Living with Legends: Hotel Chelsea Blog

Portal to Hell at the Chelsea Hotel

As a former guest reminds us, sometimes the Chelsea ’s famous spirit of tolerance can be taken a bit too far:

        I stayed in the Chelsea Hotel for a week  back in the eighties and what I saw did not make me eager to come back.  Of course the place was a wreck and filled with freaks, but I’m not even talking about that.  I’m kind of a freak myself, in the sense of being a misfit or whatever (I write poetry and plays for the theatre, and am also, professionally, a hairdresser), but at some things I draw the line.  One night I’d been out partying at the clubs—as I often did in those days—and in the early morning I stumbled back to the Chelsea and flopped onto my bed and immediately went to sleep.  I don’t know what it was, but some uneasy feeling woke me not long afterwards.  I had rented the cheapest room possible, with a window that looked onto the airshaft that separates the Chelsea from the building next door [ed. note: the Carteret ], and so, with no street light the room was dark as a cave.  But through a crack in the curtains I saw a faint light, and so I drew back the curtains to take a look.  Across the pitch black, seemingly bottomless airshaft, I could see into the room next door.  In the sparsely furnished room I saw an old man and a young girl, a skinny teenager, though she must have been a prostitute from the looks of her heavy makeup and ornate, bouffant hairstyle, and what was left of her skimpy outfit.  The old man was beating her, and engaging in other, even more depraved and disgusting acts that I can’t even bring myself to mention.  Now I’m no pervert, but I watched anyway, spellbound, for what must have been a minute or more.
         Finally, it dawned on me that something was really wrong here.  I went out into the hallway, found the door to the room, and knocked.  When nobody answered I kept banging and banging.  Finally, the old man opened the door a crack and peered out.  He was ugly, with a horrible, pock-marked face, with a grizzled, patchy beard.  Summoning up all my courage, I said, “You gotta stop what you’re doing, because I’m pretty sure it’s illegal.”  The old man looked at me with naked contempt in his red, watery eyes.  “She’s my wife,” he snarled.  In the middle of a room littered with his dastardly accoutrements, the young girl lay tied up on the bed.  “That is not your wife, dude!” I said.  It was then that I noticed that he was holding something in his hand that was so repugnant that I’ve never dared speak of it to anyone in all these years.  In horror, I backpedaled into the hallway, and the old man slammed the door in my face.

Not waiting for the elevator, I ran down several flights of stairs and told them what was happening at the front desk.  The clerk said that no one had checked into that room that night, but I insisted that somehow they had got in.  The clerk got the bellman to accompany me up to the room.  No one answered when he knocked, and so he used his pass key to open the door.  When the door swung open, creaking on its hinges, a musty smell hit us.  The lights didn’t work, and the room was a wreck, filled with junk, and actually looked like it hadn’t been used in years.  The bellman shrugged his shoulders like this kind of thing happened all the time, and went back downstairs.  When I got back to my room I looked across the airshaft, but the room was dark, the curtains drawn, and I couldn’t see anything.  Needless to say, I didn’t sleep much that night!

I’ve thought about this incident a lot over the years, without coming to any definite conclusions.  I don’t know what plane of existence they were on.  Maybe they were in Hell.  I hope the girl didn’t die, but it sure looked like it was headed in that direction.

Damn!  Such, apparently, are the tribulations of a working girl when she checks into the Chelsea.  I hope at least she got her money.

The Elevator Doors of Perception at the Chelsea Hotel

A bold psychonaut writes in with his tale of otherworldly adventure at the Chelsea Hotel: 

