clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Ace Hotel Will Harness the Power of SRO Tenants Past

New, 7 comments

It has been a slightly rocky road for the Hotel Breslin in its conversion to the stylish and cool Ace Hotel, but soon?last week of March or beginning of April is the latest estimate?the Ace (at Broadway and 29th Street) will finally allow road-weary hipsters access to its in-room turntables and house vinyl collection. The Observer's, Chris Shott writes that though there are still some disgruntled remaining tenants from the SRO days (says one: "Do you really think if I hear a noise next door that I'm going to tolerate it?"), the Ace hasn't generated nearly as much controversy as another SRO-to-boutique conversion, the Jane. Is it because the Ace is putting some effort into honoring the scruffy landmark's past? And we're not talking about just naming the hotel's restaurant "Breslin." Check out what Ace's Alex Calderwood has in mind:

He added that management has reached out to a number of tenants to partner with on various projects: "For example, there's this woman: She actually lived here for a long time, then decided to move, but she still lives in the neighborhood. She owns a glove factory across the street. Its been in her family for years and years and years; I think it's the oldest glove factory in Manhattan. We met her and she's great. ? So we've put together a program where we're going to have a bespoke glove service for the guests. We'll do the fitting here and the next day the gloves are waiting in your room. "There’' a couple artists that live here, too, that are doing murals for us. There's a filmmaker that wants to do a documentary on the building. There used to be a gentleman named Harry Smith that lived here years and years ago. We've reached out to his foundation; they're super-ecstatic. We're talking about reissuing his Anthology of American Folk Music on vinyl. We're talking about incorporating a lot of his art into the building. Hopefully, they'll license some of his experimental films that will go on the video-on-demand system.”

· Ace in the Hole [NYO]
· Ace Hotel coverage [Curbed]