Cinderella Krauss: From Plumber’s Daughter to Heiress

I wish I may, I wish I might. . . As reported in a recent New York Observer article (Max Abelson, 1/28), our dark mistress Marlene Krauss seems to have forgotten her roots and decided to put on airs (heirs?), casting herself as an heiress to the vast Chelsea Hotel fortune.  In case you don’t know the story, her father was a plumber who worked with Stanley’s father and put up some of the money to buy the hotel in 1945.  So, well, gee, technically. . .
     Marlene seems to have forgotten her treasured Harvard MBA as well.  Maybe her PR campaign to cast herself as a Master of the Universe has run its course and now she’s going for a softer image, sort of a spoiled, rich layabout--“let them eat cake” and all.  Surely no one will bite (or chop) her head off for that.

            The Observer article, nominally about Marlene buying a new apartment, is definitely worth a peek, as it makes Marlene sound about as bright as Paris Hilton.  What will you do in your new solarium, Marlene?  “I’m planning to grow, like, organic vegetables up there.”  What’s your favorite color, Marlene? 

“. . .light greenish, it’s used a lot in, like, Japanese clay and stuff.”  Forget the Fairy Godmother, bring on the Wizard!  Somebody needs a brain!

Well, I don’t know about you, but I had more respect for the old Marlene--you know, the one who made a fortune selling baby monitors that broadcast brainwashing signals from outer space.  Why don’t you just live in the Chelsea, Marlene?  “Um, just because, you know, the apartments really weren’t big enough for me and my family.”  Come on, Marlene, it’s a big building.  You can have a whole floor.  No, two floors.  Throw those starving artists out in the street!

            But it’s gratifying to know that if we work really hard here at the Chelsea we may someday rise to meet Marlene’s exacting standards: “It’s getting to look really nice.  We’re fixing it up.  I think it’s being run really, really well; it looks cleaner.”  [Reality Check: they are not fixing the Chelsea up.  The only thing BD “fixed” was the Grand Ballroom, partitioning it for office space—for which they received a $250 fine from the DOB for work done without a permit--and now they are tearing the partitions out.]  I think Stanley Bard put it best when he said, "Since when are we all dirty around here?" -- Ed Hamilton