Though I’ve traveled the world in search of the strange and miraculous, the Chelsea hotel is the only building I have yet found that permits such an easygoing communion with the dear departed.  (I still live at the Chelsea, of course—where else would have me?—though I’d like to maintain my anonymity.)  Everyone knows that the famous lobby is a way station for spirits coming and going between metaphysical realms, so I won’t run that theme into the ground.  But one phenomenon that has not been widely reported is that, late at night, the elevators will often deposit the unwary traveler in another temporal realm.  I can’t tell you how often I’ve stepped off that creaking, rattling contraption and found myself back in the hotel of the eighties, the place filled with junkies and prostitutes, or the fifties, or even earlier. One evening many years ago, while listening to a Mozart concerto, I ingested a bitter tea which I brewed from some strange seeds that I had found in the woods behind my parents house in  New Jersey.  After breaking out in a cold sweat, convulsing in a violent paroxysm, and losing control of my bowels, I decided to go out for an ice cream.  On the first floor, the elevator landed with a jolt, bouncing in place as the doors opened.  As the hallway was lit by fluorescent tubes, and the white walls were bare of art, I knew I had returned to an earlier era.  
    Before I could get off the elevator and explore, who should bound onto the elevator but Sid Vicious himself, knife in hand, bleeding from slashes he had carved in his chest and arms.  He was followed by none other than Nancy, and, as to my surprise the elevator went up rather than down, Sid started bouncing up and down from wall to wall, smearing blood all over the place. 
“Sid, get the fuck away from me!”  Nancy screamed.  “You’re getting blood all over my new outfit!”  He was getting blood on me too, but I wasn’t too worried because it was ghostly blood, and presumably fairly easy to get out of most fabrics.  With this in mind, I said, “Give the guy a break, Nancy.  He’s just trying to have some fun.” 
“You stay out of this, you little weasle!” she screamed at me.  And then she attacked me, beating me over the head with a purse that felt like it had several cans of hairspray in it.  Sid stopped pogoing in order to watch us.  And then, chuckling, he let out a long, loud fart.  Now, unlike ghostly blood, a ghostly fart is a serious matter, as noxious as the gasses escaping from a bloated corpse.  Stale as the grave, it filled the elevator with it’s deathly odor.  One whiff of it, and my head reeled and I passed out cold on the elevator floor—only to wake up the next day at St. Vincents.
       On another occasion, after cooking up and injecting a gummy, resinous substance that I had found caked in an old pharmaceutical bottle I purchased at the flea market, and subsequently gnashing my teeth, biting off the tip of my tongue, bleeding from my eyeballs, and losing control of my bowels—all to the strains of Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony--I decide to go down to the El Quijote for a big pot of seafood paella.  Alas, it was not to be, as the elevator jolted to a stop on the 4^th floor.  Stepping off the temperamental elevator, I noticed that I was once again back in another era.  I heard a crash and a tinkling of glass, and so I walked down the hallway to see what was going on.  Old man Krauss, the plumber, was busy trashing a stained glass window with his trusty pipe wrench.  As I looked on in horror, two men carrying a stretcher came out of one of the smaller rooms.  The man on the stretcher was the famous Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, and when he spied me, he thought he was seeing a ghost.  “Oh, my God!” he exclaimed in terror.  “You’re dead, aren’t you?!  Am I dead too?  Is that why you’re here?  Are you taking me down to hell?” 
        Before I could answer, one of the stretcher bearers, who apparently hadn't heard Dylan, said, "This is what he gets for drinking all that liquor.”  “It wasn’t that much!” Dylan protested.  “Only 18 whiskeys!” He looked to me imploringly, as if for some kind of support. “Never touch the stuff, myself.  But maybe if you just puked a little, you’d be okay."
       Dylan promptly turned his head, hung it over the side of the stretcher, and let loose with copious flows of vomit—red and yellow, green and brown—pouring out in torrents, filling the halls from wall to wall and sloshing up from the floor toward the ceiling.  As the vomit engulfed me, smothering me and stifling my screams, I passed out and woke up in restraints at St. Vincents the next day.  
     Not long after that, I licked the belly of a toad belonging to a man who checked into the Chelsea claiming to be the Shaman of a primitive Brazilian tribe.  My breathing became shallow and my heartbeat slowed to about 3 beats per minute as I entered a deathlike catatonic trance from which I was not to arise for several days.  As I floated near the ceiling watching my body lose control of its bowels, the Shaman stole my wallet and busted up all my classical music CDs, so when I came too I popped a Jazzy Jeff CD into my walkman and went out to the ATM machine so I could get money for a fried Oreo from that greasy British fish place on Greenwich Avenue. Of course I never made it.  The elevator went up instead of down, stopping with a jolt and the familiar bouncing that I had learned to associate with the passage between dimensions.  The elevator hadn’t quite come all the way up, and as I clambered out into the hall on my belly, a huge, bearish man, obviously drunk, lurched through the swinging hall doors, whipped out his penis, and let fly over the wrought iron balcony.  Well, I immediately recognized the specter as the great writer Thomas Wolfe.  Being a huge fan, I wanted to show my appreciation in some small way, and so I too whipped out my penis and pissed over the railing in solidarity.
         Wolfe burst out with a thunderous belly laugh: “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!  Come on up and get me, you sissy!”
         You could tell the clerk wanted to come up and settle the score with Wolfe, but as Wolfe was gigantic and intimidating, he apparently thought better of it.  Then, just as I was zipping up, the clerk spied me, and said, “Well, I’ll get you, at least, you scrawny little weasel!”  And he started up the stairs to carry out his threat.
         As I abhor the very thought of violence, the clerks words threw me into a panic; my head reeled and I thought I was going to pitch head first over the railing.  Luckily, Wolfe must have pulled me back from the brink just in time.  Though I have no knowledge of my subsequent actions, to judge from the mysterious charges which later appeared on my hotel bill, I apparently went on some kind of a rampage.  Waking up in the psycho ward at St. Vincent’s, I gnawed through my restraints and wondered the streets of the Village until morning. 
         Now, a few of you may say I’m crazy, but then again, they called Christopher Columbus crazy too (though, in truth, I don’t think they ever put him in restraints).  Anyway, I believe that all eras of history and even prehistory extending back to the big bang and who knows, even beyond, exist simultaneously and that what we call the present is only one of infinite presents ongoing at the same time, and our inability to see this is simply the result the poverty of our perceptual apparatus.  The use of mind expanding psychotropic drugs helps open up what Aldous Huxley called the Doors of Perception, allowing us to see these hidden dimensions, and that’s why I take as many and as varied a selection as humanly possible.  Presently, I’m trying to break on through to the time of Mark Twain, and with any luck I shall have succeeded and lived to tell the tale in an e-mail to the blog before I embark on the greatest trip of all, that from which there is no returning.

