Dita Von Teese in her 3D dress.

On a cold Tuesday night in early March, NYO attended a fashion show at the Ace Hotel on 29th Street, produced by New York 3D printing company Shapeways. There was only one item for show, however, and only one model. Still, as superstar burlesque dancer Dita Von Teese traipsed up onto the stage wearing the world’s first-ever 3D-printed dress, even Debbie Harry crowded in closer to get a peek at history in the making ... and almost broke her leg in the process, since she tried to jump up onto a table for a better view. Wearing the Michael Schmidt-designed, nylon-netted gown, created from 17 distinct parts, 3,000 moving joints and over 12,000 black Swarovski crystals, Ms. Von Teese floated like a vamped-up queen up to the stage in a floor-length ensemble that also featured a corset bodice and gravity-defying, tiered bubble sleeves.

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” one of Ms. Harry’s friends remarked after the show. “Aren’t all clothes three-dimensional?”

Oh, if only it were as simple as simply existing in 3D.

Here, in a nutshell, is how 3D printing works: In a process called “additive manufacturing,” a special kind of printer machine is fed a set of blueprints instead of traditional images or text. Working off the blueprint from the bottom up, the printer extrudes a very fine stream of hot liquid metal, plastic, resin or ceramic powder. When it’s finished with the first incredibly thin slice, or “layer,” the printer begins the second, then the third, and so on, continuing until it has produced a real-life, three-dimensional version of the object from the blueprint.

While this emerging technology has been around in some form or another since the ’70s, it has been so expensive and limited in capabilities that 3D printers have been the equivalent of the room-sized computers with manually inserted punch cards from the same era—only the latter have since evolved into the iPad minis we all tote around or covet today. It has only been in the past two or three years that 3D printers have become more affordable and—thanks to open-sourcing projects like RepRap—limitless in possible applications in fashion and design. Of course, the potential applications for these printers extends far beyond the realm of apparel: anything from astronautics to architecture, weapons to medical equipment, and yes, even food. Though much like the 3D-printed pizza that Hewlett-Packard and Pizza Hut are rumored to be collaborating on, using printers to create garments has been an almost completely speculative exercise. Until now.

“It’s been incredibly difficult for fashion designers,” Mr. Schmidt admitted to NYO after the show. He was sitting at a table with Ms. Von Teese and architect/designer Francis Bitonti, who created the 3D model of the gown based on Mr. Schmidt’s design, which was then printed by Shapeways.  “Some have made inroads into the concept, but it’s been mainly in structure.” As opposed to, say, functionality or wearability.

In other words, a designer might make a metal dress from a 3D printer, but it would take the Tin Man’s girlfriend to wear it.

“We’ve been very limited by the material with which you can print,” Mr. Schmidt said.

So yes, Debbie Harry’s friend. It is kind of a big deal.

3D arrowhead necklace.

The Shapeways dress itself was made out of nylon and was “essentially plastic,” Mr. Schmidt said. “It’s designed to have articulation and movement, it’s literally printed within the structure.” Each joint of the dress has a mechanism in it that expands and contracts around the body, so that even if the material itself isn’t fluid by nature, the dress can be. Kind of like those medieval chain-mail undershirts, but with a lot more crystals.

Scientists currently are working on creating more malleable synthetics that will work with the 3D operating structure, which requires a certain level of rigidity in its materials to recreate a structure from a blueprint. So far, the successes in the fashion world have been limited to objects that use harder alloys: Nike’s Vapor Laser Talon Football Shoe, glasses from  Protos Eyewear, and designers who use Makerbot (Asher Levine) or Shapeways (Kim Ovitz) for their runway show accessories.

Last year, Continuum, a design boutique that works exclusively with 3D-printed materials, collaborated with Shapeways to create the world’s first-ever 3D-printed bikini, made from Nylon 12.

With the exception of the bikini—and Iris van Herpen’s architecturally stunning (but, one imagines, functionally impractical) 2010 collection  “Crystallization”—there has not been much impetus for scientists to create softer, more flexible materials, like a cotton synthetic, that could withstand the printing process. And we don’t blame them; these guys are busy, possibly working on perhaps less frivolous or more commercial things. The money for the emerging technology is being funneled in directions other than fashion, like medicine, education, even auto manufacturing. After all, if you had funding to create a functional ear or cancer-defeating nanobots versus a couture Dior, which would you pick? Okay, the dress sounds great, we know, but come on ...

