Living with Legends: Hotel Chelsea Blog

A Moment of Silence for Hiroya

Mia Hanson called to remind us that today is the 5th anniversary of the death of the Japanese painter Hiroya.  At least for now some of his art remains on the walls of the Hotel. So when you stand and gaze at the crazy graffiti paintings take a moment to recall the life of the painter. I'm sure a lot of people have Hiroya stories that they may want to share so add them to the comments section.












 

Call the Wizard Once Again: Adam Rushfield/Jaz Jericho Bids BD a Fond Ado

Chelsea Hotel residents were saddened to learn of the departure of fellow resident musician Adam Rushfield (aka Jaz Jericho), after a year at the Hotel.  Though he’ll be missed, we’re sure he’ll do well wherever he winds up.  Jaz gave a farewell concert last night in his room at the Chelsea and it was attended by many residents.  If you see him on his way out, buy a CD (with cover art by Chelsea Hotel resident Hawk Alfredson) to remember him by.

The most recent casualty of the hostile takeover of the hotel by the minority shareholders, Jaz penned this appreciative farewell missive to his friends at BD:

After 30 Years, Amy Miller Moves On

Long time telephone operator Amy Miller is retiring today after 30 years on the job. We were always glad to hear her friendly voice on the other end of the line.  She will be sorely missed.  Stop by the desk today and wish her well.  Amy is shown here in a painting by Hotel Chelsea resident David Remfry.

Ethan Hawke Pays Sartorial Tribute to Artists of the Chelsea

Though we usually don’t report on the movements of celebrities on this blog, it’s hard to let this one pass.  On this past Saturday we saw former Chelsea Hotel resident Ethan Hawke walking down 8th Avenue with a very suspicious looking jacket.  It was a old brown Carhartt, or something similar and on the back, slightly off center, was stenciled the legend: DD821.  Now, to those of us in the Chelsea Hotel community this could be seen as a clear reference to Dee Dee Ramone, who lived for a time with his wife Barbara in room 821 of the Chelsea.  But the really weird thing about it is that it appears to have been either created by, or more likely inspired by, the Japanese artist Hiroya, who often put his graffiti-inspired designs on clothes.

            Hiroya, of course, was the wacky and obnoxiously self-promotional painter who died in 2003 after checking into the Gershwin and finding the accommodations lacking.  He often wrote his name on his paintings with his room number appended, as in: Hiroya 820; and he would do the same for other residents.

            The “DD” is also a plausible Hiroya construction (as is the off kilter placement of the slogan), but one of the reasons we think that the jacket is a fake is that Hiroya usually spelled Dee Dee’s name as DeDe.  Another thing is that Hiroya would never use a stencil, and furthermore, the jacket would be liberally spattered with paint.  So what gives?  Did Ethan just haul out an old jacket and stencil it himself in an homage to Hiroya?  Only his tailor knows for sure. Or maybe we’re just really too deep into this blogging thing and the answer is here!

            The same day we were walking on 23rd Street and a girl looked up at the hotel and said, “Who the hell is Bard?”  “Who knows?” said her unconcerned male companion.  Maybe next time we see Ethan he’ll be wearing an equally cryptic Bring Back the Bards jacket. -- Ed Hamilton

Merle Lister’s Dance of the Spirits:Commemorating 100 Years of Art and History at the Chelsea

A white robed young woman glides stealthily, ghost-like, down the stairs of the Chelsea Hotel, the walls a muted white behind her, as the eerie music begins.  As the pace of the dance accelerates, the woman begins moving up and down the stairs dangerously, recklessly.  Suddenly, she flings herself backward wildly, self-destructively, upon the filigreed railing, leaning out over the void, her head tilted down almost vertically.  A tragic beauty, distraught, ready to sacrifice all!

It was only later that choreographer Merle Lister heard the legend of the restless spirit who roams the history-haunted halls of the Chelsea in a long white dress.

This innovative work, titled Dance of the Spirits, was created in 1983 to commemorate the 100^th Anniversary of the 1883 founding of the Chelsea.  Merle remembers that Stanley had palm trees set up in the lobby for the occasion, as well as a stage where residents sang and entertained.  Arthur Miller turned out for the occasion, which was hosted by a Irish theater troupe, and a singer named Sandy Toder Dancer  performed.  And upstairs on the 7^th floor, as part of the festivities, the audience members standing, Merle, a pioneer in site-specific performance, “staged” her groundbreaking dance.

The woman in white, in a strong performance, was portrayed by Gina Lior, while the haunting score was composed by Alan Cohen, who also danced.  Other dancers included Genevieve Matin, and the young Merle Herself.  Camera work was provided by Eric Wolfe.  And Merle’s husband, renowned lighting designer Leonard Levine, who sadly passed away a few years back, and whom we all remember fondly, applied his usual visual magic to the lighting.

