Edit: Also a little fact, that building (the black and white stickers) is the The New Yorker Hotel, and is a reference to Jack (White): In apartment 3327 Nicola Tesla spent the last 10 years of his life.
Tonic&Gin wrote:Continuing some pictures of stuff:
Edit: Also a little fact, that building (the black and white stickers) is the The New Yorker Hotel, and is a reference to Jack (White): In apartment 3327 Nicola Tesla spent the last 10 years of his life.
I stayed in The New Yorker on a trip to the Big Apple. I can honestly say that the nicest thing about that Hotel is the Sign on the Roof. The place was a hell hole. It seemed (I hope) like they were renovating. There were 2 sets of lifts and some very LARGE Italian gentleman always standing in between a set on the left that took you to any floor on the bottom half of the Hotel and another pair on the right wall that took you to any room in the top half of the hotel. Something I had never seen before. The 2 lifts to get to the upper floors were very slow and a long wait. Our floor was only a couple above the bottom section of the Hotels floors. Thinking nothing of it we grabbed one of the lifts on the left wall that never seemed to be used. The men "guarding" the elevators had their backs turned and saw us as the doors were closing. They ran to try and stop us but it was too late. We could not understand what the problem was. That is until we reached the top floor (can't remember actual floor number - think 26?). As the doors opened our mouths all dropped. Two small Black kids with toy guns in their hands were standing a few feet outside the doors, seeming as though they knew we were coming. The kids said to us, "Hey you're not supposed to be here." That was obvious to us w/out the kids. The hall seemed to have little to no lighting & it looked as though a fire or dirt bomb had exploded. When I think about it I am reminded of Ghostbusters when their apartment building blows up. It literally looked like a bomb had gone off. We told the kids that we were sorry and pressed the shut button until we were on our way back down to the nice Shiney lobby area. We got to there to get a slap on the wrist from the Big Italian goons - that now made a lot more sense to us and we went up to our rooms. Which were 2 stars at best. The knowledge that the 1st 26 odd floors of The New Yorker was the worst Shanty Town Slum I have ever seen left a bad taste in my mouth and made the rest of the stay kind of awkward. We also all wondered how all the people living in the Bottom Floors were going to get to their Apartments, because they weren't allowed to use the Lobby. It was the Hotels Dirty Secret and they were pretty vigilante keeping it secret. We were a large group - sleeping 4 to each room tiny room. It was so small that it could only fit 2 Double sized beds (my son has bigger then a double). They also managed to squeeze in a small night stand in between the 2 beds & al TV in the Corner. That was all you could fit in this tiny room. Other peoples rooms were a bit bigger but in a terrible state of disrepair. They were very drafty, Mint green painted walls, w/ big chips around the windows that had come off. It was A DUMP. Though after seeing what the people in the lower section of the building lived in we still felt pretty lucky. It was a High School Photography trip and I assume the Chaperones (teachers) rooms weren't much nicer because w/out explanation we were told to pack up our things and spent the last 2 nights in New Jersey at a Holiday Inn. 5 Star compared to the New Yorker. Every time I see that sign in a film or on a T.V. Show all the memories come flooding back. I hope Tesla and Jack had better accommodations while there.
I only just read that ^^ and have to say that when we stayed there for Jack's MSG show in January, not knowing anything about the hotel's history, that was not my experience at all. They HAD been renovating the place, so I can only assume it's completely different now. (They were even decent-sized rooms for NYC.) When we arrived there was a bust of Tesla in the lobby which people were taking pics of, but it mysteriously disappeared the next day, and we were half-expecting it to appear on stage that night. A few months later when I was in the area again, I looked in there--the bust was still gone.