3D bracelet by Blueberries.

Mr. Bitonti—who dedicated his Brooklyn studio to the research and application of new technologies (“specifically algorithmic form generation, smart materials, and interactive environments,” according to his official site)—had worked with 3D printing before, creating full-scale functional furniture. However, this dress was his first fashion foray into what he calls “the next industrial revolution.”

And here’s the catch: Before that evening, Mr. Bitonti had never met Dita Von Teese. He had the dress printed and built to Mr. Schmidt’s specifications on the East Coast, while the designer and the former Mrs. Marilyn Manson stayed on the West Coast. He had been sent a three-dimensional model (non-printed, “for now,” Mr. Bitonti pointed out) of the burlesque dancer’s body, and had to put together the world’s first 3D-printed dress without being able to make alterations or tailor it on her flesh-and-blood figure. Not the way fashion designers usually work. No wonder he was looking so nervous before the show.

But to the credit of the designers, model and printing company, the dress fit like a sparkly black plastic glove.

Shapeways, a Dutch company that was founded as a spinoff in 2007 and expanded to New York in June 2012, doesn’t sell the 3D printers itself, unlike the virtual store-cum-SoHo pop-up Makerbot. Instead, it offers a service for artists to create bespoke, one-of-a-kind jewelry and accessories from their machines, and then helps them move their products on Shapeways’ own website.

The idea is pretty revolutionary, Shapeways head Peter Weijmarshausen pointed out in a keynote speech at the recent 3D Printing Expo. “We are surrounded by mass-produced products, but as humans, we like to customize and personalize our things,” he said. “But after-the-fact customization is expensive. 3D printing technology offers the chance to merge the efficiencies of mass production with the ability to personalize so you can get exactly what you want. It’s disrupting the very way we think about manufacturing.” Such is the excitement about this “disruptive” technology that Mr. Weijmarshausen announced  at the Expo that Shapeways had just received a $30 million investment.

Shapeways’ process works as such: Users upload their design files, and Shapeways prints out the actual objects. In addition to the objects themselves, designers can sell their blueprints to be 3D-printed on demand for customers. As an added perk, Shapeways offers to handle the financial transaction from designer to customer, with the profits going to the designer.

And 3D printing has been catching on in all areas, not just with a subset of fashion designers. The expo was filled with companies that make interesting toys, knickknacks, chess sets, even an electric guitar. Another booth showed how complicated auto parts could be 3D-scanned and reproduced. And accessories are also a popular item, with one jeweler hawking his wares. The Saturday before the Dita dress unveiling, Shapeways held another event at the Ace Hotel, a “jewelry bazaar” that included items from Ten Thousand Things, Ursa Major, Verameat, In God We Trust, Lindsey Adelman, Anna Sheffield and Chris Habana.

As for the dress, we asked Ms. Von Teese how it felt to be wearing the world’s first 3D-printed outfit.

“I can honestly say I’ve never worn anything like it ... it was incredibly form-fitting,” she replied. “Look, it’s not like a tracksuit, or something that I’d wear every day, but it fit exactly right, and the way it moved was...”

Ms. Von Teese paused for a moment to think of the adjective that best described the feeling of wearing the history-making apparel.

“Well, it was very interesting.”

dgrant@observer.com

“I thank Pussy Riot for standing firmly for freedom of expression and making all women proud,” said Ms. Ono, enunciating the band’s name in her signature clipped tone. The grant is awarded every two years as a tribute Ms. Ono's late husband, John Lennon.

It was hard to see Ms. Ono under her brimmed white hat–lowered diagonally over one eye--and sunglasses. The ceremony coincided with International Day of Peace, which perhaps accounted for Ms. Ono’s peace sign-patterned scarf.

Pyotr Verzilov, the husband of band member Nadia Tolokonnikova, accepted on the band’s behalf, since the three band members are currently being held in a temporary holding center in Moscow as they await an appeal. They were sentenced to two years in prison in August after calling for an end to the presidency Vladimir Putin during an unsanctioned concert inside Moscow’s main cathedral.

