Living with Legends: Hotel Chelsea Blog

Featured E-mail of the Week -- Call for Materials About Artist Ray Johnson

William S. Wilson has written several articles on Ray Johnson and is interested in hearing from people  who knew Johnson or who have any archival material by or about him. (Photo: David Hockney's Mother's Potato Masher, Ray Johnson, 1970)

Mr. Wilson is the son of artist May Wilson. Valerie Solanas stored the gun that she used to shoot Warhol underneath May Wilson's bed. May lived at 208 West 23rd Street, next to the Chelsea Hotel. (She also resided in the Hotel briefly.)

William S. Wilson: "Valerie asked to keep her laundry, not her gun, under my mother's bed, but believe me, May Wilson not only knew that the cloth bag did not contain laundry, she sometimes pulled it out to show people, the gunshipness of the gun being obvious when the cloth of the laundry bag was pressed against it."

If you have any information about Ray Johnson, please email [email protected]

Two Chelsea Girls Celebrate

Marianne Faithfull and Patti Smith both turn 59 today.

In a recent interview in the New York Post, Patti Smith talks about the 30th anniversary of "Horses."
"I look at ‘Horses’ as being able to express things important to me when I lived at the Chelsea Hotel with my friend Robert Mapplethorpe," says Smith, referring the late photographer whose stark black-and-white photo graces the cover.  (Source: New York Post, Dec. 26, 2005) (Photo: Patti in her room at the Chelsea.)

In an interview in The New Yorker, Marianne Faithfull talks about the Chelsea's drug scene.
She found a stool and went on, "I never stayed at the Chelsea because of all the drugs, when I was trying to get off drugs. It was much too Sid and Nancy. I never saw the film. I lived the film. But it's brighter there now, less heavy, lighter."

DeeDee Hallack -- Urban Guerillas of the Chelsea Penthouse

Back in the day, DeeDee Halleck worked with former Chelsea Hotel resident/filmmaker Shirley Clarke. DeeDee Halleck is a media activist who founded the Paper Tiger Television Collective and co-founded the Deep Dish Satellite Network. Her films include Haiti: Bitter Cane, The Gringo in Mañanaland and Lock Down USA.  DeeDee is very busy and didn't have time for an interview, but she was kind enough to share an essay she wrote, "Remembering Shirley Clarke." And, a link to an interview that she conducted with Shirley Clarke here at the hotel in 1965.   

Shirley Clarke was my mentor.  I learned more from her than anyone else I ever knew--  mostly about how to be a mentor-- how to energize people, how to push them to do good work, how not to give up when the technology was failing, the people lethargic or the situation impossible.  Shirley pushed things and people to the edge.  She never gave up.  Altziheimer claimed her about ten years ago, but she held on, tenderly nursed by two of her beloved disciples, Piper and David Cort, who bathed her and
tucked her in and smoothed her forehead.  Her daughter Wendy and many of her colleagues were with her during her last days in a Boston hospital. She died last month in a sweet sleep surrounded by Felix the Cat and Betty Boop, the toys of her youth held tight for all these years.

Shirley was somewhere between Betty Boop and Felix the Cat herself, with a bit of Charlie Chaplin's tramp thrown in.  She often wore a bowler hat and tight smart little suits, like something out of a 1930's chorus line. All she needed were spats to complete the costume.  She had style.  A small woman with the body of a dancer, she had piercing black eyes, like a beady little mouse.  She was witty and bright, and endlessly energetic.

Shirley started as a dancer.  Her first films were dance films, such as Dance in the Sun (1953) and In Paris Parks (1954), a lyrical look at gesture and movement in a public landscape.  I saw this early work and Bridges Go Round, a piece she did for the Brussels World Fair at the Hunter Art Museum in Chattanooga, Tennessee.  It changed my life. Seeing her name on the credits and the joy and energy of the images made me realize that women could and should make their own films.  I decided
to try to study film in college.

Her work in the early 60's, The Connection and The Cool World are landmarks of the American New Wave movement.  The Cool World is a New York version of Italian neo-realism, every bit as powerful and poignant.  It remains (with Robert Frank's Pull My Daisy) the best expression of marginal life in that era.  Her film, Portrait of Jason (1967) was one of the first with a gay protagonist in an open and
sympathetic (and completely unromantic) manner.  Shirley and Viva Superstar shared the screen as talent in Agnes Varda's Lion's Love, which was always my favorite Varda film.  Somehow Shirley (and Viva) added a New York edge to Varda, who can wax sentimental and cloying.

