Chris Shott

Are skyrocketing gas prices nixing your vacation plans? Here's a cheap getaway: Stay home.

NYC & Company is launching a new campaign this week called "Go Local."

"We're somewhat bored with the word 'staycation,'" noted George Fertitta, CEO of the city's tourism agency.

Beginning Thursday, NYC & Company street crews will be hitting up all the major transit hubs, passing out pamphlets about all the events, activities, and attractions happening right here in the five boroughs -- things like the Governors Island Folk Music Festival, Latino Film Fest, and, yes, those makeshift waterfalls that everyone seems to be talking about.

"This isn't a consolation prize -- this is as good as it gets," said Mr.  read more »

Developers like Donald Trump and chocolatiers like Alison Nelson aren't the only ones eyeballing real estate in Dubai.

New York magazine reports that at least two Manhattan nightlife impressarios, Pink Elephant owner Josh Kaiser and Star Lounge proprietor Charles Ferri, are both planning to open new posh boites in the emirate.

In fact, I spoke with Mr. Ferri back in May about his Middle Eastern aspirations:

"Dubai is super important right now," he said. "We're looking to do a big, big club out there. They're basically flying me out there for a month."

The new venue would be located in a hotel, he added -- one of the few types of places the emirate permits booze.

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 »

Mere months after the highly publicized shuttering of Scores West, investigators have busted yet another Manhattan strip club for selling what the industry so politely calls "extras."

Cops arrested lawyer Louis Posner, proprietor of the popular Hot Lap Dance Club, located at 344 West 38th Street, and some 20 other people, including adult film star and "feature performer" Alexia Moore, on prostitution and money-laundering charges over the weekend.

I recently asked former Scores dancer Ruth Fowler, author of the new stripper memoir, No Man's Land, whether there are any New York strip clubs that don't allow that sort of thing.

"Flash Dancers," replied Ms. Fowler, who performed at various venues around town. "They're really fucking strict. They're, like, the cleanest club I've ever worked at. They're so hard on girls who do extras."

Today marked the ceremonial ribbon-cutting of the hugely hyped Chelsea hotel in Atlantic City.

Hotelier Curtis Bashaw recently sat down with The Observer to discuss the $110 million project, which aims to lure more young, hip New Yorkers to South Jersey's gritty gaming town and otherwise restore some of the ancient seaside destination's long-lost glamour.

"We do a lot of real estate projects -- we've done ground-up buildings in the city and all sorts of other stuff -- but these hotel renovation projects are among the most challenging and rewarding and pleasurable projects," said Mr. Bashaw, 48, who, alongside his Cape Advisors partner Craig Wood, has combined an old Howard Johnson and Holiday Inn into a single 330-room boutique hotel on the boardwalk.  read more »

It's only July and already the so-called "Summer of Hope" is winding down on Coney Island.

Gowanus Lounge is reporting that the various rides and attractions touted by controversial developer Joe Sitt back in April are currently being dismantled, apparently headed to some other carnival site in Tennessee.

Location: How did you first get into the hotel business?

Mr. Bashaw: When I got out of college, I bought a building in Cape May, N.J., and renovated it into a hotel in 1989, called the Virginia. … And then we bought another one called Commerce Hall, which we opened in 2002; 110 rooms, built in 1879, really amazing building.

Sounds like a lot of renovation work.

Well, we love renovating. That’s why this Atlantic City project is so fun for us.

So, these are two hotels, a HoJo’s …

And a Holiday Inn, and we’re combining them.  read more »

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been talking about doing away with the city’s ancient draconian cabaret law for years now, and Robert Bookman, for one, seems frankly sick of hearing about it.

“It’s a nonreality story,” said Mr. Bookman—a rather curious position for a guy who speaks on behalf of affected cabaret operators citywide.

The oft-quoted lawyer represents the New York Nightlife Association, an industry group whose many members regularly wrangle with the dubious law, which has regulated dancing, of all things, at the city’s various bars, restaurants and nightclubs for the better part of the past century.

Under the law, first enacted back in 1926, places that permit dancing are required to get a special license; those that don’t risk getting fined or even shut down virtually any time patrons start bobbing their heads to the jukebox.  read more »

Folk singer David Peel was leading a crowd of protesters in a singalong of his charming ditty “Die Yuppie Scum” on Friday evening, when suddenly the rebellious crooner experienced a moment of clarity.

“What are we doing over here?” Mr. Peel asked. “Where are the apartments?”

A few doors down, it turned out.

Demonstrators had intended to gather outside an apartment building at 47 East 3rd Street, owned by controversial landlord Alistair Economakis, who has been trying to uproot its rent-stabilized tenants for years in order to create a sprawling manse for himself and his family.  read more »

Joanne Lucas shocked the New York restaurant world last week with an extraordinary announcement.

