BoomerGirl Diary

Unlike most parents who urge their kids to be realistic, I tell my daughter to be anything but. Dream big, I always say. Go for the gusto. Anything is possible.

So when I took Taz with me to New York for the recent Book Expo, we stayed in the same hotel that James Dean stayed in when he first went to New York.

Not only is the Iroquois a renowned member of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World, but it's right in the center of everything. It's two minutes from Times Square and the theater district, two minutes from the Empire State Building and two minutes from Fifth Avenue shopping.

A boutique hotel with just 112 rooms, the Iroqouis is situated on tree-lined 44th street, a couple doors down from the Algonquin where the New Yorker was born, where Lerner and Loewe wrote "My Fair Lady" and where Dorothy Parker met other literati to trade quips at their infamous roundtables. The Iroquois, which looks an awful lot like its famous cousin, is a 1923 French limestone mansion that recently underwent a $10 million face lift. All the rooms have 100-thread-count Frette linens, marble bathtubs, Molton Brown toiletries and elegant reproduction antiques furniture. A smiling doorman opens the mahogany double front doors to the limestone and granite lobby with its concierge and fresh-cut flowers.

The hotel's restaurant, the Triomphe, regularly gets rave reviews. The New York Times calls it one of the best restaurants in the city. Although Taz doesn't quite have the proper appreciation just yet, I figure one of these days she'll come to realize that you don't get New Zealand lamb with white beans, Swiss chard and pancetta chips just anywhere. Although Chef Steven Zobel holds court in the tiny restaurant now, the tony, 11-table dining room was once a barbershop where James Dean, who as I mentioned used to bunk in Room 82 of the Iroquois, had his shaggy hair cut.

Besides heavenly food and the possibility of stardom, the Iroquois also offers an over-the-top dream called the Fashionista Package. When the Iroquois first came up with this four-day, three-night Big Apple romp that includes front row seats to the Bill Blass Fashion Show, it was thinking couples — as in one man and one woman.

The package, a rare opportunity to rub elbows with the icons of the fashion industry, not to mention sit besides the catwalk with the the Jennifer Anniston-types that tend to show up, includes two first row seats to the July 18 fashion show, two daily breakfasts, two dinners at the rave-winning Triomphe, two spa treatments and two seats on the helicopter ride that transports takers from the airport straight to their luxury suite at the Iroquois.

But rather than couple, I'm thinking girlfriend getaway as in two girlfriends and zero testosterone, which as we all know, tends to get in the way when making important decisions such as how to spend the $5000 Bill Blass gift certificate that comes with the Fashionista Package.

The Iroquois' Fashionista Package rings in at a whopping $10,000, but hey, a girl has to dream.