“They are located in separate cells and kept in special wing of the prison. They are monitored very heavily and video-taped 24/7 and basically treated like they are very dangerous criminals,” said Mr. Verzilov when asked about their band’s current status.

Amnesty International has declared the band members official “Prisoners of Conscience,” which means the human rights organization is mobilizing politically, organizing marches and otherwise trying to put pressure on the Russian Government to secure their release. Mr. Verzilov, as a representative for the band, met with senators and congressmen in Washington, D.C. yesterday in a bid to increase international pressure.

Gera, Ms. Tolokonnikova and Mr. Verzilov’s precocious four-year-old daughter, hammed it up for the cameras as Ms. Ono and Mr. Verzilov took turns speaking. Ms. Ono handed the puzzle-shaped award, which was made of frosted glass, to the blond four-year-old. At the end of the exchange, Gera grabbed the microphone and said “Thank You.”

“It is a gigantic honor for all of us and for the girls in prison. Yoko has shown her support to politically centered important issues since the 70s and all of us live with images of Yoko and John Lennon here in New York supporting the anti-Vietnam cause,” Mr. Verzilov said. “It’s incredible to see her after all these years bring attention to Pussy Riot in prison.”

Looks plain enough from the outside. (ScoutingNY

But inside is a different story. (ScoutingNY)

Imagine the parties, but watch the edge. (ScoutingNY)

After Andre Balasz, the hotelier behind the edgy Standard, backed out of the deal for the Temple Court at 5 Beekham Street, the building will be developed by not one but two hot-shot hoteliers: A joint venture between GB Lodging LLC, which has worked on the Ace New York, and Commune Hotels & Resorts, the parent company of Thompson chain of hotels.

Last November, Allen Gross, president of GFI Capital Resources Group—an investor in the Ace Hotels in New York and Palm Springs—and Chartres Lodging Group partner, Bruce Blum, created a private equity hotel investment firm: GB Lodging LLC. The firm remains an affiliate of GFI Capital.

In light of recent contract speculation, the deal was finalized and announced today:

GB Lodging LLC, the New York hotel investment, development and asset management firm and affiliate of GFI Capital has purchased the iconic 5 Beekman Street.  The historic property is located in an emerging neighborhood in FiDi across from City Hall Park and Gehry NY, one block from the Brooklyn Bridge, three blocks from the new Freedom Tower and two blocks from the new Fulton Street Metro Station, to be completed in 2013 and 2014 respectively.

The historic building will be named a Thompson hotel as it is operated by Commune, and will consist of 297 luxury boutique rooms and 90 residences. The exact specifications are unknown, as the project is at the very early stages of development, but it is expected to be completed in 2014.

5 Beekman Street, built in 1883, has been unoccupied for several years but will receive a much-needed restoration. "We will pay homage to the history and grandeur of this iconic building and combine classic and modern design to create a vibrant community that will further enliven and rejuvenate the Financial District and downtown Manhattan," Jason Pomeranc, Co-Chairman Commune Hotels & Resorts, noted.

The long-shuttered building went viral in November 2010 after Scouting New York got inside. Coincidentally (or shrewdly) the old owners, the mysterious Chetrit Group, put it on the market only a few months later.

mewing@observer.com

The Ace Hotel

While long a cultural wasteland, the area now known as NoMad is enjoying it's time in the sun. Landlords in the Northern Flatiron district have been courting cultural institutions and local joints in an effort to vivify the neighborhood, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Developers are trying to play their cards right, hoping to make NoMad a new cultural hotspot. And they have a good start—fan favorite the Museum of Mathematics just leased a space in the neighborhood. With its similarly obscure cousin the Museum of Sex just a few blocks away, NoMad is just a few improbable institutions away from being be the off-color cousin of museum mile!

The wide array of new bars ad restaurants setting up shop in the neighborhood offer the perfect post-sex (or post-math) refreshment. Some old-timers are expanding as the area gains social clout. Jay-Z's 40/40 Club for example, is currently undergoing a multimillion dollar face-lift and expansion.

Developers are providing discounted rates to help attract interesting tenants, ultimately boosting the neighborhood's cultural cache.

"We basically take a long-term interest in the neighborhood as a whole. We're willing with tenants to give them relatively low, fixed rents," said Andrew Zobler, chief executive of Sydell Group and developer of the Ace Hotel and the planned NoMad Hotel, both in the area.

