Down at the bottom of Lexington lies an imposing building. This austere 18-storey brick and limestone Renaissance Revival block looks innocent enough but conceals an extraordinary past, and an equally extraordinary interior.
You might think it’s an overstatement to call a hotel “the soul of New York”, but the history of Gramercy Park Hotel is such a vortex of life, death and art it would be remiss to belittle its pivotal role in downtown Manhattan’s development. This is essential New York. Everyone should stay here.
During breakfast under the greenery in the rooftop terrace, I was reading the New York Observer – the only actual paper worth getting your fingers inky for these days – and digesting an article by a British expat about the inherent contradiction to be found in celebrity artists, the great debate that defines modern life for many people. What are we buying – fame? Art? Junk? I looked up. On the walls in front of me hung eight Warhols. In the adjacent room a clutch of big Damien Hirsts – eight of them spread throughout the hotel. Hmm, the perfect place to make a study.
Humphrey Bogart got married here, Blondie’s Debbie Harry and Chris Stein stayed here, the Kennedys (including JFK as a boy) lived here…
It’s not just pretty pictures we’re talking here. When the hotel went bust a few years back, Ian Schrager and his partner Aby Rosen bought it and immediately installed the artist/film-maker Julian Schnabel to curate and decorate. Cue big canvases, big egos, big battles. The long-term residents refused to move out, so the hotel was renovated around them. Schrager himself called the whole job a nightmare. Hotel Gramercy Park, the film which documents the renovation, reports from the war zone that passed for a lobby then. (It was in this film that the “soul of New York” idea was born.)
The prehistory is worth noting. Humphrey Bogart got married here, Blondie’s Debbie Harry and Chris Stein stayed here, the Kennedys (including JFK as a boy) lived here… every rock star you can think of stayed here, took drugs here, behaved badly here. In a moment of serendipity while writing this, I was watching Julian Temple’s engaging film on Dr Feelgood, the Canvey Island pub-rock band who went on to great things before self-destructing, when who should pop up in the middle but Debbie Harry herself, filmed at the Gramercy with Feelgood’s decidedly wasted-looking Wilko Johnson.
A member of the owning family jumped off the roof and killed himself. The place was lived in, loved, and worn out. It went bust. The renovation by Schrager was greeted with apprehension, but what it actually did was save a monument for the city. The post-renovation opening party was attended by anyone and everyone in New York, from Hollywood A-listers to rock royalty. Paris Hilton, then at her dizzy peak, was refused entry, thus guaranteeing boldface headlines the following day, but also setting the tone for the future.
How many bars have you sat in and had your neighbour say to you, “Hi, I’m a billionaire. Can I buy you a drink?” And it turns out he is, one of several people who actually still live in the hotel, either temporarily or passing through for 35 years. Patrick the barman, rakishly good-looking and no doubt a part-time model, has been there for years and doesn’t appear to be leaving. He remembers names. The new manager, Jakob*, as charming and smooth as they come – in a good way – has moved across town from Crosby Street and wants to tweak and nip and tuck, keep the essence, but just make it better. The staff seem delighted to work here, an increasingly rare commodity in a sea of sullen bellhops and greedy doormen.
The bedrooms are still a bit boho, but with a smattering of grande luxe instead of threadbare carpets. These days, it’s upscale cedar candles that burn, rather than herbal tobacco. The bedroom proportions benefitted from the renovation; their increased size alone sets the Gramercy apart from most Manhattan rabbit-warren hotels. When Karl Lagerfeld was moving in he called it “where Midtown ends and Downtown begins”. “That’s very interesting for me,” the great man concluded, assuming that someone else might be paying attention. But with respect to his assessment: the bare oak floors, random fabrics and massive rugs are all very downtown; the feather beds and 400 thread count linens are uptown. The mahogany drinks cabinets, opened each evening to reveal cut crystal glasses, cocktail ingredients and ice buckets, are positively Upper East Side.
When Karl Lagerfeld was moving in he called it “where Midtown ends and Downtown begins”
Outside is Gramercy Park itself, a private square surrounded by some of the most expensive real estate in Manhattan. The enclosed garden is based on the London model, in Kensington and Knightsbridge anyway, and keys are zealously guarded by the residents. As a guest of the hotel, however, you too can have a key. When I wandered around, there was an enormous Alexander Calder sculpture dominating the neatly manicured shrubbery. This is not a park where people brown-bag it.
Overlooking the square is the Gramercy’s Italian restaurant, Maialino, run by Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group, whose other properties famously include the nearby Union Square Café and Gramercy Tavern – to many people (this writer included) the best restaurants in New York City. Breakfast up on the roof, where the glass canopy slides back on summer days, is in the hands of USHG too, so upstate farm yoghurts and freshly squeezed juices vie for your appetite against pancakes with peach compote, bread pudding French toast with berries and cream, and sides of housemade sausage and maple bacon. Is it fair to have such a battle between good and deliciously evil so early in the morning? No, but then again breakfast is served until 3pm.
In an increasingly runaway commercial world, where websites draw blood trying to get the last-minute best price, The Gramercy retains enough class to set it apart. I’ll leave it to you to decide if it’s got soul. C
The Gramercy Park Hotel, 2 Lexington Avenue, Gramercy, New York City 10010.
212 995 1330; gramercyparkhotel.com
Derek Guthrie flew from London to New York with Virgin Atlantic
*There has been a change of staff since this piece first appeared