Chris Shott

Merle Gross-Ginsberg recalled a dinner hosted by the Real Estate Board of New York back in 1975, where she, Leona Helmsley and one other woman were grossly outnumbered by some 1,800 men -- "all smoking the most enormous cigars you've ever seen," she said.

The industry's vast gender gap has slowly begun to close in recent years. Yet, even at the Association of Real Estate Women's 30th Anniversary gala at the Mandarian Oriental Hotel at Time Warner Center on Thursday night, males still dominated the crowd by about 2 to 1. Maybe even 3 to 1.  read more »

NY1 is reporting that Woodhaven Lanes in Forest Hills will shutter May 18 because of high rent:

The owners of the property had asked for a rent decrease, but the management company said they could not accommodate because of their mortgage costs. A last-ditch effort to find a new lease holder was rejected by the bank.  read more »

Activists targeted hotelier Hank Freid last week as the focal point for their campaign against illegal hotel conversions citywide, calling the much-maligned developer a "scamlord" and picketing his Broadway Hotel this past Saturday.

Mr. Freid's lawyer chimed in this week to make a point -- those hotels aren't actually illegal:  read more »

Embattled Scores owner Richard Goldring is suing the city and State Liquor Authority (S.L.A.) in federal court, alleging that the government's recent crackdown on his two Manhattan strip clubs violates his First Amendment rights.

In court papers, his latest attorney called last month's revocation of Mr. Goldring's liquor license at Scores West "a circumstance intended to terminate in Scores West any future First Amendment expressive entertainment and to chill the principals of Scores East and Scores West in the exercise of their First Amendment right to provide such entertainment."  read more »

Jann Paxton is something of an enigma around Manhattan’s most mythical inn, the Chelsea Hotel on West 23rd Street.

“I’ve been told that people call me ‘the ghost of the Chelsea,’” he said, “because I’m never seen. I’m kind of a hermit. … I almost never leave my bedroom—let alone the apartment.”

And yet, he may soon have to: On May 12, the 46-year-old Norfolk, Va., native is expected to pay more than $59,000 that he allegedly owes in back rent, according to a recent court order, or else lose his spacious isolation chamber on the hotel’s fifth floor.  read more »

It's been years since the famous Chelsea Hotel opened up its Grand Ballroom. On Friday, the doors will finally be unlocked for an exhibit of more than 100 photographs taken at or inspired by the 125-year-old artistic enclave.

The show, curated by Chelsea resident and photographer Linda Troeller with the help of hotel co-owner (and rumored interim manager) David Elder, opens May 9 and runs through Sunday, May 11, from noon to 6 p.m.

The exhibition comes at a pivotal time for the iconic-yet-embattled lodge, which saw its second management shakeup in less than a year last week.  read more »

Activists plan to rally at noon on Saturday outside controversial hotelier Hank Freid's Broadway Studios on the Upper West Side to "denounce the continued operation of illegal hotels" by "scamlords" citywide.

"We are targeting Hank Freid as an egregious illegal hotelier ... with a particularly insidious past," organizer Yarrow Willman-Cole told The Observer.

Mr. Freid earned the dubious distinction as one of New York City's "Worst Landlords" after contracting with the government to provide housing for homeless persons living with HIV/AIDS at his hotels amid hard economic times, then evicting those tenants to make way for upcale renovations once the economy rebounded.  read more »

After a lengthy legal fight, ravenous hotel developer Sam Chang has apparently given up his plan to tear down the old Pussycat Lounge at 96 Greenwich Street.

Mr. Chang has agreed to sell the ancient, circa-1799 building to Pussycat owner Robert Kremer for $2.5 million, according to city records -- that's $1 million less than Mr. Chang paid for it in 2005.  read more »

At least two former Manhattan Mall retailers have sued landlord Steve Roth's Vornado Realty Trust over their recent evictions from the mall to make way for a new 150,000-square-foot J.C. Penney department store.

Proprietors of Pretzel Time and Square One Shoes & Clothing each claim in separate lawsuits that their leases were prematurely and illegally terminated last month.  read more »

BD NY Hotels, the Richard Born and Ira Drukier-led outfit hired last year to replace eccentric longtime Chelsea Hotel manager Stanley Bard, has filed for arbitration after being fired by the hotel's governing board for "willful misconduct."