In the early seventies I somehow found my way up to her workshop space in the penthouse of the Chelsea Hotel.  Shirley lived and worked there making live and taped video performance, installation and documentation with a collaborating group of artists.  I was lucky to have been a part
of that work.  We formed a troupe, those of us who worked with Shirley.  She called us the TeePee Video Space Troupe and the idea was to experiment with performance that integrated video and other
technologies.  It was the days before video cassettes and each tape had to be hand threaded into the portapak decks.  Not that it was really about recording per se.  Most of what we did was never on tape: the tape was only one of the elements of the constructions, the happenings, the events.  It was electronic performance in an interactive mode.  The troupe included myself, Andy Gurian, Shirley's daughter Wendy, Bruce Ferguson, Vicki Polon, David Cort, Bob Harris, Parry Teasdale, Shalom
Gorewitz, Susan Milano, Shridir Bapat and others.  There were regular drop-ins like Agnes Varda, Shigeko Kaboda, Beryl Korot, Nam June Paik, Skip Blumberg, Barbara Haspiel, Steina and Woody Vasulka, Jori Schwartzman, or neighbors at the Chelsea, Carl Lee, Viva (toting one of
her kids), photographer Peter Simon, Doris Chase, Andre Vosnevshenski, George Kleinsinger, Virgil Thompson, Harry Smith, Arthur C. Clarke (no relation).  At any given time there always seemed to be one or two Japanese dancers around.  Sometimes even Andy Warhol climbed that flight of stairs after the last elevator stop, looking for Viva.  Louis Malle came by, as did Susan Sontag, Joris Ivens, Peter Brooks, Jean Rouche and Shelly Winters.  The Chelsea had a certain cachet for visitors from
Europe, Hollywood and Japan and Shirley was queen of the Chelsea.

Around Shirley swirled miles of video cables, cameras, monitors and telephones.  She was wired. Shirley had a new project every night.  We were needed to help make it happen.  It was sometimes frustrating, often exhausting, but it was hard not to trot over there, because you never knew what you might miss if you stayed away.

One time Arthur Clarke somehow got hold of a laser beam.  He unwrapped a long rectangular box with a fat cable, borrowed from some Columbia lab by a fan of 2001 Space Odysey.    This was many years before those red needles of light sparkled on every cashier's counter.  The laser was exotic and thrilling and Shirley and Arthur giggled like kids phoning in bogus pizza orders as they plugged it in and carried it out to the edge of the Chelsea roof, aiming it down at the sidewalk. From that distance
it was hard to keep steady, but Shrider quickly screwed it into a tripod tilted over the edge.  Passers-by on 23rd street stooped to pick up the resulting tiny red jewel.  Both Clarke's roared with laughter as they made it jump five feet out of reach.  When we tried using the laser in our performances, it etched intricate patterns on several of our cameras.

One night we all agreed to do dawn.  We broke into five groups and went out to video dawn.  We recconoitered on the roof with stacks of monitors and cued up the five tapes from the five groups.  Shirley rang up for bagels and champaigne and when they were delivered we toasted the pink
sky and switched on the decks for a multi channel piece of morning in New York.  Shots of steam rising from the street vents, tracking shots of bottle collectors pushing their carts, shots of pigeons in flight mixed and matched across the screens.  The natural sounds of the live streets below us mixed with the taped steam hisses and pigeon coos to make a city symphony of sounds as well as sights. Behind the pyramid of monitors flickering the black and white visual poems were the pastel sky
scrapers, their windows reflecting the rising red sun ball.  One special moment was when pigoens flew right to left across one of the monitors and appeared in the bottom left of the neighboring monitor, as if in one continuous flight. It was one of those synchronisities that we were all sure Shirley planned. We didn't giggle during that event.  Exhausted and emotional we sat in the rosy light with tears streaming down our cheeks, the kind of tears that can punctuate a late Beethoven quartet played
well.  When the tapes spun empty at the end we came together and hugged.  Like some Omega circle, just more spontaneous and real.

I remember one night we set up an elaborate elevator installation: a camera on each Chelsea floor aimed at the elevator door and a Pisa-like leaning stack of monitors on the roof recreating the Chelsea's 10 floors.  Wires ran up the center staircase picking up the feed on each floor.  Then someone would do a performance on the elevator and we would watch the roof TV stack.  We could see the performance only when the doors opened on floor after floor.  It was a great idea.  It never quite
worked.  None of Shirley's projects ever "worked" in the conventional sense, but we knew that the ideas totally worked.  It was exhilerating.    It was being high every night. We were urban guerillas
of the Chelsea penthouse, plotting an electronic coup that would liberate the imaginations of the world.

Next week, singer/songwriter Holly Williams tells us why the Hotel Chelsea is one of her favorite places.

Hotel Chelsea Newsmakers

• The New York Times reviews some of the work presented at Daniel Reich's temporary gallery space here at the Hotel.
• MSNBC reports that Ethan Hawke is seeking clemency for a murderer. He's also getting set to direct a screen version of his first novel, The Hottest State.
• According to the London Telegraph, Pierce Brosnan, the former Bond star, is set to finance a movie about Dylan Thomas and his wife Caitlin.
• Factotum, a movie based on the novel by Charles Bukowski is set to premiere at Sundance.
• Sundance is also the scene of the U.S. premiere of "Leonard Cohen I'm Your Man," a documentary about the Canadian singer-songwriter.

DONUTS SANDWICHES

Part I:  Donuts

Before it closed, Donuts Sandwiches, along with the Chelsea and the McBurney Y, was one of the pillars of the Bohemian community of West 23^rd Street.  You could get a Cheeseburger deluxe --  that’s a cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, a pickle, and French fries—for $2.95 in the mid 90s.  For a dollar, you got two donuts and a coffee.  You could even pay with a subway token, if that’s all the rehab center gave you for the day.

