Living with Legends: Hotel Chelsea Blog

Are Marlene Krauss and David Elder Running the Chelsea Hotel Into The Ground?

Everybody knows that recently you've been able to get a room at the Chelsea Hotel for $89.00 a night.  We've even heard of people getting this rate for large suites. The Wall Street Journal recently ran an article which reports: "Evidence from 2001 suggests that a short-term cyclical downturn could turn into a long-term problem because once room rates are cut, it can take years for them to get back to previous levels."  Maybe this was why in previous economic downturns Stanley Bard had the sense to convert the transient rooms to permanent rooms to ride out the recessions. Krauss and Elder's mismanagement could put the Chelsea in the red for years to come.  They'll be gone and the Hotel will still be suffering.  Other hoteliers should be concerned about Krauss's mismanagement as well since the article goes on to say, "The downturn in the global hotel industry could be deeper and more prolonged than expected if hotel companies continue slashing room rates." -- Ed Hamilton  (photo source)

From Harry Smith & William Burroughs to Andy Warhol & Stanley Bard, Chelsea Artists of the 60s Undermined the Complacency of Mainstream Society

The inimitable hotelier Stanley Bard provided a place where dozens of truely original and iconclastic artists of the Sixties could challenge the status quo. And in so doing, Stanley came closest in this period to fulfilling the ideals of the 19th Century utopian socialist Charles Fourier, whose philosophy inspired the hotel in the first place.  Historian Sherill Tippins, author of the upcoming Dream Palace, covers a lot of ground here in bringing us up through a turbulent decade of activism at the Chelsea. 

Through the late 1950s and early 1960s, Chelsea resident Harry Smith's Anthology of Folk Music touched a forgotten chord in the consciousness of American listeners, reminding them of who they were before the dividing wall of enormous wealth descended on American society--and thus sparked the folk-music tradition that had once inspired Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and the I.W.W. movement and now laid the groundwork for the civil rights movements and anti-war protests of the 1960s.  Smith's brilliant, hand-painted films and meticulous artwork spurred the liberating underground film community forward, and his encouragement and recording of the poet-comprised rock band, The Fugs, used satire and comedy to undermine the complacency and ignorance of mainstream America.  As Smith's multimedia film-art-and-music experiments developed into multimedia happenings at the Cinematheque, which in turn evolved into such explosive experiments as the Velvet Underground's Exploding Plastic Inevitable events and Warhol's Chelsea Girls, New Yorkers found a way to recover their own true identities and lives from the delusional value system of the larger society--to break the hold placed on them by mainstream media and the pressures of business and governmental control.

Other Chelsea residents and guests contributed to this effort in other ways.  William Burroughs' "cut-ups"--phrases and words cut out of such mainstream publications as Time and Life, rearranged to create an often revelatory new message--undermined the power of traditional media just as Warhol's films called into question the assumptions and machinery supporting the Hollywood system. Terry Southern attacked the status quo through satire in Candy and Dr. Strangelove. Larry Rivers shocked the art world with nude portraits of his mother-in-law, Birdie, and his "pornographic" sculpture, "Lampman Loves It" (title contributed by Terry Southern).  Maurice Girodias published "forbidden" books despite constant efforts at censorship. Timothy Leary passed out hallucinogens in his effort to enable individuals to access their own true selves without having to rely on psychiatrists or other intermediaries. Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, and other rock musicians drew on the musical roots and ideas supplied by Harry Smith to create a new, genuinely American musical tradition. Allen Ginsberg moved from Harry Smith to Bob Dylan to William Burroughs to Timothy Leary to Larry Rivers to Abbie Hoffman to Stanley Bard, spreading the "pollen" of guerrilla-warfare tactics and ideas from one group to another in an effort to resist the power of wealth, self-interest, and government control.

During the Sixties, Chelsea residents showed the world how individuals could fight the system, and how artists could use their words, images, music, and theatrical techniques to create social change.  At the same time--even as the ideas of the utopian philosopher Charles Fourier were enjoying a renaissance in 1960s Paris--the Chelsea under young Stanley Bard's care more closely resembled that utopian ideal than at any other time in its history.  The Chelsea truly had become a haven for every kind of individual, in which creative work was encouraged and facilitated to the point at which resident artists could realize their responsibility to help move society forward. If some aspects of building maintenance were neglected in the chaos of this never-equaled intensity of creative living, at least the Chelsea's original intent was finally being realized to the extent possible within the larger culture that surrounded it.  Thus, Stanley--often chided and sometimes even ridiculed by neighboring businessmen, some reporters, and even his own partners on occasion--became one of the guerrilla warriors helping in the fight to fight the co-opting of American energy and talent by the mainstream powers.