The controversial management team, which installed a rookie, 26-year-old Glennon Travis in the place of the veteran manager, Mr. Bard, has claimed in court papers that it has "fully performed its obligations" under a three-year contract, signed last June, and further asserted that the hotel was more profitable on its watch than when Mr. Bard ran the place.  read more »

Rumors have been circulating for days about the looming departure of Glennon Travis, controversial manager of the embattled Chelsea Hotel.  read more »

In a real estate industry that seems to thrive on rise-and-shine breakfast meetings, Alex Picken has long marched to the beat of a different drummer. Or, at least, a drum machine.

“Yeah, I don’t do mornings, actually,” said Mr. Picken, laughing, in a husky, smoker’s tone of voice, as techno beats thumped in the background.

That’s because, for the past 20 years, he has specialized in sales and leasing of New York City nightspots.

Around the time that most brokers were getting up for their usual early-bird powwows, Mr. Picken was just calling it a night.

“I shouldn’t say that, altogether,” the veteran venue broker reconsidered, as he wheeled around Manhattan in his black BMW X5 last Friday evening, The Observer riding shotgun. “We’re part of the Real Estate Board of New York. We network.”  read more »

A panel of appellate judges has rejected the New York Restaurant Association's latest motion to delay enforcement of the city's new calorie posting rule.

“With today's decision, McDonald's, Dunkin' Donuts, and the other big chains that haven't yet listed calories as required by the Health Code have run out of stalling tactics," Health Commissioner Thomas Freiden said in a statement.  read more »

The champagne room has finally gone dry at embattled Manhattan strip club Scores West.

The New York Post reports that authorities from the New York State Liquor Authority (S.L.A.) showed up Wednesday to confiscate the voluptuous 10,000-square-foot venue's precious liquor license.

(Albeit apparently not before getting a visit from reality TV couple Alex and Simon McCord of "The Real Housewives of New York City" fame.)

The agency's action follows a prolonged legal battle with club management over the arrests of several Scores West employees on prostitution charges in January 2007.  read more »

Hotel Chatter is reporting that Kors Hotel Group will open its first Manhattan lodge on Hudson Street, under the Viceroy Hotel moniker, possibly as soon as 2010:  read more »

Michael Perlman should start charging a commission.

On Monday, the 25-year-old from Queens announced that he had just brokered a deal to move midtown’s Cheyenne Diner to the Brooklyn waterfront.

Hey, it was either Red Hook—or the wrecking ball.

Just two weeks ago, the 68-year-old all-night diner on Ninth Avenue near Penn Station had served what appeared to be its final triple-decker burger. Landlord George Papas, who also owns the nearby Skylight Diner, planned to tear down the shiny, chrome-covered, prefab single-story railroad-car-style structure and erect a nine-story apartment building in its place.  read more »

A new city rule requiring chain restaurants to post the calorie content of their menu items actually takes effect on Friday, April 25--not today, as other news outlets are reporting.  read more »

Still reeling from the fallout of its highly publicized 2007 prostitution bust, embattled Manhattan strip club Scores West has filed for bankruptcy.

Court papers filed on Friday point to "mounting tax debt" and a "loss in sales" at the voluptuous 10,000-square-foot venue at 536 W. 28th St. "as a result of the actions by the New York State Liquor Authority proceeding against the [club] to revoke its liquor license."  read more »

"This is a venue with a lot of history," said Tom Morello, the Harlem-born guitarist for political rock-rap group Rage Against The Machine, standing onstage at 315 Bowery early Friday morning. He was referring to CBGB, the legendary rock club that used to occupy that address.

"We can take it higher than it's ever been before," said Mr. Morello, who was joined onstage by a number of big-name musicians, including Jerry Cantrell, Perry Farrell and an openly smoking-ban-flouting Slash, in celebrating the grand reopening of the hallowed music hall. Concerts like these will happen only occassionally now, however, as the venue has become a high-end rock-themed clothing boutique.

"We're gonna jump the fuck up and down," Mr. Morello told the packed crowd, many of whom had shelled out $75 per ticket to attend the charity concert, which also included performances by Ronnie Spector, Ian Hunter and Joan Jett. "I wanna see everybody jump," he said, including "the guy selling $300 T-shirts."

That guy was John Varvatos, the fashion designer who now operates the former CBGB space.  read more »

A documentary on the city's waterfront fights, City of Water, premieres this Saturday, April 19, at 1:30 p.m. on local PBS Channel 13. (Check out the trailer here.)

