bronze, Belgian marble, terra cotta relief.
The Standard Hotel on the High Line is now open. The hotel is a rare bit of concrete construction in NYC, perched up on stilts directly above the High Line, a strip of abandoned elevated railroad track being converted into a park running through the Meatpacking District and West Village. The hotel’s architecture and interior decoration have a strong 1960s retro vibe. Rooms feature floor to ceiling glass windows and bathrooms with glass walls looking into the guest rooms, many of which have stunning views of the Hudson River. Note: Bear in mind that there is no way to eliminate the direct view from the bathroom into the guest room (only the toilets are screened off); this will be considered problematic for some, sexy as hell for others. Each room has a sofa, flat screen TV and free WiFi. Premium-priced corner rooms and suites are especially coveted.
The full length of the High Line park will be open by mid June, 2009. The result will be similar to the popular Promenade Plantée in Paris, a park also constructed on disused elevated railroad tracks.
The runway-like entry path, flanked by yellow plastic picnic tables, continues through the revolving door and into lobby.
The Helmsley Building, designed by Warren & Wetmore, is a 35-story building positioned in the center of Park Avenue. Before being dwarfed by the 1960s Pan Am Building (now the Met Life Building), it served as a visual termination point for Park Avenue at 46th Street, immediately north of Grand Central Terminal. It was the tallest element of the vast Terminal City project of hotels, offices, post office and railroad terminal that began construction in 1912. The Helmsley Building was designated a landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1987.
Built in 1929 as the headquarters for the New York Central Railroad Company (founded by Cornelius Vanderbilt), it was originally called the New York Central Building. When New York Central sold the building to real estate mogul Harry Helmsley, he renamed it the New York General Building. His wife, Leona Helmsley, infamous for her well-publicized tax evasion indictment in 1989, later renamed it the Helmsley Building. Helmsley-Spear Management owned the property until 1998, when it was sold to Max Capital for $253 million. It was sold again in 2006 for $705 million to Istithmar, an investment firm owned by the royal family of Dubai. It was subsequently sold to Goldman Sachs in 2007 for over $1 billion; in nine years the value thus increased four-fold. Stipulations require the name to remain The Helmsley Building, regardless of the owner.
The cupola-capped pyramid roof is dramatically lit at night:
Before the electrification of the New York Central Railroad in 1912-1913, the neighborhood north of Grand Central Terminal was populated with open-air railway yards and tracks used by steam locomotives. The electrification and covering of the yards enabled the continuation of Park Avenue to the north and the construction of new buildings such as this.
The middle part of the building, flanked by 15-story wings on the sides, rises as a tower to the pilastered top and the pyramidal roof, crowned by a distinctive copper-clad cupola. At night the roof and cupola are illuminated. At the base of the tower, there are two large arched portals on either side of the lobby to provide access for traffic from Park Avenue through the building, to the elevated platforms past Met Life and Grand Central Terminal, and to Park Avenue South via the Pershing Viaduct. Similarly, pedestrian traffic moves through two tunnels with connections to retail space. It is thus a unique drive-through and walk-through building.
The ornate art deco clock was erected 68-feet above street level on the cornice above the portal in 1928. Edward Francis McCartan created the piece during his three-year appointment to the New York City Art Commission. Cut in limestone, the clock features two statues four times life size. The male figure on the left is Transportation, symbolizing the spirit of speed. He rests his arm on a winged wheel of Progress and holds the staff of Mercury. On the right is a female figure, Industry, who embraces a staff in her arm, while resting on a beehive. Several other smaller symbolic figures round out the design including the Liberty Cap, crowning the clock's top. The clock, 45 feet in width and 19 feet high , has a dial with a diameter of 9 feet. Helmsley had the figures gilded, but subsequent restorations returned them to their original stone finish.
The ornate entrance lobby has lavish white travertine and marble decor replete with mirrors and chandeliers. Bronze reliefs above the elevator doors depict a winged helmet surrounding a globe, symbolizing the American empire's global reach. The elevator car ceilings are painted to represent clouds.