 

And no e-mail either.  Don’t try this at home, kids. Especially not if your home is the Chelsea Hotel

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The Chelsea Hotel's Famous Glow in the Dark Frisbee Ghost

All this week, as part of Halloween celebration we'll be running letters from guests who have had ghostly experiences at the Chelsea Hotel.  It's not surprising that this guest experienced a negative energy on the first floor, as that one is the most haunted floor in the hotel:

I stayed last week, was given room 120, although I do not like to nurture it or make it stronger I do have a sensitivity to the spirit or ghost or alternative energy realm, it has been in my family.  I find it a nuisance actually but sometimes things are so strong I can't keep them away.  I needed to change rooms, not that I knew alot about the Hotel's history- I travel on business and had no other place     available- I am open to staying at different places as long as there is a shower and TV and a good location.  When the desk clerk told me first floor or room 120 somehow I just knew it was wrong, a pit in my belly.  But I had been traveling and thought maybe I am just tired.  The room is sad and kind of upset and I don't mean the appearance (obviously nothing to write home about either).  There is a sad energy in the back of it near the bathroom, not malevolent or anything but just sad, not able to breath well and a bit lost maybe looking for a bit of help, it won't go outside- I cound not help it.  My emotions tend to take on the energy and I physically feel the hurt of the energy (that is the nuisance I was referring to).  I had to leave after 10 minutes and was given room 915 which was much nicer both energy wise, feel and aura.  Although I was awoken at 4 AM, I was being handed a glow in the dark frisbee by some goofball energy, not scary at all and I was able to get back to sleep. -- Steve Clark


No doubt it was that same negative energy that led Sid (or whoever) to kill Nancy in Room 100 in 1978.  Since you seem to be sensitive to that kind of vibe, it's probably best that you got out when you did.  (We have also had another report of ghosts in 120.)

Scary Chelsea Hotel Characters

If you haven't had time to find a Halloween costume yet don't sweat it. Just wear one of these two masks and you'll be the hit of any party. Imagine the fun you will have explaining to all of your friends why David Elder and Marlene Krauss are so scary.

     

 

Fresh New Look for the "Bring Back the Bards" Campaign

A lot of people have noticed that Artie Nash recently replaced the tattered "Bring Back the Bards" banners with one large banner. So we asked Artie what gives? Here's what he said: "Well, streamlining the message, and consolidating the banners. But mostly just keeping some fresh paint in rotation, and switching to a weatherproof banner for the winter. The first ones were hanging so long they'd begun to disintegrate. This one is oil on vinyl canvas so it'll be there awhile. This one was contributed by a nyc artist named brian cunningham."