Without these individuals' efforts, the American voice that had nearly died in the Gilded Age, struggled through the Roaring Twenties, and flourished during the Depression thanks to WPA subsidies, might have finally been crushed beneath the sheer weight of the triumphant, mainstream American Century.  As it was, these much-reviled artists laid the groundwork for more direct political activism aimed at combating racism and at ending the war in Vietnam.  In those efforts, Chelsea residents would play a major role as well.

 

World Premier of Harry Smith’s #23 at Anthology Film Archives

It was the first showing of this film “outside the laboratory” according to the presenter, which makes me pretty lucky, I guess, since it was also my first Harry Smith film—though to gather from the conversation of the over-the-top-serious film buffs who attended Thursday’s press screening, versions of most of the images had appeared in other Smith films as well.

     #23, which consists of two rolls of film, one with a soundtrack, superimposed on each other, was discovered recently among Harry’s films in storage at the Anthology Film Archives, where he was artist-in-residence for many years.  The presenter thought it might consist of footage that didn’t end up in Harry’s famous Mahagonny; in any event it is related to that film, though one of the film buffs said that some of the footage (such as shots of a carpet and various patterns formed out of powered pigment used as background) probably dated to the forties.

     The film itself is a beautiful piece of work, and seems to tell the tale of all humanity, from birth (a young couple superimposed over a matronly woman with her crotch nearly exposed) to death (the black waters of the pond in central park, a supine figure on the Chelsea Hotel roof) as Fate, in the form of a girl demonstrating string figures, weaves her web.  There are several striking images in the film, especially toward the end, including the string-figure girl, attired in black, super-imposed on the waters of the pond, so that only the string, forever reforming itself, is clearly visible; finally, red roses are superimposed on the image of the girl.

     So, in other words, it’s worth seeing.  I don’t know how it stands up to Harry’s other work (obviously), but since this is the only thing showing at the present, go see it.  The soundtrack, one of the film buffs claimed (gee, I’m relying on these guys a lot, aren’t I), was by Johnny Johnson from the 30s with Burgess Meredith reading various WWII-related statements over the music. (UPDATE -  A reader writes: Johnny Johnson is not a composer, but the name of a musical work by Kurt Weill, who composed Mahagonny as well.)

Of interest to Chelsea Hotel aficionados: the film has some footage of Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe, and also of Naomi Levine, a Chelsea character whom old residents may remember.  Rosebud Petit, Harry’s “spiritual wife” also may have appeared, though no one was quite sure if it was her or not.   There’s also a scene at the end of the film that’s shot on the Chelsea Hotel roof (now sadly under assault by minority shareholders who want to put a club up there), apparently shot some time in the late sixties or early seventies to judge by the appearance of the actors.

[Harry Smith’s #23 is being shown as part of the Anthology Film Archives screening of Chelsea Hotel related films.  #23 will be shown Friday, April 10 at 7:00, Saturday, April 11 at 5:30 and Sunday, April 12 at 9:00]

Is Saint Methodius the Patron Saint of the Chelsea Hotel?

Inspired by historian Sherill Tippin's efforts to identify a flower, a motto and a philosopher for the Chelsea Hotel frequent Chelsea Hotel blog commenter Rob from Australia set out to find a Patron Saint for the Chelsea Hotel in her time of crisis.  He writes:

As promised, I've researched my Saints and found who I think is best as Patron Saint of the Chelsea.  Saint Methodius is dedicated, according to Butler's Lives of the Saints, to 'cherishing art'.  He was persecuted and engaged in civil disobedience in the name of protecting the sacred art of his time.  If you look up 'Lives of the Saints' at google books his feast day, and therefore listing, is June 14 [Boy George's birthday!?!]. Google 'Lives of the Saints Methodius' to lead you to the entry and see if he fits.  I'll be interested in what you think.
Robert Shaw

It seems that Robert chose well afterall since St. Methodius baptized the King of the Bohemians! 

(Sts. Cyril and Methodius) 

In Memoriam: Natasha Richardson (1963 - 2009)

Many Chelsea Hotel residents have brought our attention to Natasha Richardson’s fine acting role in Chelsea Walls.  She was also a friend to many residents of the Chelsea Hotel .  The  Chelsea Hotel community is saddened by the loss of one of its members. 

