Lobby Bar @ Bowery Hotel: You might not be sure just what era you stepped into when you enter the lavishly-decorated Lobby Bar in the Bowery Hotel—French Colonial, or a sexy turn-of-this-century Hotel Costes? The drinks don’t come cheap, but it’s obvious that this is still the kind of place to get a bang for your buck. Watch wedding bands disappear as balding bankers get fresh with their secretaries and sip Scotch on fireside velvet fainting couches. Try your luck getting into the guests-only outdoor patio, where the fashion flock and Euros trade pick-up lines over cigarettes. Even the doormen are flirtatious at this showpiece for Sean MacPhereson and Eric Goode (Maritime Hotel, The Park, B Bar). For now, this place is a symbol of the new luxe-ified Bowery, but as soon as an episode of Gossip Girl is taped here, you know it will be overrun with the area’s college students charging bottles to their parents’ credit cards. |