The salon was decorated with photographs by New York legends, many of them on the scuzzier fringe - Nan Goldin, Joel Meyerowitz, Diane Arbus, Tseng Kwong Chi - though the divide between the collection and the collectors was very clear. Then the elevator ferried us noiselessly up, and we walked, accompanied by Crosta, into the oasis, designed in haute-hotel style by Yabu Pushelberg, the firm known, unsurprisingly, for its haute hotels. Aside from a private hotel bar in Singapore, the Centurion New York is the company’s first foray into non-airport hubs.Īs we waited for our entry passes to print, I wondered aloud if our receptionist, a young woman in a bouclé jacket, had been faced with any crashers.
If the Centurion name is familiar, it may be from the 20-plus Centurion lounges Amex operates in airports worldwide (13 of them in the U.S.). On a recent Tuesday night, I ascended from Grand Central to One Vanderbilt to check in at the ground-floor reception desk. Where membership fails, connections succeed. “You can call and beg me for it,” Elizabeth Crosta, an Amex vice president of communications, told me cheerfully, “but nothing much will happen.” Amex, again, would not confirm, and membership is by invitation only. an insider speculated to me that it might be as low as 5,000, hedging that even he couldn’t be sure. There are rumored to be something like 20,000 Centurion cards in the U.S. For those who spend $250,000, or maybe $350,000, or quite possibly $500,000 a year on their cards - Amex will not confirm the exact number - the Centurion card, for a $10,000 initiation fee and a $5,000 annual membership, offers unparalleled concierge services, at the ready with anything from private-jet bookings to Renaissance tickets, and all the bragging rights come from clanging down a physical metonym of one percent status.
the “black” card), a mythic status symbol in the expense-account community. It exists for the more or less exclusive enjoyment of owners of the American Express Centurion card (a.k.a. The Centurion is nominally bookable on Amex-owned Resy, although I have yet to see a reservation available. And now here comes the Centurion New York, a mostly private warren of dining rooms, bars, and a “salon” 55 floors up the midtown super-tall One Vanderbilt. The San Vicente Bungalows, soon to take over the former Jane Hotel, hails from L.A.
Casa Cruz, in a Beaux-Arts manse on East 61st, is a London import. Casa Cipriani, on the waterfront, hosts Saudi princesses. The mayor parties at Zero Bond, mostly protected from prying eyes as he dances with Wendi Deng. New York is once again in a clubby moment, with private hospitality on the rise. Would the Centurion have me? Doctor, they would.Įntrée was not otherwise guaranteed. As ladies bid on auction lots like a cocktail party at the Chopard boutique and a four-night stay at a wellness retreat called the Ranch at Palazzo Fiuggi, the good doctor pulled out his phone and texted a well-placed friend. Andrew Jacono - the architect of faces including Marc Jacobs’s (I am betraying no confidences here: Jacobs is happy to acknowledge his work) - was telling me that the real power spot was Centurion New York. We found ourselves seatmates at a cancer benefit at Avra, the Madison Avenue estiatorio that serves Greek salads to what remains of the uptown power-lunch elite, and Dr. It was the celebrity plastic surgeon who clued me in.
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