            The cook was a middle-aged man named Jerry, who looked like Jack Kerouac—when Jack Kerouac was a fat drunk.  Despite his bulk, if somebody acted up, if a junkie cursed him, say, Jerry would grab a baseball bat and hop the horseshoe counter and run the guy out the door.

Every time I came into the diner I would order my coffee black with no sugar.

            This always seemed to offend Jerry.  “No milk, no sugar?!” he would say every time.  “Why don’t you want some milk?  How ‘bout at least some sugar.”

“I don’t like it like that.”

“Why don’t you like it?  It’s good like that.  I can’t understand it, I can’t understand how anybody drinks their coffee like that.”

            Luckily, he wasn’t generally the one who fixed the coffee.         

            Jerry was talkative, and aside from the thing with the coffee, usually cheerful.  Over the years I learned a lot about him: he lived in Queens, he was an expert fisherman, a fine gardener, and he could fix anything around the house.  He had a son who was a lawyer, apparently the best in the business, who made five-hundred thousand, or sometimes it was a million, a year.  Jerry was a Mets fan, permanently disgusted with their performance.
            One year, over the Christmas holidays, Jerry’s wife died.  Though she had had serious medical problems, it still came unexpectedly.  For all his talk, I had never heard Jerry mention his wife before, except in passing.  Now he discussed her at length:

“I’m just glad it was my wife instead of my mother-in-law.  I loved my wife, but my mother-in-law was the one that cooked and took care of the house.  I know maybe that sounds funny, but it would have been more of a loss if she had died.  My wife was always like a child, she never could clean, never could cook.  There at the end she was an invalid, she got really fat.  She just laid in bed and drank beer and smoked cigarettes, three packs a day, watching TV and killing herself.

“She had diabetes.  She should’ve got out more, it would’ve helped her circulation, but it was hard for her, it made her tired.  She was always in and out of the hospital for something.  A blood clot went to her brain and killed her, a stroke, just like that, died in my arms almost.

            “Now, I’m not saying I’m glad she’s dead, but I’m gonna save a lot of money now, I’ll tell ya.  I figured it up, and I’m gonna save three hundred dollars a week just on beer and cigarettes alone.

“My mother-in-law was the one who took care of her.  My wife couldn’t have made it without her.  My old mother-in-law—she’s 80—had to wait on her hand and foot.  If my mother-in-law had died she wouldn’t have had anybody, so that’s why I say it’s a good thing she went first.  I know it sounds weird to say that, but that’s how I feel.”

            I did think it was weird—though not so much to feel it, as to say it.  It was natural to be relieved that someone who was so much of a burden had died, and it was natural also to feel guilt at experiencing that relief.  I decided that Jerry, being a talker, had to deal with his feelings verbally. (Copyright 2006 Ed Hamilton)  Next week: Part 2 Sandwiches

All Tomorrow's Parties - Dec 26 - Jan 1

Tuesday, Dec. 27, 10:30 p.m.
You Talk the Talk, Now Walk The Walk!  Susanne Bartsch, Kenny Kenny & Richie Rich invite you to a Catwalk Competition. Grand Prize -- Two VIP All Access Tickets to the Spring Heatherette Fashions Show and Heatherette Head to Toe Outfits. HOSTS, AMANDA LEPORE, ANDREA & SOPHIA LAMAR.
Happy Valley Tuesdays, 14 East 27th St., NY NY

Wednesday, Dec. 28
The Jewish Museum features the first ever major museum show devoted to former Hotel Chelsea resident Sarah Bernhardt, "Sarah Bernhardt: The Art of High Drama." The exhibit continues until April 2.
The Jewish Museum, 1109 Fifth Ave., at 92nd St., NY NY

Friday and Saturday, Dec 30 & 31
Patti Smith & Her Band take the stage at The Bowery Ballroom.  Tickets are still available for the Saturday night show.
The Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey St., NY NY

Sunday, Jan. 1, 10:00 - 12:00 midnight
Chelsea Hotel resident Ed Hamilton will participate in the Bowery Poetry Club's New Year's Day Spoken Word/Reading Marathon. The event runs from 2:00 p.m. to midnight, but Ed is scheduled to read sometime between 10:00 p.m. and 12:00 midnight.  Admission is free.  Bring canned goods for City Harvest or paperback books for Books Behind Bars.
Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery at Bleecker St., NY NY

Casanova Craze

Among the big movies that I won't be seeing today is Casanova.  Instead I'll stay home and read a book which promises to be much more entertaining. "What Casanova Told Me," was written by former Hotel Chelsea resident Susan Swan.  However, there appears to a Casanova Craze going on and Susan tells us why she thinks interest is at an all time high.

Writing my latest novel about Casanova, I discovered that I wasn't alone in sharing a fascination with the legendary eighteenth-century Venetian lover.  This Christmas, a BBC movie starring Peter O'Toole will be shown in the UK on Dec 21 and 23. A Hollywood movie about Casanova starring Heath Ledger will be released Christmas Day. And in the last five years, at least ten other male and female writers have published books about Casanova (1725-1798).

