Rudy’s are good people. They’re our neighbor in Manhattan and Seattle (and elsewhere) and now they have a new outpost in Williamsburg — a mercantile for which 100% of profits are going to support Waves for Water’s Hurricane Sandy relief efforts. Stop by for a haircut, some Stumptown Coffee and good, upstanding holiday gifts for your loved ones and yourself. If you’re staying with us at Ace, flash your room key for 10% off everything in the shop.
All snapshots from Rudy’s Facebook page.
Fig. 1
Roy Hudgins was an extraordinary person from Delhi, Louisiana. Our friend Aubree Bernier-Clarke, of Portlandia and Where the Wild Things Are, is making a documentary about this gender outlaw, songwriter (see Fig. 1), musician and individual of mysterious origin. She and her team have five days to raise money to finish the film — chip in if you can so we can all behold the resulting glory. Read all about it.
For the love of shorty, we’ve translated some Ace classics onto miniature shirts and a handful of onesies, like this Ace Hotel Seattle tugboat, just huffin’ and puffin’ away. You can see the full gang on our shop. Through tonight, we’re giving 10% of all sales to New York Cares to aid in Hurricane Sandy relief efforts.
Our fair Gotham took a few hits recently but New York can get down without ever being out. As New Yorkers go, we can’t complain. Our extended Ace Hotel New York family came through the way they always do for each other and so did our guests and friends. Not all of New York was so fortunate though. Some New Yorkers could use a hand to get back their NYC swagger and keep keeping on.
We’re donating 10% of all proceeds on the online shop to New York Cares for the next week starting now. In the meanwhile, we’re working on some special wares to benefit recovery efforts with some artists we know and our in-house design team. Until all of NYC is back on its feet, we’re just going to act like this whole archipelago is one big borough and we’ll be looking out for ways to help those in need and ways our friends around here and around the world can plug in to volunteer their time, donations and creativity. We’ll keep you posted.
Join us in The Cleaners today at Ace Hotel Portland for Nike Graphic Design Studio’s One & Done show, featuring the highly encoded and very secret work being done in their mysterious lair in the Portland outskirts. The show benefits one of Portland’s very best and brightest organizations, Self Enhancement, Inc., illustrated above in fully glory.
Sunday marked the one year anniversary of the tsunami and earthquake that devastated the northeastern coast of Japan, killing over 19,000 people and resulting in a nuclear crisis. We can’t express enough our love and empathy for our friends in Japan as the world marks this moment in history. The strength, perseverance and creativity the people of Japan have demonstrated over the past year humbles us beyond words.
You can donate money directly to relief efforts in Japan by purchasing our tees with Ace New York artist Kenzo Minami and Japanese surfer and artist Yusuke Hanai — one hundred percent of the sales go to The Real Medicine Foundation. Cash donations are also more than welcome on their website.
One good way to support is just to send a lot of love over the sea.
A man watches as his paper lantern, lit in commemoration of the victims of last year’s earthquake and tsunami, floats away on the one year anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami. By Daniel Berehulak, Getty Images.
Artist and pal Timothy Goodman, who gave Ace Hotel NYC room 910 its soul, is part of Plywood for Good, an auction tonight in San Francisco, hosted by Collective Good — thirty skateboard decks were distributed to thirty Bay Area artists to with as they pleased. 100% of proceeds will be donated to further support relief efforts in Japan — Tim has represented the colors of Japan’s flag in his piece. Come out if you’re in the neighborhood — see full details on Tim’s blog.
We’re super excited about Summer School — a big design, music and art workshop weekend we’re throwing on July 23 & 24 at Ace Hotel Palm Springs. You can spend all weekend making art, learning to screenprint and blockprint, and letterpressing your $&%@ing heart out, for free. A handful of artists we admire from LA and Southern California are coming into town to set up camp in the Clubhouse for two afternoons full of workshops, and the Type Truck — a touring mobile letterpress installed in the back of a 1982 Chevy van — will be parked by the lobby all weekend. $1/Minute will be doing interactive speed design on Saturday afternoon and donating all proceeds to Adbusters.
School Night Los Angeles is curating bands and DJs by the pool and in the Amigo Room, and we’re finishing up Sunday night with a pop-up shop and gallery, Show & Tell, where we’ll be showcasing the art you’ve been making all weekend and some prints by visiting artists. Rooms are 10% off with rate code SCHOOLNIGHT, and we’ve got drink specials and 15% off on some of our favorite treatments at the Feel Good Spa all weekend, too.
See the calendar for more info — we’ll see you by the pool next weekend with ink-stained fingertips and an adult chocolate milk.
Keep an eye out for artist interviews over the next week or so, and learn more about your teachers.
We were incredibly honored to host the first openly gay royal in the world, Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil of India. As an activist, organic farmer, public health educator and humanitarian, Prince Manvendra has gained legalization for homosexuality in India, founded multiple organizations to support the gay and lesbian community of India and educate about HIV prevention, and travelled far and wide with a message of self-empowerment, mutual aid, and political and social enlightenment.
During his stay at Ace Hotel New York, he found a moment to tell us more about his experiences, his activism and his take on the gay and lesbian culture in the US.
How are you finding your stay in New York?
Oh, wonderful. The Ace Hotel is really looking after me very well, it’s rather pampering me, I would say. And my stay has been really wonderful until now, very enjoyable and meeting up with a lot of people. And I must say, New York is very warm and friendly.
Oh, good, I’m so glad to hear it.
Even though the weather is not warm, the people are warm. So I’m having a very comfortable time here.
I’m curious if you feel that being part of the royal family has made it easier or more difficult for you to come out as gay and do the work that you do?
Initially it was very difficult because I happened to be the only openly gay royal in the whole world and the first person to come out and talk. And I think I still enjoy the monopoly, nobody has yet come out and talked that openly. And it was very challenging for me because I was disowned by my family, publicly disowned and publicly disinherited, my effigies were burned in the fire and people kind of protested against my coming out and there was a lot of outcry. And then gradually it faded down because I told the media that I don’t blame the society, I blame their ignorance.
And it is bound to happen that whenever something new happens, or this kind of thing happens, in society people are bound to react. And it is my duty to make them aware of what is the facts of life and I always say if one has to solve a problem, one has to go to the root of that problem. And in order to do that, one has to realize or one has to accept the facts of life or one has to accept the reality, come to terms to the reality. Then you can solve that problem. So now I started doing that, media has helped me a lot. Indian media really has brought out very positive stories on homosexuality, which they were not doing in the past. And I’ve managed to sensitize the media, the print media as well as the television media and especially the vernacular media and through their help I managed to sensitize a lot of people, made them aware of what is the truth. A lot of misconceptions about homosexuality we managed to kind of remove from their minds and that’s how the process began. And now it’s fine, people have started accepting gradually. And more than that, I think my attachment to a call or a larger call helped me a lot for the people to accept me. And the fact that I’ve been doing a lot of social work, not just for the gay community but for others as well in the fields of employment, education, agriculture, health.
So that branding of mine, I would call it, helped me to gain… regain the respect from the people, from my town, from my family. And again, Oprah’s interview made a difference because when people realized that I was the third Indian to be invited by her and the only one to be invited twice, they realized that if Oprah is calling me all the way to Chicago and I mean there are a lot of Oprah fans in India and all of them know that Oprah is not gay. So if there’s a person who’s not in the community and yet she is so openly supporting this whole entire call, I mean there is something, there’s some substance to my fight. So that’s how people… I could change people’s attitudes and mindsets and it’s gradually happening. I mean I am kind of realizing that very soon we will be kind of, you know, achieving our freedom very soon.
