LiLo is tardy to the party. Gabourey Sidibe says 'no' to Oprah. Nicole Kidman loses a role to a 17-year-old Disney star. Sandra Bullock prepares for the Oscars by stocking up on tissue. Saturday gossip deals with rejection.
• Rumor has it Danny Meyer and Ian Schrager are currently in "advanced talks" to open a restaurant on the roof of the Gramercy Park Hotel. [P6]
• Will we see the classic tiki bar make a comeback in 2010? [NYT]
• Minetta Tavern introduces brunch service this weekend. [UD]
• New Tavern on the Green operator Dean Poll has yet to seal a deal with the union or city (or even finalize the name), but he's lined up a new GM. [P6]
• Is it possible the restaurants in London are better than the ones here? [GS]
• Two "disaster-relief socials" benefiting Haiti took place last night. [SF, HP]
• NYC's oldest gay bar, Julius, has been shuttered by the DoH. [Eater]
• Gwyneth Paltrow has a tasty Vietnamese salad she'd love to share with you.
Super-publicist Peggy Siegal is turning 62 today. David Hasselhoff turns 57. Donald Sutherland is 74. Producer Mark Burnett is 49. Phyllis Diller is 92. Defense attorney Peter Neufeld is turning turns 59. Linda Gibbs, the Deputy Mayor of Health and Human Services, is turning 50 today. Comedian Beth Littleford is 41. View producer Bill Geddie is turning 54. Lucie Arnaz, the daughter of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, is 58. Author and blogger Cory Doctorow is 38. And old-time TV host Art Linkletter turns 97 today. A list of people with birthdays this weekend—including Chace Crawford, Ian Schrager, and Steve Forbes—is below.
• Carlos Alejandro Pérez Dávila, an heir to one of the richest families in Latin America (his cousin is Andrès Santo Domingo, husband of Lauren) has sold his four-story townhouse at 176 East 75th Street. The 5,800-square-foot mansion, which had been listed for $10.9 million, was purchased by Keith Meister, the son of tycoon Robert Meister, for $8.6 million. (Keith's brother is Todd Meister, Nicky Hilton's ex.) As for Dávila, he's already found a new home. He paid $19 million for 47 East 68th Street in 2007. [Cityfile]
• Ian Schrager has put his 3,630-square-foot penthouse duplex at 285 Lafayette Street up for sale for $12.5 million. Neighbors in the building include Iman, David Bowie, and Janice Min. [NYP, BHS]
• Lee Neibart, CEO of Apollo's AREA Property Partners, has gone into contract to sell his 16th-floor condo at 15 Central Park West. The three-bedroom apartment, which Neibart and his wife Joyce bought for $7 million in January and re-listed a few weeks later, had been priced at $8.2 million. [Cityfile, BHS]
Because clearly there aren't enough hotels in NYC to satisfy the swarms of tourists looking to spend $500 a night on a room, Ian Schrager is building another one. And it's not going to be a plain, old five-star hotel either. Schrager is planning to convert 1414 Avenue of the Americas—currently an office building—into a "six-star" property, a designation that technically doesn't even exist in the hotel world, but is used from time to time anyway. (That's how Dubai's ridiculously over-the-top Burj Al-Arab describes itself, for example.) It's good to see Schrager is finding inspiration in his former hotel company's current ad slogan. And at least he won't have to worry about evicting the tenant on the ground floor as part of the renovation process: Jeffrey Chodorow's ode to the last boom, Kobe Club, closed last month. You see, sometimes the recession comes in handy! [NYP]
• Ian Schrager is bringing in some firepower to the Gramercy Park Hotel: Danny Meyer's Union Square Hospitality will take over space formerly occupied by Wakiya, and David Rockwell will handle the design, although the "Italian-inspired" restaurant doesn't have a chef or name just yet. [NYT]
• In a chat with the Observer, Meyer says he's "intrigued by the possibilities" of working with Schrager. He also says he has no plans to take over the Rainbow Room, and remains undecided about a bid for Tavern on the Green. [NYO]
• Rumor has it Todd English is out at The Libertine at the Gild Hall hotel. [TFB]
• Keith McNally's Minetta Tavern has added a late-night menu. [GS]
• A group of sad Beatrice Inn regulars gathered at the Cooper Square Hotel on Friday night. In attendance: one-half of the Olsen twins, Chloe Sevigny, and "some skinny guys with mustaches," naturally. [DBTH]
• The sandwich shop Crosby Connection opened on Bleecker today. [Eater]
• The best street food in NYC, at least according to the Post. [NYP]
• Adam Platt's annual "Where to Eat" guide is now online. [NYM]
• Ian Schrager may be talking to Scott Conant about taking over the Wakiya space inside the Gramercy Park Hotel. [Eater]
• Daniel Boulud shares a few of his fave places to eat in NYC. [Independent]
• The NYT asks the months-old question: Is Chloe the new Beatrice? [NYT]
• Hope you can do without guacamole: An avocado shortage is looming. [LAT]
• More options for New Year's Eve, in case you've yet to make plans. [FB]
• The documentary on Le Cirque and the Maccioni family airs tonight. [HBO]
Some people dream of owning a castle; Calvin Klein wants to tear his down. Five years after the designer paid nearly $30 million for a gaudy 50,000-square-foot Southampton estate known as Dragon's Head, Klein filed an application this week to demolish it so he can replace it with a more modest (and much more minimalist) 17,500-square-foot number. To lend credibility to the plan, Klein had neighbors Ian Schrager and Aby Rosen write letters to the Southampton Village Board of Historic Preservation and Architectural Review on his behalf. We're not exactly sure how having someone who was in trouble for destroying an endangered bird habitat on his property this past summer bolsters his cause, but we'll keep a good thought for you, Cal! A few more photos of what's been described as "Disneyland on LSD" after the jump.