Why are so many women and men writing and making movies about him now?
Do we feel starved for sensual enjoyment in the 21st century? Certainly, we live in a culture where new technologies like email mean that many of us work almost a month more a year than we did in the 1970's. I came to the conclusion that Casanova is the Dionysian figure whose interest in freedom will redeem us in a work-obsessed Apollonian age. The master of self-invention, he enjoyed performing whatever role the situation required and he showed little interest in acquiring power or wealth.
Eloquent, self-confident and fashion-conscious, Casanova spent most of his life outwitting social controls of any sort. He appears to have become a symbol of liberty for contemporary writers and readers because he lived as if pleasure and adventure are as worthy of our time as money and fame, believing that the greatest aphrodisiac of all is happiness.

Susan always stays at the Hotel Chelsea and often in Thomas Wolfe's old suite on the 8th floor.  If for some strange reason she decides to try another Hotel I've found the perfect fit.  The 8th floor of Manhattan's Library Hotel features a Casanova room.

What To Do With Used Light Bulbs?

If you don't have a fence and styrofoam cups to decorate with make a snowman from your used light bulbs. (Our light bulbs are always blowing here at the Chelsea so we have plenty.) Suggestion from blogaholics. 

Featured E-mail of the Week

A blog reader from Tennessee sent us a Christmas card. Here's what she wrote:
Here's a local decorated (styrofoam cups) chain link fence for your Christmas card.  Native Tennessee surrealism.

The Perfect Stocking Stuffer -- Hotel Chelsea Soap

I had originally planned to give "Room 100" key chains to everyone on my gift list, but the Chelsea Hotel gift shop was sold out.  E-bay to the rescue. Bids are starting at $9.99 for a bar of Hotel Chelsea soap in very good condition in the original package from the 1960s. (I bet there are several boxes of soap laying around in the basement of the Hotel.)

Christmas at the Chelsea Hotel

The Hotel Chelsea lobby is decorated for the holidays with a beautiful christmas tree and a lovely menorah.  However, we don't have pictures of either to show you.  Instead we have a crappy picture of one of the tree ornaments.  The ornament is a fake black and white Polaroid of Bob Dylan when he wore a younger man's clothes.  The picture is fittingly signed by a fake Dylan with best wishes to our esteemed proprietor, Stanely Bard.  Surprisingly, the picture actually remained hanging on the tree for at least a week or two before it was stolen.
The second crappy photo is of a holiday poster that was taped to the wall of the elevator for several days.  What you can't see clearly in the image is that above Mary's head is the word "David" (as in Bard).  Mary/David is wielding a knife in her hand as she hovers above Baby Jesus.  Baby Jesus is labeled "Timor" on the poster.  Timor is the night porter.  What's that all about in the season of good cheer?

Pamela Bannos Recalls the Hotel Chelsea "Angel"

Pamela Bannos has been exhibiting her photographic works since the early 1980s.  She has worked with nearly every photographic process and format from 19th century gum prints to web-based digital works.

What do you do?
I'm a photographer from Chicago who shows my work in New York City. I teach in the art department at a university near Chicago.

When did you visit the Hotel Chelsea?
March and December 2002, November 2003

What inspired you to stay at the Hotel Chelsea?
The history of the place and the location.  I also did a web-based project about the corner of 8th Avenue and 14th Street and it was nearby.

Do you think the Chelsea Hotel has a creative energy?
It has definitely got an aura about it that draws creative types - even if those types are merely trying
to draw from the creative energy.

What is your favorite Hotel Chelsea story?
I like it that Chelsea Clinton was named for the song Chelsea Morning, by Joni Mitchell which may or may not have been written about/from her window from the hotel.  I also like that the gallerist Holly Solomon sold artworks from her apartment there and died while living there.

What is the best/worst thing that happened to you at the Hotel?
I appreciate the authentic rudeness of the front desk manager.
I also liked seeing *the angel* in all his feathered glory in March 2002.
And Marianne Faithful giving a radio interview in the lobby in Dec. 2002.

World's Best Blogs

Only a few days left to vote. The last time I checked, we were in third place in the World's Best Urban Arts Blog category.  The two blogs leading the voting are Slavs of New York and We Make Money Not Art.

Norman's Big Night Out

The Villager has a snappy profile of Chelsea Hotel resident Norman Gosney and his famous Big Night Out.  Head to Scenic located in the East Village the last Thursday of each month to catch acts such as:  There is Bunny Love who likes all things wet — she bathes with soapy water onstage wearing two pasties and a G-string. Miss Amelia does a “burletta,” a three-minute film clip chosen by the audience. Miss Saturn twirls 10 or more hula hoops half nude.

The Willie Nelson Christmas Album

There are a lot of musicians living at the Chelsea, good as well as bad.  They practice all the time, day and night, and most any type of music is tolerated, from jazz, to classical, to rock and roll.
     Even so, there are limits.  One holiday season, the person living directly above me acquired The Willie Nelson Christmas Album.  This album involved Willie singing the same old standards—Jingle Bells, Silent Night, what have you--only with a guitar and a country twang.  It was a little bit interesting, maybe, the first couple of times.  But it got old really fast.  Like the traditional holiday season, the playing of this album began around Thanksgiving and went on from there—not just once or twice a day, but repeatedly, morning, noon and night.