As a child, Merle Lister was captivated by the National Ballet of Canada, and as a result started choreographing early.  By the time she was 14 she had already decided to move to New York—though her parents didn’t get on board with this.  As it turned out, however, Merle didn’t wait long, arriving in the city in 1962 at the ripe old age of 23.  Merle studied briefly at the Martha Graham School, but soon found that that was not her style.  She then gravitated to the avant garde, and began working with the Living Theater.

Though influenced by the work of Jerry Grotowski, whose techniques changed the whole concept of theater, melding, as they did, movement and voice into a total concept, Merle never subscribed to any particular school of dance.  Becoming involved in Improv, she sought to use her choreography to assemble the disparate aspects of the dance holistically.  In the 60s she worked with Ellen Stewart at La Mama, teaching in the Plexis Troupe, and later collaborated with such figures as Lynn Loredo and Joe Chaikin, as well as with Joel Schick on his Coffee House Chronicles.

            In the 70s Merle founded the Merle Lister Dance Company, which performed at Lincoln Center, in Central Park, and at the 92nd Street Y.  She also ran her own school, Creative Movement, out of a large loft in Chelsea.  And, in a bit of Chelsea Hotel trivia, Merle was friends with Viva, the Warhol superstar, when they both lived at the hotel, and helped her daughter, Gaby Hoffman, rehearse for her role in the popular movie Field of Dreams.

              Back in the wild and wooly days of 1983, a desperate junkie might steal whatever he could get his hands on, or a deranged vandal might go on an iconoclastic slashing spree so there was no art displayed on the stairwell walls.  It was against this background, both of the ghostly white walls, and of the air of freedom mixed with desperation, of lost souls passing through the Chelsea, that Merle’s composition is set.  As Gina Lior thrashes against the railing, a wraith-like Alan Cohen appears, slithering up the stairs: a serpentine elemental spirit, come to snatch the distracted woman in white down to hell?  But no, he glides right past her, each dancer in his or her own appointed reality, like us all, partaking of their own individualized reality among the infinite choices possible in the seductive yet damning shadow realm of the Chelsea.  A youthful Merle emerges from the east wing of the hotel in flowing blue gown and ghoulish make-up, as spooky voices swell in the background: Queen of the Damned?  Or simply the spirit of a frustrated artist or actress, who, unfulfilled, prowls the lonely halls looking for that lost talent or promise she left behind?

The dancers used the available space well, filling all areas: rail, stairs, bare wall, and then swinging doors, spacious halls, window well.  The dancers glided by one another, more intimately connected with the surroundings than with one another, spirits who had become, over years and decades of solitary wandering, a part of the hotel themselves, rather than living humans relating to each other.  The viewer was transported back in time to an earlier—though timeless--period in the hotel’s history, overwhelmed with a sad and nostalgic poignancy, as the music provided the appropriate atmospheric accompaniment.

The video that I saw was of a dress rehearsal that took place on the 7^th floor.  For the actual performance, the audience members stood by the elevator and watched the action, but for the rehearsal only the cast and crew were present.  At one point during the dance, however, providing a moment of levity, a young boy with long, dark hair steps off the elevator and gets into the picture. But his appearance, while it somehow reinforced the transience and impermanence that was a theme of the dance, also suggested the lasting influence that the art created at the Chelsea, and the lives lived here in pursuit of that work, can have on generations yet to come. -- Ed Hamilton

{Merle is looking for somebody to transfer the video of this remarkable dance to a CD.}

The Haunted Crack Den of the Chelsea

Susan and I went to a party the other night hosted by a fellow blogger named Trevor whom we met online and then started running into around the neighborhood.  It was already crowded when we got there.  Trevor, the host, told us that one of his friends was visiting from out of town, and he had sent him to the Chelsea Hotel.
     “But I’m not sure if he likes it,” Trevor said.  “He doesn’t know anything about the Chelsea or its history, and he’s just used to staying in regular hotels.”
      We ran into Trevor’s friend, Bob, a tall, muscular man in his thirties, later in the evening.  “Trevor tells me you’re staying at the Chelsea,” I said.  “How do you like it?”

“Man, that place is a dump.  I can’t believe Trevor sent me there, but I know he thinks it’s a joke.”

I told him you had to really be into the whole Bohemian trip to appreciate it.  “How much are they hitting you up for?” I asked.

“$260 a night!” Bob said.  “I know it’s New York and all, but I’m getting raped, aren’t I.  When they took me up to my room I just rolled my eyes.  I couldn’t believe it.  It was a crack den.  I started looking around for needles and used condoms and stuff on the floor.”

