Posted on 03/25/2009 7:12:35 AM PDT by A.A. Cunningham
New York Palace Hotel boss Niklaus Leuenberger gets the door after Ash Wednesday slur
BY Kerry Burke And Oren Yaniv
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Wednesday, March 25th 2009, 4:00 AM
Niklaus Leuenberger no longer runs the New York Palace Hotel.
The manager of one of the city's most luxurious hotels was given the boot after ordering a Catholic employee to clean up his forehead on Ash Wednesday.
"Wipe that f-----g s--t off your face," managing director Niklaus Leuenberger told a bell captain at the New York Palace Hotel on Feb. 25, sources said.
The unholy ultimatum ended up costing Leuenberger his job at the Palace, a swanky 55-story tower on Madison Ave. across the street from St. Patrick's Cathedral.
"As of Monday, March 23, Leuenberger is no longer employed by the New York Palace," hotel spokeswoman Teresa Delaney told the Daily News Tuesday.
The incident was deemed so severe, Christopher Cowdray, head of the London-based Dorchester Collection, which owns the Palace, flew here to hand Leuenberger the pink slip.
"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.
The object of the manager's insult, bell captain Mike Murray, said the cross of dark ashes was liberally applied to his forehead at his Long Island church.
"My priest did a real number on me," he said with a chuckle.
Catholics receive the ashes as a reminder of their own mortality on Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of Lent, a 40-day period of penance that ends on Easter.
"The [general manager] wanted it off, and he knows he was wrong," added the observant Irish Catholic employee. "I've never been approached on a religious issue [before]."
The 893-room five-star hotel, where a posh suite with city views fetches well over $1,000 a night, combines Renaissance-style architecture with modern design and amenities.
The hotel leases its land from the Catholic Church.
It was the place where Leona Helmsley earned the title "Queen of Mean" in the 1980s when the hotel was called the Helmsley Palace.
Leuenberger was tapped as director in May 2007 after many years at the Peninsula Hotel.
When his appointment was announced, he was touted as "a 35-year veteran of the luxury hospitality industry" who was inducted into the "Hotelier's Hall of Achievement" by Leaders Magazine in 2005.
Reached at his Warren, N.J., home, Leuenberger declined to comment, saying, "I don't know what it's about."
Murray said he does not plan to sue.
"I've been working here for 25 years and I wouldn't want to endanger that," he said.
I live 80 miles West of Chicago in corn & soybean country. Many of my friends, as well as myself (I’ll purposely exclude my wife), have no problem going into Chicago where it’s definitely crowded. But we’re always happy to return for some reason (but not because of how we’re treated)...we just like rural life.
No, I’m not talking of being crowd intolerant. I’m talking of being downright rudely treated by at least half the people I came in contact with. On the street. In a restaurant. On the subway. Wherever. It was much different than any visit I ever had to Chicago, Milwaukee, Atlanta, LA, San Francisco, Dallas, shall I go on?
Sorry, but rudeness was in the air, almost. NYC is not a happy experience, and I will never return.
Where Does the Catholic Ash Wednesday Originate from?shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach AdonaiIt is clearly not from Yah'shua.
Perhaps Leuenberger can get a job as a greater at Notre Dame.
what is it about that hotel that attracts the monsters of the hotel industry?
July 4th 1979 dusk...Battery Park...place is going nuts with fireworks and firecrackers and is plenty crowded. I am with some high school buds. It’s their first time in NYC. We decide to take a cab back to the Times Square area where our hotel is. That cab ride was as wild a ride as any you could imagine easily rivaling any amusement park ride. At the end of it after bouncing around in the back seat and seeing our lives pass before our eyes a few times the cabbie turns around and says to us he accepts marijuana as payment in lieu of cash. Only in NYC :)
Aren’t our brains great? One little moment like that and you can make yourself cringe every time you think of it for the rest of your life...and it was entirely innocent. The average person must have hundreds, thousands of such incidents stored up during a lifetime...no wonder we go crazy.
It was all the “twenty dollar handshakes” that got me.
You can go through A LOT of cash in a very short time, while accumulating nothing.
As a former New Yorker (Queens), I may have to take you up on that offer. Thanks!
Currently, I live in Chicago and, at times, agree with some of the comments about urban environments. Although there are louts all over the world, I have had some really nice experiences in Milwaukee, the Twin Cities, London, Paris and Rome as well as the ol’ hometown of NYC. The first two seem like small towns compared to the rest.
Just let me know and be ready to walk. I’m a Queens native too (Middle Village).
Anytime. Just be ready to walk.
I have always found that my experience reflects my attitude.
Well, not knowing me, you're making a shot-in-the-dark, and missing by a mile :)
I will look you up in late Aug!!
Imagine what would have happened to him if he ticked off a muslim.
They're far friendlier in New York than people in Boston any day.
Born and raised in Boston, believe me, I know.
That I can't remark about. I've never been there.
Not all New Yorkers are from The City.
We went to NYC for 4th of July once. Manhattan was deserted. We grabbed two cabs and told the driver “Take us to McSorley’s and use the scenic route”. He took us directly there. We must have befuddled him.
I’ll be here. NYC can be hot and steamy in August, almost tropical (July is worse though). It can also be hot and dry with brilliant blue skies. Let’s pray for hot and dry...
Where Does the Catholic Ash Wednesday Originate from?It is clearly not from Yah'shua.
What a load. There is absolutely no such connection in Ash Wednesday. One can find the roots for it in the very words of the Lord himself.
Woe to thee, Corozain, woe to thee, Bethsaida: for if in Tyre and Sidon had been wrought the miracles that have been wrought in you, they had long ago done penance in sackcloth and ashes.
Matthew 11.21
We also see in Jonas that the king of Nineve "sat in ashes" in penance and repentance. Then there is Mordochai who lamented by "strewing ashes on his head." No, the practice of using ashes, specifically on the head too, as a sign of mourning or penitence is both ancient and Biblical. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the Vedas or paganism. Such imaginations are mere fictions.
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