According to the Municipal Art Society:   read more »

Demonstrators who picketed the new John Varvatos boutique on the Bowery last week plan a second wave of protests tonight, as the fashion designer celebrates the store's grand opening with a splashy charity concert.

The shop is located on the site of the former legendary rock club CBGB, which shuttered in 2006 after a lengthly rent dispute with its landlord.

"We'll have more humorous (and pointed) neon pink signs..." e-mailed activist Rebecca Moore, who last week carried a placard reading "ONE 'SMALL' LOSS OF A MUSIC SPACE, ONE LARGE STEP FOR PANTS."

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WNBC.com is reporting that a manhole explosion on East 39th Street prompted the evacuation of six nearby buildings early this morning.

No injuries have been reported.

The blast occured just a few blocks from the scene of last July's steampipe explosion near Grand Central Terminal, which injured 41 people and caused one woman to die from a heart attack.

Nearly five years in the making (and just a few years off its originally-planned 2005 opening), Swedish retailer IKEA's 346,000-square-foot store on the Brooklyn waterfront will finally open on June 18, the company announced today.

"We made excellent progress on construction last year and so far this spring, so we are confident the remaining construction milestones and interior build-up process will be complete by mid-June," said store manager Mike Baker in a statement.  read more »

AM New York today examines the controversy surrounding Harlem's shuttered Victoria Theater:

Local developer Steve Williams of Danforth Development Partners, LLC, wants to transform the 1917 burlesque theater into a 30-story condo/hotel, cutting up the ornate 2, 400-seat theater into two mini-theaters while preserving the facade and parts of the lobby.

Neighborhood activists argue that the Thomas Lamb-designer theater shoud be restored to its original grandeur.  read more »

Location: After more than 60 years as a stand-alone midtown Manhattan restaurant, you’re opening a second Patsy’s Italian Restaurant in … Atlantic City?

Mr. Scognamillo: We can’t be more excited, and the partner that we’ve found at the Hilton Casino, they are just as excited as we are.

This was so important to us, because, really, it’s our little baby; I mean, we have our little baby here and we want someone to be taking care of it and nurturing it and treating it the right way.  read more »

John Varvatos may be bringing live music back to the old CBGB location this week. But don’t get too used to it.

“I’m not going to be a club promoter,” said the 54-year-old fashion designer, who is hosting a charity concert on Thursday to celebrate the grand opening of his new eponymous boutique in the former rock-club space.  read more »

Coney Island merchants sent out a terse press release Friday afternoon in response to "an ominous fence which is obstructing the entrances to an entire block of businesses on the boardwalk."

The Parks Department, which erected the fence a day earlier, issued the following explanation via email to The Observer:

The Parks Department is currently doing maintenance work along the boardwalk including the area between West 12th Street and Stillwell Avenue to reinforce its support structures and repair decking material. The affected areas will be repaired or replaced, and fencing will be removed, prior to the start of the busy beach season. While we regret any inconvenience this may present to adjacent business owners, safer structures will be a benefit in the long run and, in the meantime, we are preserving access wherever possible.

Seaside merchants have long complained about the sorry state of Coney Island's rickety boardwalk.

And some say the city's latest attempt to address the situation isn't really helping:

"Instead of fixing the boardwalk in front of the businesses that go from Stillwell [Avenue] to 12th Street, the Parks Department decided to build this enormous barricade in front of all our stores," said Dianna Carlin, owner of the Lola Starr Souvenir Boutique. "So now all of our businesses are completely blocked in by this wall, which they say will be there all summer."

Hotelier Hank Freid can't live on Starbucks alone.

So he's installing a new Thai restaurant at his refurbished Marrakech Hotel at Broadway and 103rd Street.

Mr. Freid has enlisted the proprietors of pad-thai palaces Klong in East Village and Room Service in Chelsea to open a new 1,200-square-foot eatery called Sookk.

Meaning "happiness" in Thai, Sookk will specialize in cuisine inspired by the Yaowarat District, which is Bangkok's version of Chinatown, according to a press release.

“Sookk is in keeping with the unique and eclectic quality that the hotel is known for,” Mr. Freid said in a statement.

“Everyone thinks that we should make an R.I.P. truffle, which would be really funny,” said Alison Nelson, founder and chief operator of Manhattan’s burgeoning Chocolate Bar chain.

Ms. Nelson, 34, is opening a new location next month at 127 East Seventh Street—right next door to the Peter Jarema Funeral Home.

