The Jane Hotel Story the NY Times Doesn't Want You to See
The Jane Hotel's crotchety neighbors were about to get a big ol' story about just how noisy downtown's latest celebrity hangout is, but then the Jane Hotel's owners stepped in and killed it. At least that's what the writer says.
Teri Karush Rogers, who writes for the Brick Underground Blog, posted a lengthy story about the battle that Jane Street United is waging against their new hard-partying neighbor on the blog. She states that it was going to be the cover of this weekend's real estate section, but her editors killed the story after Richard Born, one of the owners of the hotel, called her editors and claimed that an anti-nightlife post she put on her website proved she was biased against them. They agreed, she claims, and now the story will not run.
Born and Sean MacPherson, who co-own the joint with Eric Goode and Ira Drukier, both commented for the story, as did a number of the residents who are against the hotel. Here's what the Times doesn't want you to know:
- The owners have sunk $37 million into the hotel, and the nightclub inside makes between $15,000-$20,000 a night.
- Barry Mallin, the lawyer hired by the Jane Street residents, fired a complaint that the hotel owners mislead the neighbors when it said it wanted to have "background music only."
- Born says, "That application was made about two and a half years ago. Whatever we wrote on the application was the intention at the time. Are we operating legally within what we're permitted to do? I think the answer is yes."
- The nightclub doesn't allow smoking or dancing but, um, hello.
- One hotel resident claims that partiers have asked him where to get drugs and if he wants "a date." He did not supply his answers.
While the story was very informative, the biggest lesson we learned is that the Jane is not going to go quietly into that good night. Both sides seem to have lots of money, and with big business and property values on the line, this is going to be a long battle.