After months of searching for some deep-pocketed tenant to replace the hugely celebrated restaurateur Florent Morellet, whom she infamously booted from her building at 69 Gansevoort Street amid a lengthy dispute over rent and taxes, Ms. Lucas had finally decided to leave well enough alone.

She would reopen Mr. Morellet’s famous Florent restaurant on her own, less than 48 hours after its highly publicized June 29 closure. Same menu. Same staff. Same iconic green storefront. Only without the eccentric Mr. Morellet at the helm. Or his neon pink “Florent” sign in the window.  read more »

Debbie White, an entertainment lawyer with the firm Grubman Indursky & Shire, was inside the stuffy cabin of a floating Cessna seaplane docked at Manhattan’s Skyport Marina on Friday, June 27. “It’s kind of hot,” said Ms. White, clutching a cold beer. She was awaiting takeoff to sunny East Hampton, where she was scheduled to meet up with her celebrity clients, Dina Lohan and Ali Lohan, for an party promoting their E! network reality show, Living Lohan.

Traveling by car from Manhattan could take hours, depending on traffic. But if the frickin’ plane would ever take off, she could be there in under 40 minutes.  read more »

The esteemed and embattled Chelsea Hotel has yet another new manager.

Hotel blog Living With Legends has the scoop that former Hard Rock Hotel boss Andrew Tilley is taking over today, becoming the hallowed Bohemian enclave's third manager in just over a year.

Mr. Tilley replaces former corporate manager BD NY Hotels, the Richard Born and Ira Drukier-led outfit fired this past April after just 10 tumultous months in charge.

The previous manager, legendary hotelier Stanley Bard, had overseen the hotel's operations for nearly 50 years before his controversial dismissal last summer.

After 10 years of getting bruised and battered by the biggest linemen and linebackers in college and professional football, former West Virginia University and Pittsburgh Steelers standout Amos Zereoue is now trying to finesse his way to success in the smash-mouth New York City restaurant scene.

Which is tougher?

"Life in the New York restaurant scene--hands down," said the 5-foot-8, 200 pound, 31-year-old redshirt restaurateur, looking rather Usher-esque in a white suit and shades, during a boozy relaunch party Wednesday for his 2,200-square-foot eponymously named eatery, Zereoue, at 13 East 37th Street.

Originally opened in 2006, in the former Frere Jacques space, Mr. Zereoue's West African and French fusion restaurant has twice closed down for some needed retooling; most recently, a complete overhaul.  read more »

On Monday night, the Trump Organization threw a lavish party in Midtown to celebrate the launch of its new Trump International Hotel & Tower in Dubai.

I wanted to know: How does the booming hotel market in Dubai compare to that of New York?

The dapper Donald Trump Jr. replied, "The high-end suites over there would be very comparable to the best you have in New York, and vice versa."

Fair enough. But what about bedbugs? Is the high-end Arab lodging scene just as prone to the nasty blood-sucking insects as the inns of Manhattan?

"Not that I’m aware of," the younger Trump said.  read more »

Racking up huge bills has long been part of the exotic experience at Scores, the infamous Manhattan-based chain of upscale strip clubs that built a nationwide reputation by catering to celebrities and wealthy executives.

Only it used to be the patrons’ problem. Cover charge: $30 per person. ATM fees: $18.50 per transaction. Cocktails: $19 a piece. And that doesn’t begin to cover the extravagant services rendered back in the Champagne room.

For some horny high rollers, the cost of just a single evening at Scores could even reach six figures: One visiting CEO from St. Louis eventually lost his job over a whopping $241,000 charged to his company credit card over the course of one night at the original Scores, at 333 East 60th Street, back in 2003.  read more »

A trio of mimes, dressed up like tall, white palm trees, were moving around quite admirably on stilts. Yet slinky model Heidi Klum was the one complaining about blisters during a lavish party at Seagram’s Plaza along Park Avenue on Monday, June 23, celebrating the erection of the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Dubai.

“I need to sit down—my feet hurt,” said Ms. Klum, clomping away from a scaled-down model of the structure (complete with mini-monorail) in four-inch platform heels. When the Transom respectfully requested more sound bites, she blushingly demurred, saying, “You vil have a lot of commas in there, and a lot of dots.  read more »

Veteran nightclub broker Alex Picken, founder of Picken Real Estate and Nightlife Brokerage, married his company's creative director, Pornthip "Jije" Sooksai, in a ceremony in Manhattan on Sunday.

Toasting his new bride later that night, Mr. Picken, 49, jokingly stuttered over the words "my lovely wife" -- a term he said "most of you thought you'd never hear me say."

