To prepare the best panel we can we hope to gather attendees’ stories and experiences from 2600 meetings worldwide. We’ll be chatting with those of you in NYC at our meetings, and we would also really love to hear from our friends at other meetings all over the world.

How has going to 2600 meetings affected you? Where has your meeting been, and where is it going? Have they gotten better or worse in your opinion? What are some of your favorite 2600 meeting anecdotes and stories? We’d love to hear it all. If you’re into chatting with us over email, instant messenger, phone, etc. and helping us build our presentation, please contact us and we’ll set it up!

We’d also love to get in touch with our own counterparts at other meetings. Do you run your local meeting’s website, admin your local meeting’s forum, or perform other point-of-contact duties? Let’s swap stories!

Thank you in advance for all your help!
– Gonzo, Grey, and Rob

Now, to the next stage. The full board meeting of the landmark commission will be held at 6:00 PM this Thursday, November 8th.

Location: F.I.T.
227 West 27th Street at 7th Avenue
Building “C”
Haft Auditorium, 2nd Floor

This is the hearing which will decide whether or not the Hotel Pennsylvania gets landmark status. It is vital that every last person who is able to attends the meeting and speaks their mind. As a wise philosopher once said, “I know some of you like to wait till the last minute… well, this is it! This is the last minute!”

Interested speakers will have to fill out a form and reserve their three minutes of speaking time. Be prepared to say, in three minutes, why you feel this place should become a landmark.

This apparent local apathy is perhaps best explained in the article’s quote from Emmanuel Goldstein:

“Just recently, I was in Vienna and Pisa [Italy], where people expressed a great deal of concern to me over the fate of the hotel. It was hard (and rather embarrassing) to explain why New Yorkers might not care enough to get involved. The hotel was old; the rooms weren’t as big and luxurious as other more modern facilities; and New Yorkers simply weren’t in a position to grasp the importance of such a place since they normally don’t need cheap and easily accessible hotels if they already live here.”

A new article in the Observer indicates that while Merrill Lynch has “given every indication” that it intends to move to a new skyscraper built upon the site of the Hotel, there is still “a glimmer of hope.”

The Hotel Pennsylvania demolition project requires public approval, which could take a year, and would entail building over the railroad tracks that run beneath the hotel and pose engineering and security challenges.

A committee of the local Community Board 5 meets Tuesday to discuss whether the hotel merits consideration as a protected landmark. The meeting takes place at 6 p.m. on Oct. 30 at 227 West 27th Street, 8th floor, Rm A802.

As Pirho of SaveTheHotel.org noted on the HOPE forums, “if this Hotel does not get the landmarking it deserves, then the fight is over.”

If you want to see this hotel stay, show up and speak at the Community Board 5 Meeting this Tuesday at 6PM.

This could be our last chance to save the Hotel Pennsylvania.

This is a good thing. Not only will this forum be used by the community to get a head start on planning 2008′s HOPE conference, there is also a board dedicated to the threat faced by the Hotel Pennsylvania.

Register and join in the discussion!

More info on 2600.com.

2600 have set up the email address hotel@2600.com to collect names of any and all involved in saving the hotel.

While passing around said Daily News article at yesterday’s meeting, Emmanuel Goldstein proclaimed that “the gauntlet has been thrown.”