Who Left The Dogs Out?*

The esteemed Hotel Pennsylvania may close, leaving hundreds of Westminster dogs in the lurch and affording the Observer the opportunity to gratuitously mention “doggie style” in a headline (“Doomed Hotel Penn Sends Other Lodges Scrambling for Doggie Style” . . . ew!):

This year’s Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show was likely your last chance to romp around the wood-chip-covered “Green Room.” Or to leave your own personal mark on the bleach-stained carpets that line the loathsome two-star hotel’s hallways—or, better yet, on hotel flack turned “doggie concierge” Jerry Grymek’s pant leg.

The landmark hotel, which every year reserves its best service strictly for four-legged guests, may be history even before next year’s show.

A report last month by brokerage Grubb & Ellis indicated that Vornado Realty Trust, which owns the longstanding hotel site, plans to demolish the swing-era monument and erect an enormous office tower in its place. No pets allowed!

Vornado has been unabashedly unimpressed by the dog show’s unofficial host hotel for years, likening the building in a company report to “a placeholder, sort of like a parking lot” — which might help to explain the staff’s longstanding no-fear policy when it comes to fur balls.

But for every door that closes — into, say, a dark, dank, bedbug-infested room — another opens. Meaning, of course, that some dog-friendly hotelier could, er, clean up next year:

Shuttering the overly pet-friendly Hotel Penn will create a significant shortage in kennel-club-worthy rooms citywide, given the more than 1,000 dogs that reportedly roamed the 1,700-room venue this year.

“A lot of hotels in the area, they don’t take dogs,” Ms. Williams noted, “so it becomes a problem for people who come from out of town.”

In fact, only 12 of the 19 hotels recommended on Westminster’s Web site even allow dogs — make that 11 of 18 if you take away the Hotel Penn. (The other seven suggested are presumably for mere spectators.) And three of those so-called dog-friendly venues will only accept pooches up to a certain size. The Park Lane, for instance, won’t shelter pets larger than 10 pounds; Springer spaniels like “Best in Show” winner Felicity’s Diamond Jim would be left out in the cold.

None of the others are as big or as conveniently located as the Pennsylvania, which sits just across the street from the dog show’s home for decades, Madison Square Garden.

Even doubling up, those 1,000 displaced dogs would utterly overwhelm the nearby 532-room Radisson, located a mere block away along West 34th Street; it hosted a comparatively minor 200 or so dogs last week.

*See, now isn’t a family-friendly Baha Men reference so much nicer than a crude sexual reference?