Trivia:
Mafia murder: On September 10, 1931, capo de tutti capi Salvatore Maranzano was murdered in his ninth-floor office here by hit men sent by Lucky Luciano and Vito Genovese, ambitious underlings whom Maranzano had ordered killed by Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll.
A view of the Helmsley Building from the Met Life building:
On May 8, Danny Kane and Rod Surut reopened one of the city’s storied and ultra-lavish spaces, the former luxury dining spot known as the Biltmore Room (the marble walls alone have been valued at $2.4 million). The venue is a super luxury restaurant/bar/lounge, called The Gates.
The marble and bronze interior was transported from the former Biltmore Hotel’s location adjacent to Grand Central Terminal to a townhouse in Chelsea (prior to the Biltmore Room restaurant, it served as a gay male club known as Rome, with staff dressed as centurions, so let’s hope the third time’s the charm!).
The hotel's iron gates and ornate, mirrored bronze door doubled as the grand entrance to the luxurious and chic Biltmore Room restaurant, which opened in 2003 with a month-long waiting list for reservations to sample the Asian fusion cuisine. In mid-2006 the restaurant closed when owner-chef Gary Robins decamped for the uptown Russian Tearoom next to Carnegie Hall.
Still intact, however, are the exquisite bronze detailing, marble floors and a ceiling glittering with crystal teardrop chandeliers. Separated from the more cavernous dining room/lounge by a pair of bronze French doors, the front bar feels intimate and inviting. Another carry-over is the former dumb-waiter that was retrofitted as a booth for cell phone calls – for those times when conversations must remain private.
Cross your fingers and stay tuned.
A corner of the restaurant/lounge shows the many types of marble used in the midtown Biltmore Hotel construction.
The New York Biltmore Hotel (1913-1981, nearly 1,000 rooms) was a landmark luxury hotel designed by the architectural firm of Warren and Wetmore, who also designed the adjoining Grand Central Terminal. Both buildings opened on the same day, February 2, 1913. The hotel was located between 43rd and 44th Streets from Vanderbilt Ave. to Madison Ave., and was one of several hotels built as part of the Terminal City project, a vast complex that included the train station, hotels, a post office and many commercial office buildings, all designed by Warren and Wetmore. The other hotels were the Commodore (now the Grand Hyatt New York) and the Roosevelt (still in operation).
Warren was a cousin of the Vanderbilts, owners of the New York Central Railway and builders of Grand Central Terminal. Warren’s partner, Charles Wetmore, was a lawyer by training. Their society connections led to commissions for clubs, private estates, hotels and terminal buildings, including the New York Central office building (now known as the Helmsley Building), The New York Yacht Club, the Chelsea docks and the Ritz-Carlton, Biltmore, Commodore, and Ambassador Hotels. The legendary Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC, is their work, as well.
Unfortunately, the landmark Biltmore Hotel building was gutted in 1981, and The Bank of America Plaza Building, at 335 Madison Avenue, was built from the hotel's steel skeleton. The owner asked in extreme haste, before the Landmarks Preservation Commission could take action to stop him. With no warning the hotel shut its doors on August 14, 1981, and teams of demolition workers arrived the next day. Even so, the owner/developer established a $500,000 scholarship for the Landmarks Commission, chiefly to stave off any further action against him. The bank’s offices, which opened in 1984, still retain the hotel's piano and famous lobby clock. During that time a collector purchased the hotel’s lavish marble and bronze lobby fixtures and reinstalled them in a Chelsea residence, which later housed a restaurant called The Biltmore Room (2003-2006) and now operates as a restaurant/lounge called The Gates (290 Eighth Ave. between 24th and 25th Sts.; 212-206-8646).
For decades the Biltmore Hotel appealed to lovers. Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald honeymooned there so boisterously that they were asked to leave, and the Biltmore’s solid bronze clock was a popular meeting place for amorous couples. Fitzgerald wrote a short story titled “Myra Meets His Family,” which is set at the Biltmore. An American Playhouse TV production of this story, which aired in 1986 on PBS, was called “Under the Biltmore Clock.”