Trendy hotels, celebrity-owned clubs, sex-themed educational establishments— what's next? A film festival?

eknutsen@observer.com

Expansion plans directly across from the Ace Hotel.

The developer Jon Lam is arranging a deal to significantly increase the size of a hotel project he is planning to build on Broadway between 29th and 30th streets.

Over the summer, Mr. Lam purchased two commercial buildings, 1205 and 1225 Broadway, for about $72 million with plans to raze the two structures and erect a roughly 250,000-square-foot hotel and retail building.

The current negotiations for the adjacent parcels, located at 846 Avenue of the Americas and 1227 Broadway, would allow Mr. Lam to increase the size of his project to about 360,000 square feet.

“We’re in talks to buy the buildings,” Mr. Lam confirmed in a conversation with The Commercial Observer on Friday afternoon.

Mr. Lam said he will build a 600-room hotel with “significant” retail space in the property’s base. He said that he has not yet decided which hotel brand to bring to the property but wanted an operator that would appeal to business travelers and tourists.

“I don’t want it to be too high end. I want it to be affordable and casual,” Mr. Lam said.
Mr. Lam said it would likely cost about $350 million to purchase the land and build the tower, which he said would rise between 30 and 40 stories tall.

Robert Knakal, chairman of the brokerage firm Massey Knakal Realty Services, sold Mr. Lam 1205 and 1225 Broadway and is negotiating the deal to trade the neighboring properties, Mr. Lam revealed. Mr. Knakal couldn’t be reached for comment.

According to a source familiar the deal, the cost of the two parcels will likely be in the neighborhood of what Mr. Lam spent to buy 1205 and 1225 Broadway, around $70 million.

Mr. Lam’s project is located in a neighborhood that has long been known for its collection of dingy shops and rough-and-tumble street sellers. But the neighborhood is changing and has attracted hotel development.

In 2009, the Ace Hotel, a chic boutique property that has become an active destination in the Manhattan nightlife scene, opened for business on the corner of 29th Street and Broadway. More recently, the Gansevoort Park Avenue opened on 29th Street and Park Avenue South.

Approaching Broadway between 28th and 29th, noise blared around the corner: as was the case from the year before, as-pricey-as-it's-hip clothier Opening Ceremony set up a carnival outside of The Ace Hotel. This year, however, they brought in actual carnival games, where a $3 investment could win you anything from a shirt to a nylon Opening Ceremony tote; if you were especially lucky, you could win an Opening Ceremony stuffed animal.

Onlookers warily approached the booths, cautious out of concern for time—the line to get inside The Ace Hotel snaked around the block—or concern for appearance. It was, after all, Fashion's Night Out: who wanted to look as though they were playing a carnival game? There were a few. At one game, one gentleman ignored the objective or prizes at hand, proceeding to spray his friend in the face with a water gun.

Other booths were simply shilling wares: Brazilian sandal-maker Havaianas had a booth set up, as did Keds, both of which being brands that have previously collaborated with Opening Ceremony. One booth stood lonely: manned by chefs from Ken Friedman-owned Ace Hotel restaurants The John Dory and The Breslin, a few women smiled kindly upon a line neglecting them and their pork sandwiches. They did, however, sell the occasional cucumber-based cocktail.

At the lobby door, bouncers cleared the way, and a bevy of publicists stood guard. "You missed Miss Piggy," one informed The Observer. An editorial staffer from a marquee men's fashion magazine standing nearby was crushed, an emphatic "fuck" muttered under his breath. Indeed, the Queen Bee Muppet—currently set to star in November's re-launch of the Jim Henson's world-famous franchise in The Muppets—was at one point on hand to promote Opening Ceremony's collaboration with The Muppets brand:

She reportedly took questions from the press. It was likely akin to actually living in a Muppets movie, though this is not atypical of encounters with the creatures normally inhabiting The Ace Hotel.

Disappointments aside, we moved forward, what little we could: the lobby of the Ace was packed with carnival booths and warm bodies thirsty for booze.

At the Rodarte booth, a magician stood before two wide-eyed women as he fluttered playing cards before them. Behind him, two women were selling limited edition T-Shirts and cotton candy.

At the Band of Outsiders booth, a woman sat drawing sketches of willing (and paying) participants onto a tote bag.

