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Bad news for East Side hotel lovers: The Drake (56th and Park) and the Mark (77th and Madison) are both closing! The Drake is going to be demolished to make room for a high-rise residential building. The Mark is also going residential, but the building won't be destroyed. The Post has the financial details:
Recently, the Mandarin Oriental International Ltd. agreed to sell its full leasehold at The Mark hotel, on East 77th Street between Madison and Fifth avenues, for $150 million for cooperative apartments.The 176-room facility is bringing in about $850,000 a room. "That's just too good a price to pass up," said one broker.
The buyers are a group controlled by New York developers Izak Senbahar and Simon Elias. The Mark was bought by the Mandarin Group in 2000 as part of a $142.5 million acquisition.
At this rate, we predict than in 2010 there will only be three hotels left in Manhattan, and they will be so expensive that only the five richest kings of Europe will be able to afford a room. And even then, it'll be a small room facing a brick wall! Some of you entrepreneurial types should probably begin stocking up on air mattresses so you can open up your "boutique hotel" in your "one-bedroom" apartment in Williamsburg.
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I hate the Drake.
I hate the Drake.
Posted by: Elaine | January 17, 2006 11:51 AM
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Which is your right. But we can't keep tearing down all the idiosyncratic places that made this city interesting and replacing them with the generic McStructures of today. This city is not only defined by its "vitality" and other New York Post-approved characteristics. It is a work of art; a visually and texturally pleasing place both from within and without. That is changing and "vitality" of its citizens or no, when one square foot too many has been sold off to a cheap-ass developer, this will no longer be anyplace special in any way meaningful to me nor, I suspect, to many others.
Somehow, this seemingly oblivious willingness to throw our city away is like our apparent willingness to confirm Sam Alito, even though we now damn well what it will mean.
As long as I get back my big screen TV.
Andrew, sweetie, "Elaine" was making a "Seinfeld" reference. And damn her for beating me to it!
Andrew J. Lederer needs to relax.
Let me get this straight: demand for hotel rooms has never been higher, rates for even "budget" hotels can pass $250 a night in peak seasons (per today's Times) and HOTELS ARE BEING DEMOLISHED? This does not compute!
As a professional tour guide, I wonder where my future clients will sleep. The City may need to pitch tents in Sheep Meadow to preserve the multi-billion dollar tourist industry.