I Got Warhol, Who Could Ask For Anything More?

The Gershwin Hotel sticks tongues of fire out at East 27th Street. Planted next to the Museum of Sex, the bright-red building has massive horn-like sculptures jutting out of its façade—and that’s just the exterior.

“We want our guests to feel like they are living the pulse of the city,” said owner Suzanne Tremblay. “I want to distort my guests and take them somewhere.” With the 1960s tune “Always Something There to Remind Me” blaring, one begins to understand that the Gershwin Hotel is more than a cheap bed—it’s an experience. The Gershwin offers both an alternative to having three friends crash on your dorm room floor for the weekend and an opportunity to look at art in an entirely different context from Chelsea or Museum Mile. Each floor of the Gershwin showcases a different artist or trend in the New York art scene.

Tremblay founded the hotel in 1992 with a mission to bring New York flavor to travelers. She says that there is no balance between art and utility at her establishment—artists, musicians, models, and regular people interested in creativity have been walking past lobby walls adorned with fluorescent clouds, photographs of dead rats, and Andy Warhol paintings for 16 years. Instead of catering either to the affluent suite-dweller or the college student strapped for cash, Tremblay’s hotel offers the groups a chance to mingle with one another amid Warhol prints and Pop Art murals, creating fresh energy in Manhattan.

With thousands of unique restaurants, bars, and shops catering to every type of individual, the time has finally come for the New York hotel industry to diversify beyond the Times Square monoliths and luxurious East Side historical landmarks. “We’re not a fancy place, but we’re a place with soul,” said Tremblay. The Gershwin’s voice is not solely derived from the smattering of art canvassing the elevators, bathrooms, and lobby. Because rooms range from $40 to $335 a night, the hotel is a temporary home to a wide and diverse demographic of travelers.

Ten of the 12 floors share the same turquoise and yellow doors, black and red hardwood floors, and bright purple staircases. And with silkscreened prints of Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, Coca Cola bottles, and Jackie O at every turn, the Gershwin is a Mecca for Warhol enthusiasts. “New York is most represented by Pop Art,” said Tremblay, “and the Andy Warhol Factory is Pop Art.”

The 12th floor, one not dominated by Warhol, is dedicated to the work of Anton Parish and his photographs of the scene at Studio 54. On the ninth floor is Ronnie Cutrone’s homage to comics and commercialism—floor-to-ceiling patterns of cartoon household product labels cover the walls. On the sixth floor, next to a giant print of Kiss front man Gene Simmons, the giant Kenny Scharf Swatch watch “Monster Time” features a colorful Warhol-inspired Pop Art gremlin. Each floor has a different attitude, beckoning various personalities to the various levels of the Gershwin.

The fourth floor, named Floor Fabuloso, is a haven for international models trying to make it in New York. Turning up the wow factor, this floor is covered in Michael Albert’s Cerealistic art. Collages of cut-up cereal boxes, candy wrappers, and even Nesquik and Tide bleach logos cover the walls. The second floor houses the self-proclaimed “Most-Cheerful-Bunk-Bed-Purgatory” for those travelers on the tightest of budgets.

But the Gershwin does not only support already respected artists. “We work to promote and foster artists that otherwise wouldn’t have anywhere to go,” said Tremblay. Discussing her artist-in-residence program, Tremblay boasts that the hotel houses and sponsors artists for one year on one condition: they must create art. She explained that the Gershwin helps keep the emerging art scene alive by fostering the artist-in-residence, and in return his or her art is retained on the hotel walls after the year is up.

The hardwoods need refinishing and the paint job could use a tune-up, but the Gershwin Hotel embodies all that is New York, harkening a hotel revolution to embrace individual style and creativity.