Susan and I both cracked up at this.

“But that’s OK, I can take it for a couple of nights,” Bob said.  “Let Trevor have his fun.”  He went on to say, however, that another friend of his claimed to have seen a special on HBO that said the Chelsea was haunted.  “He’s not telling the truth, is he?”

“Well, a lot of people think it is,” Susan said.  We then went on to tell him about Sid’s ghost, Thomas Wolfe’s ghost, the Betty Boop ghost, Larry the hipster ghost, and the various other famous spectral manifestations of the hotel.

“How do you people know so much about this?” Bob asked suspiciously.

We explained that we had lived in the Chelsea for 13 years.  And since he seemed interested, I also took the opportunity to mention that he could pick up a copy of Legends at the Barnes and Noble, or at any other fine bookstore near him.  Some times we had to shout over the din of the music and conversation, but Bob definitely got the gist of it.

“Shit,” he said.  “$260 a night to sleep with a ghost!”  He told us about how when he was a kid he had moved with his parents into a big old house where he heard mysterious noises that he attributed to ghosts.  “They made the heating ducts creak, and opened doors when no one was standing there.”

I guess it was at about this time that it occurred to both Susan and I that this guy was really, seriously afraid of ghosts—though certainly the realization had been building all along.  Maybe we should have tried to reassure him, but we couldn’t help ourselves: it was too much fun to string him along.

“What floor are you on?” Susan asked.

“Why, does that matter?” Bob asked in turn.

“Some floors are more notorious for psychic activity,” I said.

“Uh, the first floor,” Bob said warily.

“Oh no!” both Susan and I exclaimed.  “That’s Sid’s floor!”

“Oh my God,” Bob said.  “I knew there was something wrong with that floor.  There’s that painting of that scary lady who looks like she’s looking at you, right when you get off the elevator.”  (It’s by Hawk Alfredson.)  “I should have turned right around and walked back out as soon as I saw that.  I’m not scared of anything—any man.  I train fighters for Bodog fighting.  But you can’t fight a ghost.  A ghost is not rational.  He’s not gonna spin me around or anything is he?”

“Nah, I doubt it,” I said.  “Sid usually just stops the elevator and gets on or off.  Of course he’s got a bad reputation because of that dustup with Nancy, but I’ve never heard of him bothering anybody.  Stanley says he was a nice, polite young man.”

Bob was far from reassured.  Later that night, as were waiting for the elevator to leave, we heard him out in the hallway taking to his girlfriend—or rather yelling at her—over his cell phone: “There’s this guy here who WROTE A BOOK ABOUT THE HOTEL, and he says it’s haunted!  I’m gonna kill Trevor!  He screwed me!  I’m gonna check out and send him the bill!”

Bob had made the mistake of telling us his room number, and so when we got back to the hotel we left a note under his door:

Love Kills – Sid V.

But that’s not all.  When we got up to the first floor and started to go through the glass door into Sid’s wing to deliver our note, there was a drunk guy up on the second floor hanging over the railing and when he saw us he started raving, “Don’t go in there!  I’m scared of that floor!  I know what happened down there!  You couldn’t pay me to get off on that floor!”  These things tend to cluster, I suppose.  Or maybe there was a full moon that night.  We heard the drunk guy stalking around on one of the floors above as we got on the elevator to ride up to our floor, and wondered if he’d still be around when Bob got back to the hotel. -- Ed Hamilton

    

Heather Graham possessed by elemental spirit lurking in basement of Chelsea Hotel

Most Chelsea Hotel residents know not to spend extended time in the basement.  The rest of the Hotel is filled with enough ghosts so we don't need to tempt fate by venturing into the bottom of the vortex.  Heather Graham appears to not to have got the word.  This is the result! I guess she'll be moving in soon for an extended stay. Surely BD can find a room for an international star such as this.

Minority Shareholder David Elder Heads Back to Court

Once again, the LA Superior Court is set to rule on whether or not Hotel Chelsea layabout David Elder is fit to serve as the administrator of a trust established for aging author Piri Thomas.  When David’s mother died in 1986, she left her 16% interest in the Chelsea Hotel to David and his two siblings in trust.  However, the trust stipulated that Piri Thomas, her husband and David’s stepfather, was to receive all income from the trust for as long as he lived. 
     David and his siblings didn’t care for that arrangement and have refused to hand over the 1.2 million that the trust has generated in income, forcing Piri to sue for the money.  Though the court called David and his siblings’ argument that the income was principal “absurd,” and ruled against them, they have tied it up in appeals for years.

