Claim: Tuesday night's DBS Volante Convertible party at the Cooper Square Hotel "brought enough complaints to bring in the police"

Just a quick follow-up to yesterday's Cooper Square Hotel post. I wanted to highlight two comments that came in later last night.



Anonymous said...
Just for the record, one of the stipulations of the hotel liquor license is, that given its proximity to to an assisted living facility and residential apartment building, the garden is to be "a quiet gathering place for patrons and guests." Last night's event brought enough complaints to bring in the police. When residents went to inquire for the hotel manager as recommended by Matt Moss at the meeting, she was "unavailable."


Goggla said...
I hate to think what will happen the next time one of those senior residents needs an ambulance (which I see there regularly), only to have it circle the block because the wagon train of limos is blocking the entrance.

Also, I reviewed the photos that I took.... I found these. As I recall, the young man in the backpack wanted to take a closer look at the Aston Martin on display. And why not?



So he looked around for a moment and decided to unhook the velvet rope and go in where the invite-onlys were congregating.



The security guard was on him in a second. The guard was ready to push him out the way he came in...



But the other security guard interjected and suggested that the young man be taken out properly through the hotel.



The security guards that I saw were much more tolerant of guests taking drinks onto the sidewalk to use their cell phones.

What's new around the Cooper Square Hotel: Sidewalk, lack of trees

After looking at E2E4 the other day, I swung by to check in on the progress of the Cooper Square Hotel. (I usually only go by for free ice.) Well! For starters, the sidewalk alongside the hotel's coming-soon garden (outdoor bar?) space on East Fifth Street is done....




...but not at the cost of a few trees.



And what is going on with this one?



Meanwhile, it's looking really glassy....





...and close to the neighbors.





Curbed had an update yesterday on the hotel and the ominous Wolverine claw....




P.S.
The hotel's VIP entrance still needs a little work...

Cooper Square Hotel still tagged

The Cooper Square Hotel fence was tagged Friday night/Saturday morning...

Yesterday!



I was actually a little surprised to see the tag still there today...



Back in May, the Cooper Hotel staff quickly removed a tag... Or is this part of the hotel's new art installation?

A night at the Cooper Square Hotel makes writer long for a Motel 6

There's a funny piece in The Washington Post in which staff writer Joel Achenbach recalls his experience at "a striking place, very modern, a steel-and-glass tower rising above the Lower East Side." He never mentions the place by name. But I'm assuming it's the ol' Cooper Square Hotel... (He mentions grabbing a slice at Ray's... and a room at the Coop does go for $270 ...) Anyway, I think I'd feel exactly the same way as Joel here ...

Walking in, there's no sign of a lobby per se. No Registration Desk. A snappy dresser tells me to follow him. Suddenly I'm introduced to a sharp-looking woman who is, apparently -- maybe -- a concierge of sorts, and is somehow associated with the task of giving me a room. It's like we're going to have a conversation first.

I'm a little thrown off by the whole thing. I need a room, a phone, electricity. I want a KEY. But perhaps that's me being really old-fashioned.

In the absence of a Registration Desk, the concierge-type person operates out of what appears to be a small conference room, as if I'm going to sign refinancing papers. Alas, there is no room yet available, it being merely 1 in the afternoon. You know that even at $270 a night you can't expect a hotel to have a room ready this early in the day.

And it only gets better!

So I wait for 90 minutes -- stylishly, hanging out amid the groovy furniture, ducking out briefly for a slice of pizza at Ray's.

They're all very nice. They offer me a drink! But no: At this point I am starting to crave a Motel 6.

Finally get the room. It's about the size of a large bed. Everything is so gleaming that I worry I'm going to leave fingerprints everywhere.

Heh.

It's hard on a middle-age man's ego to realize that he's being totally outcooled by everyone on the hotel staff. The guy fetching the taxi probably pities me. Because he knows he still has a future. He says to himself: Thank God I'm not him. How does he face the morning???

Party at Cooper Square Hotel

Jill left a comment yesterday about a party she attended at the Cooper Square Hotel. Thought you may enjoy it.

