The refurbished Marrakech Hotel, located at Broadway and 103rd Street, represents a more upscale approach to lodging for owner Hank Freid. He calls it “budget chic,” and it’s just the first phase of an ongoing, roughly $35 million upgrade of his Manhattan hotel properties—and maybe also of his own public image. The once-dumpy but ever-cheap, Read More
Last winter, my best friend Kate Bohner and I decided to do things backward and rent a house in the Hamptons. We got a house in November, the car (black Volkswagen Jetta) in December and the job in January. Actually, Kate got the job: ghostwriter for Donald Trump’s upcoming book. It was her job, but Read More
One of the singular yet disarming pleasures of living in Los Angeles is that, once you exit the desert and enter the basin, you’re allowed to switch off your passion center. New York has heart. Chicago has soul. New Orleans has an indomitable spirit. L.A. has reflexive indifference. So it’s actually a big deal—a shocking Read More
One of the singular yet disarming pleasures of living in Los Angeles is that, once you exit the desert and enter the basin, you’re allowed to switch off your passion center. New York has heart. Chicago has soul. New Orleans has an indomitable spirit. L.A. has reflexive indifference.
So it’s actually a big deal—a shocking Read MoreUpper West Side Greenlights
Needle Exchange for S.R.O.'s Manhattan community Boards At its April 1 meeting, Community Board 7 made a significant move to respond to a year of vociferous complaints about a city agency that houses homeless people with H.I.V./AIDS in single-room-occupancy hotels. In a unanimous vote, the board gave the green light to a Read MoreActors have never been more annoying. The James Lipton*ization of their overpaid, cheesy profession has unleashed hitherto unimaginable levels of self-importance. Every time I turn on Entertainment Tonight , I am confronted by a thespian blathering on about his or her "instrument" or "body of work" while soaking up compliments on their "interesting choices." Even Read More
Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster , by Mike Davis. Metropolitan Books, 466 pages, $27.50.
Maybe critics are more prone to Schadenfreude than other people, and my gleeful reaction to Mike Davis' litany of Los Angeles disaster is a professional deformation: The reviewer in me applauds when God pans Hollywood hedonism. Or Read MoreLast winter, my best friend Kate Bohner and I decided to do things backward and rent a house in the Hamptons. We got a house in November, the car (black Volkswagen Jetta) in December, and the job in January. Actually, Kate got the job: ghostwriter for Donald Trump's upcoming book. It was her job, but Read More
