Ian Schrager’s Public Hotel Brand Isn’t Dead After All

When Ian Schrager opened the first Public hotel in Chicago in 2011, there was — as there always is with Schrager — plenty of buzz. The man largely viewed as a pioneer of the boutique hotels movement in the U.S., and who became famous as the owner of the iconic Studio 54 nightclub before that, is a media magnet. And the opening of Public Chicago signaled another significant chapter in his career as a boutique hotelier. That property, located on Chicago's Gold Coast, was a $60 million reinvention of the beloved Ambassador East and it was to embody Schrager's vision of what "affordable luxury" could be. It was Schrager's first new project as an independent hotelier since 2005, when he sold Morgans Hotel Group and began his own eponymous company. Fast forward six years, however, and the Public Chicago is still there, but it's no longer affiliated with Schrager, although it still bears the brand name. Schrager sold the property in 2016 for the same amount of money he spent