Word: schrager
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Starck spent $10 million, so it is claimed, and the visitor in the torn trench coat has to admit that what Schrager and Rubell got for this bundle is momentarily, at any rate, the least boring public building in Manhattan. Some of it works; some of it doesn't; that is what is interesting. The chairs are, perhaps, too lively. Not just the ones that stab you -- also the ones made of mahogany laminate that have two normal legs on the front but only one stainless-steel leg at the rear, so that anyone who tilts backward rolls over abruptly...
Then, a couple of years ago, the Royalton stopped answering its phone. Crazy stories circulated, all true. There were new owners, Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, the Merry-Andrews who ran the wildly successful disco Studio 54 a decade before (and shared a cell in federal prison for evading taxes on the disco's income). To reinvent everything from door knobs to plumbing, they hired Philippe Starck, a Euro-glitz wild man usually described as a French biker-designer (he is French, rides a big motorcycle and designs things...
...room is Niagaral; the urinal is a huge stainless-steel waterfall (no compensating astonishment for women). A newcomer can be sent to find a tiny round bar that might seat ten people, hidden near the entrance. Finding it is not easy, to the satisfaction of Rubell and Schrager. They insisted that their builder hide the door. "Discreet is in," says Rubell, 46. "If you don't know where it is," observes Schrager, 42, "you wouldn't be comfortable there. Our guests will be a certain sort of people who will feel right here." The Royalton is the second Manhattan hotel...
Bring money. Breakfast for two, without champagne, can run to $50 or $60. That said, service is friendly, partly, say Rubell and Schrager, because none of the staff have worked in a hotel before. Sizable rooms are $190 and up, to $1,200 for a large penthouse. Fresh flowers are everywhere. Bathrooms are glass and gray slate with big round tubs. There are fireplaces in most of the bedrooms. No pictures of sailboats and sunsets; in fact, no art at all, except for a single Paul Klee or Joan Miro postcard, mincingly placed behind a candle holder...
...politicians are saying that Harvard's insensitive posture toward the area's homeless population hasn't changed significantly. "The University took the easiest way out by taking the grates off and realizing that the media would not, and could not, concentrate on the more serious issue of homelessness," says Schrager, who volunteered for the Food Salvage. "Harvard wasn't caring, only clever...