According to the website, the case will be heard on 2/25/2008 at 1:30 p.m in Department 11 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA.

Hip Hopper Goldie Stops By The Chelsea

On Goldie's first trip to NYC in June 1986, he stayed at the Chelsea Hotel with Birdie and manager Martin Jones. As dawn breaks, he rants at imaginary people from his bedroom window. Clip from Zulu Dawn, a documentary on the pioneer UK hip hoppers of the 80s, that catches up with their lives today.

Mice Flee Sinking Ship of Chelsea

It seems that filmmaker Steve Marcus was shooting outside of the Hotel back in June 2007 and captured some live action that went down after the mice got the word that the Bards were out.  The rodent in this film is not as fortunate as the rodent in "Legends" who is thrown from the balcony of the Chelsea and ends up in some woman's beehive.
The Three Thug Mice (http://www.threethugmice.com/) is a series of 35 animated short online films set in the grimy underbelly of the concrete jungle.  The Three Thug Mice are the brainchild of New York City artist, Steve Marcus (http://www.smarcus.com/). 

Peckham Battles On:Case That Could Set Precedent in Gut-Demolition Issue is Argued

Arguments were heard Friday (2/15/08) in Landlord Larry Tauber’s appellate court case against tenant Daniel Peckham.  Tauber’s lawyer came out first thing and started bitching about how her client had to hold up his construction plans just because of this one tenant, but the judges quickly silenced her, directing her to focus on the issue at hand.  What the case was really about was whether or not gut renovation (at Peckham’s building, and in general, since the case may set a precedent), which tenant activists characterize as “phony demolition” fits the DHCR’s standards for permissible demolition.  (Gut renovation has become popular of late as a way for landlords to try to get rid of rent-stabilized tenants) The DHCR had decided that it did, and then the State Supreme Court had ruled that the DHCR needed to revisit that decision, and in the present case Tauber was arguing that the original determination should hold.

            Tauber’s lawyer argued that the DHCR had a clear standard in place stating that demolition did not have to involve taking down the exterior walls of a building, that if you could stand in the basement and look up at the sky that constituted demolition under the DHCR rules.  Judges asked if it was not permissible for the DHCR to revise it’s standards, perhaps in response to the overheated real estate situation, and Tauber’s lawyer said it wasn’t fair to do so midstream in Tauber’s project.

            Both Peckham’s lawyer, Stewart W. Lawrence, and the DHCR lawyer argued that the DHCR should get the case back so that they could clarify their standard as to whether or not gut-renovation constituted actual demolition.  Judges pointed out that the DHCR seemed to have been comfortable with the “stand-in-the-basement-and-look-at-the-sky” standard, and asked whether or not this seeming change of heart on the part of the DHCR had anything to do with the recent gubernatorial election, in which the democrat Eliot Spitzer replaced the outgoing republican Pataki.  The DHCR lawyer said no, but that they now intended to be more proactive in articulating their standards in this and other issues.

            It was difficult to tell which way the case will go.  Although the Judges didn’t seem to think it was necessarily too late for the DHCR to change its standard in Tauber’s case, one of them saying that, actually, the decision was still ongoing as it worked its way through the courts, they seemed to bristle at the suggestion that political ideology might be influencing the DHCR to revisit cases that had already been decided.  But one of the judges asked why the DHCR couldn’t just use the cases before it presently to articulate its standard as to what constitutes demolition, which seems to suggest that even if Tauber wins this case it won’t necessarily constitute a precedent for future gut-renovations.

At one point one of the judges briefly brought up the subsidiary issue of Tauber’s financial fitness to complete the renovations of the building.  Though his lawyer assured the judge that Tauber had satisfied the requirements, Tauber has been losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in rents simply because he refuses to settle with Peckham.  The decision in this case will take two to five months to complete, during which time Tauber will lose even more money, and perhaps by that point his financial situation really will become relevant. -- Ed Hamilton

Arguments were heard Friday (2/15/08) in Landlord Larry Tauber’s appellate court case against tenant Daniel Peckham.  Tauber’s lawyer came out first thing and started bitching about how her client had to hold up his construction plans just because of this one tenant, but the judges quickly silenced her, directing her to focus on the issue at hand.  What the case was really about was whether or not gut renovation (at Peckham’s building, and in general, since the case may set a precedent), which tenant activists characterize as “phony demolition” fits the DHCR’s standards for permissible demolition.  (Gut renovation has become popular of late as a way for landlords to try to get rid of rent-stabilized tenants) The DHCR had decided that it did, and then the State Supreme Court had ruled that the DHCR needed to revisit that decision, and in the present case Tauber was arguing that the original determination should hold.

