Noted advocate Robert Egger, the founder of DC Central Kitchen and author of "Begging for Change," was recently a guest at the 
Hotel Chelsea. He had this to say about the hotel on his blog, "but I was staying at the Chelsea Hotel on my recent romp through NYC... it’s a real creative hole in the wall, and I do mean HOLE. But, if you ever stroll past 7th Avenue and w 23rd, walk a few yards down the road and take a gander at that old stack of bricks and imagine all those folks walking through her front doors." In an interview with this blog he reveals, surprise, suprise, that he knows all about our little vortex!
What do you do? I run the DC Central Kitchen, which is a little like City Harvest in NY, but we added a job training angle. I was in NY to speak at a gathering that the Better Business Bureau had put together to discuss nonprofit accountability and impact.
How'd you become involved in advocating against poverty? I ran both punk and jazz nightclubs in DC during the 80’s, when homeless folks really began to appear on the streets in numbers too big to ignore, so I volunteered to serve meals to folks that slept on the steam grates around the federal enclave. After my first night out, I wondered where the food came from (they bought it) and why we didn’t do anything to help people after we fed them, so I proposed that they collect the unserved food from restaurants, hotels and caterers, bring it to a central kitchen and train folks for jobs while they prepared meals for shelters, drug treatment centers, senior programs, etc…Nobody would do it, so I ended up starting the Kitchen back in 89…and the rest is, as they say, history.
Was your most recent visit to the Chelsea your first?
No...I stayed there in the early 80's, when a group of us came up to NY for the premiere of Koyaanisqatsi. God bless it, it hasn't changed at all.
Did it live up to your expectations?
It did then, and it did again….there is only ONE Chelsea Hotel!!!!
What inspired you to stay at the Chelsea?
I needed a dose of the air you can only breathe there. A stay at the Chelsea is not without it’s rough edges, but the connection with bold thinkers, creative genius or just flat out fuck-ups is just too much to pass up, even if the stays are 10-20 or 30 years apart.
Do you think that there is a creative energy at the Chelsea?
There are three great vortexes in the US….Joshua Tree, Graceland and the Chelsea. No lifetime is complete without a pilgrimage to each.
What's the best/worst thing that happened to you at the Chelsea?
They both happened at the same time…I was asked…”Hey, do you still sell crack” by a homeless guy as I walked out the door. It made me laugh out loud, but I always hate to see folks who are left out and living on the streets.
Did you have any star-sightings?
Moving too fast to check this time around. But there was a great punk kid with a wicked blue mohawk getting his mom to take his picture taken out front when I arrived. I bet he’ll be famous one day.
What's your favorite Chelsea Hotel story?
Sid and Nancy….love kills.
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