Even if you get a tattoo of the Chelsea, you still won’t have Artie Nash beat. He has two! Be sure to read page two of Artie’s interview or you’ll miss some exciting stuff like his encounter with the Mafia at Mamma Mia!, how he and Arthur Weinstein witnessed a gang riot and his obsession with beat writer Herbert Huncke. After reading his interview, we’re thinking of changing our name from “Outlaw Chelsea Bloggers” to the “Purse-Snatching Chelsea Bloggers.”
What do you do?
Well I'm essentially an independent curator, which may only mean I'm a frequently unemployed, frustrated artist type; but what I do essentially is assemble social history exhibits on topics that I find intriguing for one reason or other, possibly subjects that I've have had some more intimate connection with over the years, or both. So while my background is in art and antiques, in the past I've messed around with everything from club promotion to investigative reporting to --this is my personal favorite-- I once ghost-wrote a NYC dining column for a critic who hadn't digested solids in about twenty years. But these days I tinker with the historical objects, creating what I hope are meaningful juxtapositions between them and then try to find an audience that does, as well.
Tell us about “Made in America”
"M.I.A." is the first (that I'm aware of) public exhibition strictly on the topic of the Mob, and its a three dimensional retrospective on the impact and significant influence that this breed of criminal has had on U.S. pop culture since they were 'reborn' in 1931 as a truly 'organized' outfit bent on subjugating the law, hand in hand, on a broad scale. And to illustrate this "M.I.A." showcases the genuine artifacts, documents, photographs and ephemera that help to retrace this rich tradition of corruption. We're a society whose rate of violent crime outstrips virtually every civilized nation on the globe, and we're a country that has as many different types of criminals as we have crimes. Yet from the ranks of robbers, murderers, rapists, arsonists, pedophiles, bunco artists and so forth, there's really only one variety of bad-guy that captivates us to no end, and thats the gangster class. None of those other guys, really. You're not very likely to spot a kid on the street sporting a t-shirt that reads 'Purse Snatcher'. Instead, its 'Wiseguy'. Its the outlaw who we find irresistible. I mean, you two aren't just run of the mill bloggers--you're 'Outlaw' bloggers, right? With one word, you've imbued this avocation with a promise of adventure. So the gangster folklore really saturates our everything -- our publishing, our films, our
airwaves, our culture. For reasons not well understood, and I'm certainly not sitting on whole answer, there is something in the perceived makeup of a gangster that has huge appeal to the masses. We as Americans tend to yield to the type of personality who challenges real authority, who takes what he wants without apology. (Photo: Abel Ferrara at MIA)
How’d you score your apartment?
Stanley took pity on me, basically. Is there any other way? He'd just turned away a couple of pretty good names, so nothing was for certain. And I've blown through a couple of apartments since then; the first was on the second floor, two twenty six, then Stanley put me up on nine, a big corner room that I liked much more, real peaceful except for the occasional electric guitar jam in the hallway at 2 am, with fast creeping, very agressive ivy invading from every direction. And an upright piano, which was nice. I don't play but found it was a really good place to stash things and it kept the cats entertained, usually whenever I was trying to get a nap in. I shared a bath with Rene Ricard for awhile, that was interesting. At least. He loved my room, he said; the good light, the relative silence, then assured me that 'only the very best people' had committed suicide there. That part had me worried for awhile, a couple of weeks, but fortunately it was all bullshit. Its true the light was good. Anyhow, by August the ivy had become dessicated and Stanley decided to renovate my place, so thats how I scored the room I'm in now, in what--it's been written--was one of Bob Dylan's first. I think it used to be bigger. I don't get any of Bob's junk mail, but a writer from SNL had this apartment before me and a few weeks ago Colin Quinn called up drunk from the lobby. Which was no consolation.
Do you think the Chelsea has a creative spirit?
Without question. There is real magic in this place. I would say "ask anybody" but its hard to explain, you either get it or you don't. I've brought friends of mine here who couldn't wait to leave. This past week there was some creep in the lobby complaining to Stanley that the Chelsea wasn't what he 'expected' from a four star hotel, or whatever. Bard had the cops on the guy so I'm thinking to myself 'god only knows where he spent the night.' And then there are those for whom nothing needs be explained. If you're open to it, you can get caught up in a creative undertow here, that pulls you in directions that aren't familiar. Or not.
