Hotel Pennsylvania

One-time demolition target Hotel Pennsylvania continues to line landlord Steve Roth's pockets, giving him even more reason to hang on to the old McKim, Mead & White-designed lodge. Quarterly figures released this week by Mr. Roth's Vornado Realty Trust show the historic hotel generating even more revenue than last year -- a total of nearly $30 million so far through the first nine months of 2008.

That's about $5 million more than it made over the same timeframe in 2007, when the hotel ultimately netted $37.9 million.  read more »

MTV is sponsoring a contest to promote the upcoming action film Max Payne starring Mark Wahlberg--and talk about the perfect setting for a gritty cop-movie gimmick!

"To celebrate the release of this slick new thriller, MTV is giving one lucky winner and a friend an NYPD trip to New York City. You’ll get flights, two-nights accommodation at the luxurious Hotel Pennsylvania..."

What, you were expecting the posh Hotel Carter?

Now, MTV wasn't around during the Swing Era, but has Kurt Loder and company bothered to peek inside the old Glenn Miller hangout recently?

(Read The Observer's extensive coverage here.)

"Save The Hotel" activist Gregory Jones once took issue with my use of the term "fleabag" to describe the dowdy would-be landmark on Seventh Avenue.

But, come on, luxurious?

Vornado Realty Trust isn't hell-bent on demolishing the historic Hotel Pennsylvania, anymore -- but it's putting the paperwork in place, just in case.

Vornado recently applied for a Certification of No Harassment from the city, which, if granted, would by no means guarantee demolition but is apparently a prerequisite for tearing down the semi-grungy hotel across from Penn Station.

Vornado, which owns that site and many others in the area, hasn't made up its mind on what to do with the hotel (at least not publicly), and last word was that the company would do one of three things: put a giant office tower in its place, put a smaller office tower in its place with large retail, or simply spruce up the hotel.  read more »

The literary landmark Algonquin Hotel hosted a feline fashion show and birthday party on Thursday in honor of Matilda, the famous inn's finicky house cat, now 13.

"I hope we get to see the cat's pajamas," quipped one quick-witted attendee, as guests sipped $20 purr-tinis while cooing at the various costumed kitties in the hotel's famed Round Table Room.

But something was missing. "We can't find Matilda," an organizer confessed.

The resident blue-eyed Ragdoll -- who was rumored to have been hiding out in the hotel's Blue Bar -- will just have to get used to having other critters around.

The splashy celebration, which benefitted the North Shore Animal League, also marked the beginning of a new pet-friendly policy at the Algonquin, which had previously prohibited guests from checking in their own animals.  read more »

Veteran punk rocker Jello Biafra didn’t trash his hotel room during a recent trip to New York. It was already trashed.

“The air-conditioners are so old and beat up, I figure why waste electrical power during an energy crunch when I can just take off all my clothes and work nude?” quipped Mr. Biafra, the 50-year-old former lead singer of the irreverent Reagan-era rock band the Dead Kennedys and a onetime fringe presidential candidate. “I come from cold, foggy San Francisco, so I like it when the heat is sweltering. It’s a nice treat to work nude.”

He was staying at the historic Hotel Pennsylvania, a veritable musical landmark befitting the songwriter responsible for the satirical travel anthem “Holiday in Cambodia.  read more »

Joe O's, the casual sports bar and restaurant in the Hotel Pennsylvania and home to the $13 Vornado pizza -- presumably, an ass-kissing tribute to hotel landlord Steve Roth's ginormous real estate company -- has been shuttered.

Its windows along West 33rd Street have been blacked out, with only a sign hanging from the outside scaffolding to remind passersby of its former presence.  read more »

After months of talk about demolishing the historic Hotel Pennsylvania to make way for a soaring office tower, landlord Vornado Realty Trust has acknowledged that it might just hang on to the McKim, Mead & White-designed, Dave Barry-panned, so-called "World's Most Popular Hotel," after all.

"First off, it is doing damn well as a hotel," Vornado CEO Steven Roth said Tuesday during a conference call with investors.