            Tauber’s lawyer argued that the DHCR had a clear standard in place stating that demolition did not have to involve taking down the exterior walls of a building, that if you could stand in the basement and look up at the sky that constituted demolition under the DHCR rules.  Judges asked if it was not permissible for the DHCR to revise it’s standards, perhaps in response to the overheated real estate situation, and Tauber’s lawyer said it wasn’t fair to do so midstream in Tauber’s project.

            Both Peckham’s lawyer, Stewart W. Lawrence, and the DHCR lawyer argued that the DHCR should get the case back so that they could clarify their standard as to whether or not gut-renovation constituted actual demolition.  Judges pointed out that the DHCR seemed to have been comfortable with the “stand-in-the-basement-and-look-at-the-sky” standard, and asked whether or not this seeming change of heart on the part of the DHCR had anything to do with the recent gubernatorial election, in which the democrat Eliot Spitzer replaced the outgoing republican Pataki.  The DHCR lawyer said no, but that they now intended to be more proactive in articulating their standards in this and other issues.

            It was difficult to tell which way the case will go.  Although the Judges didn’t seem to think it was necessarily too late for the DHCR to change its standard in Tauber’s case, one of them saying that, actually, the decision was still ongoing as it worked its way through the courts, they seemed to bristle at the suggestion that political ideology might be influencing the DHCR to revisit cases that had already been decided.  But one of the judges asked why the DHCR couldn’t just use the cases before it presently to articulate its standard as to what constitutes demolition, which seems to suggest that even if Tauber wins this case it won’t necessarily constitute a precedent for future gut-renovations.

At one point one of the judges briefly brought up the subsidiary issue of Tauber’s financial fitness to complete the renovations of the building.  Though his lawyer assured the judge that Tauber had satisfied the requirements, Tauber has been losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in rents simply because he refuses to settle with Peckham.  The decision in this case will take two to five months to complete, during which time Tauber will lose even more money, and perhaps by that point his financial situation really will become relevant. -- Ed Hamilton

OPENINGS

G.R. N’Namdi Gallery is pleased to announce the Opening Reception for Herbert Gentry’s retrospective exhibition, entitled “The Man, The Master, The Magic” celebrating over forty years of work on February 15^th, 2008 from 6 until 10 pm.  This retrospective exhibition runs from February 15^th - April 12^th, 2008. The opening reception is sponsored by Uptown Magazine and Martell. The Gallery is located at 526 West 26th Street, #316.

"The paintings and drawings in this retrospective exhibition vary in size and range from 1964 until 2003.
Gentry’s formation as a painter should be considered in light of the passion he brought to his identity as a painter, “A painter paints, a fighter fights, a writer writes,” he would say. Gentry painted his world on canvas, alluding to his fascination with the power of social relationships and the allure of the journey. His aesthetic speaks through decisive lines and a strong sense of composition.  His canvasses are intuitively descriptive of his international experiences living in Harlem and throughout Europe. He stated: “Painting is very much about sex, it’s about love, it’s about putting things together”.  The drawings featured in this exhibition, although as extemporaneous as his paintings, are more laid-back and lovely. They're filled with sinfully sinuous lines forming erotic shapes inspired by the curvaceous form of the female body." (From the Press Release) 

man-laï and the Catalan Institute of America invite everyone to a book presentation and reception: XAVIER CARBONELL "fragments". Painter Xavier Carbonell will be attending the reception and signing books. “fragments” has been published in celebration of this exhibition of new work by the artist. Copies of the book will be available free of charge on a first come first serve basis.  Friday, Feb. 15, 7:00 – 9:00 p.m.
JADITE Galleries, 413 West 50th Street, NY NY






The Pavel Zoubok Gallery at 533 West 23rd Street in New York is hosting a May Wilson retrospective exhibition from February 15 - March 15, 2008 (opening reception on February 15, from 6 to 8 pm). It was under May Wilson's bed (After a stint living in the Chelsea Hotel, May moved into the building next door) that Valerie Solanas stored the gun she used to shoot Andy Warhol.

During the 1960s Wilson's work was included in Martha Jackson's "New Media New Forms: In Painting and Sculpture" exhibition which featured the works of artists that were often referred to as "Neo-Dada" or "New Realists" before the term "Pop Art" was adopted in the United States.

Wilson was also the subject of the excellent 1969 documentary, Woo Who? May Wilson, from which the current exhibition takes its name.

The exhibition at Pavel Zoubok is running in collaboration with the May Wilson exhibition at the Morris Museum in New Jersey.

