New York’s Jumeirah Essex House Collaborates with CentralPark.com To Launch the Site’s Largest Online Photo Contest

NEW YORK | New York City’s iconic Jumeirah Essex House announces an interactive online photography contest in collaboration with CentralPark.com. Debuting to coincide with the start of the spring season, the CentralPark.com Photo Contest () will provide incentive for shutterbugs to photograph their favorite Central Park subject, submit their images online to be rated by website members, who then list the top ranked photos to be judged by a distinguished panel of curators who specialize in photography that select the winners. Winners will receive fabulous prizes to be provided by both the hotel and CentralPark.com.

”We are very excited to deepen our partnership with CentralPark.com and share our mutual affection for Central Park with the public through photography – a medium that everyone loves,” stated Katherine Gass, Curator for Jumeirah Essex House. Gass added, “This initiative is one more articulation of Jumeirah Essex House’s commitment to its community and the hotel’s positioning of being ‘Always in touch with the Park. Never out of touch with the City’.”

The contest, open to the general public and Jumeirah Essex House guests, is divided into quarters, one for each season, with one final first-place winner for each quarter. At the end of each season, an esteemed panel of jurors will vote on their favorite photos, which will have been narrowed down by public vote on the CentralPark.com website. Since their launch in 2005, thousands of Central Park photos taken by the public have been submitted and uploaded to the site, making the feature one of the most popular offered on CentralPark.com. The site also provides visitors with a seamless and easy method for rating each photo, with the top-ranked pictures then displayed on their gallery page. The Photo Contest will provide prizes for the top-ranked photographs that are submitted for each season of the year. Every three months, the top 30 user-uploaded photos, as rated by CentralPark.com members, will be passed on to be reviewed by a panel of five renowned judges invited by the Jumeirah Essex House. The panel then selects the best photos out of the group, and prizes are awarded accordingly.

Winning photos are selected and based on their originality, creativity and subject matter. Prizing includes the following:

1st (Grand) Prize – the winning photo will be featured prominently in the Jumeirah Essex House’s lobby for a three-month period. Photographer and photo to be featured in Jumeirah’s newsletter, dedication page on CentralPark.com and the Jumeirah Essex House website, honored guest at Awards celebration, private preview with panel of judges, and complimentary two-night stay at the Jumeirah Essex House including daily breakfast for two.

2nd Prize – winner to receive invitation to Awards celebration, and a complimentary one-night stay at the Jumeirah Essex House including breakfast for two.

3rd Prize – winner to receive invitation to Awards celebration, a CentralPark.com merchandise gift bag, and complimentary afternoon high tea for four guests.

The Awards celebration will be held at the Jumeirah Essex House, and is tentatively scheduled for spring 2009.

The judges are experts in the fields of photography and include:

• Erin Barnett, Assistant Curator of Collections at the International Center of Photography in New York. Located in the heart of New York City, the International Center of Photography (ICP) is a world-class museum and school dedicated to exploring the possibilities of the photographic medium through dynamic exhibitions and educational programs.
  
  
• Sean Corcoran, Curator of Prints and Photographs at the Museum of the City of New York and currently curator for two ongoing museum exhibitions, John Sloan’s New York and Manhattan Noon: Photographs by Gus Powell.
  
  
• Bruce Davidson, one of the country’s most pre-eminent photographers and Magnum Photo member who has spent his career photographing people and places in Central Park. Mr. Davidson attended the Rochester Institute of Technology and Yale University and his photographs have been acquired by many major museums and private collections worldwide including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Smithsonian, George Eastman House, and the International Center of Photography.
  
  
• Diana Edkins, Director of Exhibitions and Limited Edition Photographs, Aperture Foundation. Aperture – the premier not-for-profit arts institution dedicated to advancing fine photography – was founded in 1952 by six profoundly gifted individuals possessed of lofty ideals and high ambition: photographers including Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, Barbara Morgan, Minor White; historian Beaumont Newhall; and writer/curator Nancy Newhall.
  