The party was in the 21st floor suite. As far as hotel suites go it was nothing, and let me tell you I've seen a lot of them in lots of cities. Except for the view it was pretty vanilla. They took out the furniture so maybe with furniture it might be better, but really... The giant wraparound deck had no cover from the sun/rain, nor was there furniture out there either (again, maybe for the party they took it out.)

De rigeur slidy wood floors, big windows, very plain "minimalist" I suppose but to me it looks forlorn. The one couch was so wide you coudn't sit back without putting all your legs on it, which is not a good look at a party. I was the only one sitting/perching.

Tiny elevators with a very very long wait. In fact, they mixed the guests in with the party goers so the people who were paying hotel guests couldn't get to their rooms in a reasonable amount of time.

An elevator load of party goers had an argument with one worker when we couldn't get to the 21st floor via elevator, and then they wouldn't let us up the stairs from the 20th floor. He accused us of wanting to sneak in - this to a group of fairly middle aged people in business clothes. Ha! He threatened to call security. I begged him to call security. A handiman we ran into fixed the elevator to bring us up.

When I was leaving there were a few young people hanging around the front desperately trying to get in, and the bouncer wouldn't let them through. There was absolutely nothing for them inside, but they sure thought they were missing something, only because they weren't allowed in.

On the Bowery: "It's old versus new -- and these days new would seem to have the upper hand"

The real estate section in the Post today takes a look at an up-and-coming part of town called the Bowery. Sounds interesting.

Street gangs, brothels, flophouses, Joey Ramone - at one time or another, the Bowery has played host to them all. Of the many Manhattan areas to have transformed over the last decade, the Bowery has to rank among the unlikeliest.

Transform it has, though. Homeless shelters like the century-plus-old Bowery Mission still dot the street, and lighting and restaurant supply stores still dominate the retail scene, but gentrification is most definitely on the march.

Definitely!

Yes, the Bowery is booming. Prudential Douglas Elliman broker Rob Gross has worked in the area for more than 20 years. He remembers selling real estate on the Bowery in the early '90s, returning on some occasions from showing apartments to find his car broken into.

"It was definitely off the grid a bit back then," he says.

Today, Gross is handling the new Bowery and Bleecker development - a three-unit building of floor-through condo lofts that includes an 1,862-square-foot penthouse with a private roof deck that's listed for $3.1 million. With Poliform kitchens, 50-inch plasma-screen TVs and prices starting at about $1,500 a square foot, the building is a world away from the formerly dodgy Bowery.

Indeed!

"The Bowery is one of the last areas in New York to experience a kind of seismic shift," says self-storage magnate and neighborhood developer Adam Gordon. "It's an interesting bridge neighborhood. It's at the crux of NoHo, SoHo, the East and the West Village. There are few places that have the access that this neighborhood does."

Gordon owns a plot of land just off the Bowery at 41 Bond St., which he plans to develop as an eight-unit luxury condo building once the financing environment improves. He also owns the Bouwerie Lane Theatre building at the corner of Bond and Bowery, part of which he's recently turned into three condos. One apartment is reserved for Gordon himself, and he plans to put the other units - a 5,200-square-foot triplex penthouse and a 2,500-square-foot full-floor apartment - on the market in March.

Also coming to the once-seedy street: a new five-unit residential building at 263 Bowery from developer Shaky Cohen, a 152-unit luxury rental building at 2 Cooper Square, a Lord Norman Foster-designed gallery building at 257 Bowery and restaurants from Keith McNally and Daniel Boulud.

It's the Cooper Square Hotel, however, that provides perhaps the best metaphor for today's Bowery. Because two residents of the apartment building next door at 27 Bowery refused to give up their units, the hotel was forced to build around them and incorporate their building into its design. And so at the northern end of the street, there sits an old brick tenement building that from the sidewalk looks as if it were being swallowed up by a sleek, glassy high-rise hotel.

It's old versus new - and these days new would seem to have the upper hand.

Or, as Gordon says when asked if he fears the loss of old, edgy Bowery he once knew, "I don't think it's fear. It's an inevitability."

Gordon adds: "I don't pine for the Bowery of 50 years ago. It was a hole."

Busy Saturday for Cooper Square construction

Busy Saturday on Cooper Square. Construction all around...

At the Cooper Square Hotel:






At 2 Cooper Square:



At the Cooper Union:




P.S.
A little CBGB nostalgia on Fifth Street:

Will 35 Cooper Square get the St. Ann's treatment?