It was a young guy named William who was playing it.  I could tell by his voice, as he often sang along.  Apparently, he was really trying to get into the Christmas spirit, psyching himself up.  A rich kid who fancied himself a poet, William was the kind of guy who went from one fad to the next, and didn’t do things in half measures, but really went all out.  As soon as one side of the album would finish, he would flip it to the other, over and over again.  The pauses between sides were maddening: maybe this will be the end, I prayed each time.

But I had only been in New York a year or so, and I still had plenty of patience.  Knowing William, I knew that sooner or later he would get sick of the album, and then he would never play it again.  In the meantime I tried to keep my window closed.
         Come to find out, I wasn’t the only one who was annoyed.  When I came out of my room to go to the bathroom one afternoon, I saw Ray standing in the open door of his tiny room.  I had become accustomed to thinking of Ray as the archetypal New Yorker, I guess because of his gruffness, though it turns out he was from Minnesota.  Ray had been working on a canvas, and he wore his paint-spattered work clothes.  His long black hair, too, was speckled with paint.
       “Who in God’s name is making that infernal racket?” he asked, crossly.  “How in the hell am I supposed to work?  I have my art to do, my painting.  How can I maintain inspiration with this insipid garbage echoing through my brain.  Who is doing it?” he demanded.  “Who!?”  He acted almost like I was responsible.

“I think it’s William,” I said.

“That figures!  I’d like to go up there and wring his scrawny neck!  It’s driving me fucking crazy.  It’s like cats yowling!  What is his problem?  Asshole!  Listen to it once, then give it a rest.  And turn down the fucking volume, for Christ’s sake.  Jesus.  Has he got the record player in the window or something?”  Ray gestured toward his window.

Ray’s window, I could see, was wide open.  He had to keep it open when he was working to avoid being asphyxiated by the paint fumes.  In general, there was too much heat in the back of the building anyway.  In the brief pause in our conversation, we heard strains of Willie’s guitar, as he crooned, “Have a holly, jolly Christmas...”       

“Who the hell wants to hear that shit?!” Ray said.  “Nobody could!  It’s inconceivable!”

He seemed to be implying that William was doing it purposely, to drive him crazy.  “Yeah, it is kind of annoying,” I said, chuckling.

Ray scowled at my levity.  “I’d like to tear his head off and shit down his neck!” he said, like some kind of demented bohemian drill sergeant.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” I said.

“Yeah, but you’re from Tennessee, right?”
         “Uh, yeah,” I said.  Close enough, I figured, for the sake of argument.

“For you it’s different,” Ray proclaimed.  “For you, that music is a way of life.”

It made me wonder what sort of misconceptions he was harboring: of southerners in general, and of myself in particular.  Like most of my friends, I had grown up listening to the Beatles and Led Zeppelin.

“You mean Christmas music?” I asked. (Copyright Ed Hamilton 2006)

All Tomorrow's Parties - Dec 19 - 25

Check back later this week for our Chelsea Hotel Gift Giving Guide.  We'll have something for all of the bohemians on your list.

Monday, Dec. 19, 11:00 - 12:00
Turn your radio dial to WIPA 89.3 and listen to The Handel and Haydn Society's music director, Welsh conductor Grant Llewelyn read portions of Dylan Thomas' "Child's Christmas in Wales." Or, visit your library public library and ask for the video of Richard Burton wandering around lower Manhattan reading the poem.  Or, you can travel uptown to catch the performance by Willow Cabin Theatre Co.
ArcLight Theater, 152 W. 71st St. (betw. Amsterdam & Columbus Aves.),7:30, $15

Tuesday, Dec. 20, 10:30 p.m.
HOLIDAY MADNESS A TOY DRIVE.  Susanne Bartsch, David Barton Gym, Kenny Kenny and many more dedicate this week's event to collecting toys for the children and teen with HIV/AIDS.  Bring a toy for entry.  Open bar from 10-11:30.
14 East 27th St., NY NY Doors Open at 10:00.

Wednesday Dec. 21, 8:00 p.m.
A McGarrigle Christmas features entertainment by very special guests including EmmyLou Harris, Martha Wainwright, Teddy Thompson, and former Hotel Chelsea resident Rufus Wainwright.
Carnegie Hall, Stern Auditorium, 57th St. and 7th Ave. NY NY

Thursday, Dec. 22, 8:00 p.m.
Clement Clarke Moore is generally credited with developing the Chelsea neighborhood.  His most famous work is "twas the night before Christmas" and it is currently featured in Ken Nintzel's delightfully cynical show, "Twas the Night Before the Twleve Days of a Nut Cracker Christmas Carol."
P.S. 122 150 First Ave., NY NY

If you have a relevant event that you would like featured in "All Tomorrow's Parties," please e-mail the information to [email protected]. 

New Game in Town -- Psychopath or Resident

Over at Twenty-Third and Seventh blog they have new time waster, "Psychopath or Resident."  They present a photograph of an indivdual and ask you to guess if it is a resident or a random psychopath.  Check it out.

We're So Picturesque

Lorenzo captured Arthur Weinstein's artwork.  Lorenzo has more Chelsea Hotel photos in his Flickr group.

