Gramercy Park

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 it's the small details-just outside the hotel 

while in New York, I stayed at the Gramercy Park Hotel. With unprecedented luxury- Ian Schrager has returned the once lustrous Hotel back to life. It goes without saying- the interiors are at once both bohemian and elegant. I could easily see the likes of Babe Ruth and Humphrey Bogart inhabiting its rooms.

all images above from the Hotel site

the Hotel is deep in Bohemia. The photographs on the Gramery Park site do not do its interiors full justice-perhaps it is the brightness of the photos that creates a false sense of sunniness. No, not here-& I loved it. A hazy film of the past hangs in the air and evokes another era. In my room-the walls were a deep pea green with deep red velvet curtains lined in ivory charmeuse. The headboard was a matching green velvet like the walls with some intricate trimming and studding. Navy velvet blankets drape the foot of a cream duvet covered bed. Dark hardwoods with all the scuffing of age, are left to add ambiance.Ceiling lights in vintage style hold open bulbs with beading shades attached.

It is the little details that make the Gramercy such a standout. Room numbers are all cut into the carpet right at the door. Special candles from Le Labo were created exclusively for the Hotel-(Cade 26) is a smoky, waxed wood scent that wafts through the main rooms of the Hotel. Tiny closets fitted with studded red chests were just one of the little luxuries-I was quite taken with.

& then- there is THE PARK.

just outside the Hotel door is Gramercy Park-
With the turn of a key time dissolves momentarily. The neighborhood drew the great actor Edmund Booth to establish The Player's Club and Stanford White renovated the still standing building for Booth. The Club was home to Booth & He died there in 1893.

the Park is centered around the statue of Edwin Booth

Stanford White's brownstone was once on the Hotel's site-& though the townhouse was torn down in the 1920's to make way for the Gramercy Park Hotel- a bit of Stanford White's aesthetic haunts the renovated Hotel's decoration.
The original hotel was designed by Robert T. Lions and built by brothers Bing and Bing in 1925. The hotel's current incarnation is the vision of Julian Schnabel.

Stanford White by John Singer Sargent

this Sargent portrait hung at the Player's Club-Gramercy Park

Hotel image

Julian Schnabel 
Boston Globe photo by Wigan Ang

Michael Weschler photo for the NYTimes

the Stanford White townhouse at Gramercy Park

 NYTIMES image

Luminaries that lived in the neighborhood: John Garfield, Samuel Tilden, Thomas Edison, James Cagney, Margret Russell, John Barrymore, John Steinbeck. Humphrey Bogart lived in the Hotel for 2 years and was married in the Gramercy, the Kennedy family occupied the second floor before moving to London when Joseph became Ambassador. Edmund Wilson and Mary McCarthy lived together at the Hotel in the 1940's.

Bogart & Helen Menken,1926

Wilson & McCarthy

New York holds corners throughout the city  much like this one- celebrity, artists, musicians, writers came there to make their names & fortunes, But here in Gramercy Park the click of heels, the swish of furs, the tap of walking sticks can still be distinctly heard- even above the modern rush of a city's screams and howls.

more places to stop

The Gramercy Park Hotel here
Gramercy Park here
the History bit here , & here & here
art in the rooms at The Gramercy magnumphotos.com here
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La Grenouille

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or, dinner at the frog pond.
why is it the French is so right?

I arrived late.
My first cab driver stopped to have a conversation (not) with a biker-who unappetizingly spit in his face. I decided to exit the sweat box for another one. Did I mention it was HOT.
After a treacherous cab ride to la Grenouille, I tucked in to dinner and conversation with designer Maureen Footer and writer Emily Evans Eerdmans. Thank you- Maureen for making a plan only you could design.

I dined.
It was deliciously delectable-but I can hardly remember what I ate, so caught up was I in the atmosphere and the stellar company. The cuisine is not to be questioned.
I did not.

Special souffles- a caramel, a chocolate, a raspberry.

The flowers are absolutely to be gawked over.
I did.
Tall bowery green leaves with bunches of Casablanca lilies shaded below, their scale is heavenly.

the tiny lamps on the tables are perfection

Opening in December of 1962, during a snowstorm-but really how could I say it better than NEW YORK magazine-
I can't.
"With Lutece, La Cote Basque, and La Caravelle all six forks under, it's thrilling that La Grenouille thrives. Owner Charles Masson's youthful makeover leaves the once hoity-toity Frog Pond less forbidding. Floral exuberance still explodes in every corner, and, in the ultimate surrender to reality, the menu—mixing classic and new—is finally translated into English." — Rob Patronite and Robin Raisfeld

or from Reggie Darling here

& of course there has to be a book.
There is.
written by current owner Charles Masson, in 1994, and dedicated to his PAPA, who started the legendary restaurant and his flowers. The book is a must have, and all sorts of copies are still available.

the Masson mantra-

Bois de la vie~ drink life

We did.

 Renoir's La Grenouille, 1869

image from the links below~
La Grenouille here
read an in depth review here
the frog in depth here
the book here