What Makes Hipster Hotels Work From Brooklyn to Paris


Skift Take

The influence of the Wythe Hotel and Brooklyn hipster bohemia is becoming a label for identifying hotel trends in emerging urban neighborhoods around the world.

[gallery ids="113941,113942,113943,113957,113954,113953,113958,113951,113952"] Two high-profile stories this year in The New York Times Style Magazine and The New York Times illustrate Brooklyn's role as the purveyor of cool to urban environments around the world. Although maligned by many, "Brooklynization" has spread through post-industrial neighborhoods worldwide. For example, regarding the suddenly hot 'burb of Canal St-Martin in Paris, Conde Nast Traveler's recent cover story describes the region in the 10th arrondisement as the Brooklyn of Paris, identified by the rise of the French 'ipster. That goes double for hotel design. Suddenly, every hot hotel for the Millennial traveler is catering to the grunge-meets-geek-meets-grad-school crowd. New hotels like the 72-room Wythe Hotel in Brooklyn look and feel like they were conceived over darts and craft beer by a group of anti-establishment friends employed as welders, baristas, and vintage boutique shopgirls. Having visited both the Wythe and brand new Hotel FABRIC in Canal St-Martin recently, it's easy to see the commonalities between the two hotels and their communities. First, let's define "Hotel Brooklyn": Adaptive reuse architecture is a big one, recycling historic buildings with a priority for responsible preservation of design elements and character of the original structure. The "industrial-c