Deep in the heart of a very definable neighborhood rarely referred to as NoMad, the Ace Hotel has out-cooled itself again. When the people at Ace sat down to dream up New York chic, they checked off the boxes for coffee with Stumptown, oysters at John Dory, perfect and drippy lamb-feta burgers at the Breslin, and an outpost for the bastion of avant-garde downtown style at Opening Ceremony. With only one checkbox left for start-up hungry entrepreneurs and bloggers, the Ace was near giving up. How would they fit into this mess? But, if you build such a compound, tired and half-motivated entrepreneurs and bloggers will come. And they did, flooding the poorly lit lobby with more MacBooks using the free WiFi than the eye could see, occasionally taking espresso breaks. And now Google is getting involved.
Ace guests and non-guests alike will get a truly immersive cultural "truly New York" experience: Between June 1 and September 30, every guest room will come equipped with a Google Chromebook and a super fleece-y and snazzy slipcover. And for those not even staying at the hotel, the Ace front desk can help anyone camouflage into the swanky scene since they'll be doling out Chromebooks by the dozen, if you just ask.
But don't think that non-guests will be able to get concierge service or something just because they already get to use every cool hotel amenity. Ohhhh, right. There's a free Google Chrome New York Field Guide app that anyone can download by Superfuture (albeit made for the Ace) so that everyone can "discover the most clandestine shop in a city" and "share an appreciation for cutting edge creativity" that they're calling a "virtual concierge." All we want to know is: why would someone even pay to stay there anymore when we can get it for free?
