Over a dozen local residents who live (if you can call it that!) near the Thompson LES Hotel on Allen Street showed up at a Community Board 3 meeting last night to complain about traffic congestion, rowdy tools crowding their sidewalks, and noise noise NOISE echoing up into their windows from the newly-opened third floor rooftop pool bar. (Which, it should be noted, is open only to hotel guests—or anyone who gets a bite to eatat the hotel restaurant Shang!) How obstreperous are those bastards drinking and swimming and digesting Susur Lee's lamb chops? Well, one neighbor says their opening parties were so loud she couldn't hear her TV. Clearly, this monstrosity must be razed or urinated on at once.
The Lo-Down, who attended last night's bitch-in, cataloged the complaints, which include outrage over the "blocks and blocks" of black SUVs idling behind the hotel, "transforming the street into a landing pad for celebrity" guests and the paparazzi. Also, the doormen in "black turtlenecks" behaved arrogantly toward one neighbor. Further, it's actually not clear that the hotel is allowed to operate a bar on the roof! The Community Board says that when they reviewed the hotel's liquor license application, there was nothing about open air roof bars. In response, hotel manager Elizabeth Mao said, "I'm not the architect," but vowed to be "responsive to the concerns."
Meanwhile, Vanishing New York, a blog that's been documenting neighbors' creative methods for battling noise reverberating from the Cooper Square Hotel patio bar, is furious that a widely read NYC tabloid picked up his story without crediting him. Indeed, the article is a shameless jack of original reporting on the blog's "Notes from the Backside" series about the noise complaints, detailing how neighbors are using megaphones and blasting recordings of obscene comedy routines at yapping drinkers on the patio. While hotel owner Matt Moss has offered to install soundproof windows in neighboring apartments, and has agreed to close the roof at 9 p.m., disgruntled neighbor Carrie Schneider says Moss is too "slow to respond to our needs, and does what he wants to do."
