It's nearing midnight and you've made your way to Gramercy Park only to face a buttoned-up doorman-slash-bouncer-slash-actor insisting the hotel is open to guests only -- all as Mary-Kate Olsen ducks-in wearing full-length woolly cardigan. If you manage to make the first cut, you'll pass through the regal hotel lobby with its wood-paneling and million-dollar artwork framed by velvety curtains. The next obstacle is at the lounge itself, cordoned-off by a fairy tale-like rope and distinguished clipboard operator assessing your situation. There are two types of people given entrance to the Rose lounge, those who know people and those known by everybody and respected by the hotel's management. Once inside, a distinguished hotel lounge with piano bar and stone fireplace crackles with intelligent conversations and subtle social climbing all but extinguished by 12am in the rest of New York. On occasion the piano is absconded by people like Mick Jagger or Jack Black for midnight serenades and those once-in-a-lifetime impromptu performances.  

Last Word

If the hotel wasn't a statement enough to Ian Schrager's new brand identity, this ultra exclusive social enclave of distinguished nightlife should do the trick. While many a rumor has circulated that Paris Hilton was banned from the bar, in all actuality the bar hits capacity at around 100-guests and a law is a law.