Goldman Sachs Goes Slumming

Posted by Bess Levin, Mar 12, 2009, 9:25am

Picture 874.pngSo, we hope this doesn't sound entitled, but Lloyd Craig Blankfein, this is a total crock. You see that shit hole at left? Bet you never would've thought we'd be telling you that Goldman Sachs employees are being chained to that bed, and others like it down the hall, did ya? The Journal reports that not only are Goldman employees no longer being put up at the Ritz, but they're going as downmarket as Embassy Suites. And if you think you can still charge a hooker to the room and no one will say anything, think again, former MOTUs! You won't even be able to get away with ordering a well-deserved Backdoor Sluts 9 off pay-per-view at the end of a long day. Blankfein's made it his personal responsibility to go through that shit line by line.

Some of the bankers aren't happy with the switch. "No one's supposed to complain out loud, but, let's face it, we're spoiled," says one Goldman employee. "They turned us into hotel snobs."

One night recently, a dozen Goldman employees from the Chicago office were yucking it up at happy hour, which starts at 5:30 sharp. The group was huddled around three tables in a cafeterialike room overlooking the headquarters of Merrill Lynch & Co., now owned by Bank of America, drinking free Budweiser out of plastic cups and eating pretzels and tortilla chips. Another evening, topics of conversation around the bar ranged from Bermuda reinsurers to hedge-fund fraud.

Inside Goldman, the hotel has become the butt of jokes. There are grumblings about its accommodations and a wake-up call service that blares "cock-a-doodle-do" into the telephone. For the many Goldman executives who visit New York for meetings in midtown Manhattan, the hotel's location on the far southwestern edge of the island is inconvenient.

Though just a mile from each other, the Ritz-Carlton Battery Park and Embassy Suites Battery Park are worlds apart. Rooms at the Ritz offer views of New York Harbor and the Statue of Liberty; Embassy Suites rooms look out across the Hudson River, at Jersey City, N.J. Ritz guests luxuriate in 400-thread-count Frette linens made of 100% Egyptian cotton, while at the Embassy Suites guests sleep on 250-thread-count Hilton Hotel-brand sheets made of a 60/40 cotton-poly blend.

And forget free breakfast or drinks at the Ritz, which offers an $11 Irish oatmeal brûlée with berries compote in the morning and a $14 Ritz Carlton Martini (gin, muddled cucumber, mint and fresh lime juice) at night.

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