NYC Nightlife: Everything You Need To Know Friday

by Ross Kenneth Urken · February 4, 2011

David Bard bids low on The Chelsea, The Pussycat Lounge rises again, Stephen and Alec Baldwin prepare for debauchery at Super Bowl, and the downstairs bar at Hotel Chantelle opens to great fanfare. It's all here in today's nightlife roundup.

1. The Chelsea Hotel Has Former Owner's Son Bid Low, Get Rejected [GofG]

Go HERE for more photos from last night's Beard At Work After-Party at The Chelsea Room.

[Stanley Bard]

Last night at the Beard At Work After-Party at the Chelsea Room, a source told me that David Bard, son of the hotel's former managing partner Stanley Bard, put in a low-ball bid of $85 million to buy the Chelsea. Of course hoteliers Richard Born and Ira Drukler took over as the new managers, but Bard maintained a role in the management.

With his father undergoing surgery for a brain tumor this week, David Bard put in a bid. Apparently, though, the board poo-pooed the figure $15 million off the asking price mark.

The Chelsea has been under much turmoil as a white elephant--a business endeavor that poses the huge sunk cost of the $100 million price tag and the huge renovations thereafter. A typical tenant pays $3,000 a month for a studio, whereas the hotel at $250 a night could get $7,000 a month on hotel guests.

Two tenants, paying a mere $1,100 a month, were ousted in December. Who will buy the place? We have some thoughts on the gambit.

2. The Great Pizza Heist [NY Post]

[Wass Stevens, Noah Tepperberg]

"Is Le Cirque trying to steal another restaurant's pizza recipe? Sources said one of Sirio Maccioni's three sons, who help run his famous high-end places, popped into Artichoke Basille's Pizza on 17th Street and 10th Avenue the other day and began congratulating and quizzing employees over their signature artichoke pie."

Artichoke Basille, of course, belongs to Noah Tepperberg, the brains behind Strategic Group and its Avenue, Marquee, and LAVO, runs Artichoke Basille.

3. "Blue Bloods" Meet Viennese Opera Ball Debs [NY Post]

[Image via WSJ]

"It was a 'Blue Blood' bath at the Waldorf-Astoria the other night. Tom Selleck's CBS cop show was filming scenes in the grand ballroom with young actresses dressed in long white gowns. Meanwhile, debutantes at tonight's Viennese Opera Ball were in the next room to rehearse. The girls, who will be presented to dignitaries like Baroness Gabrielle von Langendorff and HH Grand Duchess Arianna, were waiting for their choreographer, who mistook the actors for the real debs."

But isn't a deb ball all about acting anyway?

4. Friday Night Lights Party [NY Post]

"Barry Mullineaux, Jon B. and Matt Levine are throwing their annual 'Friday Night Lights' event tonight in Dallas at mega-club Zouk, hosted by Ne-Yo, along with Darnell Dockett and Marshawn Lynch."

Football can make any New Yorker crazy for a party

5. Stephen Baldwin To Keep Things Straight-Edge [GofG]

[Stephen Baldwin]

The Cinema Society's screening of The Sunset Limited, Stephen Baldwin told us that his brother Alec Baldwin will be taking him to the Super Bowl.

But where will they party?

"I'm on the wing of Lex Luther," Stephen Baldwin quipped.

If he's channeling the super villain from Superman, it seems the born-again Christian is in for a bit of anomalous debauchery.

6. The Pussycat Lounge Rises Again [DNAinfo]

Westway will not be the only joint resurrecting T&A in Manhattan. The Pussycat Lounge is in it too.

"The owner of the Pussycat Lounge told the State Liquor Authority that the topless bar would reopen."

"The Pussycat Lounge, the 41-year-old topless bar on Greenwich Street that shuttered last year, plans to reopen after renovations," the State Liquor Authority said this week. Owner Robert Kremer recently applied to renew his liquor license and told the state he would reopen the lounge once he fixes up the building, the SLA said. In the meantime, he turned his original license over to the SLA for safekeeping, authority spokesman Bill Crowley said."

7. The downstairs lounge of Hotel Chantelle hath opened. [TheDowntownDiaries]

[Image via The Lo-Down]

The place called Sergeant's has finally opened, and @ NYNightlife tweeted to announced it.

As The Downtown Diaries reports:

"Hotel Chantelle, a multi-purpose Lower East Side bar/restaurant/lounge opened its bar portion on December 1st. Now, two months later, Hotel Chantelle is finally opening their downstairs lounge-kicking things off with the new downtown revelry trio The Chainsmokers and Vikas. Their party title says it all. 'Sexual Tension.' Two years ago details emerged about the subterranean lounge and rooftop club opening on Ludlow from Benjamin Shih, owner of Williamsburg's Royal Oak and Sweet Ups. The 7,500 square foot space promised a 'Edward scissorhandian topiary garden' that can be sealed in the winter, a lounge accessed only be skeleton key.'"

This is big news for the LES.