There’s a nightclub in the basement of the Hotel Chelsea. Most everybody who lives in the hotel would rather have a laundry room, or something practical, but instead we’ve got a trendy nightclub where hardly any of us ever venture. (A real A list place. I saw Monica Lewinski go in there!) I went in Serena’s once just to see what it looks like, and—surprise!--it looks exactly like a basement, with low ceilings and exposed pipes. But besides that, it’s nicely decorated, in red and black like a lot of clubs these days. I have to admit they did a good job with it, under the circumstances.
The club was started by Serena—I forget her last name—who actually lived here for a time, maybe she still does, in order to cash in on the hipster cache of the Chelsea. Serena herself no longer owns the club, however. She sold it, hopefully for big bucks.
One night recently, a thin, pretty, young blond woman, in Manolo Blahnik heels and a sexed up dress, burst through the front door of the hotel, and came running frantically up to the desk. “Please don’t send hotel guests to my club!” the woman said, hysterically. She was apparently the hostess at Serena’s.
“People come downstairs and ask where the bar in the Chelsea Hotel is,” the desk clerk said, matter-of-factly, “and so I give them directions to Serena’s.”
“Oh, my God! Please don’t do that anymore!” the woman shrieked. “There’s a guy out there who’s already been drinking! And he’s wearing a Kentucky Wildcats sweatshirt! And now he wants in my club!”
I was standing there waiting for the elevator, and, hearing this crazy rant, I burst out laughing and the hostess turned and glared at me. “Sorry,” I said.
The hostess turned back toward the desk. “What am I supposed to do with this guy?” she said, a bit more calmly.
The desk clerk shrugged his shoulders.
“Not our problem!” the switchboard operator piped up from her corner.
The staff likes to play tricks on people. Or maybe they just get tired of explaining that there really is no Chelsea Hotel Bar. In certain guide books—apparently written by people who never visited the hotel, it says things like, “Be sure to stop by the Chelsea Hotel Bar, where Dylan Thomas and William Burroughs hoisted beers.” If they mean anything, they mean the El Quijote, which was once, 80 or 90 years ago, the hotel dining room. The El Q has more in common with the hotel, and anybody who wants to hoist beers with bohemians would obviously be better off there. But sometimes I guess it’s just good for a laugh to send an unfashionable looking tourist or two down to Serena’s.
Copyright 2006 Ed Hamilton
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