The newlyweds were introduced to friends and family to the tune of the Rihanna hit "Umbrella" during a boozy reception at Providence, a lavish, three-level, 13,500-square-foot nightspot at 311 West 57th Street, for which Mr. Picken served as site selector, negotiator and broker.

The happy occasion may have marked the notorious night owl's official retirement from bachelorhood -- but "not the industry," he insisted.

Back in April, as I was trying to figure out how the hell to get out to Glendale for my interview with the Cash Giveaway King of Queens, Damon Hemmerdinger, development director for the Shops at Atlas Park, I asked his rep:

"Think ol' Dale [Hemmerdinger, M.T.A. chairman and also Damon's father] can hook me up with a closer subway stop?"

"Funny!" she said. "But the bus stop right in front is relatively new so consider yourself lucky!"

Luck is one way to put it. Some city officials call it fishy.  read more »

According to Friday's Metro, City Council members are upset about the new bus service,

Regulators continue to crack down on the infamous Kalua Cabaret in Jamaica, Queens -- site of the controversial 2006 police shooting that claimed the life of Sean Bell.

First, the State Liquor Authority stripped the notorious strip club of its liquor license. Now, health inspectors have shuttered the topless juice joint for a number of unsanitary conditions, including evidence of mice.

Grub Street and Eater are reporting that soon-to-be displaced Central Park eatery San Domenico will be reopening in a much bigger, 350-seat space at 19 East 26th Street, right across from Madison Square Park -- Danny Meyer country.

"Right now Danny Meyer is king of the park. We plan to challenge him," as Mr. May told Eater.

The new restaurant will be called SD26.

Of all the new wine bars that have opened in Manhattan in recent months—a record 11 of them during the last Zagat survey alone—Bowery Wine Company at 13 East First Street has perhaps attracted the most vocal following.

“Die yuppie scum!” chanted protesters outside the small sipping spot last Friday night; many wielded placards: “EVICT WINE BARS SAVE THE EAST VILLAGE.”

At least some of the attention can be attributed to the venue’s location on the ground floor of the Avalon Bowery Place luxury apartment complex, one of several shiny new upscale buildings to pop up along the once downtrodden corridor.  read more »

Far be it from actress Sarah Jessica Parker to do something so clichéd as show up at her Sex and the City co-star Chris Noth’s bar, the Cutting Room, on West 24th Street—despite her position as honorary host of a benefit concert there, also on Monday, June 16.

A number of other entertainment luminaries, including the comedian and writer Al Franken, and the actresses Susan Sarandon and Natalie Portman, likewise lent their names, if not their presence, to the charity event, a fund-raiser for the fledgling Andi Foundation, which provides scholarships in memory of Andrea Parhamovich, a young activist with the Washington-based National Democratic Institute who was killed during an ambush on her convoy in Baghdad last year.  read more »

Coney Island merchant Dianna Carlin continues her quest to reopen her Lola Staar Dreamland Roller Rink in the abandoned Childs Restaurant building with the first of two fund-raisers tonight.

Ms. Carlin is trying to raise the necessary funds for an assembly permit to cover the whole 60,000-square-foot building -- the cost of which is considerable.  read more »

Passionate preservationist Michael Perlman, savior of Manhattan's Moondance and Cheyenne diners, is now spearheading a campaign to reopen Queens' historic Ridgewood Theatre, which closed this past March after nine decades in operation.  read more »

Nightclub impresario Charles Ferri already runs one bar in the basement of the legendary Chelsea Hotel: His swanky Star Lounge, which opened in 2007, is where modern-day would-be Dennis Hoppers like Josh Hartnett and Zach Braff come to add their contributions to the long list of artistic achievements at the Chelsea, often involving rousing karaoke numbers.

Now, Mr. Ferri is planning another one at ground level: The Chelsea Hotel Legends Cafe & Bar, according to his Web site, would include a “sidewalk cafe, lobby and back bar,” offering wireless Internet (“for cafe members”) and serving “fine coffees, teas, brews and foods” amid “artwork by legendary Chelsea alumni.” He calls it “Bohemia reborn.” (“Project in planning,” according to the site.)  read more »

“It’s very surreal,” said David Chang, the hugely hyped hotshot at the helm of Manhattan’s three Momofuku restaurants, about taking top honors as the city’s best chef at the James Beard Foundation Awards at Avery Fisher Hall on Sunday, June 8.  read more »

Anti-bar-sprawl activists used to bemoan the State Liquor Authority's glaring lack of a single voice from New York City.

Now, the state agency is poised to include a bonafide majority of city slickers.

Governor David Paterson today nominated a former legislative aide, Jeanique Green, presently a senior court analyst in the New York City branch of the state Office of Court Administration, to cast the crucial third vote on all licensing matters.  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 »

Paul Stallings, developer of the trendy Hotel on Rivington, isn’t one for false modesty.

