Republicans officials recognize that the country is hurting. They were very clear today, after the invitation to their election night event leaked, that they will not be "partying" there. They will just have a huge event at the Grand Hyatt.

You can rent the entire Tokyo Mandarin Oriental Hotel for $672,150 per night. Free pastries included.

A woman named Daynara Fernandez is suing Hyatt hotels after finding a male employee in her room wearing her skirt, and her underwear, and her high heels. He kept his uniform shirt on, though!

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Unless what happens in Vegas is that a glass-encased, concave hotel creates a "death ray" of concentrated sunlight and burns a guest. This is something everyone should know about.

How sad must the traveling merchant class be? What do they long for at night, in their hotels, after closing hot business deals? Well, 25 percent of these men, supposedly, cuddle with stuffed animals, weeping themselves to sleep.

Paris Hilton's "next project" will be joining the family business as a hotelier. "I've pretty much done all you can do," she explains. She'll be a natural with hotels because she has been "growing up in it my whole life."

Here's to Williamsburg: from gritty industrial backwater to artist haven to fauxhemian playground to yuppie Disneyland, in only a few short years. There's no use fighting it any more, rebel kids. The "boutique hotel with rooftop pool" is coming.

In a big, important new story in New York Magazine, lad about town Jonathan Van Meter writes about a thrilling New York trend. Chic boutique hotels — Ace Hotel, the Standard, the new Gansevoort — are now hotter than nightclubs.

BP may or may not be going bankrupt. But the hotels in Florida are certainly hurting. Potential visitors in the Midwest are being scared away by images of the coast mired in gunk. Deals to the rescue! Or… not?

The country's most expensive hotel room (outside of Vegas) is at the Four Seasons in New York. It comes with free room service, private butler, chauffeured Maybach, and a $120,000 chandelier. You can even pick your own toilet paper!

Earlier this week a real estate developer announced plans to open an aquarium in Times Square filled with sharks and penguins. But that isn't the only ambitious new project headed to the neighborhood. A gay resort may be coming soon, too:

The Hotel Carter must have cleaned up its act. Although the Midtown cesspool came in at No. 1 on TripAdvisor's list of the "dirtiest hotels in America" last year—the third time it had received the award in the past four years—it's nowhere to be found on the travel site's 2010 list. Congrats, though, to the New York Inn on 8th Avenue for landing the No. 6 spot. In the newly cleaned-up Times Square, it isn't easy finding a place that features drugged-up prostitutes, floors crawling with mice, and urine-soaked sheets. But it's good to see someone is keeping history alive. [TripAdvisor, previously]

It looks like gay Spanish hotel chain Axel Hotels is going to erect (har!) a homo outpost right here in Manhattan. Hell's Kitchen to be exact. Like everything fancy and gay, it's probably too expensive for you, but don't fret!

All that unbridled sexual energy at the Standard has a downside, it seems. A guest staying at the hotel was arrested on Saturday after he forced himself on a maid and has since been charged with attempted rape, sexual abuse and unlawful imprisonment. Needless to say, when the hotel was informing guests that the Standard was "all about sex all the time" and "you're our star," this wasn't quite what they had in mind. [NYP]

• The hotel bar is experiencing a resurgence, as you've probably noticed. [VF]
• Indochine is celebrating its 25th anniversary with a new book. [GoaG]
• Does Danny Meyer have a new restaurant in store for the church on 21st Street and Park Avenue South? That's the rumor anyway. [Eater]
• A Q&A with Locanda Verde's Andrew Carmellini. [Blackbook]
• The annual Chocolate Show goes down this weekend. [ChocolateShow]
• A few suggestions on where to carbo-load if you're planning to run the marathon this Sunday. Or where to just pig out if you're not. [SE]

• The New York City Wine & Food Festival is underway, although if you haven't secured tickets by now, you can forget about attending any of the events. [GS]
• What should Andre Balazs call the Standard's Boom Boom Room now that legal issues have forced a name change? "Mile High Club" gets one vote. [NYT]
• Buddha Bar has been sued over 400K in unpaid legal bills. [Eater]
• There's a pasta renaissance taking place in the city, apparently. [NYP]
• A Q&A with Katie Lee Joel, who has a new cookbook (and who says she'd be just as well known today even if she'd never married Billy Joel). [TONY]
• The Times Magazine's "food issue" is now online. [NYT]

Designer Betsey Johnson is creating an Eloise-themed suite at The Plaza, which is also where she held her Fashion Week show on Tuesday. According to the press release, "The Plaza's two-bedroom Eloise Suite will be whimsically decorated in a color palette of 'Eloise pink' and black, and will be full of surprises and distinct "Eloise moments" throughout the guest room."

Were you having difficulty keeping track of all the new hotels sprouting up around the city? Get ready to be even more confused. According to a study prepared by NYU's Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism, and Sports Management (who knew?), 61 new hotels—with more than 10,000 rooms in total—will be added to the city's supply between the beginning of 2009 and the end of 2011. [HVS.com via Curbed]

Christine Quinn has been slacking, clearly. This week the City Council speaker denounced the nudie show at the Standard Hotel, a faux scandal cooked up by the tabloids during a slow news week, and one that wasn't even newsworthy considering the existence of the sex shows —and the fact it was largely a publicity stunt to drum up interest in the hotel—were reported, like, ages ago.

The Standard's campaign to make the hotel synonymous with sex appears to be backfiring. The Post caught on to shenanigans over the weekend, and in an "exclusive" today, breaks the big news that some of the Standard's neighbors in the meatpacking district are being routinely exposed to hanky-panky in the hotel's windows. And some of the witnesses to these acts have been innocent children! Even more outrageous: The hotel even appears to be encouraging this behavior on its own website!