Monsoon Season Indoors for Noted Chelsea Hotel Artist

The ceiling in artist Michele Zalopany’s Chelsea Hotel apartment/studio has a leak—or rather several leaks.  There’s a two-foot hole in her living room ceiling where the water pours through--buckets when it rains.  Michele had to climb up on a ladder herself and remove the cracked and drooping plaster so it wouldn’t fall on somebody’s head.  She lately had to move her heavy couch from under the hole as well, to keep it from being soaked through.  On the other side of the living room there’s another large leak where water has seeped in through the ceiling and run down the wall, peeling the paint and bubbling up the plaster, which looks as if it could start falling anytime now.  And in the bathroom there’s yet another enormous leak where water streams in.
         Michele, a successful artist who also teaches at Harvard, says she approached the hotel’s Director of Operations Glennon Travis in August of 07—when she returned from a trip abroad--and he assured her that he’d take steps to rectify the soggy situation.  In her only contact with Glennon since then, Michele says that she found him to be, “unapproachable, inaccessible, and hostile,” when she wanted to discuss an unrelated matter. 

Meanwhile, the walls in Michele’s apartment—especially the one in the bathroom--have sprouted white mold, and Michele is developing respiratory problems.  She says she has itchy eyes, and sometimes has difficulty breathing, which makes it hard to sleep at night.

In my work for Chelsea Now, I visited several SROs in the Chelsea area where the landlord had purposely punched holes in the roof to introduce leaks into the building (a common tactic used to empty a building of rent stabilized tenants) and the leakage in Michele’s apartment was comparable to some of the worst I have seen.  Although there’s no indication here that the leakage was purposely caused, Michele says that when Stanley was in charge he could be counted on to send up the painter and the plasterer every few months to fix up the holes.
         Now, however, because the situation has been allowed to deteriorate for the past seven months, spot repairs probably won’t do the trick anymore.  (Michele knows of at least one other person on her floor who is enduring a similar situation.)  The bottom line is, the roof needs to be repaired.  And although this may present some problems because of the roof garden directly above Michele’s apartment, it simply has to be done, as every tenant in New York City is entitled to a warm, dry apartment that doesn’t make him or her sick.  “Marlene Krauss spoke about all the improvements that the new management is doing,” Michele pointed out, “and then when it comes down to the facts, they aren’t doing jack.”

Where's Stanley: To Check In Or Not To Check In

Here are a couple of recent e-mails from our readers/hotel guests.  Reader number one seems to be having trouble getting a straight answer about the room rates, while Reader # 2 as to whether to come to the hotel at all. 

"On Monday, the rate was $189 for a Saturday night stay in a room with a king size bed and a bathroom. By Wednesday, it had risen to $225.  Each time I call, I say "may I speak to Stanley Bard?" The first time, the reaction was snotty. The second time, the guy said "I haven't seen him in months. Wish I had." 

"Anyway, I've stayed at the Hotel twice during the Stanley days and now have an opportunity to bring a younger friend (who would absolutely plotz if she got to stay there), along the next time I'm in NYC, probably April.  In your opinion, do we stay there, putting money into the pockets of the proverbial enemy, or not stay there out of protest for what is being done to it, thereby providing them less business, and thereby encouraging further outrage to the premises?  I feel somewhat damned either way."

Well reader #2 we think that you should definitely still visit us.  Despite the absence of Stanley and the obnoxious corporate presence this is still a really cool place to pass through.  We’re not trying to bankrupt the hotel, just get rid of BD (in fact, we think that it’s BD that is trying to bankrupt the hotel so they can buy it cheap.) but when you do visit make your displeasure known in some way. You could wear a protest shirt reading “Bring Back the Bards” or something similar. And be sure to do what reader #1 suggests and ask for Stanley Bard.  That drives them nuts. 

Definitely Punch Him

Good Afternoon.
I own the Knickerbocker, an apartment building in Albany and some one who wants to take photos of my building and tenants is compairing us to the Chelsea Hotel.  Am I supposed to thank him for the compliment or punch him for being insulting?

Name Redacted

Blogging Loot From New Orleans

At last this blogging is starting to pay off!  We arrived home the other day to find yet another suspicious package awaiting us at the front desk.  (The last one was an origami unicorn laced in anthrax!)  But we could see into this one so we weren’t too worried. It contained some delicious New Orleans coffee and Pralines, and beads freshly caught at this year's Mardi Gras. The generous gifter writes:

I lived in Manhattan twenty years ago, and though I never stayed at the Chelsea, I was enamored of her history and mystique. It’s heartbreaking to think of her becoming just another bright, soulless box.  We’re very much enjoying our stay – coming from New Orleans, we have a definite appreciation for the beauty of decay.

