Our condolences to the family, friends, and colleagues of Ace Hotel founder Alex Calderwood, who died Thursday. Though he didn't found the brand in New York (rather in Seattle), his New York outpost on Broadway's Silicon Alley gave a home to NY's creative tech industry and focused hotels on the young and hip, just as office environments and retail are doing. Flatiron/23rd Street Partnership exec director Jennifer Brown met him in the early stages of the development of Ace Hotel (which we snapped at 29th Street) and calls him a creative visionary.
"The Ace put a relatively obscure part of Broadway on the map, literally," she says. "Alex's vision was the catalyst that led to the transformation of that part of Broadway into the increasingly hip, dynamic commercial corridor that it is today." Commenters on Ace New York's blog echo her praise, including, "Gamechanger. ... Lost a creative risk taker today" and "'Visionary' gets tossed around too lightly in the hotel biz. Alex Calderwood truly was one. ... Thanks for sticking it to the man, Alex."
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