Keith McNally v. Gansevoort Hotel Agit-Prop

The latest salvo in the McNally Gansevoort wars have a distinctly Imperious look. A tipster sends in this photograph from the door of McNally's Meatpacking mecca Pastis. Yes, some irony: McNally is the Englishman who could be said to have colonized the Meatpacking district from its backwoods butcher days to the assfest it is today. But that doesn't stop him from step up his campaign against the Hotel Gansevoort and its sail-sized billboard. It also doesn't make him wrong. More »

Meatpacking Billboard Battle Rages On

From one theater of war to another: The battle for the soul (hahahaha, sorry, give us a minute) of the Meatpacking District is being waged as fiercely as ever. The Villager updates on the state of the conflict:

[A]pproximately 10 in the Meatpacking District... no longer take reservations from the Hotel Gansevoort. Keith McNally, owner of the restaurant Pastis, started the boycott in response to the hotel's recently erected billboard frame, which stretches eight stories high on Hudson St. and will hold ads measuring 1,200 and 670 square feet.

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McNally v. Gansevoort: A Fight "To The Grave"!

More news on that whole Meatpacking District vs. Hotel Gansevoort billboard story! Someone on the inside says a number of local businesses will join Keith McNally in the boycott of reservations coming from the Hotel Gansevoort because of the hotel's hideous billboard. Last week, a meeting of local business owners convened, hosted by McNally, that included David Rabin of Lotus, folks from The Waverly Inn and 5 Ninth, and most likely The Spotted Pig's Ken Friedman, to compare notes and mock the owner of the Gansevoort. More »

Hotel Gansevoort's Billboard Destroying Natural Beauty of Meatpacking District

It's not just restaurateur Keith McNally who's upset with the Hotel Gansevoort and the giant billboard it erected. Neighborhood residents are getting into the act as well. After the jump, a few of the distinctly unkind comments left on the travel site Trip Advisor. More »

Keith McNally: At War With The Gansevoort Hotel

Hot Meatpacking action! A well-placed source alerts us to the ire of Balthazar, Schiller's and Pastis owner Keith McNally:

The Gansevoort put up a fugly billboard that McNally and the some of the meatheat district business owners are not taking kindly to. Haven't seen it for myself, but apparently it's awful, and if you think the Jersey trash is bad there now [We do! -Ed.], wait until you can see that fucker across the Hudson, not to mention the abominations that could go up in its wake. So McNally is having his reservationists say the following when the Gansevoort concierges - all totally sycophantic asshats, by the way - call Pastis: "I'm sorry, but we've been instructed not to take reservations from your hotel in protest against the billboard on Hudson Street."

And we've just heard the same from inside Balthazar. Will Gansevoort owner William Achenbaum tear down this billboard before some dipshit gets hurt? More »

Barry Diller's Rooftop Fiesta

LOCKHART STEELE — This here is the rooftop at the Hotel Gansevoort in Manhattan's Meatpacking District. In official photos like this, it looks sedate and dreamy. In real life, it looks something more like these photos—a sort of body-to-body insanity best avoided at all costs. (Noise from the roof is famous for haunting the neighbors, which won a prolonged battle to make the hotel install "silencers.") More »

Principal Hells: Land of the Rooftop Pools

Though the cobblestone streets house all sorts of horrors, the District of Packed Meat extends upwards as well. High above the teeming masses of tight-shirted young men and gum-snapping women there is another sort of Meatpacking District: the rooftop pools. In what can only be described as a feat of "hey they did it, so will we" design, both Soho House and the Hotel Gansevoort boast rooftop pools, right across the street from one another. Funny, considering their target guest is the type who'd rather drink lighter fluid than spend a moment baking in the heated squalor of Manhattan in the summertime. More »