The old look:

Glennon “Gigi” Travis Surfaces at the Riverview

 Surprise!  Our old buddy Glennon Travis has finally resurfaced from the muck.  After a few months of selling golf clubs at a country club, Glennon now has a job at the old Riverview Hotel at the corner of West Street and Jane Street in the village.  The St. Louis beach bum thought he had hit rock bottom when he was at the Chelsea.  Guess again!  Now he’s at a real flophouse—not the pretend kind with slumming artists in it.  Now Glennon is forced to stand behind a bullet-proof glass partition as he abuses residents.  (This is probably a good thing for Glennon, since everyone he meets immediately develops the intense desire to kill him.) 
            Actually, I’m sure there are a lot of fine people at the Riverview, including some artists, and they certainly don’t deserve this affront to their dignity.  For, make no mistake, that’s what it is.  Richard Born, for that is apparently who hired the boy again, knows that Glennon is not a qualified or even remotely appropriate manager for a residential building  (if he didn’t know it before, then he certainly does now, after the Chelsea fiasco).  Born hired Glennon because he wants to empty the Riverview of rent stabilized tenants, and he knows that Glennon has an irritating, abrasive, and obnoxious personality that will make tenants want to move to New Jersey (or shoot themselves in the head) rather than have to deal with him.  Though a better career move for him would have been to take a job as night watchman at Ice Station Zero in Antactica, Glennon can now take pride in being a sought-after specialist in the fine art of driving people bat-shit crazy.
            Unfortunately for the folks at the Riverview, they don’t have quite so high a media profile as we have here at the Chelsea, which deprives them of an important weapon in combating the greedy developers who are looting the city.  Already, according to a Riverview resident’s e-mail, occupancy in the SRO is down from 200 to 50 due to evictions since Born took over.  The good news is, residents are fighting back, and have taken a step that we creative types at the Chelsea never thought of, saddling Glennon with the ridiculous nickname of “Gigi” in recompense for the renaming of their august hotel as the insipid-sounding “Jane Hotel” (?!?!)  May the ghosts of the Titanic survivors rise up from the briny deep this Halloween and drag Gigi and Born and all their sociopathic ilk down to Davey Jones’s locker where the fish can condo-ize their barnacle-encrusted bones. -- Ed Hamilton

Crapola Rock-n-Rolla:Poetic Justice at Star Lounge

As we reported in an earlier blog post, in the early morning hours of Oct 13, Star Lounge, the club in the basement of the Chelsea, was broken into.  They had kept us up to all hours the night before with their throbbing, thumping “music”, and so we didn’t give a good goddamn—they are decidedly unwelcoming to Chelsea Hotel guests and residents anyway—and, frankly, we were kind of hoping that the whole place got trashed.  We were more concerned that our 24-hour security patrol seemed to be asleep on the job while this brazen crime was perpetrated.

Now, however, we learn from Chelsea Now that the thief apparently came in through the front window (!) and walked off with a DJ’s $3000 audio mixing console!  Congratulations, righteous thief dude, on a job well done!  And now, may we suggest that, like Robin Hood (or maybe Obama), you spread the wealth around: take that purloined mixing board out to the ‘burbs of  New Jersey and set up a mind-blowing, ear-shattering Rave-To-Wake-The-Dead.  Take from the rich of Manhattan and give to the poor, underprivileged bridge-and-tunnelers—as that’s obviously who’s hanging out in Star Lounge these days anyway.

But the ravers or rappers or whatever the hell they call themselves are apparently a determined lot.  They were back at it again this weekend, undermining the foundations of the Chelsea with pulsating blasts of super-sucky crapola-rock.  They must have picked up another electronic annoyance machine at the Jumping Jackass Mart (or wherever the hell you get them—probably the same place where they punch holes in the muffler of your wildass supercool bitchin’ “Hog” so you can park it in front of residential buildings and rev the engine at 4 in the morning, impressing all the hot chicks with IQs of 50 points or less.)

            Seriously, though, folks, Star Lounge reportedly owes tens of thousands of dollars in back rent to the hotel.  The hotel management is attempting to evict tenants who owe a lot less.  So what gives?  (The answer, as much else around here, revolves around hotel layabout David Elder.  Stay tuned to the blog for further elucidation in coming weeks.) -- Ed Hamilton

On Eve of Depression, Andrew Tilley Moves to Evict Longterm Residents

On Tuesday, Oct 21, eviction notices signed by Chelsea Hotel general manager Andrew Tilley were posted on the doors of a large number of residents, ordering them to pay up in three days or else face eviction proceedings.  These are all long term residents, some of whom have lived here for up to twenty years, and some of whom owe as little as a months rent.  In addition, some of these tenants are elderly and physically disabled.