For $20, one could have the single cheapest item in the entire Band of Outsiders collection, with their face on it, and some designer cookies. The tote bags read:

A nearby publicist and an organizer of Fashion Week shows vented together nearby: "They shouldn't call this Fashion's Night Out," one noted. "They should call it Fashion's Big Mess."

What about 'Fashion's Hot Mess'? we suggested.

"Exactly," she returned. "You know, real fashion people actually hate this night. It's a total shitshow."

And yet, people seemed to be enjoying themselves; even the scheduler enjoyed watching the sketchings on tote bags, perhaps out of voyeurism. She was soon pulled away by her companion: "I want a fuckin' Sno-Cone" it was explained. Indeed, behind her, lime-green sno-cones spiked with vodka were being sold; they attracted a throng of onlookers and eventual patrons.

Outside of the Opening Ceremony store, friends photographed each other vogue-ing with newly purchased bottles of perfume. A photobooth powered by blogging service Tumblr attracted many to grin with friends in front of an old carnival carriage.

They, too, enjoyed themselves.

Inside the Opening Ceremony store, a group of three twentysomething women, all of whom wore black leggings with skirts, stood in a small huddle.

They were having what appeared to be the most intense conversation to ever occur on the floor of an Opening Ceremony store:

"The way we are now, the reason we're here, it's because of how we were friends in the first place, you know?" They high-fived. We trudged through the store, impressed with the amount of Opening Ceremony wares one could acquire at the lowest price-point: a $5 toothbrush in Day-Glo colors, with the Opening Ceremony logo etched across it. A tape dispenser! A coin purse!

We spent a disconcerting amount of time staring at this pin of actress Chloe Sevigny's name.

She has a fashion line with the store. The pin was $5.

Leaving the store, fifteen minutes later, the young, intense women holding a conversation near the front continued: "Honestly, like, don't end your friendship. Just...try to...pull back a little bit."

Pushing further into the Ace lobby, we saw Miss Piggy's stage, laid bare, though Muppet-adorned Opening Ceremony shirts were being sold at what was once her perch.

Nearby, another stand released onlookers with "readings" of their auras, taken for $5. In return, they received blurry Polaroids of themselves surrounded by huge swaths of green and pink light.

Outside, more gathered at the carnival booths. The Observer paid $3 to shoot basketballs at a tied hoop; we won ourselves a nylon tote bag, and then considered the import of the evening:

Even if the majority of the attending retailers' wares are classic cases of conspicuous consumerism, they are doing their best to make luxury brands accessible to the public; it is almost, in this context, compassionate commercialism. Only in the world of high-fashion—a distinctly absurdist setting if there ever was one (see: Zoolander)—is this idea even remotely palatable. That said, if a one-night celebration of small business American entrepreneurship (something currently embattled by a hobbling economy) and a few carnival games on Broadway is wrong, being right is therein wildly unattractive.

We will enjoy the tote bag.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Band of Outsiders' Scott Sternberg and Momofuku's David Chang.

For those who don't know, Band of Outsiders is the crazy-popular brand started only a few years ago by a former CAA agent, Scott Sternberg. They hand-sew fashion-standard based stuff—suits, oxfords, polos—with minimalist Americana tones in uber-slim cuts. Mr. Sternberg is a professed fan of cookies; he even has a cookie blog.

Also, for those who don't know, 'Momofuku' is shorthand for the restaurants of David Chang, who soared to popularity shortly after opening the East Village's tiny Momofuku Noodle Bar in 2004. They became famous for their crack-like noodles and pork buns, and Chang has since opened up three additional restaurants (Ssam Bar, Ko, Ma Peche) and three iterations of the Momofuku Milk Bar, his dessert shop (the most recent, of course, in Williamsburg), in addition to having released a massively popular cookbook, a quarterly magazine with McSweeny's, and appearing as himself on television shows both fictional (Treme) and non-fictional (No Reservations).

It wouldn't be hyperbole, then, to suggest that a cookie...given to you

In crashpad-of-the-young-and-well-to-do of the moment The Ace Hotel,
at uber-spendy boutique Opening Ceremony's Fashion Night Out party,
that comes inside of the one-night-only Band of Outsiders' Fashion's Night Out tote bag,
made by the Momofuku Milk Bar...

