New York Hotels Boot Needy Storm Victims to House Marathon Lodgers
A desk clerk at the NY DoubleTree Hilton tried explaining the situation by saying “Those marathon rooms were booked months ago”, like that makes what they are doing any better.
The stench of the corrupt Obama administration’s is all over this story, and is filling the NY DoubleTree Hilton, and other hotels that are further victimizing the people already traumatized by Hurricane Sandy.
Why would Obama push to keep the NY Marathon on schedule? So the media will cover the marathon and not Obama’s tanking in the polls, and the Benghazi-Gate scandal and cover-up, which may end up turning the election into a landslide for Romney.
New York City hotels are struggling with space shortages as runners traveling into town for this weekend’s marathon compete for lodging with locals renting rooms after their homes were damaged by Atlantic storm Sandy.
“Those marathon rooms were booked months ago,” said Karen Yam, a desk clerk at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Metropolitan on Lexington Avenue in midtown Manhattan. About 60 to 70 of the property’s 775 rooms will be occupied by people in town for the race, she said. “It’s been very difficult and frustrating to turn people down from downtown and the suburbs.”
Service has resumed at the area’s three major airports, and runners and their guests have already begun to arrive for the ING New York City Marathon on Nov. 4. Hotels, meanwhile, are already full of employees of firms such as Morgan Stanley and UBS AG who are renting rooms in Manhattan, along with other local residents unable or unwilling to return to homes ravaged by Sandy’s rain, wind and flooding.
Room shortages are further exacerbated by the mandatory closing of hotels such as the New York Marriott Downtown and the Battery Park Ritz-Carlton in lower Manhattan, the part of the borough most damaged by Sandy. In midtown, Le Parker Meridien and the Salisbury Hotel were evacuated following the partial collapse of a construction crane over West 57th Street.
Juggling Rooms
General managers, “especially at our midtown hotels, are juggling a lot,” said Kathleen Duffy, a spokeswoman for Marriott International Inc.’s hotels in New York City. “Now that most of the airports are fully open again, we are expecting a lot of international guests, families and friends of marathon runners to arrive in the city. It is putting a lot of additional demand on our hotels.”
The New York marathon on average is responsible for filling 40,000 hotel rooms a day in and around the city for five to seven days of race week, according to Kimberly Spell, a spokeswoman for NYC & Co., the city’s marketing office. On Oct. 31, Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the marathon an important contributor to the local economy. The race generated $340 million for the city in 2010, according to an Aecom study commissioned by New York Road Runners, which puts on the race.
The mayor is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.
Airports Reopen
LaGuardia Airport started receiving flights again yesterday following an Oct. 29 shutdown. John F. Kennedy International Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport reopened on Oct. 31.
Marriott, based in Bethesda, Maryland, temporarily lost about 600 hotel rooms in New York City because of downtown closures, according to Duffy. The company’s properties include the New York Marriott Marquis and the Renaissance New York Times Square Hotel, which are providing lodging to storm refugees.
Even the Pittsburgh Steelers couldn’t find a place to stay near the city in the aftermath of the storm. The National Football League team, which is playing the New York Giants this weekend at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, will fly in and out on the day of the game because they couldn’t find a hotel in the area with power.
No Alternatives
The property in Jersey City, New Jersey, where the Steelers originally had reservations has been closed after the storm, and the team was unable to find a reasonable alternative, Burt Lauten, a spokesman for the team, said today.
“We do have a lot of guests that have extended their stay beyond what was expected because of the storm aftermath,” Duffy said. “We have told some guests that we are unable to extend their stays any further but some are very adamant that they want to stay and are upset.”
Sandy, the biggest Atlantic storm in history, left homes waterlogged and caused massive utility failures that have kept thousands of residents and businesses without power.
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