What’s your favorite Hotel Chelsea story?
Personally I never tire of the story about a certain popular actress with the initials AJ on the ninth floor all hours to catch the H train. But there's always a new favorite around the corner.
Can you tell us about your future projects?
Sure. Right now I'm developing two other social history exhibits, and one of them is on the topic of Capital Punishment from the turn of the century, essentially since executions were permanently removed from public view in the face of the abolitionist movement. It will include rare unpublished Photography, important documents tracing its evolution and then, of course, the actual implements of death--for instance the electrocution chair from Tennessee where Maurice Mays is said to have been wrongly executed in 1922, and a lethal injection machine that malfunctioned while in use here in the northeast. It only came to this collection after the State that owned it refused to pay the repair bill.
How’d you get interested in the history of crime and/or more specifically “organized crime”?
Well, really I'm just a history buff. American history in particular. We really have crammed a fascinating and very often peculiar series of events into such a brief span of time since the U.S. was born. This may go without saying. As for the subject of this one exhibit, gangs and gangsters, at first blush it may appear gauche as a subject for study, but its actually an intrinsic part of the American identity throughout the past century. It might be difficult to imagine the United States without the 'contributions', for want of a better word, of organized crime. The public has a very unique relationship with these figures, one which dates back to the prohibition era bootleggers; its a relationship based on reciprocity and by that I mean that any time in U.S. history where you find the government placing unpopular social restrictions on its citizens' lifestyles, whether its a blackout on liquor, wagering, drugs or the skin trade, you'll find organized crime there filling the gap--and chances are good they're the most popular guys in the room. We as Americans don't like the goverment bringing us down. At least, thats how its been in the past. Possibly its an attitude dating back to our own rebellion against the Queen over the issue of taxes. I wouldn't be surprised. As the saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Are there any plans you have to take that show on the road? There are, actually, some plans afoot now that would bring the Organized Crime exhibit out west, to Nevada, where Las Vegas' very popular Mayor, Oscar Goodman -- an unapologetic former mafia lawyer -- has been championing the concept of a "Mob Museum" for several years." I've never sat down and discussed it with Goodman, so I don't know if his vision of the Museum is the same as my own. I was surprised, though, when the architects Goodman hired on to build his Las Vegas History Museum turned up at my exhibit. So we'll see.
What’s the most fascinating thing that happened to you during the course of locating the various historical documents that were part of the exhibit? Quite a few things that come to mind, actually. A short while back a close friend in Broadcasting laid a pair of show tickets on me—choice seats, orchestra level for Mama Mia! on Broadway. Maybe not everyone's cup of tea, but it was a sold-out date, but he couldn’t make opening curtain so the tickets filtered down to the girlfriend and I. Some of the older mobsters had a soft spot for this friend of mine. His show used to be on very, very late at night, and his audience included more than its share of night watchmen—and, one could easily imagine—gangsters. The Gallo gang in particular, always hitting the mattresses in the 60s and 70s, liked to watch. Word is that one time this friend of mine went out of his way, wrote a letter and swayed an insomniac Judge who happened to be a fan. Anyway, every last seat in the Winter Garden, as it turned out, had been bought up by one very familiar looking older gentleman to benefit a local Hospital charity. He’d invited his friends, the theatre was bursting, and I do recall thinking that—whoever he was—he sure had a lot of friends. So imagine the surprise when we were ushered elbow to elbow with quite literally several generations of Mafia pedigree. For discretion’s sake, I shouldn’t advertise who this man was, or who his father was, or who his charming wife was, or who her father was, or even how recently this same gentleman had been sprung from the Federal Pen. But they were extremely polite. As for the seats themselves—front row center. There was something in the air that night; the ballad of Fernando never sounded so sweet, and I still have at least one of the ticket stubs.