....stands to be The Single Hippest Cookie In The Universe.

And this is it:

And this writer ate it.

And The Observer can confirm that, as far as cookies go, it was magnificent: a flaky, peanut butter and pecan compost core wrapped in a chewy shelter of—what was that, clouds?—and given a coating of powdered sugar, like a Zeppole who lost depression weight off of his puffy, deep-fried past after following The Allman Brothers on tour until Duane died, at which point, it just decided to remain living among the Kudzu in Georgia, unable to move forward, until finally being imported to New York City by Scott Sternberg and David Chang for a final moment of life's rapture, as much as one cookie could feel it.

The tote bag the cookies came in cost $20; a package of Momofuku Milk Bar truffles typically runs one $4. The cheapest thing one can find in the Band of Outsiders store is a $100 bow tie.

The package was a steal.

The cookie was amazing.

We feel indelibly changed.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

The hipster-approved Ace Hotel has long been a place

The Ace's lobby has traditionally provided the un-, self-, and vaguely-employed a chic place to plant themselves for the day with complimentary-if-not-spotty WiFi, along with the town's coffee roaster of the moment, Stumptown, and two Ken Friedman restaurants right in the building (whether or not they find themselves tempted to shop at uber-hip Opening Ceremony boutique is another story altogether). Even last week, The Observer's tech blog BetaBeat found themselves spying on the mastermind behind the (literally) rockstar-driven startup du jour Turntable.FM at the Ace.

Now comes the ultimate validation of that through corporate partnering: the Ace Hotel is going to be distributing Google Chromebooks to their guests as an amenity, replete with their own custom slipcovers for the laptops, and the Ace Hotel Google Chrome App—designed by flashy travel-guide site Superfuture—pre-installed in each one for use by visitors. Not only that, but they're also going to give you—wait for it—paper! From the press release:

The Ace x Google slipcover reflects the straightforward sensibility of Ace design and keeps your Chromebook safe while you're traversing the mean streets of New York. For guests, we're laying out an extra gift: an Ace x Google designed notebook - with real paper - wearing a John Milton quote from 1634. This is about discovery, documentation, adventure and resourcefulness - we aim to make the Ace NYC experience as inspiring and nuanced as our guests.

Ah, yes: the rough-and-tumble streets of midtown west, where shakes are only served from shacks and only two stops away, Times Square plots to rob you of your earthly possessions (or at least: dignity) at every turn.

That said, it does represent a pretty ingenious, uber-savvy way to reinforce the Ace Hotel's connection to the tech community, one always willing to accept the warm embrace of mainstream coolness; at the very least, it's certainly a testament to Ace Hotel's Alex Calderwood's continued dedication to landscape-driven synergy, be it with his hotel's guests or permanent residents.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

After the recent FergusStock, a festival during which famed British chef Fergus Henderson cooked whole pigs for a rapt crowd of New York chefs and foodies, Mr. Friedman said the mosque’s leaders called a meeting with the hotel. “They said, ‘Can you move the bar?’” he said. “And I laughed. And the guy said, ‘Oh, you think that’s funny?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, that is funny, that is really funny, because we’re not going to move the bar just because you discovered we’re serving booze.’ Can you name one restaurant in New York that doesn’t serve booze?”

Mr. Friedman and his partner, Spotted Pig chef April Bloomfield, did agree to nix plans for a dive bar in a townhouse next door, but as for the restaurant, “I said, ‘This is the United States of America and we’ll do whatever the fuck we want.’” He said the mosque had suggested it couldn’t control the behavior of “a few bad eggs”; i.e., “we could get a brick through our window.” Mr. Friedman said he made the police aware of this threat.

A volunteer at the mosque returning a call from the Transom said that a law forbids serving liquor within 200 feet of a place of worship and that “not more than 200 feet is between the mosque and the bar.” To which Andrew Zobler, the hotel’s developer, responded: “The law is clear that in order for that to apply it has to be an exclusively dedicated house of worship, and at their space they have both residences and a restaurant, so basically, because of those uses the law allowed there to be a bar within 200 feet. Everyone was aware of that when the liquor license was granted.” He added: “Out of neighborliness and respect we’ve voluntarily acquiesced to covering the window with a curtain.”