Why a man who claims to be a friend to the tenants would move to carry out mass evictions on the eve of a depression is, quite frankly, beyond us.  This action comes in stark contrast to the reassurances Tilley gave us at our Tenant’s Association meeting in August.  Though promising no free ride, Tilley specifically stated that he would give tenants a phone call to discuss their bills with them if they fell slightly behind in their rent.  But these eviction notices were apparently posted without a call or even a friendly reminder—which could have been dropped in tenants’ boxes with a minimum of effort.  If  Tilley’s aim was to spring on vulnerable tenants and catch them unawares with a frightening legal ultimatum, then he has certainly attained his goal.

            The fact that these notices follow directly on the heels of an economic downturn is not likely a coincidence.  Tilley is on a fishing expedition, casting his nets widely.  Although he knows that most residents will be able to scrape together the funds necessary to stave off eviction, he is betting that a handful will not be able to do so.  When so many hardworking people have lost a good chunk of their savings due to the disastrous collapse of the stock market, Tilley’s opportunistic action is truly morally reprehensible.

            It’s probably not a coincidence either that this action comes at a time when we are starting to see increased activity on the construction front here at the hotel.  Tilley wants desperately to renovate, and minority owner Marlene Krauss—who herself may have taken a recent bath on the stockmarket—is squeezing him to come up with some of the funds on his own. -- Ed Hamilton

Will Marlene Change Her Evil Ways?

     Because of the downturn in the economy caused by greedy developers and stockbrokers, travelers have been canceling reservations in droves, and hotel occupancy rates this month declined 11% over last year (see Crain’s). As Stanley predicted (I have him on video!), the real estate bubble has burst, and now his “eccentric” business practices are starting to look more and more like the wise strategy they always were. Renting out the rooms to permanent residents insures a steady stream of income in tough economic times. Hotels are already starting to discount rooms and offer more package tours in order to attract guests—but what the hell are we going to do here, where room rates were long ago slashed to the bone!? Marlene may be praying for those 17 tenants she forced out to come back yet! 
 The good news here is that management probably won’t be so dead set on getting rid of the retail tenants (such as suite 303 and the dentist’s office) anytime soon. (Though these tenants were told that their leases wouldn’t be renewed, they are obviously in a much better bargaining position now.) Our suggestion is that the doors of the hotel be opened to a few more permanent residents at market rates. Though I guess it’s a bit much to ask at this point that struggling artists be admitted, there are many high-profile creative types who would pay top dollar to live here. There has always been a high turnover of permanent rooms here, and so more rooms will come open in the future for transient use. It’s foolish to be dead-set against the possibility of ever renting to another permanent resident.
 So will Marlene change her ways, and start showing good business sense, rather than allowing the Chelsea to continue to bleed money? Nah, she’s too stubborn. And anyway, this is not really about money. It’s about punishing Stanley Bard. -- Ed Hamilton

Landlord's Fishing Licenses Revoked: Legislation Will Provide Restitution to Harassed Tenants

State Senator Tom Duane, Assemblymember Brian Kavanagh, Council member Dan Garodnick, Congressmember Carolyn Maloney and other officials today announced legislation they will be introducing requiring landlords to pay attorney’s fees and/or expenses incurred by tenants wrongly accused of breaking rent-stabilization regulations.  In cases where a landlord if found to have knowingly served a notice containing facts or allegations that are not true, the landlord shall be liable for three times the tenant’s legal fees.

This proposed legislation is a broader version of legislation passed by the State Assembly this Spring.  In this new bill if landlords bring frivolous actions against tenants they can be required to pay treble damages of the lawyer’s fees incurred by the tenant.  The bill is designed to stop landlords from going on fishing expeditions.  They cast out a net and accuse everybody they can of some violation of the rental laws and then see who they catch.  This is a considerable burden everybody but especially upon older people and people who are not familiar with the legal system or may not be native English speakers. 

Here are examples of some of the tactics that have been employed by landlords to falsely accuse legitimate tenants: 1. Accusing a child of being a sub-letter; 2. Wrongly accusing tenants of living elsewhere based on records of someone with a similar name.

