Luxury hotel manager fired after making vulgar Ash Wednesday remarks

CatholicNewsAgency ^ | New York City, N.Y., Mar 26, 2009

[GonzoII]

Luxury hotel manager fired after making vulgar Ash Wednesday remarks

The New York Palace Hotel / Niklaus Leuenberger

New York City, N.Y., Mar 26, 2009 / 11:56 pm (CNA).- The manager of the luxurious New York Palace Hotel was fired after obscenely ordering a Catholic employee to clean the ashes from his forehead on Ash Wednesday.

According to the New York Daily News, on Feb. 25 the hotel’s managing director Niklaus Leuenberger told bell captain Mike Murray “Wipe that f-----g s--t off your face,” referring to the ashes Murray had received at an Ash Wednesday service.

The 893-room five-star hotel is 55 stories tall and is on Madison Avenue across the street from St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The hotel leases its land from the Catholic Church.

Hotel spokeswoman Teresa Delaney told the Daily News that Leuenberger’s employment was terminated as of Monday. He had worked at the hotel since May 2007.

Christopher Cowdray, head of the London-based Dorchester Collection which owns the hotel, flew to New York City to personally end Leuenberger’s employment.

“We take the well-being of our employees extremely seriously and that is why our CEO, Mr. Cowdray, went to New York in person to deal with this matter,” the company said.

Bell captain Murray said the general manager wanted the ashes off, “and he knows he was wrong.” He told the Daily News that he had never been approached on a religious issue before. Murray, who had worked at the hotel for 25 years, also said he had no plans to sue.

Nigel Badminton, who was previously the resident manager at the Dorchester in London, is now the acting general manager at the New York Palace.

Copyright @ CNA
(http://www.catholicnewsagency.com)

[ReleaseTheHounds]

I checked this thread to see if any Freepers remembered or brought up Ted Turner’s comment from years ago... On an Ash Wednesday several years ago, Ted Turner was at CNN headquarters and saw some employees with ash on their foreheads and he asked “What is this?! Do we have a bunch of Jesus-freaks working here?!!!” or something like that.

Welcome to the world of selective politically correct language.

[steve-b]

What an a-hole!

[eastsider]

Hey, Niklaus, you can wipe that grin off your face now.

[july4thfreedomfoundation]

I believe Ted also made a snide public comment that he thought the employees were survivors of the Seattle earthquake (there was a large earthquake deep underground in the Seattle area shortly before Ash Wednesday that year). Only moderate damage because the quake was so deep.

[isom35]

Leuenberger sounds like a 5-star a##-hole.

[50sDad]

Fired? He’s just lucky he didn’t draw a picture of Allah!

[gondramB]

I wonder if he knew the significance - I’ve never seen anyone with ashes like that - although I’d like to think I’d be more polite about it.

[Frantzie]

The hotel is next to St. Paul’s (?) Catholic Church - the most famous one in NYC. The idiot must not have known that the hotel leased the land the hotel is own from the Catholic Church. Whoops!

[Frantzie]

St. Patrick’s I think. My mistake.

[Mrs. Don-o]

God bless Christopher Cowdray! Lord love him, punching the air and high-fives. He must really be a mensch.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

That would result in an even more ‘negative outcome’ for the guy, wouldn’t it?

Tsk. Tsk. So easily offended, those religious fanatics. ;)

[reaganaut]

no, the bellman who as offended has no plans to sue. He was not fired.

[reaganaut]

I want to know why it took 30 days for this guy to be fired? It isn’t like the CEO had to take an immigrant ship to NYC.

[Lorica]

I wonder if he knew the significance - I’ve never seen anyone with ashes like that - although I’d like to think I’d be more polite about it.

I'm willing to bet he did. The hotel is across from St. Patrick's Cathedral, where over 60,000 Catholics received ashes this last Ash Wednesday.

[NYer]

Apologies for the duplicate thread.

[Coleus]

no big deal, we've all done it before...BTW, the story was posted a couple of days ago.

 

New York Palace Hotel boss Niklaus Leuenberger gets the door after Ash Wednesday slur

[tob2]

Don’t remember that remark but just that Turner is an atheist. One Ash Wednesday a group of us went to a Subway’s sandwich shop after mass. The clerk got upset seeing so many of us with ashes on our foreheads. She wanted to know what had happened to us. We explained the Catholic tradition of the ashes and the purpose for them, at which point she haughtily informed us she didn’t think much of Catholics as she thought this was abuse and was going to wash off the ashes! While eating our sandwiches, decided to speak to the store manager about this insensitive behaviour. Don’t know what happened after we left but felt good that we had did the best we could.

[gondramB]

>> I wonder if he knew the significance - I’ve never seen anyone with ashes like that - although I’d like to think I’d be more polite about it.

---

I’m willing to bet he did. The hotel is across from St. Patrick’s Cathedral, where over 60,000 Catholics received ashes this last Ash Wednesday. <<

Excellent point.

[Straight Vermonter]

I want to know why it took 30 days for this guy to be fired? It isn’t like the CEO had to take an immigrant ship to NYC.

I would imagine it took some time for the issue to work its way up the chain of command.