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Keys to the City: Concierge Services
“We’ll help you pick out an engagement ring, then we’ll help you pick it out of the drain,” boasts the web site of Abigail Michaels, the high-profile-and-rising New York City concierge service run by Abbie Newman and her partner Michael Fazio. Concierge services like theirs are being called in as regular features at New York City’s newest luxury condos like Rushmore, Element, The Avery, Sheffield57 and 25 Broad Street, providing residents with services that include complete move-in management, housekeeping, dog walking, restaurant and entertainment reservations, personal chef-finding, catering, personal shopping, travel bookings, tickets and more on a daily basis, at no extra charge.

So, how is a concierge service better than the garden-variety doorman? From restaurants to nightclubs, selective shops to art galleries, antique stores or the newest Broadway show, they can get you in. The real aces have access to the best nightlife in town, and velvet ropes fall before them. During the daylight hours they’re pros at arranging vacations, shopping, fitness, massage, hair styling, flowers, pet care, and anything else that requires a golden rolodex and a few phone calls. A favorite among the Brooklyn brownstones: Baby stroller finder.

Concierge anecdotes range from the request to have a deceased pet cat stuffed or locate a dog masseuse, to the client who wanted the double-decker bus she had purchased shipped home to Dubai, to the “seriously, why don’t you just do it yourself?” request of finding an engagement ring. However, they’re known for their confidentiality (A pair of former concierges at the Four Seasons Hotel in Chicago wrote a tell-all book, Great Reservations: Two Concierges Dish about Outrageous Requests, Celebrity Encounters and Guests Behaving Badly at a Luxury Hotel, but it was pulled before publication because it violated confidentiality agreements), so you won’t hear much dish about bizarre celeb requests, and most will draw the line at double-booking at popular restaurants, as this would jeopardize their relationships with the establishments, and in turn their reps as door openers to their clients.