When Blackstone Group sold the fabled Waldorf Astoria to a little-known Chinese insurer in 2014 for a record-breaking $1.95 billion, it looked like a done deal. But this week brought news that Blackstone is thinking about buying back the landmark Park Avenue hotel. Read more
Best in Show 1914, Champion Slumber, Old English Sheepdog (Westminster Kennel Club photo)
It’s dream time for dog lovers. On February 12 and 13, the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show unfurls, and the world’s top dogs descend upon the city.
You can buy a ticket to the big show at Madison Square Garden. Or you can save your money, hang out in the lobby of a hotel that caters to show dogs (and their minders) and watch a parade of exquisitely groomed world class animals bound for the show (and if they’re lucky, glory). Coincidentally on purpose, the three hotels anointed by the Kennel Club as Gold Class Partners are a short walk from the Garden. Dog watching couldn’t be easier. Read more
Now that the 2018 Winter Olympics are officially underway, you get to decide where you want to watch half pipe, ice dancing, Nordic combined and the 95 other events unfurling in Pyeongchang between February 8 and 25. Sure you can watch in the privacy of your home. But if cheering on mixed doubles curling or speed skating in a crowd with drinks gets your pulse racing, these New York City hotel bars are going for gold.
With the recent death of John Portman, the game-changing architect you can thank — or blame — for hotels with sky-scraping atriums, dizzying glass elevators and revolving rooftop restaurants, I decided to pay a visit to his most famous New York City creation, the Marriott Marquis.
Though it no longer looks like an alien creature plopped in the middle of Times Square, the 33-year-old hotel is impossible to miss. A brutish fortress of glass and concrete, it looms 48 stories over Broadway, stretches the length of a city block and showcases an eight-story digital billboard ablaze with some of the priciest ads in town. Read more