Novelist Susan Swan Weighs In: A Sad Day for Arts

I am writing in support of Stanley and David Bard whose management of the Hotel Chelsea has made it a famous New York institution known the world over. The last time I stayed there, I was interviewed in the lobby by a French journalist about the Chelsea's contribution to the city's cultural fabric. The journalist did her story because her paper admired the Chelsea and wanted to tell its story to her readers. Indeed, the Chelsea's story needs to be told and retold, not just to French readers, but to Americans who don't know about Stanley Bard's heroic and largely unsung contribution to the arts in North America. He and his father before him respected the arts and ran their hotel so musicians, actors, artists and writers like myself could stay at a reasonable rate and create on its premises, and the list of work composed, drawn or written at the Chelsea is in many ways a portrait of North America's arts in the twentieth century.

Forcing Stanley and his son David out of the Hotel Chelsea is a sad day for the arts in New York and the rest of the world too. It is also a dumb business decision, sincerely, Susan Swan (Toronto novelist)
(Photo: Susan and Thomas Wolfe having a chat!)