Plans For Chelsea Hotel Rooftop Club and Lobby Bar Revealed

Barry Divola’s article on the Chelsea Hotel has just come out in the April 2009 Australian Rolling Stone.  Though a bit dated due to the long lead time of the magazine, it’s nevertheless a very balanced, well researched, and revealing read.  The most interesting bit of information, given the tragic ongoing destruction of the 125-year-old rooftop gardens, comes from former manager Andrew Tilley, who details his plans for the hotel as he takes Divola on a tour of the building:

 . . .from the luggage storage area behind the front desk (“imagine the potential for this as a hotel bar”) to the roof area dotted with random flower beds and mismatched patio furniture (“Look at that view—I’d love a rooftop bar here”).

So there you have it folks, in Tilley’s own words.  I’m sure minority shareholder Marlene Krauss is on the phone with Tilley right about now, her eyes bugging out as she screams something unprintable and threatens to take back his bonus for spilling the beans on this.

Tilley also reveals that he thought Marlene was crazy to ask him to manage the Chelsea and that, “If there wasn’t a renovation taking place, I wouldn’t be here.” So this gives us a further clue as to why he left: there was no point in staying if he couldn’t renovate the place. Given this, one wonders why he wasn’t more careful to obtain the permits and the Certificate of No Harassment necessary for legal construction to begin.

“I want to have the residents input and involvement,” Tilley says, “but at the moment they hang paintings wherever they want, and that has to change.”  Say goodbye, in other words, to the Chelsea’s famous spirit of freedom and wacky, anything-goes merriment.  --  Ed Hamilton 
(Note: The article is not available online yet, but Divola express mailed us a copy of the magazine.)

Chelsea Now Newspaper Shortage?

     Hey, I know it's popular but this is ridiculous!  It was a good thing I grabbed a Chelsea Now early on the day they came out (Friday, March 13), because by the next day they were not to be found in any of the orange Chelsea Now boxes near the Chelsea Hotel.  I thought this was really odd, since papers usually stay in these boxes almost until the day that the next batch comes out (the paper is now bi-weekly.).
    Odder still, when some of the boxes near the hotel were refilled this week, the newspapers were once again all gone by the next day.  Coincidentally or not, the issue contained several Pro-Bard letters to the editor.  The week before, when one anti-Bard letter was in the paper, there was no problem finding one in boxes around the Hotel.  (The Chelsea Hotel itself has banned Chelsea Now from its lobby, apparently in retalitation for a Pro-Bard editorial that ran a few weeks back.)
     So what gives?  I'd like to hear if others have had trouble locating Chelsea Now? And to whoever removed the papers, just remember theft of "free" newspapers is a crime in New York state.

New Yorkers Join Mayoral Candidate Rev. Billy for the Blessing of the Water

AQUA-A-LUJAH!!!  Mayoral Candidate Rev. Billy Talen, The Life After Shopping Choir, The New York City Greens and residents from neighborhoods across New York City (including the Chelsea Hotel) gathered today to show support for clean, fresh water. Rev. Billy blessed containers of New York city tap water and the souls of New York City residents were refreshed.  He also baptized a lucky little tyke who will no doubt grow up to reject overpriced bottled corporate water.  If elected Rev. Billy will give eminent domain to water throughout the city.  Filmmaker Josh Fox was also on hand to talk about the dangers of natural gas drilling to the fresh drinking water supply.  Water to the people, by the people, and for the people!!!!  Rev. Billy Mayor for Eternal Life. AQUA-A-LUJAH!!!!
 

 

 

History of Activism at the Chelsea Pt. 5: Jackson Pollock Raises a Toast to the W.P.A.

Sickened by capitalist opposition to the W.P.A.'s Federal Arts Project, Jackson Pollock produced what was arguably his greatest masterpiece.  Historian Sherill Tippins, author of the forthcoming book, DREAM PALACE, fills us in on the details:

With the onset of World War II, the forces aligned against unfettered capitalism, dog-eat-dog individualism, and American imperialism--forces with which most Chelsea residents had traditionally sided--had fallen into disarray.  American Socialists, Communists, and liberals had divided into bitterly-opposed pro- and anti-Soviet factions. Some Chelsea residents and guests, including Mary McCarthy, Nicholas Nabokov, Benjamin Stolberg, and James Farrell, were persuaded by such Soviet abuses as the show trials in Moscow to work with the U.S. government in opposition to the Communist cause--even to the point of writing for CIA-sponsored publications in many cases. Others, including Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and future resident Arthur Miller, continued to hope that the old American dream of social community and fairness could be resurrected from the ashes of the Soviet experiment.

