Robert De Niro's new hotel

By Kitty Bean Yancey

The Oscar-winning actor already is a restaurateur (with a stake in more than a dozen, including Nobu and Ago restaurants). A new Ago just opened in Las Vegas at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino (see the writeup by rich-and-famous lifestyle chronicler Robin Leach here), and there's a new one in NYC. Now De Niro adds hotelier to his resume. The Greenwich Hotel opened on April 1st.

But don't expect to see him checking in guests or behind the concierge desk asking them: "You talkin' to me?" a la his Taxi Driver character. He's a co-owner.

The Greenwich hotel is in TriBeCa, a favorite De Niro neighborhood. The website is short on photos (save for a brick-walled exterior shot), but its press materials describe the 88 rooms and suites as being individually decorated, with no two alike. There are hardwood floors, Tibetan rugs, and bathrooms boast Moroccan tile or Italian marble.

The idea was "to create a space that would serve guests more as a residence than a hotel; a place for people whose sense of home combines sophistication and authenticity,” De Niro says in the press release. You can have your hometown newspaper delivered daily, if you choose. Introductory rates start at just under the $500 mark. A friendly reservationist said rooms are available this weekend.

Now things take an unfriendlier turn. A HotelChatter blogmeister tried to check in to review the hotel and says her reservation was canceled because her identity was known and she was planning to take and publish photos. According to HChatter, the hotel has a photo agreement with what HC calls "some international publication with a long lead time."

A hotel publicist is checking for me on the no-photos-allowed-yet issue. Meanwhile, have any Hotsheet readers visited The Greenwich? What about one of the Ago Italian restaurants?

UPDATE: I just heard back from a hotel publicist who says the hotel is not accepting press reservations its first week due to agreements to let unnamed media outlets go first. Hotel management's position is that when HotelChatter asked for access to photograph interiors and didn't get it, an HC-er made a reservation without saying who she was and the reservation was not honored. HC is invited to visit in a few weeks, the hotel says. Hmm. Readers, what do you think? If a hotel is open to the general public can or should it ban a certain kind of guest, in this case journalists?

Source:
USA Today Blog