Indeed, the 1,700-room lodge that Vornado previously described as "a placeholder, sort of like a parking lot," brought in nearly $38 million in 2007, as The Observer earlier reported. (That's $10.5 million more than in 2006.)

Imagine how much the run-down hotel might make after a significant renovation, which Vornado is now apparently considering.  read more »

With Merrill Lynch staying put downtown and plans to redevelop Penn Station in flux, Vornado CEO Steven Roth may not know what to do with the Hotel Pennsylvania--a building the company once described as "a placeholder, sort of like a parking lot."

In the meantime, the historic lodge continues to make his company some big bucks--netting roughly $37.9 million last year.

That's $10.6 million more than in 2006, according to the company's latest filing with federal regulators, which further added, "This property continues to trend higher in 2008."

With revenues on the rise, does it still make sense to raze it?  read more »

Hotel Pennsylvania preservationist Gregory Jones recently received a Valentine's Day greeting from the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission--er, more of a Dear John letter, really.

The message, dated Feb. 14, reads: "At this time, the property does not appear to meet the criteria for designation and will not be recommended to the full commission for further consideration as a New York City landmark."

Yet, Mr. Jones, who has spearheaded efforts to save the old hotel from possible demolition, remains undaunted: "We won't take no for an answer," he told The Observer via e-mail. "We will continue to find a new way of saving this hotel with or without the [commission's] help."

Endangered Hotel Pennsylvania is rolling out the wood chips once again for its most highly regarded guests -- the four-legged stars of the annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, taking place next week.

Competing canines will be treated to "sound healthy" live piano music in the lobby on Saturday afternoon, Feb. 9, and the hotel's basement conference hall will be converted into "perhaps the largest in-door doggie spa in all of New York" -- including a "his/her's relieving area," according to a press release.

Last year, at this time, The Observer wondered where the dogs might go once landlord Vornado Realty Trust made good on its threats to tear down the dog-friendly hotel.

Some guests back then were informed that the hotel wasn't taking reservations for the 2008 show.

For the time being, at least, the pampered pooches appear to have gotten a reprieve.  read more »

"Well, we won a small victory in the battle, but the fight isn't over yet," said Gregory Jones.

The lead organizer of the "Save The Hotel" campaign was reacting to news that financial giant Merrill Lynch will likely stay put in the city's financial district -- and not relocate to the site of his beloved Hotel Pennsylvania.

   read more »

The Wall Street Journal today reports that Merrill Lynch is likely to put off a decision on its headquarters location for at least another five years, as it is seeking a five-year lease renewal with current landlord Brookfield Properties at the World Financial Center downtown.

Such a move comes as good news for Brookfield, and seems to be not so great news for Larry Silverstein, who had hoped to lure the bank into his 175 Greenwich Street tower, a.k.a. 3 World Trade Center.  read more »

At least one preservation group is speaking up on behalf of the endangered Hotel Pennsylvania.

The Historic Districts Council (HDC) has formally asked the Landmarks Preservation Commission to hold a hearing on proposals to protect the old McKim, Mead & White-designed hotel, which owner Vornado Realty Trust has threatened to demolish.

   read more »

The New York Post's real-estate ranter Steve Cuozzo today ridicules the campaign to landmark endangered Hotel Pennsylvania, denouncing the old inn as "one of the gloomiest structures between the Battery and The Bronx."

The last-minute drive to save the hotel is flagrant anti-development obstructionism, under the thinnest possible mask of preservationism. It will likely go nowhere.  read more »

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As if those nostaglic Glenn Miller-minded preservationists didn't have an uphill battle already!  read more »

You knew it was over when several panelists started singing the old familiar melody to Glenn Miller's "Pennsylvania 6-5000."

A resolution to protect the historic Hotel Pennsylvania from demolition is on its way to the Landmarks Preservation Commission after local Community Board 5 voted 21 to 8 on Thursday night to preserve the circa-1919, 1,700-room hotel across from Madison Square Garden.  read more »

Activists campaigning to preserve the historic Hotel Pennsylvania have unveiled a slew of new propaganda in anticipation of Thursday's community board meeting on the possibility of landmarking the old inn.  read more »

Embattled Merrill Lynch CEO Stan O'Neal has stepped down, possibly throwing a wrench into the financial giant's almost-done deal to move uptown to Vornado's Hotel Pennsylvania site.