But even as Chelsea (and other) intellectuals and artists tried to find a foothold in the new, post-WWII world order, American capitalists--with the help of well-intended government agencies that Chelsea idealist Herbert Croly had helped inspire--were consolidating their power to a stunning degree. Jackson Pollock found himself face-to-face with the reality of this new economic and political power at a Chelsea Hotel luncheon arranged by gallery owner Peggy Guggenheim. During the Depression, Pollock had practically been rescued from starvation by the WPA's Federal Arts Project, which drew on the Chelsea-style Enlightenment tradition in treating artists, for the first time in America, as legitimate workers just as deserving of work and pay subsidies as construction workers, factory laborers, bureaucrats, and everyone else in society. Like Virgil Thomson, Joseph Losey, Paul Bowles, Arthur Miller, and other current or future Chelsea residents, Pollock had been able to develop his art free of the need to please individual patrons or consider the pressures of the marketplace.  With $23.86 a week in their pockets, he and other FAP artists could afford the studio space, supplies, food, and whiskey required to move forward productively with  their work.

Now, in 1943, however, Pollock found himself breaking bread with the wives and friends of the very capitalists who had forced Roosevelt to cut the Federal Arts Project in 1939--aided by conservative Republican Congressman and stockbroker John Parnell Thomas, who attacked the W.P.A. arts programs for providing "propaganda for Communism"--leaving artists again dependent on the passing whims and tastes of the wealthy for their survival.

Pollock's response to this situation was to drink too much at the luncheon until he vomited on the carpet, causing the other guests to instantly disperse (although one of them, Hazel Guggenheim McKinley, advised the hotel staff to cut out the square of carpet with Pollock's vomit on it and frame it, as it would likely prove an excellent investment someday).  Other Chelsea residents and visitors, however, began to use the tools of their trade to identify the truths of American society in the face of a monolithic mainstream culture, thus undermining and attacking the means and methods of social control. 

Homeless People and Allies Successfully Occupy Empty Building

Homeless people and community allies took over a vacant building in El Barrio/East Harlem earlier today. The target was a beautiful two-story building at the corner of Madison Avenue and 116th that has been vacant for decades. For those of you who weren't able to attend today's action activist organization Picture the Homeless is holding a SLEEP-OUT celebration outside the building, Friday, March 20! Bring poems and songs for a community cultural event; bring food and blankets and sleeping bags for yourself and to share with everyone else.  (Source: Picture the Homeless blog)

Chelsea Hotel Run by the Insane: Miranda July Speaks Out

Writer and filmmaker Miranda July shares an interesting Chelsea Hotel story.  Like us, she thinks the management of this place is nuts.

Do you have a good "only in New York" story you can share? When I was promoting the book, as I mentioned, I often stay at the Chelsea Hotel. So when the publisher was putting me up, I think they probably would have leaned towards somewhere a little nicer than that. But when I insisted on the Chelsea, I think someone just said, "We'll get her the best room there, which is probably still not that much." But you know that place is run by sort of insane people so they have a place that I think no one ever rents which is essentially like a house, that is many bedrooms and bathrooms. So that's where I stayed and I was there for like more than a week and I had a couple of friends stay with me in the other bedrooms. It was a very bizarre New York experience. And actually I think my birthday happened or something and we decorated with balloons and streamers so it got even weirder. The extra funny part was when we were checking out it was actually extremely expensive, like more than the fanciest room anywhere. So that ended up being a humbling moment because it wasn't clear yet that my book was going to sell at all and I was like, "Well, I hope it's just enough to pay for this room."

(Photo: Karinavan's Flickr)

Breslin Hotel Ghettoized: Will Chelsea Be Next?

There’s an article about the Breslin Hotel in this week’s Chelsea Now.  The Breslin, you’ll remember, is, like the Chelsea, an SRO hotel that houses a lot of people in the arts.  It was taken over by developers at about the same time as the Chelsea, and their aim was the same, to evict the rent stabilized tenants and turn the Breslin into a fancy boutique hotel.  In this update, we find that most of the Breslin’s tenants have by this point been evicted or taken buyouts.  The name of the Breslin has been changed, obnoxiously, to the “Ace,” and the few remaining tenants have been to some extent ghettoized, forced to enter through a separate entrance from the more important (ie. higher paying) tourists, and also given their own, smaller lobby.  Additionally, tenants are forced to use one elevator while the guests have access to six elevators.  Long term tenants are also having trouble getting heat and hot water.  The developers attempted to segregate the permanent tenants on the upper two floors, but tenants were able to resist what they perceived to be an attempt to compromise their rent stabilized status.

