(Photo: Patrick McMullan)

I an Schrager has been checked into two far less festive establishments than those he’s made his name on creating (the Hudson, the Delano, the Gramercy Park Hotel). The hotelier/real-estate developer had an attack of appendicitis, followed by several complications, which kept him in Beth Israel and New York Columbia–Presbyterian hospitals for five weeks. Now, both he and his sense of humor are back at work. But it wasn’t easy: Even his surgery went dangerously awry. “That happens to one in 400 people, and I was the one,’’ he said. “Every one of those things that could occur, happened to me.’’ Schrager, who’s 59, is finally back at work (his company is busy finishing up the new condos at 50 Gramercy Park North and 40 Bond Street) but says that he’s leaving his office early these days because he’s “in recovery mode.” He insists that both Alan Yau’s Park Chinois and the Private Rooftop Club at the Gramercy Park Hotel are on schedule to open this winter.

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Related:

• Archive: “Intelligencer”
• Articles by Beth Landman
• Table of Contents: Dec 11, 2006 issue of New York | Subscribe!