So thanks, kindred spirits from New Orleans, for the gifts, and more importantly for your support of the Chelsea. We know how you are having your own problems back home, and so it’s doubly kind of you to think of us.  All of us around here will do our best to take care of the Hotel so it retains its charm for your next visit. -- Ed Hamilton

Worst Trip Ever at the Chelsea

Well, I guess we can't count on Roger Waters to help save the Chelsea.  According to a new book, Comfortably Numb, the Chelsea Hotel was the scene of Waters last bad acid trip.  Waters may want to give us another chance however and stop back by, since we hear that the drugs are much better now. The drugs have to be good to get us through this hostile takeover.

Worse Than the Flophouses of Vietnam?

Yes!!!! The Chelsea still has it! It’s refreshing to be reminded that, despite renovations, gentrification, and the corporate takeover, the Chelsea still retains an almost supernatural power to scare the bejesus out of unsuspecting tourists.  And this one’s from Ireland, too, which is not exactly famous for its luxury accommodations.   Show me the worst flophouse in Vietnam, I dare you.  The Chelsea will make it look like the Ritz.

Perceptive blog readers may notice that we’ve already received a report from the woman’s boyfriend:
      There was a German couple staying next door to us in the transient room.  One afternoon I ran into the man coming out of his room, and I said, “How are you enjoying your stay here at the Chelsea?”

            “Oh, it was great until yesterday, when my wife packed up and went back to Germany without telling me.”

            “Wow! That is a bummer,” I said.  “Did she not like New York?  I know it can be very fast-paced and intimidating.”

            “She liked New York fine.”

            “Then maybe it was the hotel.  You know, there are some people who really hate it.”

            “No, she loved the hotel,” the man said.  “I think it was just me.”

Turns out her early departure may have had something to do with the accommodations after all.

The Fabled Tiger Lady of the Chelsea?

The Chelsea Hotel of BD times is but a pale shadow of its former glory.  No cats in the halls?!  We’ve long heard rumors of an eccentric lady who kept a tiger in her apartment at the Chelsea way back in the 60s, but we tended to dismiss them as just too wild even for this primordial urban jungle.  But now, at last, the truth comes to light.  According to London’s Daily Telegraph, Theodora Keogh, granddaughter of Teddy Roosevelt, and who died just recently at the ripe old age of 88, kept a margay, a South American “tiger cat” similar to an ocelot, while in residence at the Chelsea(1/29/08).

            As you might imagine, Theodora led a colorful life, carrying a knife and swimming nude as a young girl, joining a ballet company early on, running with the Paris Review crowd in the City of Love, and writing nine novels with such scandalous themes as: incest between twins, young girls being lured to bed by diseased sculptors, passing history exams by threatening to expose teachers as lesbians, street musicians falling in love with child criminals, rape, unspeakable things, and being stirred to perform marital duties by “. . .memories of a dark, swarthy Indian boy walking in the Place Vendome.”

            Theodora abandoned writing in 1962, and apparently moved to the Chelsea Hotel soon after.  The affair with the margay, however, did not end well: one night, when Theodora passed out dead drunk in her room at the Chelsea—18 whiskeys, anyone?--the ravening beast gnawed off one of her ears!

            We corresponded with Chelsea Hotel historian Sherrill Tippins about Theodora, and she was way ahead of us: she said that she had already contacted a biographer, who denied that the Tiger Lady had ever lived at the Chelsea Hotel, claiming instead that the margay incident had taken place in another building in the Chelsea neighborhood.  But we here at the Chelsea know better: in addition to the confirmation of the old rumors, what other building in Manhattan would allow ferocious jungle cats to range freely through its halls?!

            Theodora died on January 5 of this year in North Carolina, where, reportedly, she had had to give up raising chickens because they kept getting eaten by coyotes.  (Yeah, I know, North Carolina doesn’t seem like a real big coyote state: no word on whether or not she was raising the coyotes herself.) -- Ed Hamilton

Dystopia Trumps Disney:Cindy Gallop’s Blade Runner Party

A few weeks ago we received a suspicious package at the Chelsea.  A large envelope with no return address, we opened it cautiously.  Inside was a silver origami unicorn encased in a plastic box.  “Undo me” the label demanded.  No way, we said, figuring it was probably a stink bomb of some sort, at best, and at worst it was laced with anthrax.  We tossed it in the trash.

            A couple of days later we found out that it had been an invitation to Cindy Gallop’s futuristic theme party (L.A. in 2019) in her huge apartment across the street at the old Y.  (She was nice enough to send us another invitation: it looked better before I unfolded it and then tried to fold it back.)

