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Hotelier Says The Rockaways Are The New LES
By
Jamie Feldmar
Published Aug 12, 2011
Modified Aug 12, 2011
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By
Jamie Feldmar
Published Aug 12, 2011
Modified Aug 12, 2011
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The new Orchard Street. (Photo by Katie Sokoler/Gothamist)
Have you heard of this place Rockaway Beach? It's a magical oceanside fairyland that hipsters just uncovered and colonized with tacos and weird artist stuff. And while it spent some time as the next Williamsburg, it's already evolving into the next Lower East Side, if hotelier Sean MacPherson has anything to do with it.
MacPherson, part of "an elite group of nightlife creatives" who owns the Maritime Hotel, the Bowery Hotel and the Jane (he's also married to Guest of a Guest founder Rachelle Hruska), talked Rockaway to the Wall Street Journal, saying "It's the Lower East Side on the beach... It's like, 'Why are people not living out here?'" Golly, good question—if these LES types don't get in and build fancy hotels soon, this uninhabited peninsula might be lost forever! "I think it's going to be very slow-going, but in the long run it's a community that could exist all year long," he continued.
Will there be a red-velvet roped hotel opposite the SROs anytime soon? "There's real-estate development to be had there," he said. "I think maybe there could be a hotel there the way people do hotels in the Hamptons—kind of funky, like a motel. I'm shopping. I'm always looking." Everyone start saving up for those glamorous $14 Rockaway hotel lobby cocktails now.
Tagged
hotels
real estate
ridiculous
rockaway beach
rockaways
sean macpherson
Jamie Feldmar
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