May Day wasn't just about protests. Because New York contains multitudes, there were a number of other events going on yesterday, at least one of which involved drinking dozens of decadent fancy cocktails in the Bowery Hotel. After all, May is one of the big months for food and drink events in the Big Apple.
May Day Protests? Honey, Let's Pay $58 To Sip Cocktails On A Hotel Roof Instead
Musician Florence Welch Set The Bowery Hotel On Fire After Late Night With Kanye
There may be no light in her latest single, but it sounds like there was a lot of it in The Bowery Hotel room that Florence + The Machine's Florence Welch recently stayed in. The British singer just admitted to starting a fire in the swank pad after a night partying with Kanye!
The Bowery's Next Hotel Is Looking Pretty Ugly
The Bowery in its latest, absurdly hip, incarnation is no stranger to ugly architecture. Just look at the Cooper Square Hotel, the Sculpture for Living (technically not on the Bowery), or the finger coming out of the middle of Fourth Street. And yet each time a new piece of hideous design is introduced we're dismayed once again. Which is to say, remember how the old Salvation Army on Third Street is going to become a boutique hotel? Well, Curbed got its paws on the rendering you see above.
The Bowery To Become East Village Hotel Corridor
We sort of thought the Bowery Hotel and the Cooper Square Hotel and the White House Hostel (of which Obama is a fan?) were more than enough East Village accommodations for one three-block stretch. But we guess we were wrong. The Post's Lois Weiss today brings the news that the former Salvation Army on the corner of Third Street and the Bowery has been sold for $7.6 million and is going to be turned into, wait for it, a 65-room "boutique" hotel with a restaurant below.
Protest Outside Waverly Inn Spotlights Alleged "Slumlords"
Permanent residents of the The Jane Hotel in the West Village say conditions at the shabby-chic reinvention of the old Hotel Riverview are so horrid that they've no choice but to picket outside the landlords' other establishments, which include celebrity favorite The Waverly Inn. On Wednesday night they made quite a scene outside the restaurant, and apparently won the sympathy of Hugh Jackman. The Post reports that as they chanted "Slumlords!" and "Rats!" outside, Jackman approached them to talk. Looking at photos depicting the dilapidated conditions at The Jane, he reportedly gasped, "Oh, my God." Diane von Furstenberg also showed some pity, asking, "Who are the slumlords?" That would be Eric Goode and Sean McPherson, who also run the Bowery Hotel, where the group protested last night over what publicist Ronn Torossian, their representative, calls "appalling conditions. Rats run [around] daily, asbestos lingers and 99 complaints have been filed in recent months with city housing authorities."
A Preview of the Nearly Opened New Museum
Beginning at noon this Saturday the New Museum will open its new doors, but this morning we snuck a peak inside. The gray aluminum mesh exterior of the building is a whimsical stack of rectilinear boxes shifted off-axis, not unlike a pile of blocks arranged haphazardly by a toddler. It's a bold, dynamic presence on the Bowery and, along with the Bowery Hotel, signifies yet another firm step away from the area's gritty past....
Extra, Extra
Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a pedestrian struck at White Plains Rd. and 219th St. in the Bronx, an animal incident on Rochelle Pl. on Staten Island, and a hate crime at Columbia University in Manhattan. A tour of Jam Master Jay's studio, where the rap impressario was gunned down five years ago. A brief update on the unforgettable case where a man beat the bejeezus out of a grunting and yelping spin class...
Wednesday Food News: Early Edition
This week in the Times, Bruni goes to Gemma in the Bowery Hotel for Italian, awards the restaurant one star. Calls it a “cheat sheet” of a restaurant that recalls Morandi, but with a less skilled chef. “It’s also Morandi in a smarter, sexier outfit, with more charismatic, fluid service. That’s it’s saving grace,” he says.
Openings Roundup
Sidecar: This new Park Slope spot is run by a former Blue Ribbon chef, features a contemporary American menu and is designed to be reminiscent of an old railroad dining car. The cocktail menu consists of classics like the gin fizz, interspersed with originals like "Dr. Tucker's 59," Plymouth gin with lemon and ginger. For now, however, the cocktails are only on the menu, not in the glasses -- they're still awaiting a liquor license, so feel free to BYO. 560 Fifth Avenue, between 15th and 16th Streets 718-369-0077.
The Old Bowery: Dancing Bums & Moishe's Egg Cream
With the Bowery Hotel now open, Gothamist thought it was worth taking one final look at the Bowery of the 1970s and '80s through the lens of Luc Sante, author of Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York.