The Breslin will serve breakfast and lunch beginning Thursday, Oct. 29, and add dinner a week or so later. U2 hosted a party there earlier in the month, and Alain Ducasse recently named its fries the best in New York. The restaurant was named for James Breslin, who originally opened the hotel as the Breslin in 1904 and hosted the longest boxing match in history in a special ring he built in its basement (he also once dated an Andrews sister). “He was the Andre Balazs of his time,” Mr. Friedman said.

He added that he and Ms. Bloomfield are optimistic about the restaurant’s prospects, despite the recent shuttering of another venture, the pricier John Dory on 10th Avenue. He said they plan to reopen the John Dory in a space four times as large (he would not reveal the location), and make it more casual, “like the Spotted Pig with fish.” They further hope to do some “weird things” like a bakery, a bar and perhaps “a country inn.” (This in addition to the Rusty Knot, which Mr. Friedman owns with Taavo Somer, and Locanda Verde, a restaurant he opened in the former Ago space with Robert De Niro, Ira Drukier and Richard Born of the Greenwich Hotel)

When the Transom visited, the “doily curtain” covering had not yet arrived, and paper has been taped to the windows to shield the mosque’s worshipers from the sight of a gay wedding over the weekend. “They can threaten, but they can’t really stop us,” Mr. Friedman said.

“I can’t actually give you a firm, firm date,” Mr. Calderwood told The Observer during a brief tour of the as yet unfinished, 258-room Roman & Williams–designed lodge on the afternoon of March 12. “It will either be the last week in March or first week in April. It’s right around the corner.”

A planned hotel restaurant, operated by Ken Friedman of Spotted Pig fame, won’t be ready until June, however. Trendy new retail offerings, including outposts of West Coast standouts Rudy’s Barbershop and Stumptown Coffee, will take even longer. “We’re trying to figure out right now exactly how big the barbershop would be and then what other components we’d have,” Mr. Calderwood said. “We’re talking about putting a newsstand in, and there is a boutique from the Lower East Side called Project No. 8 that’s on board.”

But at least three floors of the stylish 12-story hotel, featuring fully refurbished rooms outfitted with original artwork and custom-designed furniture—some even come stocked with turntables and an assortment of old vinyl!—will be ready for overnight guests in just a few weeks, he predicted; the lobby and check-in area, too: “It really just needs to be painted and a little bit of infrastructure put in,” Mr. Calderwood said. “But you’ll see when we go downstairs. It’s ready to go.”

Downstairs, construction workers in surgical masks loudly blasted away at the floor with some sort of mechanical hose, filling the air with a palpable cloud of unknown particles.

“I believe this is part of the grinding process,” Mr. Calderwood shouted over the noise, explaining how the sandstorm, which was quickly and rather distastefully beginning to manifest itself inside this reporter’s nose and mouth, was necessary to uncover the building’s original mosaic tiles from beneath a more contemporary layer of concrete.

Even through the haze, the affable hotelier continued his tour: “Around this wall will be the front desk. … And then all of this is seating area.”

It was rather hard to visualize amid all the dust and debris—unless, of course, you have the right attitude. And the 39-year-old Ace Hotel honcho has that in spades. Even when admitting his New York project has become rather “controversial,” he means it “in a positive way.

“Or, conversational—you can put it that way,” Mr. Calderwood clarified. “I think there’s definitely a lot of conversation about it because we’re doing some unique things and it’s in a unique location.”

Transforming the shabby, century-old Hotel Breslin, located along one of the last largely ungentrified retail strips in Manhattan, into a gleaming new super-hip Ace Hotel has been the most complicated build-out yet for Mr. Calderwood’s stylish Seattle-based company, which has demonstrated a knack for refurbishing old hotels, with similar locations now operating in Portland, Ore., and Palm Springs, Calif.

Beyond the regulatory rigmarole that inevitably weighs upon such a massive construction project in New York City, there’s the rather prickly issue of dealing with the people who currently call the place home.

The ancient Hotel Breslin, which first opened in 1904 and has over the years sheltered such luminaries as the boxer Joe Louis, the author W. E. B. Du Bois and the avant-garde filmmaker Harry Smith, is another one of those long-neglected, rent-stabilized, single-room-occupancy buildings that have made such attractive targets for hotel developers recently.