Lobby and room pics courtesy of this couple who visited the Hotel Chelsea in October.  If you look closely you'll notice an original Hiroya painting hanging on the wall of 813.

Finally, a motherlode of photos at BlueHour's Flickr page

From Niznoz's Flickr Group

The Podcasters Have Gone Viddy

The podcasters have been quiet for a while, but that doesn't mean they have gone away.  They have simply moved on to bigger and better things. Earlier this week, they launched a series of Chelsea Hotel Video Podcasts.  And, we hear that they have exciting plans in store for the future.  So, check em'out and don't miss the next big thing.  Click here to listen to the archives of the classic Chelsea Hotel podcasts.

Andy Warhol's Ghost Haunts the Elevators

Stephen Creagh Uys tells us what it was like to stay here at the Hotel Chelsea back in the late 80s.   He also shares a ghost story.
What do you do?
I am a novelist, my latest book is The Last Generation of Chainsmokers.
It has been described as a cross between Catcher in the Rye and Leaving Las
Vegas. It takes place in the East Village in the art years.

How long did you stay at the Chelsea?
I stayed there for a couple of months in 1987 0r 88. I can't recall.

What inspired you to move into the Chelsea?
I was broke and I had hooked up with this girl from Washington who was
buying a condo. While she waited for it to close etc, she got a room in the
Chelsea for three months. It came through in two days and lo and behold I had a
squat.

Do you think there is a creative energy in the Chelsea?
Yes. I was an excited twenty two year old. I would drink at the white
horse, go to the lions head and pass out in the Chelsea. I was living the
alcoholic dream of a young writer. The Chelsea had a magic that was undescribable.

How has living in the Chelsea affected your creative development?
It has added to my personal mythyology. It is part of the rites of passage I
endured while becoming a writer.

What other creative people at the Chelsea or elsewhere have influenced your development?
So many. Keroauc. Bukowski. Fitzgerald. Satre. Basquiat. Iggy. H.G. Wells.

Who is the most famous person you’ve ever ridden with in the Chelsea elevator?
Andy Warhol, almost. see below.....

What’s the best/worst thing that has ever happened to you at the Chelsea?
I was living there the week Warhol died. It was all over the papers and as I
staggered upstairs two days after he died, there he was resplendent in a black
turtleneck. I freaked out and ran to get my girl and call the desk. All he said
was "hello dahling."  Ghost story.  Not quite. It turned out that one of new yorks
best known Warhol impersonators was also living there, and he had been
booked solid all week doing andy grams or whatever. I will never forget this
event!

Bohemia for $250.00 Per Night

The Chelsea Hotel is one of 10 hotels featured in an article in the New York Times about budget hotels in New York City.  Budget is defined as being in the $250.00 per night or less range. Good luck getting the suite pictured in the article for less than $250.00 per night. 

There is one other interesting point about this article.  The Japanese artist Hiroya ( well known for his colorful personality) whose work is shown hanging in the stairwell of the Chelsea is himself pictured in the photograph hanging on the wall of the Gershwin Hotel.  There's a bit of history behind all of this.  The Gershwin is where Hiroya, a long time Chelsea Hotel resident died.

Vote For Bohemia!

Reminder -- We've never won an award before for anything and it's going to stay that way unless you cast a vote. Living with Legends: Hotel Chelsea blog has made the final cut in two categories (World's Best Urban Arts Blog and Best New York Blog ) in the 2005 Urban Blogging Awards competition.  Voting continues through December 26th.

HERMAN MELVILLE AT THE CHELSEA, OR CLOSE ANYWAY

     Around the corner from the Chelsea on Seventh Avenue, a homeless man, apparently drunk, was mediating a dispute between two of his similarly situated buddies: “Nah, you know the story of Moby Dick, don’t you?  They didn’t call him that because he bit his dick off!  He bit his leg off!  That’s why he walked with a peg leg.”
     Well, that clears things up.  No need to use a peg leg just because you got your dick bit off.  I noticed, however, that the man seemed possibly to be confusing Ahab with the white whale.  More importantly, if the name “Moby Dick”—as applied to either man or whale--doesn’t refer to a bit-off dick, then to what on earth does it refer?  I guess I should have stopped and told the men that I too was interested in literary criticism.  Perhaps together we could have solved this riddle. (Copyright Ed Hamilton 2006)

All Tomorrow's Parties - Dec 12 - 18

Monday, Dec. 12, 9:00 - 5:00
Legend has it that actress Sarah Bernhardt once slept in a coffin in the lobby of the Chelsea Hotel or maybe the coffin was in her 10th floor apartment. Anyway, now you can celebrate her eccentric legacy and view an exhibition and sale of posters, prints, photos and memorabilia. (thru Jan 8)
International Poster Center, 601 W. 26th St., NY NY

Tuesday, Dec. 13, 10:30 p.m.
Susanne Bartsch's weekly party is not to be missed. According to Michael Musto, "Happy Valley's SUSANNE BARTSCH/KENNY KENNY bash on Tuesdays is the most crazy-fresh club party ever."  This week, they bring you the legendary Joey Arias. Happy Valley Tuesdays, 14 East 27th St., NY NY