The railroad arrival room under the hotel was called the kissing room, and was the meeting place of many couples who then would proceed to the Biltmore Palm Court for lunch or a drink. On the nineteenth floor the Biltmore had a restaurant with a hand-cranked sliding roof called “The Cascades,” which allowed diners the opportunity to gaze at the stars while having dinner. The circa 1920 advertisement below illustrates the placement of the live orchestra and tango dancers on the floor of the rooftop "Cascades" venue:
An innovation at the time it was built, the hotel was designed in an “H” shape, thus giving every one of its 900+ rooms an outside exposure. As well, The Biltmore boasted one of the first hotel indoor swimming pools and saunas. The Italian Garden between the Biltmore East and West Towers was an open air escape in the summer and served as an ice skating rink in winter. In the 1920s and early 1930s it had its own resident orchestra.
In J.D. Salinger’s 1951 novel, “The Catcher in the Rye,” when Holden Caulfield showed up in the Biltmore lobby for a date, he was struck by the crowd of young women. “I was way early when I got there,” he recounted, “so I just sat down on one of those leather couches right near the clock in the lobby and watched the girls. A lot of schools were home for vacation already, and there were about a million girls sitting and standing around waiting for their dates to show up. Girls with their legs crossed, girls with their legs not crossed, girls with terrific legs, girls with lousy legs, girls that looked like swell girls.”
Trivia:
Located immediately west of Grand Central, the Biltmore Hotel had a convenient direct elevator and stairway to the terminal.
In 1970 feminists demonstrated to "liberate" the men's bar at New York's Biltmore Hotel. On August 10 Mayor John Lindsay signed a bill prohibiting sexual discrimination in public places.
Bert Lown’s orchestra enjoyed a long booking at the hotel. In this YouTube video his band performs “Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone.” The accompanying slide show includes several interior and exterior images of the New York Biltmore Hotel. In a glaring error, however, the photograph of the lobby is actually an interior of the Los Angeles Millennium Biltmore, not the New York Biltmore.
Café des Artistes
1 West 67th Street; 212-877-3500
Open seven days a week, lunch 11 to 3 pm and dinner 5 to 11pm.
$35 three-course prix-fixe dinner offered year round.
Business casual attire (jackets not required for men).
This legendary café, built in 1917, has been a long-time New York favorite, lauded over the years as enchanting, romantic, and transforming. It invokes old world elegance, in part attributable to the famous 1934 murals of female nudes frolicking in the woods and a location in a prewar hotel just off Central Park. This gothic building was created to house artists' studios, and luminaries such as Noel Coward, Norman Rockwell, Isadora Duncan, and Gary Oldman have all resided here. The café functioned as a dining room and kitchen for residents.
The six murals are the work of Howard Chandler Christy, an illustrator and portrait painter who was a resident of the hotel in which the café was housed. His fame spanned the entire first half of the twentieth century. The Café celebrates the murals with cocktails named after them. Two are "The Fountain of Youth" (Poire William scented champagne with spiced pear) and "Swing Girl" (Corazón Tequila, orange liquor and pineapple juice).
The restaurant caters to a mature clientele in a location convenient to Lincoln Center.
Library Way, located on the two blocks of East 41st street between Park and Fifth Avenues, displays 96 bronze plaques designed by sculptor Gregg LeFevre. Each contains different quotations from literature and poetry. The plaques lead to the doorstep of the grand New York Public Library Humanities and Social Sciences Library, where the famed stone lions "Patience" and "Fortitude" guard its doors. The official dedication of Library Way was held on May 27, 2004.
In 1996 Grand Central Partnership, along with the New York Public Library and New Yorker Magazine, convened a distinguished panel of literary experts and librarians to select the quotations from prominent works of literature. These quotes have been brought to life by urban sculptural artist Gregg LeFevre in vivid bronze plaques that have been set into the sidewalks. In honor of the project, New York City Mayor Bloomberg enacted “Local Law 34 of 2003" on June 3, 2003, that ceremonially designates this two-block stretch of East 41st Street as “Library Way.”