The relocation discussion "is being reopened," according to the Post's Steve Cuozzo, citing a well-placed source: "Not back to square one, but it's no longer the done deal people thought."

Activists hoping to preserve the decrepit-yet-historic McKim, Mead & White-designed hotel reacted to the news with a sigh of relief: "That was close!"

But is the big old inn really worth saving?

Tonight, a committee of local Community Board 5 will discuss the findings of its own two-person task force on the subject. The meeting takes place at 6 p.m., 227 West 27th Street, "A" Building, 8th floor, room A802.

In the meantime, The Observer posed the same question to Professor Mosette Broderick, director of NYU's urban design and architecture studies program and a reputed expert on the early work of hotel designers McKim, Mead & White.

"I am, in general, a pro-preservation person," Dr. Broderick replied via email, "but I am not willing to battle for the hotel. It is indeed seedy and I would assume has long ago lost any of the richness it once might have had within the walls....

"With so little interest in older buildings and more important ones needing to be saved, I would be willing to let this one go."

Beleaguered financial giant Merrill Lynch has "given every indication" that it intends to move from downtown to a new skyscraper where the historic Hotel Pennsylvania now stands at 401 Seventh Avenue, according to today's Times.

But! Preservationists hoping to save the once glamorous circa-1919 McKim, Mead & White-designed building from the wrecking ball, take heart. There's still a glimmer of hope for the old fleabag.

The Hotel Pennsylvania demolition project requires public approval, which could take a year, and would entail building over the railroad tracks that run beneath the hotel and pose engineering and security challenges.

A committee of the local Community Board 5 meets Tuesday to discuss whether the hotel merits consideration as a protected landmark. The meeting takes place at 6 p.m. on Oct. 30 at 227 West 27th Street, 8th floor, Rm A802.

Both the Times and Post are following up today on financial giant Merrill Lynch's potential interest in moving to the current Hotel Pennsylvania site.

According to the Post's Lois Weiss: "Merrill Lynch execs would prefer to be at Vornado Realty Trust's [hotel site]" as opposed to Larry Silverstein's forthcoming World Trade Center redevelopment.

"What Larry [Silverstein] has decked up financially is not superior to [Vornado's] Hotel Pennsylvania, and it's not big enough," our source said.

That statement somewhat contradicts what Merrill Lynch sources told Ms. Weiss just a month ago, when they complained the hotel property was "not attractive enough to employees."

"They can't make up their minds," hotel preservationist Gregory Jones told The Observer.  read more »

A hacker and his compatriots stand athwart an old hotel’s demolition and everything they say it represents. will a development-mad city hear them?  read more »

Want to suck up to your landlord? Name a menu item in his honor.

Consider the "Vornado," the greasy, chewy, rather sauceless and entirely too cheesy 11-inch, thin-crust personal pizza served up at Joe O's--the hallowed Hotel Pennsylvania's downstairs bar and restaurant, located along West 33rd Street.

The entire building, built in 1919, is presently owned by real-estate behemoth Vornado Realty Trust.

How has Vornado responded to its $13 tomato, pepperoni and mozzarella memorial?  read more »

• A look at new downstate ESDC chair Patrick Foye.
[NY Times]
• Hell's Kitchen neighbors rail against Related site.
[NY Times]
• Whole Foods may move into Upper West Side tower.
[NY Post]
• Equity debt holders rebuff Blackstone offer.
[NY Post]
• New MTA chief Elliot Sander gets to work.
[Daily News]
• Office tower to replace Hotel Pennsylvania.
[Daily News]
• U.S. apartment market ends '06 with high vacancies.
[WSJ]
• East Village landmark may become dorm.
[Villager]

Did we miss any New York City real estate news this morning? Please send along tips and links.

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