Thursday, Dec. 15, 9:00 p.m.
In the tradition of Weimar Republic performance and Surrealist masquerade, comes another installation of the legendary Panty Party with Grantypanties, Debbie D., Daphne D., Phiiliip, and special guests! Part of the ongoing performance series hosted by Daniel Reich Gallery.
Hotel Chelsea, 222 W. 23rd St., NY NY  Grand Ballroom

Friday, Dec. 16, 8:00 p.m.
K8 Hardy: Anti-Marriage PoonaniPanik.  A little bit country, a lil bit rock-n-roll. Part of the ongoing performance series hosted by Daniel Reich Gallery.
Hotel Chelsea, 222 W. 23rd St., NY NY  Grand Ballroom

Sunday, Dec. 18, 8:30 p.m.
A concert featuring recent works by Hotel Chelsea resident Gerald Busby. Presented by Friends Of The Composer: Gerald Busby's 70th Birthday Celebration
Carnegie Hall, Weill Recital Hall, $15 - $25

Ask yourself a tough question, which blog is the World's Best Arts Blog. The answer is obvious.
If you have a relevant event that you would like featured in "All Tomorrow's Parties," please e-mail the information to [email protected]. 

Featured E-mail of the Week

We receive a lot of e-mails around here so I've decided not to keep them all to myself. Some of them are worth sharing. A week ago I ran a post about the French Philosopher Baudrillard and his relationship to the Chelsea.  Well, that post inspired some critical thinking in one of our readers.  Here is his e-mail:

I cannot, despite multiple stabs at google, pin Baudrillard to Hotel Chelsea. From bits that I've dug up we can establish that he has/d a close relationship with a gallery on w22nd. The evidence points to it as a good hypothesis but that's the best that I can get it to yet. It's probably an easy enough reverse research trail via the gallery.

I'm blank at the moment as to whether Andre Breton passed through, if he did add 10 likely points to the hypothesis.

This paper from an Aus university only touches on Hotel Chelsea and he hasn't fact checked to get the Hotel name correct but... The mention of Baudrillard and focus on Michel de Certau indicate the degree to which Hotel Chelsea would be the 'natural' place to stay in NY. The paper's a bit laborious but I highly recommend it. Michel de Certau is one of my favourites of the contemporary French Philosophers, his approach to the world and the way that the paper applies it to Manhattan almost exactly describes the way I experienced it. We even share the co-incidence of having had multiple birthdays *en route* to NY.

The new google books function yields some interesting results. I've made an executive to hand that lead over to you as you have a gmail account already.

It might need a Francophone to get to the bottom of this, Baudrillard seldom does anything in English so a lot is literally lost in [non] translation.

This has got my juices all flowing! Baudrillard, Foucault, de Certau.. all my beloved insane French post-structuralists. De Certau is an immediate hypothesis- I've studied his take on the world quite thoroughly. I can't imagine he'd stay anywhere else.

Something I'm observing about Hotel Chelsea and the French connection.... Spinning back a generation or two to more 'moral' times, Hotel Chelsea would have been more comfortable to these sex'n'drugs intellectual and artists because, not to be to fine about it, the principle that what goes on behind closed doors is private business is core to the place. Frida & Diego wouldn't have had to sign in as 'Mr & Mrs Smith' to avoid snide looks.

Plus- we're talking about intellectuals of the old left, mostly the anarchist factions. Staying at the Ritz isn't entirely consistent with anti-class rhetoric and, if you're really someone intrigued enough by people to have climbed the philosophy Francais tree, you're probably the kind of person who is attracted to HC.

More things on which I won't rest until an answer emerges.

Happy Birthday Gerald Busby

This week's issue of Gay City News features a profile of resident Gerald Busby.  Gerald will soon turn 70 and plans to celebrate with a big birthday bash at Carnegie Hall.

In 1977, while near Chicago filming a role in Robert Altman’s “A Wedding,” the 42-year old composer met the love of his life, Sam Byers, 27. When shooting concluded, Busby and Byers moved into New York’s Chelsea Hotel, where Thomson lived and held court.
For a while, the couple lived right above Thomson’s bedroom. Then they moved to room 510, their apartment for 17 years, and invited Virgil almost weekly for Saturday night dinners. The circle of connections continued to grow.

Don't forget to vote for Bohemia!  World's Best Arts Blog.

Serena Cooks Up A Book

The Chelsea's creative engery must also flow into the basement.  Serena has a book, "Serena, Food and Stories."  Well-known caterer Serena Bass's “first book is a rare mixture of good food, great stories and truly unique style; just the right combination to make it a big hit with cookbook fans.” This book looks like not only would it give you some wonderful inspiration, but also feed your curiosity for the rich and famous!

In addition to her successful catering business, she is the namesake behind Serena, the bar/lounge in the basement of the Chelsea Hotel, which she opened in 1999 and has since sold.  Here is Serena's menu recommendation for that dinner party you're planning.