“We could start doing funeral favors,” quipped Ms. Nelson, whose signature sweets already include a line of chocolates marked with a skull and crossbones, a tasty tribute to the defunct downtown rock club CBGB.

The sugary memorial is quite apropos, as her devil-may-care attitude belies a certain degree of somberness surrounding her new plot in the East Village.  read more »

Location: Your family has been involved in real estate for decades, owning various commercial, industrial and residential buildings throughout New York City. But a shopping mall? Retail is a new frontier for the Hemmerdinger clan, no?

Mr. Hemmerdinger: The interest in retail is all me.

What’s the allure?  read more »

With Merrill Lynch staying put downtown and plans to redevelop Penn Station in flux, Vornado CEO Steven Roth may not know what to do with the Hotel Pennsylvania--a building the company once described as "a placeholder, sort of like a parking lot."

In the meantime, the historic lodge continues to make his company some big bucks--netting roughly $37.9 million last year.

That's $10.6 million more than in 2006, according to the company's latest filing with federal regulators, which further added, "This property continues to trend higher in 2008."

With revenues on the rise, does it still make sense to raze it?  read more »

Legendary hotelier Stanley Bard doesn't hang out in the lobby of his beloved Chelsea Hotel as often as he used to.

But, two weeks ago, the hotel's infamously ousted manager made a rare appearance, joining the director Milos Forman (himself a former hotel resident) for an on-camera interview smack-dab in the middle of the lobby.

"The new management comes running out of the back and is like, 'You can’t shoot that here!'" said the writer Ed Hamilton, a 13-year resident of the iconic lodge on West 23rd Street. "He tried to charge Stanley $600 to film in the lobby. Of course, Stanley wouldn't pay that."

Mr. Hamilton relayed the recent lobby incident during a panel discussion about the historic and embattled hotel last night at the Museum of the City of New York.

Mr. Hamilton, author of Legends of the Chelsea Hotel: Living with the Artists and Outlaws of New York’s Rebel Mecca, interviewed Mr. Bard himself recently for a short video by fellow hotel resident and filmmaker Sam Bassett.

In the interview, played during the panel discussion, Mr. Bard took a few jabs at the hotel's controversial new managers.  read more »

Legendary hotelier Stanley Bard will deliver a videotaped "message of hope" tonight at the Museum of the City of New York.

Hear what the charismatic former manager of the embattled Chelsea Hotel has been up to since his controversial ouster last summer, what he thinks about the new management and ongoing eviction proceedings, as well as his vision for the future of the iconic 125-year-old lodge, of which he remains the majority owner.

Mr. Bard's remarks will follow a panel discussion with preservationist Edward Kirkland and writers Ed Hamilton, author of the 2007 book Legends of the Chelsea Hotel: Living with the Artists and Outlaws of New York’s Rebel Mecca, and Sherill Tippins, author of the forthcoming Dream Palace: The Extraordinary Life of the Chelsea Hotel.

The event starts at 6:30.  read more »

Charlie Bendit stood atop Coney Island’s ancient Childs Restaurant building, peering out to sea.

“Can you imagine being up on the roof and having a wedding overlooking the ocean? What a wonderful experience,” he said. “In the summertime, you can have part of it outdoors, part of it indoors. You can have an outdoor dancing area, which is what the roof used to be used for.”  read more »

It seems the control freaks running Robert De Niro's new Greenwich Hotel aren't only cracking down on camera-equipped spectators.

On opening day, management also kicked out a reviewer for the hospitality industry site Hotel Chatter, abruptly canceling her reservation.

And she wasn't even requesting a cheap press rate! To wit:

we had a room booked at the Greenwich Hotel tonight. Juliana was going to stay there. In fact, she was excited to stay there.

However, our credit card was flagged by the hotel, Focker style, and we were informed this weekend that we needed to agree not to publish any images that resulted from our hotel stay. Long story short, the hotel has an embargo on photos with some international publication with a long lead time, how archaic is that?

Robert Prichard hopes to illuminate Long Island City with some emphatic Times Square-style signage.

“I’d like it to be visible from the 59th Street Bridge,” he said. “First, it flashes ‘Queens,’ then ‘Bridge,’ then ‘Theater,’ and then ‘Queensbridge Theater.’ And then maybe an arrow that lights up and points down to our loading dock.”