  
• Katherine Gass, Curator of the Jumeirah Essex House whose art program is focused on newly commissioned and historic photography themed around Central Park.

About CentralPark.com
CentralPark.com, the complete guide to Central Park, is an award-winning website that is informative and useful, as well as insightful and entertaining. It strives to provide a place for people, New Yorkers, all over the world to visit their park: a place to share photos of their favorite places and memories of visits past. A tool that enables park visitors to take full advantage of the Park’s many familiar features, as well as introduce them to some of Central Park lesser known treasures. CentralPark.com reaches over a half-million visitors per month. It has also proven to be the perfect vehicle for sharing the complimentary Walking Tour audio files, interactive mapping system and downloadable PDFs that were launched in the fall of 2007 and sponsored by Jumeirah Essex House. John B. Moore, Content Director for CentralPark.com, is the author of the walking tours and is currently writing a book on Central Park’s hidden secrets and mysteries scheduled for a future release.

About Jumeirah Essex House
The 509-room Jumeirah Essex House celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2007 and recently completed a major $90 million soft goods refurbishment project which includes South Gate, a spectacular new Tony Chi-designed restaurant, featuring renowned Executive Chef Kerry Heffernan. This historic New York City hotel, with a coveted Central Park address, is ideally located in the heart of Manhattan. Jumeirah Essex House is part of the Dubai-based luxury international hospitality group Jumeirah and sister to the world’s most luxurious hotel, Burj Al Arab. Features of the hotel include breathtaking views, unrivalled conference and banqueting facilities.

The Jumeirah Essex House is a recipient of both the Michelin Guide’s 2008 “Five Pavilions Award,” and the 2008 AAA Four-Diamond Award. The hotel garnered three awards at the 2007 Annual World Travel Awards in New York including “North America’s Leading Hotel,” “North America’s Leading Business Hotel” and “New York’s Leading Business Hotel” voted by travel agents worldwide and was ranked second in the “Best Hotel in the U.S.” category in Global Traveler Magazine’s 2006 GT Tested Awards.

Other hotels in the Group’s portfolio include Jumeirah Carlton Tower and Jumeirah Lowndes Hotel in London, Jumeirah Beach Hotel, Jumeirah Emirates Towers, Jumeirah Beach Club Resort and Spa, Madinat Jumeirah and Jumeirah Bab Al Shams Desert Resort & Spa in Dubai. For reservations, please call Jumeirah Essex House toll free at 1-888-645-5697 or visit

About Jumeirah Group
Jumeirah properties are regarded as among the most luxurious and innovative in the world and have won numerous international travel and tourism awards. The fast growing Dubai based luxury international hospitality management group encompasses the world renowned Burj Al Arab, the world’s most luxurious hotel, the multi-award winning Jumeirah Beach Hotel, Jumeirah Emirates Towers, Madinat Jumeirah and Jumeirah Bab Al Shams Desert Resort & Spa in Dubai, the Jumeirah Carlton Tower and Jumeirah Lowndes Hotel in London and the Jumeirah Essex House on Central Park South in New York.

The group’s activities are however, not restricted to hotel and resort management. The Jumeirah Group portfolio also includes Wild Wadi, regarded as one of the premier water parks outside of North America and The Emirates Academy, the region’s only third level academic institution specializing in the hospitality and tourism sectors, Jumeirah Branded Restaurants, the company’s dedicated restaurant division, global spa brand Talise, Jumeirah Living, the Group’s luxury brand of serviced residences offering effortless living in luxurious surroundings and Jumeirah Retail, Jumeirah Group’s retail division with a portfolio of 14 retail stores and dedicated luxury retail website .

Building on this success, Jumeirah Group became a member of Dubai Holding in 2004, a collection of leading Dubai based businesses and projects, in a step that aims to initiate a new phase of growth and development for the group.

Jumeirah’s ambitious expansion plans to grow its portfolio of luxury hotels and resorts worldwide to 57 by 2011 are well underway with projects currently under development in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Aqaba, Doha, Phuket, Shanghai, Bermuda, Mallorca and London.

For further information, visit the website at www.jumeirah.com.