Question: Where can you find staff strutting their stuff dressed fashionably in black and white? Has almost 900 rooms and a bar full of Celebs and ID-waving guests that probably takes more revenue per sq. ft than its rooms. Is located in New York; has a garden on the 2nd floor, a full size library complete with suspended walkway, and its front line staff sport black Gucci-like sweaters over white T�s?

Answer: The Hudson on 58th.

Opened at the turn of the millennium, the Hudson is a converted apartment house and the latest addition to the growing stable of (HIP) hotels owned and managed by Ian Schrager � the one time Disco King.

Everything about this place is hip - that is apart from the luggage trolleys which are about the only standard piece of hotel equipment in this otherwise designer hotel. From the moment you approach the building, working your way through small groups of wannabees assembling outside of this famous landmark, in a road often laden with stretched limos and fancy imported cars, you are greeted by doormen who look like they�ve just come out of a catwalk.  Their uniform - black trousers, black short sleeve sweater worn over a crisp white shirt worn with   Doc Martin-type work shoes - is unlike what one would normally expect in a hotel.  But it works!!!  Oh yes, one must not forget they are also wired-up - like secret service agents -  with small ear pieces and obligatory coiled cable running down the back of their ear with a tiny mike attached to their chests. It would be curious to know if they are listening to some internal security channel, or perhaps the omnipresent booming (hip hop) music emanating from the background music system found in most public areas in the hotel � including the brass walled elevators.  Their selection of music is good enough to enjoy in the comfort of one�s room � which strangely, it is not. 

One enters the Hudson experience through a set of electric sliding doors which is quite unique, since most US hotels utilize revolving doors for energy saving reasons. This brings you into a small lobby facing the escalators which in turn leads to the main lobby floor. Just taking the yellow walled escalator is an experience in itself.  It is like passing through a time tunnel from the reality of downtown New York, to the hustle and bustle of this hugely popular gathering place. By comparison, a trip to Grand Central Station was less busy with people.

Immediately at the top of the escalator you enter what can only be described as a brick-lined lobby with walls covered in trailing ivy that sprout from pots located behind the custom - made humongous wooden front desk. Young and trendy-uniformed front desk staff greet you.  Funnily enough, the setting reminded me of a row of ducks at a fun fare!  This hotel I am pleased to say does not discriminate between Reception and Cashiers, and its 8 (DELL) workstations are connected to a Lodging Touch PMS (supplied by MAI) - which seems to keep things nicely ticking over.

Ben Jiou � born and bred in Hong Kong - joined the high-profile group in 2002 (coincidentally from MAI) into the newly created role of VP in charge of Technology. He tells me the PMS has been recently upgraded to V3 and is now more stable than its predecessors. Instead of traditional key cards, and so as to help identify guests in the lively outlets, the hotel gives you a small (manual) credit card that contains a machine generated account number and your signature. This, I am told by Reception, is for use in case you forget to take  your room key with you and need to charge something to your bill. These guys think of everything!

Inside this brown-stone building everything has been designed by a full-time design team who reside at the corporate office. They do a good job mixing and matching the oddest of items, which as individual pieces stand on their own artistic merit such as a 10 foot tall watering can in the garden that must at one time have belonged to the Jolly Green Giant. But when put up against a proportionately sized flowerpot, amazingly looks right.  I can well believe that even the smallest detail has the full attention of the man at the helm � Captain Ian. 

IT is efficiently used at the HUDSON, and each system has a defined owner who takes care of the day-to-day administration of their respective system. The Corporate IT department consists of Ben and 3 other IT managers in locations other than NY.  These three are "hands-on" as they tackle all IT problems at their respective location(s).  However, the HUDSON outsources its support to "O'Neal/Gaj International". They take all first line calls, and are the ones to call vendors if something goes awry and they can�t fix either on the phone, or via remote dial in. According to Jiou, this works well, and will roll-out to the other properties in the group when the time is right. By this he does not mean the cost since he has already proven its cost effective, its more the acceptance of management to �let-go� of the need to have a body on site who in reality often spends more time fixing jammed printers than the real reason they were hired, which is to keep the network infrastructure humming. This responsibility efficiently falls on the shoulders of the corporate IT department. When I spoke earlier about owners of systems, I meant that the Front Office or Reservations department takes care of rate changes, and the F&B department menu file updates � NOT the old fashioned practice of the MIS Manager doing everything � way to go Ben!