Mr. Prichard, 52, has long had a flair for the dramatic. This is the same guy, after all, who nearly a decade ago led a conga line up Avenue A in protest of the city’s antiquated cabaret laws.  read more »

Celebrity hotelier Robert De Niro's hugely anticipated and high-priced lodge, the 88-room Greenwich Hotel, officially opens for business today in Tribeca.

And talk about excellence in hospitality!

A Curbed tipster reports from the scene:

there are three staffers outside the hotel, guarding against photographs. OF THE EXTERIOR. I managed to get a few shots, and one through the glass of the lobby, before a nice Asian lady nearly popped a blood vessel and grabbed at my camera. Bobby D, you've done it again, sir.  read more »

"It was a great night and it was definitely a huge success by all accounts," gushed Coney Island T-shirt maven Dianna Carlin following last Saturday night's splashy grand opening party at her Lola Staar Dreamland Roller Rink in the abandoned landmark Childs Restaurant building on the boardwalk.

Sponsored by Glamour magazine and fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger (promoting a new perfume called "Dreaming"), the event featured appearances by sparkly dressed pop singer Ashanti and pig-tailed actress Marisa Tomei (sporting her own kitschy T-shirt: "I'M PULLIN' FOR PEE-WEE").

"We had 1,000 people RSVP," Ms. Carlin said. "Luckily, not all of them showed up. ... For a while, we ran out of roller skates."

Yet no one has done any skating at the makeshift rink since Saturday's party.

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Crushed grapes in Chelsea! The hugely hyped, High Line-straddling Standard hotel, slated to open in fall 2008, might be getting its own house hooch.

Its handsome proprietor, André Balazs, is close to launching his own signature wine label, according to sources in the hospitality industry.  read more »

When did the haute cuisine crowd become such a bunch of cunning linguists?

At the James Beard Foundation’s annual awards nomination breakfast on Monday, March 24, Mitchell Davis, vice president of the esteemed (if recently blemished) culinary organization, elicited snickers when he introduced Sullivan Street Bakery owner Jim Lahey, provider of the morning’s munchies, as a “master baker.”  read more »

Veteran bartender Toby Cecchini is often credited as the creator of the popular cosmopolitan cocktail. On Monday afternoon, the 44-year-old author and bar owner prepared for another pivotal moment in his illustrious career.

“I’ve actually never closed a bar in 21 years of bartending,” he said. “This is going to be a first for me.”  read more »

Embattled Soho restaurant Lola will just have to make do without live music, the State Liquor Authority informed the eatery's owners on Thursday.

Proprietors Tom and Gayle Patrick-Odeen have said that their business—which has been the subject of a nasty, three-and-a-half-year legal dispute with neighbors, who have protested the place's right to sell booze—is "struggling" without live performances.

The couple recently told The Villager that they were "hanging on by a thread."

Live music had been a staple of the drinking and dining experience at the couple's prior location on West 22nd Street. But upon moving to the corner of Watts and Thompson streets, the duo initially applied to play background music only.

The owners insist that this was a clerical error and that the application was later "orally amended" by the SLA.  read more »

Meatpacking district stalwart Novac Noury has graciously asked neighborhood restaurateur Florent Morellet to move into his underutilized building on Little West 12th Street once Mr. Morellet's iconic Florent diner closes for good because of a huge rent hike this summer.

"I gave him a call yesterday and we may be in talks to continue his stay in my building," Mr. Noury told The Villager this week.

But Mr. Morellet apparently isn't interested, according to the article.

Instead, the flamboyant restaurateur is planning to go out "with a bang," kicking off the “Final Five Weeks of Florent" over Memorial Day weekend, with each following week given a theme to represent a stage in the "grieving process he’s undergone over losing his restaurant....Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and, finally, Acceptance."

“You’re catching me at a crazy time,” Michael Shvo said over the phone from his limo last month.

The audacious marketing genius behind such hugely hyped high-end condo projects as Bryant Park Tower and 20 Pine The Collection had just returned to Manhattan after several weeks overseas. While family business took top priority—his father recently passed away in Israel—Mr. Shvo, 35, lately has been rather preoccupied with expanding his presence internationally.  read more »

When Coney Island stalwart Dianna Carlin talks about her “wild roller-coaster ride,” she isn’t referring to the rickety old Cyclone.

Last March, the gingery 34-year-old T-shirt designer from Detroit was facing eviction from her small souvenir shop on the boardwalk.  read more »