What if developer Arun Bhatia decides to placate members of the community by keeping part of the structure intact? Much like NYU did by incorporating the façade of St. Ann's into the entrance of the 12th Street dorm.

Goggla mentioned this yesterday in the comments about 35 Cooper Square: "I wonder if something similar could happen here where the façade (or some replica of it) gets 'preserved' purely for decoration."

Would this be a victory? Or is it worse to see the daily reminder of what was entombed around a soulless, glassy tower?

Or, better, 35 Cooper Square could remain, and the mystery project is built around the historic structure... similar to how the Cooper Square Hotel went up next door to the home of Hettie Jones...

[Image via Jeremiah's Vanishing NY]

[Top image via]

Your now probably outdated 35 Cooper Square update

These shots were supposed to go up yesterday afternoon, but with the Great Blogger Blackout of 2011...

EV Grieve correspondent Bobby Williams took these yesterday... the historic 35 Cooper Square is slowly being chipped away in agonizing fashion...

...and we'll soon see the 35 Cooper Square outline on the side of the Cooper Square Hotel...

More about the rally to mourn the loss of 35 Cooper Square and save the Bowery

From the EV Grieve inbox... The funeral and rally is tomorrow night at 6:30 in front of 35 Cooper Square

Rally to Mourn the Loss of 35 Cooper Square and Save the Bowery!

May 25, 2011 – We come together as a community to mourn the loss of 35 Cooper Square and to call upon the City to take specific steps to insure that no more historic buildings are lost on the Bowery. The wanton demolition of this historic 1825 Federal-style house is a blatant reminder of how vulnerable the Bowery is to rampant out-of-scale development. [Last year, the distinctive upper floors of the Germania Bank Building (185 Bowery) were destroyed in order to preempt objections to a 30-story luxury hotel plan.]

The Bowery Alliance of Neighbors has identified and submitted to the Landmarks Preservation Commission 21 buildings recognized by historians and community members as top priorities for protection. They are the tangible survivors of three centuries of the Bowery’s rich and colorful history. Losing any of them would greatly diminish the physical evidence of the Bowery’s contributions to the city’s and the nation’s cultural and architectural history. By protecting these buildings, the City will be ensuring the bare minimum needed to keep the Bowery a real place instead of a convenient brand for real estate development. Recognizing the dangers that threaten these buildings, we urge LPC Chair Tierney to schedule his promised meeting with us as soon as possible.

However, landmarking is not enough! The City must act to relieve the intense development pressure the area labors under. The east side of the Bowery is the release valve for all speculative energy focused on the neighborhood. There is a giant “BUILD BIG HERE” sign written in the air above the Bowery that only height limits can erase. Until the City lowers the allowable height to a reasonable level, we are going to see more and more luxury buildings growing higher and higher year by year.

The City cannot continue to ignore the devastating impact overdevelopment is having on long-time residents, small businesses and the artists’ community that still exists on the Bowery. The only way to truly save the Bowery from becoming a non-place is to put fair and equitable heights on the entire east side of the street. The broad support for this has been expressed by some of our most prominent writers, artists, and business leaders, including Luc Sante, Philip Glass, and Keith (Balthazar) McNally, who has written, “Development in any neighborhood may be inevitable, but in as noted and distinctive an area as the Bowery, it is desirable only as long as it preserves the neighborhood’s character while enhancing its value” (letter to City Planning, 6-12-09).

With the Bowery poised to be listed on the State and National Register of Historic Places, the City cannot continue to ignore this street’s architectural, historical and cultural importance. The Bowery has played a seminal role in the emergence of tap dance, vaudeville, minstrel shows, abstract expressionism, Beat literature and punk rock. As the convergence point for multiple historic neighborhoods (Chinatown, Little Italy, NoHo, East Village and Lower East Side), it needs to be preserved and protected in order to maintain the flow and historic sense of place of all these unique areas. As Pete Hamill stated at the candlelight vigil for 35 Cooper Square, “In order to make the present as rich as possible, you have to have a sense of the past….This is our inheritance.”

