Designtripper

The Cafe Gitane in Nolita is an institution for the fashion crowd (a friend assured me: “you’ll sit beside someone famous.”), but we chose the new location instead, tucked inside The Jane hotel, because it’s only a block from the High Line. The brunch was exceptional, and while I got a kick out of the baristas in matching striped shirts and caps and servers with identical outfits and updos, fluttering around the airy French-Moroccan-inspired space on tip-toe, I was most smitten with the restaurant and hotel interiors.

Originally built as a sailor’s hotel in 1908 (called the American Seaman’s Friend Society Sailors Home and Institute and also the place where survivor’s of the Titanic stayed until the end of the inquiry), the recently renovated Jane gets a bad rep for having small cabin-like rooms and shared loos (even though prices start at an unbeatable $99). But with a lobby and lounge as lavish, movie-set beautiful as this, who would hang out in the room anyway?

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