“Right now, I’m in labor—I’m going into labor,” declared Klaus Ortlieb, the effusive 50-year-old manager of the forthcoming Cooper Square Hotel, standing on a large Persian rug in the hotel lobby on Nov. 6.

He was speaking metaphorically, of course, about the final push to open the glassy, 23-story, $110 million Carlos Zapata-designed building, which towers over the Bowery at the corner of East Fifth Street.

The analogy might seem apropos except for the fact that, in this case, water-breaking would be a bad thing.

“We have two major inspections tomorrow,” Mr. Ortlieb noted—one of which was plumbing.  read more »

"We’re not trying to be trendy,” said Neil Shah, president of Hersha Hospitality Trust, standing in the modish lobby of the company’s stylishly titled Nu Hotel at 85 Smith Street.

Fashionably decorated with found objects from the neighborhood and outfitted with eco-friendly cork flooring, organic bedding and custom furnishings made from recycled teak wood, Hersha’s 93-room lodge opened earlier this year with an immediate claim to landmark status—“downtown Brooklyn’s first boutique hotel.”

But not too boutique-ish.

“You walk around this place, it’s cool design, it’s interesting design, but it’s not what’s become of boutique hotel design,” Mr. Shah insisted.  read more »

Big-shot architects often become synonymous with fancy construction projects.

The actual builders not so much—yet they’re the ones who truly make something from nothing.

“For the project we did at Grand Central, Cipriani Dolci, there were no architectural drawings,” recalled Wayne Schumer, president of UCON Corp., a Brooklyn-based boutique construction company that specializes in building restaurants, bars and nightclubs, often to owners’ improbable specifications. “They came to us with a little model shipped from Italy!

“The M.T.A. didn’t know what to do,” Mr. Schumer said, laughing. “There was this big review process, and here’s this tiny little building. That was it.  read more »

Spritely St. Louis co-ed Christine Mueller, along with her parents and some friends from New Jersey, stopped under the flapping “Is-Wine” sign at 24 West Eighth Street late Sunday afternoon, briefly peeked inside the window, then turned away in disappointment.

“Oh, it’s only retail,” noted her father, Mike Mueller.

A few nights earlier, the party of five had toasted the young Ms. Mueller’s 21st birthday over head-spinning Manhattans atop the revolving roof of the New York Marriott Marquis. Later, they took a culinary tour of Greenwich Village, making stops at all the famous Bleecker Street spots—Murray’s Cheese Shop, Rocco’s Pastry Shop, and, around the corner, Joe’s Pizza.  read more »

With a dash of déjà vu, famed chef Charlie Palmer was simmering over the current financial crisis.

“As scary a time as we’re in now, I remember Black Monday,” Mr. Palmer said, referring to the infamous stock market crash of Oct. 19, 1987.

Talk about bad timing: “That was just prior to when we were ready to open the restaurant!”

Back then, some people thought he was nuts to go forward with Aureole, the ambitious young cook’s pipe dream of an American-style Lutèce, located inside an Upper East Side townhouse, which he and a partner had purchased and spent months renovating.  read more »

Unpaid workers arranged folding chairs for the Monday evening poetry reading as Prince’s apocalyptical party anthem “1999” played softly in the background.

Viva la revolución!

“This is a place where people can come and engage,” said Travis Morales, 56, a sort of nonobligatory manager at Revolution Books, the all-volunteer, nearly 30-year-old not-for-profit retailer of radical literature, T-shirts and “cute red-star earrings,” which has lately benefited from an uptick in foot traffic in its new location at 146 West 26th Street.

“Obviously, what’s happening in the financial sector is raising big questions for people,” asserted the friendly, bespectacled, ponytailed shopkeeper.  read more »

“So this is what all the fuss is about,” said alluring restaurateur Danae Cappelletto, standing in the plywood doorway at 19 Kenmare Street in Little Italy on Monday morning.

“You’ll have to use your imagination,” she added, as the two-level, roughly 2,800-square-foot space has sat empty for more than a year—and yet, so full of controversy.

Ms. Cappelletto, 27, is the third brave soul to attempt to do something with the site—which formerly housed longtime neighborhood institution Little Charlie’s Clam House—but only the first of them to so far survive the regulatory gauntlet that opening a downtown restaurant, or any business that serves booze, has lately become.  read more »

Ask anyone around Wall Street these days: Are bankers still buying ties? Inevitably, someone will respond, “What, to hang themselves?”

“Isn’t this a cool tie?” gushed an eager saleswoman at the chic Hermès boutique at 15 Broad Street, conveniently across from the New York Stock Exchange.

It was a lustrous, sky-blue tie, made of 100 percent silk, with undulating aqua-colored oval shapes and tiny gray floral patterns. (And it would just look great with my jacket, she added.)

This tie was something unique, she explained, the only one of its kind across the entire 4,000-square-foot selling floor.

Turned out someone else had returned it earlier that day for a refund.  read more »

On Sept. 11, Matthew Moinian pulled up outside his sales office on West Street, hopped out of his chauffered Mercedes and was promptly accosted by police.

The sidewalk was off-limits, he was blunty informed, to keep the path clear for presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama, who were in town to mark the seventh anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the nearby World Trade Center.

Little did the cops realize, however, they had another powerful VIP on their hands.

“Hey,” said the fresh-faced, dapper-dressed Mr. Moinian, pointing to his family firm’s new hotel nearby, “I own that building.  read more »

“What do you think of this ceiling?” asked Josh Boyd.

Overhead, a vaulted expanse of freshly coated silver paint was already peeling.

“I think we should all just scratch our initials into it,” he joked in a husky smoker’s voice. “We flew in a specialist from Canada and this is what we got. … You should write a story called ‘Hoodwinked by Canadians.’

“Where was she from, Toronto?” Mr. Boyd asked his partner, a tall, lanky fellow dressed in an untucked pink oxford shirt, jeans, and a pair of flip-flops emblazoned with the Brazilian flag, who was standing beside a nearby piano.  read more »