It could be any frivolous accusation such as that the tenant has an illegal pet or cluttered conditions.  In short, any sort of violations of the terms of the lease. Often the landlord continues to accuse the tenant repeatedly even after the tenant has provided documentation of his or her legal status.  Recently, at Stuy Town and Peter Cooper, the landlord, Tishman Speyer, was found by the courts to have made false claims in 339 cases, according to Congressmember Carolyn Maloney.

Today’s press conference was held near the Stuy Town Peter Cooper Apartments because of the large number of abuses that have occurred there.  However, this represents only a small portion of the abuses that are occurring city wide.  This legislation will give all tenants an important weapon.  And if the Chelsea Hotel management engages in such wrongful lawsuits it can used as a weapon against them as well. -- Ed Hamilton

The Austin Jug Band: Cut It Off at The Chelsea Hotel!

No surprise, but the famous creative energy of the Chelsea has come through once again.  Add the South Austin Jug Band to the long list of musicians and groups that have created albums at the Chelsea.  Singer and guitarist James Hyland, to judge from his quote in the Daily Lobo, seems to attribute the band's inspiration more to New York itself than to the Chelsea, but we all know better.  My favorite quote from Hyland: "If you can't get it going in New York, you should just cut it off."  Truer words have seldom been said.  And if worse comes to worse, what better place to do it than the Chelsea.  Just ask Sid, he'll tell you.

Bon Appetite Hipsters

The New York Observer brings us word of a tenant uprising in Soho.  What, no stink bombs?! These people down in Soho must be amateurs.  Wonder if there was something more than water in those buckets? Seriously, though, we applaude anybody who has the guts to fight for their right to the peaceable enjoyment of their homes. We would advise them to watch out for underhanded tricks, however. 

One Observer commenter writes that back in the day, they used chicken livers to protest against noisy clubs in their neighborhood.

"When the first David Rabin / Will Regan club opened next to my loft 15 years ago, instead of dumping water, we tossed well aged chicken livers out of the night sky onto the howling line to get in (this after politely trying to get them to rein in their loud club). It worked.

Recipe - buy chicken livers. Leave in metal bowl on hot rooftop for 2 days. Wearing gloves, toss over the roof parapet. Feel a bit sorry for the patrons being showered by rotting flesh; then reflect upon your own months of sleeplessness / fruitless negotiation with slimy real estate lawyer who was only delaying. THEN perhaps the owners paid some heed. Though their current clubs are equally toxic."

Break-in at Star Lounge Despite Hotel Security

We don’t know the exact details but, Star Lounge was reportedly broken into early Monday morning between 4 and 7 a.m.   (We saw the cops out in front of the club at around 9 a.m.)  It’s hard to care what happens to the place since they keep us up to all hours with their loud music and raucous street parties, but the Star is in our basement, and  as such, anyone who breaks into there could easily gain entry to the Chelsea itself. 

So where, you might ask was our rented security while this break-in was occurring.  Good question.  After all,  aren’t they supposedly guarding the door 24-hours a day?  We, as residents, have a right to know the answers to these questions.

Light a Candle for Nancy – Just Not in the Chelsea Hotel

Yesterday marked the 30^th anniversary of Nancy Spungen’s tragic death in room 100 of the Chelsea Hotel.  Some still believe Sid to be innocent of the crime, which leaves a big

mystery to be solved.  We wonder if any of the punk rockers who used to make the pilgrimage to the Chelsea have any events planned to commemorate the occasion.  We haven’t seen too many of them in recent years. Rest in peace, Nancy.

Here’s former resident Elizabeth Pugh playing Nancy Spungen in a video that former resident Luke Jorger shot a couple of years ago.  Seems we have lots of former residents that haven’t been replaced.

Tourists Vote Against Boutique Hotel

Some German tourists write in to say: Keep the Chelsea the way it is! Don't make it another soulless luxury hotel! It's a shame they couldn't have met the Bards.

Hello everybody!

First of all, sorry for my bad language! At our first sightseeing-trip ever to New York City from 10/01 to 10/06 we, my friend and his girlfriend, my wife and myself, stayed in the Chelsea Hotel/23rd Street. We didn´t knew anything about the history of the Hotel before, we booked it, because it was the cheapest we could get!

