Can the Founder of Studio 54 Make Times Square Cool?
Hotelier Ian Schrager is making a big bet on Manhattan’s most hated neighborhood.
Just a few months ago, Vice News published a story with a provocative headline: The Coolest Place to Get a Drink in Midtown Manhattan Is the New Taco Bell.
The title was tongue-in-cheek, but it speaks to a broader truth: Midtown Manhattan has never been a bustling epicenter of places you’d want to be. Enter Ian Schrager, the visionary behind the original midtown hotspot, Studio 54. Tomorrow, his latest collaboration with Marriott International Inc., Times Square Edition, opens with 452 rooms, two restaurants by Dovetail and Narcissa’s John Fraser, and yes, a boundary-pushing nightclub—all in a 42-story tower that hovers high above the area’s supersized billboards.