We, as a united community, call upon the City to:
• protect the Bowery’s remaining historical resources.
• change the sky’s-the-limit zoning on the Bowery’s east side to the more reasonable height caps that exist and help protect its west side.
• schedule a public hearing on the future of the Bowery.
• extend the proposed East Village Historic District study area to include portions of the Bowery.

As Amanda Burden, Chair of the City Planning Commission, has so aptly stated, “Once you lose a building, you lose character and history.” The City must now step up and save the character and history of the Bowery.

David Mulkins, Chair
Bowery Alliance of Neighbors
184 Bowery, #4
New York, NY 10012
(631) 901-5435
mulbd@yahoo.com

Victor Papa, President
Two Bridges Neighborhood Council
275 Cherry Street
New York, NY 10002
(212) 566-2729
tbnc275@aol.com

Simeon Bankoff, Exec. Director
Historic Districts Council
232 East 11th Street
New York, NY 10003
(212) 614-9107
sbankoff@hdc.org

Looking at the "Mayne Death Star"

Alexandra Lange discusses Cooper Union's new academic building in The New Design Observer.

I never thought I would say this about a work by Thom Mayne of Morphosis, but I think 41 Cooper Square is too small. Cooper Union’s new, sustainable academic building on Third Avenue is nine stories, 175,000 square feet, takes up an entire city block, and yet, with all the other wonderful and terrible architecture happening on the Bowery and its side streets (the Cooper Square Hotel’s tower version of Frank Gehry’s IAC Building, Herzog and de Meuron’s disco-visionary 40 Bond, Foster + Partners’ Sperone Westwater Gallery) it blends right in. All the photographs I had seen, most taken from the air, made it look like another Mayne Death Star, a chunk of some intergalactic space ship deposited here for repairs (there is that nasty cut across the front).

Another observation: "At the sidewalk 41 Cooper Square might as well be set in the middle of a parking lot in Mayne’s native L.A."

And in the end...she said the building leaves her "just curiously bored."

“This used to be an area where people got their start. Now it’s a place to land once you’ve made it”

The Times has a great story today about two women who saved their home from destruction at 27 Cooper Square to make way for Cooper Square Hotel. We hear from 74-year-old Hettie Jones and her garden:

“I grew the most fantastic tomatoes and peppers up there, veggies that need lots of light,” lamented Ms. Jones. “We used to have views from every angle, but now they only exist from the hotel’s penthouse.”

She has lived here since 1962.

Pointing to the cluster of new luxury towers rising in the square, Ms. Jones added with a sigh: “This used to be an area where people got their start. Now it’s a place to land once you’ve made it.”

Jeremiah had a post on the history of 35 Cooper Square this past summer.

[Photo: Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times]

The toilets at the Cooper Square Hotel are really powerful

I recently stopped by the Cooper Square Hotel to use the restroom. And check the place out: Had never been inside. Not much to see in this video inside one of the co-ed bathrooms...But the audio... (with a little Interpol on the hotel soundsystem...)

Goodbye Homer Simpson: The Cooper Square Hotel has a white wall again

As Curbed first pointed out yesterday... the ode to Homer on the side of the Cooper Square Hotel was being painted over by, uh, painters... And so I went by yesterday to see what was what and all at our favorite local eyesore (uh, the hotel, not the art)...



And Blake Lively?! (No.)




And those poor bushes were smashed/displaced again on Fifth Street...



And today...



At least the Coop put on the bush condoms for safe gardening...



Anyway, I'll always remember the first site of Homer...

$71 million later, the Cooper Square Hotel has a new owner

The Real Deal reported today that the Cooper Square Hotel handed the keys over to Westport Capital Partners as part of a $71 million debt restructuring deal. As the story notes, the original hotel owners quickly ran into financial trouble after opening in 2008.

Meanwhile! Managing partner Klaus Ortlieb said that "March room rates are averaging around $300 per night with 85 percent occupancy, with rates expected to rise into the mid-$300 range over the summer and $400s in the fall."

At the Cooper Square Hotel, V is for....?

Just looking at the new art near the front of the Cooper Square Hotel...

Looks similar to the hotel's new restaurant/bar mascot at the Trilby... except for having normal-sized hands...

[Image via Eater]

(And is this Nick Walker's work? I left before taking a closer look at the signature...)