In 2007, GFI Development Company shelled out $40 million for a long-term lease on the landmark building, secured another $35 million to finance its renovation, and appointed Mr. Calderwood’s up-and-coming Ace Hotel Group to manage the property.

The developers also began pressing residents to vacate their rooms in exchange for cash buyouts. Many took the money and split. Those who chose to stick it out have been grappling with chronic heating problems, malfunctioning elevators and various other frustrations that come with camping out in a construction zone. The process has prompted multiple lawsuits and divided remaining residents into two rival tenant associations.

Most of the building’s ground-level retailers have also been encouraged to leave, with only two remaining. Management is trying to evict M&K Jewelry over $31,000 in unpaid rent; the unflinching retailer has in turn charged management with breaching the lease by failing to provide heat and water. (A hearing was scheduled for March 19.) A lingering perfume shop, meanwhile, sued management this past December over similar service disruptions. Management has since agreed “to continue to provide electricity and water as required by the lease and law,” according to court papers.

Yet, unlike similar SRO conversion efforts at the Jane hotel in the West Village, where angry tenants have repeatedly taken to the streets in protest, and the famous Chelsea Hotel on West 23rd Street, where relentless taunting on the hotel blog prompted the most recent manager to resign this winter, the drama at the old Breslin-turned-Ace has generated much less publicity.

That could all change, of course, when the first well-heeled guests arrive next month, or whenever the hotel actually opens.

“Do they even think about what tenants are going to be like to these guests?” asked Suzanne Lenora, a 17-year hotel resident and president of the Breslin Tenant Association, who charged that new management has shown little to no regard for the welfare of its tenants. So why should residents play nice?

“There was no give-and-take,” Ms. Lenora said. “It was basically, ‘You live in squalor and this is what you get and you should be happy about it.’” She longed for the days before the engines of change started churning. “It was always kept clean, nothing was ever broken. You never had shoelaces holding things together.

“It’s not like we’re going to go after [hotel guests],” stressed Ms. Lenora. “But do you really think if I hear a noise next door that I’m going to tolerate it? Why should I?”

Even Mr. Positivity has to admit that not everything is rosy in the old Breslin. “There was definitely a heat issue,” Mr. Calderwood said. “It was complicated. You’re going from an old boiler system to a new system. You’ve got Con Edison involved. It was largely a lot of issues that weren’t necessarily completely within our control. … Now that the heat’s on, things are settling down.”

“My room has been warmer,” noted Ms. Lenora, who spent much of the winter bundled up in her tiny apartment on the fourth floor. She suspected, however, that the noticeable rise in temperature was emanating from the lower floors, where the finished hotel rooms are located. “If I owned a building and the heating system worked, I would want the living to have heat, not my imaginative hotel guests.”

The sanguine Mr. Calderwood preached patience. “I think that ultimately this will really be a much better place to live when it’s all said and done,” he said. “The people who’ve remained, they get a brand-new HVAC system, brand-new windows. They have an option to move to a completely renovated unit if they want.”

He added that management has reached out to a number of tenants to partner with on various projects: “For example, there’s this woman: She actually lived here for a long time, then decided to move, but she still lives in the neighborhood. She owns a glove factory across the street. It’s been in her family for years and years and years; I think it’s the oldest glove factory in Manhattan. We met her and she’s great. … So we’ve put together a program where we’re going to have a bespoke glove service for the guests. We’ll do the fitting here and the next day the gloves are waiting in your room.

“There’s a couple artists that live here, too, that are doing murals for us. There’s a filmmaker that wants to do a documentary on the building. There used to be a gentleman named Harry Smith that lived here years and years ago. We’ve reached out to his foundation; they’re super-ecstatic. We’re talking about reissuing his Anthology of American Folk Music on vinyl. We’re talking about incorporating a lot of his art into the building. Hopefully, they’ll license some of his experimental films that will go on the video-on-demand system.”

Not to be out-glossed, Ms. Lenora, too, holds out hope for a bright future in tenant-guest relations.

“Did I tell you about the woman at the Carlton?” she asked, referring to the luxury hotel on Madison Avenue where deep-pocketed guests share common areas with tenants of old. “She takes her cane. She swings it around when she comes in. ‘Get out of my way!’ Just wait till I’m old and gray.”

cshott@observer.com