The Big Apple Under One Roof

New Yorkers need little prodding to extol their hometown. Whether discussing Gotham’s culture, food or sports teams, lifelong residents and newcomers alike display unabashed passion for their city. However, the unique social fabric woven by its individual boroughs, neighborhoods and landmarks may often be forgotten with the Naked City’s overarching sound and fury of its 8.3 million inhabitants.

Owners of the Distrikt Hotel, a 155-room hotel that opened in late February in midtown Manhattan, aspires to create an environmental-graphic patina that invites its guests to ponder the cultural amenities of NYC’s numerous enclaves.

To accomplish this goal, the Distrikt’s architects, OTTE Architecture, hired artist Chris Rubino to devise series of murals and illuminated-lightbox graphics to depict the blandishments of the Big Apple’s respective neighborhoods while providing functional brightness for each floor’s lobby.

“Two years, I was hosting an exhibit in Times Square, a show that expressed my love for the city,” he said. “[OTTE] approached me to discuss how I could contribute to the hotel’s theme. I wanted the Distrikt to feature imagery they felt was only theirs and portrayed New York as we residents see it.”

All told, Rubino designed 31, 4 x 8-ft. lightbox murals – one for each hotel floor – and two, 22-ft.-tall, wallpaper murals that decorate the Distrikt’s ground-floor café. He said that, because he developed the graphics concurrent with the hotel’s construction, the collaboration enabled a smooth process.

“The job’s most challenging aspect entailed editing the images for each neighborhood and deciding which icons best captured its energy. New York is dense and overwhelmingly busy, and editing with our eyes daily proved important,” Rubino said.

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Bowman Displays (Munster, IN) built the lightboxes using internal, fluorescent fixtures sheathed within Plexiglas® acrylic. Rubino painted the cafe murals with watercolors, then took a piece of each neighborhood collage and digitally combined them all into one piece. The wallpapers were then offset printed and installed in the café.