It's a far cry from the plusher digs Goldman employees used to enjoy at the Ritz-Carlton and the Carlyle. But cost-cutting and government oversight mean finding out how the other half lives.
Some of the bankers aren't happy with the switch. "No one's supposed to complain out loud, but, let's face it, we're spoiled," says one Goldman employee. "They turned us into hotel snobs."
One night recently, a dozen Goldman employees from the Chicago office were yucking it up at happy hour, which starts at 5:30 sharp. The group was huddled around three tables in a cafeterialike room overlooking the headquarters of Merrill Lynch & Co., now owned by Bank of America, drinking free Budweiser out of plastic cups and eating pretzels and tortilla chips.
Inside Goldman, the hotel has become the butt of jokes. There are grumblings about its accommodations and a wake-up call service that blares "cock-a-doodle-do" into the telephone. For the many Goldman executives who visit New York for meetings in midtown Manhattan, the hotel's location on the far southwestern edge of the island is inconvenient.
Though just a mile from each other, the Ritz-Carlton Battery Park and Embassy Suites Battery Park are worlds apart. Rooms at the Ritz offer views of New York Harbor and the Statue of Liberty; Embassy Suites rooms look out across the Hudson River, at Jersey City, N.J. Ritz guests luxuriate in 400-thread-count Frette linens made of 100% Egyptian cotton, while at the Embassy Suites guests sleep on 250-thread-count Hilton Hotel-brand sheets made of a 60/40 cotton-poly blend.
And forget free breakfast or drinks at the Ritz, which offers an $11 Irish oatmeal brûlée with berries compote in the morning and a $14 Ritz Carlton Martini (gin, muddled cucumber, mint and fresh lime juice) at night.
Wednesday, Jan. 19
6:00 a.m. Lana Zinger, Russian-born personal trainer, arrives for morning workout.
6:30 Tommy, 6, watches his mother work out. Between crunches, requests reading from "Harry Potter." Request denied.
7:00 Makeup artist arrives.
7:15 Dresses (brown Christian Lacroix suit with Herms scarf).
7:45 Takes Tommy to school in cab. It is absolutely freezing.
8:10 Arrives at Tavern on the Green to give speech at her company's awards breakfast.
8:15 Talks janitor into letting her practice her speech in a broom closet.
8:55 Emerges feeling confident, but "like Aunt Clara on 'Bewitched' -- dusty and smelling of Lysol."
9:00 At podium in front of 500 sales agents, clinks glass to get attention. Glass breaks.
Making its third identity change since Howard Stern left for satellite radio three years ago, WXRK in New York, better known as K-Rock, will switch to a Top 40 format, the station’s parent company, CBS Radio, announced on Monday.
Instead of the “active rock” K-Rock has been playing — mostly classic rock, with some harder-edged current rock in light rotation — the station, to be known as Now FM (92.3), will play music from acts like “Kanye West, Beyoncé, Pink, Flo Rida, Akon, Katy Perry and Justin Timberlake,” according to the announcement. The change will be made at 5 p.m. on Wednesday.
Once the Bowery was cash register heaven. Beneath the old Third Avenue el, among the restaurant supply stores and the flophouses and the down-and-outers who lived in them, stores trafficked in cash registers.
The father says the Bowery has always been a barometer. The son says, “The Bowery told what was going on — what happened here happened later everywhere else.”
It is tempting to say, glibly, that what happened is that the others cashed in, that they made a big profit from the real estate boom that remade skid row when there was mortgage money to be borrowed. Maybe they did, maybe they did not.
The Faermans’ neighbors now include a bank turned catering hall, the scene of benefits running $500 a person and up. Or, walk a few blocks to a Whole Foods store. It’s a pricey neighborhood these days. Bernard Faerman says stores rent for $15,000 a month. Brian Faerman says it is more than that. They own their building, and the son says it is not for sale.