What are your favorite “organized crime” artifacts? Probably the early-century photography, and more specifically those images that were manipulated under the airbrush of old newspaper editors--these are the images that really shaped the way the American public (before the advent of Television) perceived that a gangster looks, the way a gangster dresses, how he walks, how he talks...these are pictures that had profound influence on the public at large. The mob guys seemed to get the same loving care from the photo editors that the Hollywood starlets did. If a hair was out of place, they'd straighten it with their wax pen. If Arnold Rothstein went out without his hat and got caught on film, they'd airbrush a fedora on him. So this is interesting to me. But beyond this, I think my favorites have to be the exhibits whose provenance can be traced to accomplished law officers. Police do tend to make the best sources. And growing up in and around New York City, I’ve had a few memorable encounters, naturally. I was actually raised by a hero cop whose name might not be recognized today, but to create the exhibit I relied heavily upon gaining access to private archives, whether it was a retired Detective or the estate of an organized crime figure. One archive in particular that proved invaluable to this display belonged to Burton Turkus, the mustachioed District Attorney from Brooklyn who sent Lepke to the chair, and who called the opposite corner 'home' for many years after his retirement from the D.A.'s office. That proximity didn't hurt one bit, and his family was very helpful to me. Pacino lived next door, incidentally; I'm not sure if that qualifies as a Mob encounter--though it probably should. Its often necessary to go out of ones way to acquire a really special artifact, so these pieces tend to evolve into favorites, as well. There was this one time I found myself in Nashville, Tennessee playing Pick-Six lotto along a dirt road at at midnight with a Mob widow who in her day turned every last head and more recently--while shooting exhibit photographs in Brooklyn with fellow Chelsea resident Arthur Weinstein, we got nailed by the cops for drinking on the Brownsville stoop that once was Midnight Rose’s candy store. This was where Murder, Inc.'s gunmen hung out waiting on their next assignment and which, today, sells Fruit Loops and forty ounces in the center of an infinitely more violent and nasty slum than it ever was when guys named Kid Twist, 'The Dasher' and Pittsburgh Phil controlled the comings and goings there. Weinstein and I witnessed a gang riot in the first fifteen minutes! You should have seen the cops faces drop when a hundred or so Crips came rushing down Livonia Avenue in pursuit of some poor bastard who looked to us like he'd already had enough. So whether its a Broadway ticket stub, Evidence from a lawman's files, a losing Lottery ticket, or an unanswered NYPD summons...they all become part of the exhibit's historical record. And my own, I suppose.
How long have you lived at the Chelsea and has your work been inspired by any former or current residents of the Chelsea Hotel? I've been back at the hotel as a resident short of a year, though I've been frequenting the hotel for about fifteen. This is my lucky place. Always. I guess I had my first portrait of the Chelsea tattooed about twelve years back and then a second one about six months ago. I keep them covered up mostly but the way I see it, even if somebody else gets a Chelsea tattoo this afternoon, I can still make a case for digging the place twice as much as they do. In the beginning, though, I just used to swing by the lobby occasionally and, as innocently as possible, spy on Herbert Huncke sitting off in the corner. Sometimes he'd have company, sometimes not. He was Guilty of Everything, and I was still taking notes. I'd run into him at Gagosian sometimes, too, but mostly at the hotel. I thought he was really tops. So around the same time, I was a freshman at college then, I became just a little hung up, a little infatuated even, with some books of verse by an aging American poet named John Malcolm Brinnin, who as it turned used to run the 92nd Street Y Poetry Center during the 1950s and was the man who'd instigated the several tours of U.S. colleges undertaken by Dylan Thomas, as well as being among those who'd encouraged Dylan to live at the Chelsea. This was how I really got interested in the hotel's history. Anyway, most people probably know John Brinnin best for his memoir "Dylan Thomas In America" because, unfortunately, his poems were widely neglected. Some critic or other labeled him 'too cerebral' or some shit like that, but his various published works made a considerable impact upon me personally and after school I was at least a little influenced to take a job I'd been offered running a contemporary art gallery in Key West because I knew Brinnin had retired there. As embarassing as it may be to admit, I had written Brinnin some verse of my own in 'tribute', which he immediately interpreted as a practical joke and initially attributed the poems to, among others, his neighbors Robert Merrill and poet laureate Richard Wilbur. Ironically, my bedroom window on Solares Hill overlooked Wilbur's own bathroom shower -- where nothing very poetic took place that I could see. But fortunately, once the true author was revealed, Brinnin just thought I was queer and more or less coming on to him...but thats another story altogether
What’s the best/worst thing that ever happened to you at the Chelsea? Like many others, I'm sure, a truthful answer to either question would (still) get me incarcerated.
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