The hotel half of the new luxury hotel-condo in Brooklyn Bridge Park is now open. Called 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge (there is also a 1 Hotel Central Park), they hosted a preview this morning featuring 1 Hotels founder Barry Sternlicht and Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development, Alicia Glen. There was also a New York Curandera, Chloe Garcia Ponce, on hand for a sage blessing. Because we live in Goop's Brooklyn now.
(Photo by Scott Heins/Gothamist)
There are 194 rooms (prices starting at $350/night), including 29 two- to six-bedroom suites and a presidential suite called The Riverhouse, which can cost over $5,000 a night. Most rooms offer panoramic views of the East River, the Brooklyn Bridge and the New York City skyline.
The 10-story hotel features an eco-conscious design (from INC Architecture & Design), "sustainable architecture, cause-oriented partnerships... a 54 percent ratio of recycled and regionally sourced materials, a rain water reclamation system to irrigate Brooklyn Bridge Park, a nature-driven art collection and real-time LEED standard monitoring." There's also a green wall in the lobby, a rock boulder, and other natural elements worked into the design. Did we mention the fresh farm stand? That's there, too.
(Photo by Scott Heins/Gothamist)
As for amenities, there's a nine-treatment room Bamford Haybarn Spa (opening in June 2017), a state- of-the-art fitness center, a yoga and barre studio operated by POE Yoga, two restaurants, an intimate 10th floor lounge, a 50-seat screening room, and lobby cocktail service (featuring a botanically driven cocktail program). There's also a rooftop area, with pool and bar, which will not open until May. "But, no complimentary rides in Tesla premium electric vehicles?" you may be wondering. No, they're offering that too, as well as valet parking for bicycles.
The first restaurant, Neighbors, is on the ground floor and already serving picnic-fare, however the hotel's main restaurant will not be open until spring.
(Photo by Scott Heins/Gothamist)
The hotel was built amidst considerable controversy, as it sits inside of the park, and in a neighborhood that successfully rallied against Robert Moses trying to cram the BQE through it. The hotel-condo has partially blocked views from part of the Brooklyn Heights Promenade and Fruit Street Sitting Area, both of the Manhattan skyline and the Brooklyn Bridge, and of course, it has taken up park space... but it's also important to remember that some concrete buildings sat there before, doing the same thing. Only briefly was there glorious open space where the hotel now sits, and the plan was never to keep it that way.
A couple of years ago, the now former President of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation, Regina Myer, explained to us why this development was happening: "In 2002, funds to build the park were provided by the city and the state with a mandate that the site itself would generate the revenue to maintain the park in perpetuity. That funding is provided by development on sites at the edges of the park project." Of course, while the revenue-producing site could have included affordable housing, the BBPC is trying to make that happen over on Pier 6.