♦ Kim Cattrall and Sarah Jessica Parker are apparently incapable of getting along: A day after Kim confirmed that there will be Sex and the City sequel, Parker told fans "not to get their hopes up" and that "Kim is excited, but all the deals are not yet done." [Daily Star, People]
♦ It looks like spending time in court, soup kitchens, and sanitation departments hasn't helped Naomi Campbell much. She infuriated passengers on her flight back from London on Tuesday by cutting in line while going through customs at JFK. She swears it wasn't her fault because it was the airline that offered her an escort. [R&M]
♦ Ian Schrager is getting married next Saturday. The bride-to-be is a ballerina named Tania Wahlstedt. [P6]
The man responsible for Studio 54 and the "boutique" hotel, Schrager no longer manages the collection of properties he created in the '80s and '90s, but remains an influential figure in the hotel world.
Ian Schrager's 40 Bond Street still isn't anything like sold out. The building's unit 5A was listed for just under $6 million a year and a half ago—and there are still A-line units in the building available. Right now, unit 9A is still on the market, for $9.95 million. 7 of the 27 units were sold by early 2006, so shouldn't the insanely-hyped development be all full—with units being flipped?—by now? [Corcoran]
Since the Catholic Church began offloading some of its properties, the city's been in need of an weird religious organization with a shady past to fulfill the role of Real Estate overlord. Happily, we found a replacement in Lev Leviev's Africa-Israel corporation. The Israeli Lubavitcher diamond dealer has been doing a little real estate retail therapy—grabbing the Times building for $525 billion and 50 per cent of the Apthorp apartment on the U.W.S. According to today's Post, Leviev just bought Ian Schrager's One Madison Avenue, a building the also-a-little meshuga Schrager had planned to be another "high-end hotel, more like a private club." But now those plans are kaput. Guess New York can make do without another Gramercy. But what will rise in its stead? We're guessing something really scary and dangerous, like a tower of diamonds with rockets on the parapets and when you go by the gargoyles scream at you and shoot diamonds from their eyes. —Josh
Studio 54, now a theater company, turns 30 this year. New York magazine sent aged historian Philip Nobile to kick around the entrails of Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager's 70's hotspot. Have the intervening three decades yielded any insight? Why yes, they have!
• Gays, hold on to your pants, because the ugly is about to get uglier: David Gest, estranged husband of Liza Minnelli, is requesting that the court disregard the duo's prenup, as Liza failed to disclose that she was a herpetic alcoholic with violence issues. Even more horrifying: this implies that Gest learned the truth once he got his own lesions, meaning the two actually slept together. Behold the miracles of science. [E!]
• Tom Cruise continues his descent into obscurity by making appearances as Six Flags and a Redskins game in an effort to appear "average" and "normal." [Wonkette]
• Ashlee Simpson hits Barneys, spends $11K in a mere 30 minutes. And you thought she didn't have talent! Also, post-surgery, she's rather attractive. [BWE]
• According to his ex-wife, cuddly Tom Hanks is a secret hate-fucker. [Page Six]
• Christina Aguilera endures the ultimate humiliation: getting bumped from the cover of Vibe in favor of Bobby Brown. [Lowdown]
• Ian Schrager bans Paris Hilton from his Gramercy Park Hotel. What we'd give to see her drunk ass getting denied at the door. [Page Six]
• Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen also experience the sting of rejection: having failed to RSVP for a Vogue-happy party, they never got past the entryway. [Gatecrasher (2nd item)]
• Young Hollywood acts stupid, amazes masses by nonetheless walking upright. [R&M (bottom)]
The press release for the opening of AGO at the Shore Club in Miami, hosted by Robert De Niro, chef Agostino Sciandri, and Ian Schrager hotels, has a short list of "celebrities" scheduled to make an appearance. The list includes Desiree Gruber, the publicist for Ian Schrager. I was under the impression that the only way a flak could get to be a celebrity was by backing over half a dozen people with her SUV at a Hamptons nightclub, but I guess putting your name on your client's "celebrity" list works too. Then again, maybe it's just a coincidence. The PR firm, Harrison & Shriftman, did spell her husband's name wrong. It's actor "Kyle MacLachlan", not "Kyle McLaughlin."
Miami residents Audra and Mark Cherry are obsessed with hotelier Ian Schrager. So much so that they've named their daughter "Hudson Sky" after the hotel and the bar, respectively. Which is very interesting, as we were going to rename our intern "Carlyle St. Regis," until we realized that it made her sound like a gay porn starnot that that's always a bad thing.
Ian Schrager's odd homage [Intelligencer NY Mag]