THE 'RED AND GINGER' -- GINGER VODKA, CRANBERRY
AND FRESH LIME SERVED ON THE ROCKS

SALAD OF WARM GRILLED FENNEL
SALTED WALNUTS, BITTER GREENS
AND APPLE CIDER VINAIGRETTE

BRAISED SHORT RIBS OF BEEF,
BEETS ROASTED WITH OLIVE OIL
AND TELLICHERRY PEPPER

CELERY ROOT MASH

EXTRA-THIN CHOCOLATE TART
TOPPED WITH WHIPPED CREAM
AND CRYSTALIZED MINT LEAVES

BLOOD ORANGE GRANITA
SPRINKLED WITH POMEGRANATE SEEDS

Ladders Covered with Prostate Cancer at the Chelsea

If someone on your gift list has requested a crocheted ladder covered with prostate cancer you need to talk to Agata Oleksiak. Earlier this year, Oleksiak's work was part of the "Back to Bohemia" exhibit which was on display in the Hotel Chelsea's Grand Ballroom.

What do you do?
I make art. I crochet and watch movies or crochet and listen to one song over and over again. Writing this, I am listening to Silvio Rodriguez’s “Sueno con Serpientos”. My everyday life is like a crochet pattern, it is infinite repetition, and a pattern itself, those loops are strong, unbreakable, but one could take the end of the material I am working with and by ripping it apart, could destroy everything. But then I will start remaking it. The new is - like art itself - the eternal return of the old.
     So, what do I do? I work and live in an asylum:  a safe space where the mad are kept.  Sometimes my friends will visit me in my shelter, to watch movies with me – they do not appreciate listening to the same song the whole day. And I suspect they visit me when they worry about my obsessive-compulsive actions. But I am protected, I am constantly protected by the crocheted comfort zone, where I am getting sometimes entirely too comfortable and content as people do in their lives. Waking up from this pattern is for me to design costumes or sets for dance companies, and then again I crochet and I will crochet and crochet- even if I feel like I cannot continue any longer-- until I have reached a point where I know I could go on forever. 

     Currently, I have been working on crocheted prostate cancer. I want to create a man world - all covered with their biggest fear – prostate cancer.

How Did Your Art End Up In the Chelsea Hotel?
When my work was shown at Oliver Kamm 5BE Gallery, I brought with me my crocheted ladder to be able to install my installation. When I hung my mixed media crocheted piece to the ceiling and dropped part of it outside the gallery window, the crocheted ladder was thrown into the gallery storage room. Then, one day before the opening, two collectors came to 5BE, two ladies who, after buying shoes, visited Chelsea to buy some paintings to match their previous purchases, and they took my precious crocheted ready made out of storage and placed it in the middle of gallery. And I think that the curator was not very happy about it, but then she said that we could leave it for the reception, so the people can rest their drinks on it. No comments.
So, during the opening somebody saw it, and bought it. It ended up in the Marshall Allan collection, who was (maybe still is) living in the Chelsea Hotel.  He decided to show his collection in the Chelsea Hotel ballroom in April 2005, and the curator of this event, Renee Vara, contacted me and asked me to bring some of my new work to this event. So, I installed some of my crocheted ready-mades, and I made a new piece – crocheted orange camouflage suit of armor, and I put a performer inside of it. It actually started my camouflage obsession. But the ladder was not shown. Marshall Allan, as he said, uses my sculpture to change the bulbs. I miss this object – it has romantic, sentimental value to me. My friend told me a story that came to her mind after she saw my crocheted ladder: When she was a little girl her parents did not have enough money to buy new presents for Christmas every year. Her mom simply repacked the old gifts. The sensation of seeing the new wrapping, the action of opening, rediscovering the old is the investigation, which for me, means the way in which past form and function continue to shape the new.

By the way, I created new ladders – one is covered with prostate cancer.

Do you think there is a creative energy in the Chelsea Hotel?

Ghosts have energy – and Chelsea is surrounded by them. Besides them, Chelsea is like a big shopping center. And you cannot find creative energy in the malls, but you can create creative energy anywhere you want to.  Chelsea people are like Vermeer woman. And as it is said about the lady from Vermeer’s Music Lesson in the Peter Greenaway film “A Zed & Two Noughts”: “She is not standing really; she is trapped in stitch to the music instrument.” 

She will be seen this way forever – they/we can still escape from this stitch, or carry scissors like I do.

What is your favorite Hotel Chelsea story?

The one that it is not yet written.

Our Esteemed Proprietor Kicks Up His Heels

Chelsea Hotel resident and painter David Remfry's work is the subject of an exhibit currently underway at Ferens Art Gallery in Hull.  You can get a better view of the paintings shown in the photo if you click on the image. The woman wearing the top hat is our esteemed telephone operator of many years, Bonnie Kendall. Remfry's speciality is dancers.  "For the past year and a half, Stanley Bard, for more than 40 years manager of the Chelsea Hotel and a keen host to the writers and artists in his building, has been posing with his girlfriend. "I clear a corner of the studio and they come in every Friday morning for an hour, put on some Frank Sinatra or Neil Diamond, and get quite lost dancing. Sometimes I'll ask them to hold a particular pose."  (Source: Telegraph, 12/6/05)

A Vote for Bohemia!

We've never won an award before for anything. Here's our big chance.  Living with Legends: Hotel Chelsea blog has made the final cut in two categories (World's Best Urban Arts Blog and Best New York Blog ) in the 2005 Urban Blogging Awards competition.  Voting continues through December 26th.