“I’ve been at the cutting edge of this neighborhood transitioning into what it is,” said Mr. Stallings, 56, a former Wall Street lawyer who, in addition to erecting the area’s premier boutique hotel, which opened in 2004, has been buying, building and renovating apartment buildings on the Lower East Side since the early 1980s.  read more »

Location: You’ve made a name for yourself as a real estate broker and hospitality consultant, making deals on behalf of operators like Jeffrey Chodorow, Giuseppe Cipriani and Stephen Starr. Now, you’re a part owner yourself here in the new Surf Lodge in Montauk. How did you make that transition from middle man to being sort of the man?

Mr.  read more »

Proprietors of venerable Coney Island institution Ruby's Bar & Grill hope to reopen Friday afternoon, following vigorous repairs to replace a collapsed floor in the men's room that sent one patron to the hospital over the weekend.

Much maligned developer Joseph Sitt of Thor Equities, who owns the building, is chipping in on the cost of repairs, which were completed yesterday, according to a source at the bar.  read more »

A fierce standoff between two New York titans, both ranked on The Observer's recent 100 Most Powerful People In Real Estate, wrapped up an indecisive first-round yesterday.

Dapper restaurateur Giuseppe Cipriani (ranked No. 97) had offered up $500,000 to settle his dispute with the State Liquor Authority (S.L.A.).  read more »

The Health Department has shuttered venerable Ruby's Bar & Grill on the Coney Island boardwalk following a bizarre incident on Saturday, which I reported in this week's Observer.

A cop on the scene summed it up thusly: “One guy was taking a leak, the floor partially collapsed, and he fell 10 feet.”

Police closed down the bar soon after the accident on Saturday. It reopened Sunday. Then the health inspector closed it down again yesterday, according to a well-placed source on the boardwalk.

The jukebox at Ruby’s Bar & Grill was cranking out its usual eclectic mix of beachy classics—Frank Sinatra’s “Strangers In the Night,” Milli Vanilli’s “Blame It on the Rain”—this past Saturday when proprietor Michael Sarrel abruptly pulled the plug.

“Finish your drinks!” he told patrons of the venerable Coney Island venue at 5:22 p.m.  read more »

The Brooklyn Paper is reporting [via Eater] that Park Slope's hallowed Tea Lounge is closing in July after nearly seven years on the corner of Seventh Avenue and 10th Street:

[Co-owner Greg] Wolf blamed his landlord, Georgina Tufano, for doubling the rent on his small storefront, though he declined to reveal the dollar figure.  read more »

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"How about making some noise for opening the beach?" Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe said from the podium, as brightly dressed protesters standing behind a police line chanted, "Thor no more! Thor no more!"

So began another politically charged season at Coney Island under appropriately gloomy skies on Thursday morning.  read more »

Matt Abramcyk may have hit the hipster jackpot in April 2006 when he leased the old Beatrice Inn at 285 West 12th Street. Though, at the time, it probably seemed like a consolation prize.

“The only reason that we got it was because no one else wanted it, to be honest,” Mr. Abramcyk said. “The price was high for the shape, and the space was so unconventional, with the lack of windows and other types of things you’d normally want to showcase in a restaurant.”

   read more »

David Kaplan, owner of embattled East Village cocktail cathedral Death & Co., is suing the State Liquor Authority (S.L.A.) over its refusal to renew his liquor license.

Mr. Kaplan had formally requested a reconsideration of that potentially business-killing decision this past February—a request the S.L.A. has since denied.

In court papers, Mr. Kaplan and his attorney have argued that the proprietors “never defrauded nor made misrepresentations” to the S.L.A.—despite what some critics in the neighborhood have alleged.  read more »

Long-embattled East Village nightspot Le Souk will remain open at least another week.

Proprietors of the North African-themed eatery and hookah bar at 47 Avenue B are appealing their case against the State Liquor Authority (S.L.A.), which recently yanked the venue's liquor license.  read more »

"This is an awesome space, an awesome location," chef Scott Conant said, during a packed-house grand opening party at his new digs in the meatpacking district--er, at least, sort of in the meatpacking district.

"It's not really in the meatpacking, it's on, you know what I'm saying?"

The former L'Impero and Alto cook's latest restaurant Scarpetta opened Monday evening in the former Gin Lane and old Village Idiot space at 355 West 14th Street, just east of Ninth Avenue.

"A lot of the core clientele, a lot of Upper East Siders and a lot of people from Uptown, they're not going to be kind of spooked by going too much into the meatpacking. Too far inside of it, it might scare 'em off. But because it's on it, they feel comfortable coming down.

"I looked everywhere," Mr. Conant said. "But I really wanted it to be a West Village restaurant. It's probably one of the last neighborhoods that is pure New York."  read more »