Although one would not classify this as a high-tech hotel, the rooms (which are not big�.hence small is beautiful) are equipped with HSIA at $10++ a day, and each room has a CAT5 port adjacent to the telephone socket by the side of the bed. It may be a tad hard to find and I believe this is being remedied, but once plugged in via your own cable, or one you can rent via the Front-Desk, you are effortlessly on-line without any configuration changes to your system. There is no portal or log-on page which surprises me because at the least, there could be a forced divert to the Ian Schrager www.ianschragerhotels.com web site and some good e-commerce opportunities exist for selling own brand items like the US$30 AGUA for Hudson shampoos or baseball caps, or just further promoting the brand.

The 14� TV sits on top of a free standing wooden cabinet that doubles up as the mini-bar, and houses a Sony Micro-Hi-Fi Audio system which allows you to play your own cassettes, CDs or tune into a local radio station. The distinctive unit also houses the infra red eye and set top box for the movie system which has a standard selection of hit movies, and ever popular Adult movies which are charged at U$14.95 per view, or $11.95 for a regular blockbuster. 

The wood paneled white walled room also includes an iron with ironing board, an Elsafe, and a rather neat illuminated bathroom mirror that does not steam up no matter how hot you make the room. There are no Tea and Coffee making facilities � because there seems to be no space for it. There is a three-quarters glass wall separating the bathroom and the bedroom which allows the bathroom lights to help illuminate the otherwise dimly lit room. The stainless steel desk sits at the foot of a surprisingly comfortable bed from where you overlook the headboard while seated in the comfortable stainless steel chair. A telescopic lamp is built into the desk and it works well. Three power sockets are close by, but you have to stretch the LAN cable across the bed to reach the HSIA port. Incidentally, Room Service must be doing a roaring trade, since I often encountered a lot of soiled trays in the corridor during my 7-day stay and on my floor (14th).

The 3rd floor houses a couple of medium sized functions rooms and a Business Centre, which is equipped with all the regular facilities. The pre-function area is also decorated like a garden with large containers holding dried flowers, and there are some benches for people to wait on, and the walls have been artistically covered in drapes thereby giving it a softer feel.

Each room floor has a space opposite the elevators where vending machines have been neatly housed.  One is for drinks, and the other for snacks - an ice machine is within easy reach. In front of these machines is a tall white marble table with 3 stools where guests can congregate or chill out while waiting for one of the 6 elevators. It�s a nice touch, and almost cries out for something more to be done with it.

Ben tells me that some of the IT initiatives on the corporate drawing board include Wireless internet access at all properties, and a CRS solution provided by Pegasus so that the guest history can be consolidated and profiling take place. I can only imagine what names would appear on that list!

There are a couple of individuals I would like to mention: Stacey in the Hudson Bar who so attentively serviced my needs, and Phil behind the Front Desk who allowed me a 6pm late check-out (without charge) on my departure date when he realized I had a midnight flight, and had already stayed in the hotel for one week. 

Now, most definitely at this property, The Hudson Bar is the center of the universe and is the place where it really happens. After 9pm on most nights (even school nights) but most especially weekends and holidays the place hums to the sound of the latest and greatest music while the Micros point-of-sale acts as a modern day abacus ringing up those $10 cocktails. The cocktail-waitresses (is that still a PC term?) whisk their way through the crowds, taking orders the old fashioned way � with pen and paper, from customers milling about, or sitting on a mixture of Versace style or acrylic chairs.  It seems to work, if a tad slow, and I couldn�t help but wonder if a hand-held device wouldn�t be more useful so that orders could be beamed back to the bar staff, and ready for them to collect upon returning to the bar. Surely this would be a better way to handle the pressure�.

But this does not detract from the fact that the Hudson Bar is where it�s at � and next time around, I�ll remember to shave my head, don a black Gucci shirt or better still, change my name to �Mr. T� � just to get into the mood of this happening place.    

© [email protected] July 5th 2002