After five wonderful days with a lot of fun and amamzing impressions of the city,  we cannot describe, how we were stunned about the charism of the hotel. The whole building is an artwork full of history and its a performance of duty, to keep this spirit alive. There are so many  luxury hotels in bad style everywhere, so it bothered us not at all, that the rooms and the flloors aren´t as good as new! And as we were back in Germany, we informed us about the Chelsea in the Internet and read about the history an the famous people, who stayed there. We are proud, that we were a few days a part of it and look forward to come back soon. And we hope, that we see the "Old Chelsa Hotel" alive!

All the best to you guys and special greetings from Löningen, Germany

Daniel + Sonja

Andreas + Katrin

Tin Pan Alley Up For Sale -- If Anybody Has Any Money?

     Lost City reports (and today's Post) that five old brownstones on West 28th Street are up for sale for $44 million, presumably to a developer who will tear them down and throw up another souless condo high-rise.  What a great idea!
     The buildings, at 47 through 55 West28th, are a part of the old Tin Pan Alley, and number 55 was home to anarchist Emma Goldman's Mother Earth magazine.  If Emma could see all these stockbrokers running around like chickens with their heads cut off, I'm sure she's laugh her ass off.    (via curbed)

(Photo: The Post)

Go Take a Walk

The office of the Welsh government, together with Aeronwy Thomas and Peter Thabit Jones, have designed a self-guided walking tour of Greenwich Village to enlighten people about Dylan and his life in New York. It is available as a printable PDF.  It goes without saying there are a lot of spots to stop and have a drink. 

Catrin Brace, who works for the Welsh Assembly Government in New York and who put the tour together said:

We have been very lucky to have the help of Dylan Thomas’ daughter Aeronwy Thomas in putting this tour together and hopefully, visitors will be able to gain a strong sense of the real man behind the “brassy orator” with “the lovely gift of the gab”, as well as giving people a real feel for the Greenwich Village of the 1950s

Huncke's Room Used to Launch Artist Elizabeth Peyton's Career

According to the New Yorker (Oct. 6) in 1993 artist Elizabeth Peyton had a show in room 828 of the Chelsea Hotel.  That was Herbert Huncke's old room -- in fact I thought he was living there then, but if that is correct the show must have taken place before he moved in.  Most recently the room was home to Elizabeth Pugh, who was unfortunately forced out by BD.  Now 828 is a transient room, since -- on a death-knell to Bohemia -- no new permanent residents are being admitted to the hotel.
    If I read the article correctly, Peyton wasn't actually living in 828 (maybe Huncke loaned it to her) but just displayed her paintings three, in the show that launched her career.
     Interested parties could ask for the key at the desk, and then go on up to the room themselves.  You'd better believe that nothing that cool and anarchic is goingn to be allowed here these days.  Bring Back the Bards!  -- Ed Hamilton  (Thanks to Judith Childs for the tip.)

Chelsea Hotel Rooftop Formerly a Laundry Room for Ultraviolet

In Black Book magazine Steve Lewis interviews Abel Ferrara and Jen Gatien on their upcoming movie
"Chelsea on the Rocks”. Lewis himself lived at the hotel for two years off and on -- we assume back in the early nineties since he ran into Dee Dee Ramone and Herbert Huncke and Ultraviolet hanging her laundry out on the roof. 

(SL) I always thought that [Hotel] Chelsea was a small town.  It wasn’t like a building, it was like a small town. And once you belonged to that town you could always go back and you were always treated like you lived there for your life.  And I only lived there two years, off and on.
AF: Two years is like two centuries in that place.

Those were the days. This was one of the things we always loved about the Chelsea that people could live here for a while and move on, but they were always welcomed back. Unfortunately that is now a thing of the past.

Jen reveals that the movie now has a distributor and has also been sold in several countries abroad.  And Abel shares his memories about the heroic life of fellow resident Arthur Weinstein.

Something Vague Happening with Elevators

We can't really understand what you're talking about but good luck with that.

Life of Arthur Weinstein Celebrated at Highbar

Friends and neighbors of the late Arthur Weinstein came together to celebrate his memory last Sunday on the Highbar roof. Read Steve Lewis' account of the event in Black Book.  Our esteemed proprietor Stanley Bard was among the Chelsea Hotel celebrities on hand to offer their tributes to Arthur.  As Lewis points out, the economic downturn may signal the return of style, and the relegation of yuppies to 2nd class status, in  clubland -- developments which I'm sure Arthur would applaud.
The video that was shown at the celebration is available on youtube.