After this inauspicious beginning we breathed a sigh of relief, knowing things couldn’t possibly get any worse.  Entering through the basement lobby, which has finally been renovated, we rode the elevator up to the black lacquer, art-and-taxidermy stuffed “Den of Cin” and ran into Cindy first thing.  She wore a striking leather bustier, giving her the look of an atavistic post nuclear S&M High priestess.  Perhaps she came up with the idea for the party so she could wear the stunning outfit, though it appealed to me as more Mad Max than Blade Runner.  Or maybe something out of the pagan version of A Canticle for Lebowitz.  Why walk, indeed!

Most people were about like us: oh this shirt or this dress looks kind of futuristic.  (Like Rohit and Lizzie, the British couple who were staying in the Madonna “Sex” room, and with whom we walked across the street to the party.) One guy wore a plastic silver lame jacket we had seen the week before in American Apparel.  A woman in a pink skirt simply put a tin-foil bow in her hair; her date wrapped foil around his wrist.  Several women dressed up like the “replicant” played by Daryl Hanna in Blade runner—going to various lengths to replicate the look.  Five men showed up in orange prison jump suits (go figure), while another, bafflingly, had attired himself as a cowboy.  At least nobody showed up as Snow Fucking White or the Lion King (though that’s probably much closer to the future we will have to endure).

Due to racy accounts of past Cindy Gallop parties, we were looking forward to seeing the waiters prancing around with loins girded solely in Y towels.  On this night, however, they were merely shirtless.  (Though very buff: Debbie thinks they were running down to David Barton’s gym to do a few reps between carrying out plates of hors d’oevres.)  This sets a bad precedent, certainly; who wants to live in a future where waiters are allowed to keep their pants on?

We partied as if an asteroid were on course to vaporize our planet by dawn.  (Now there’s a future I could “live” with: why don’t the developers just nuke the whole city instead of agonizingly chopping us up knuckle by knuckle and joint by joint?)

Those of you who have been following Legends for a bit know that we met Cindy after I criticized her apartment on the blog (actually, I confess, more for its very existence in the old Y building than for its artistic/design shortcomings), and so I was kind of worried that one or another of her friends might recognize me and punch me in the nose.  Mainly they said, “Hey, you’re the guy in that movie with Cindy.” But sure enough, one of the first people I ran into was, Stefan, the guy who designed the apartment.  He was dressed as an old time Chinese cooley; his explanation: “We’ll all be Chinese some day.”  We talked about how gentrification is a double-edged sword: while the city is safer, much of its vibrancy has been drained.  (This is certainly true, though actually, if you don’t have a lot of money, it’s pretty much just a single-edged sword.)

            And no, he didn’t punch me in the nose.  Nor did the artist who designed the gold Gucci chainsaw and the Chanel AK-47—and, more recently, the gold-plated Gucci alligator.  He and his girlfriend were dressed in running suits and had lots of knives and axes strapped onto themselves: “Take everything literally,” he said when asked to explain.

            Serena Bass (who used to have a club in the basement of the Chelsea) catered the event, providing yummy appetizers including tomato-coconut discs, cheese sticks, black angus skewers, and mini lox-and-cream-cheese wraps.  I meant to say hi to Paul Richard—whose photo (by Julia Calfee)appears in Legends much in the tricksterish spirit of his own art, but he left before I could say Hello, off to the Gagosian, no doubt.

The only other Chelsea resident in attendance was the fashion designer Zaldy (17 years at the hotel), who wore a gauzy cape (I think), his vision of the future looking oddly similar to one of his own forward-looking designs of today.  Well, at least some of us are prepared for what’s to come.  -- Ed Hamilton

BD Rips Off Eames

Heads up all of you fabric and textile designers and in general all of you creative people here at the Chelsea Hotel.  BD Hotels is being sued for knocking off Eames patterns at the Pod Hotel.  That’s no surprise to us however, as the whole place is chintzy by definition.

Richard Born On Bankrupting Hotels

We've been suggesting for a while that BD's strategy is to bankrupt the hotel so that they can buy it cheap.  How else to explain their slashing of rates, warehousing of rooms, doubling of staff and otherwise mismanaging the hotel. In an interview for The New York Sun Richard Born comes clean on his strategy:

"I probably get a call every day from someone asking if I want to joint venture or invest in their new hotel project. When I discuss the perils of new development at this time most people laugh and suggest that I just want to discourage others from building so I can monopolize that market myself. My response is simply that I would rather purchase new hotels from the banks in three years at 50% discount, than invest at full price today."

He goes into some rigamarole about declining occupany rates and the like which I don't have the patience to attempt to decipher at this moment, but according to Born, the bottom line is:

"...That would surely be enough to effectively bankrupt every newly built hotel and any existing hotel carrying a large debt burden."  -- Ed Hamilton