The Breslin is no more.  The difference between this hotel and the Chelsea: a Certificate Of No Harassment (CONH), which allowed the Breslin’s developers to engage in disruptive construction designed to drive the rent stabilized tenants out.  If we allow Marlene to get a CONH here, then we may as well just let her rename this place the “Ass” Hotel. -- Ed Hamilton

The Tax Strategy & Charitable Givings of Madoff Ponzi Scheme Victim Marlene Krauss

As the deadline for filing income taxes draws near, Marlene Krauss’ accountant is no doubt working overtime tallying up her many tax deductions.  For starters, some of the interest on her mortgage payments (in Sept. 2007, she acquired a mortgage of $4,207,500 on the penthouse with a 6.87% interest rate) is probably tax deductible.   (Being poor Bohemians, we don’t know how to calculate this.  Luckily for Marlene, her accountant probably does.)

First, the good news: Marlene donated $2,300 to Obama’s campaign. Hooray!  Let’s hear it for change!  But what’s that you say: campaign contributions are not deductible?  Sorry Marlene.  Well, maybe Michelle will invite you to lunch or something.

One of Marlene’s most interesting gifts was for an energy-efficient solar-powered home designed by students at Cornell University.   Krauss won the house at auction, paying $151,000 to Cornell. (It wasn’t really worth that much, you see, and the auction was just a fun way to donate money).  “I really wanted to show my thanks to Cornell for all that it has done for my family,” Krauss said.  What Cornell did, I suppose, was to educate Marlene (though they should have required an ethics class), and, more recently, to admit her daughter into their undergraduate program.

Marlene also says that she “hopes to donate the house to Cornell University.”  What we wonder is, if she deducts all or part of the $151,000 as a charitable donation, can she also deduct the price of the house when she gives it back?  Would that be double-dipping?  Once again, only her accountant knows for sure! 

Marlene’s most surprising charitable involvement is her work with Community Access, an organization which provides housing for people with mental handicaps.  (Gee, sounds like the Chelsea.)  We don’t know how much, if any, money they donated, but Krauss and her husband, Zach Berk both serve on the organization’s “Good Neighbor Gala” committee.  The Good Neighbor Gala will be held on Wednesday, May 20, at NYU and will celebrate the 35^th Anniversary of Community Access.  Maybe you can still get tickets.  If so, say hi to Marlene and Zack for us.

Given her involvement in Community Access, isn’t it a bit ironic that her running dog, David Elder, signed an affidavit stating that the reason he and Krauss fired hoteliers Richard Born and Ira Drukier was because they hadn’t evicted enough tenants from the Hotel? 

If Marlene is so interested in providing housing, why doesn’t she stop evicting people from the Chelsea Hotel. -- Ed Hamilton

Jaz Jericho Continues to Support Stanley Bard in Words and Music

It's been a whole year since Adam Rushfield lost his battle to stay at the Chelsea.  He recently wrote to let us know that the Chelsea is still in his heart and in his music.  Late last week, Jaz attended the Miami opening of "Chelsea Hotel on the Rocks," where he got to hang out with Stanley Bard, who was also on hand to enjoy the screening.  Earlier in the day, Stanley Bard could be found hob nobbing with the stars at a press conference, where we heard he had a chance to talk about his side of the Chelsea Hotel management crisis.  (The lyrics to Jaz's song "Stanley was the Patron Saint" are after the jump.)
  

 
Ken Kelsch, Willem Dafoe, Shanyn, Stanley Bard and Abel Ferrera

One of the Country's Top Political Blogs Highlights Eviction of 75-Year-Old Resident from Chelsea Hotel

Readers of Chelsea Hotel Blog may be familiar with DailyKos.com.  After all, it's one of the top political blogs on the web with hundreds of thousands of readers daily.  Yesterday, Daily Kos ran a story about how the current economic climate was impacting renters.  The heartless and illegal eviction of a 75-year-old man from the Chelsea Hotel was the prime example of how bad things have become.
The eviction story originally appeared on The Huffington Post and on Legends.  It's heartening to learn that a broader audience is concerned about the crisis at the Chelsea Hotel.  

Did Facebook Lose a Member?

We can't imagine what happened (actually we can) but a mere 2 1/2 hours after writing about Chelsea Hotel minority shareholder David Elder's facebook page his profile seems to have vanished!  I guess he already has enough friends.

Does Chelsea Hotel Minority Shareholder David Elder Really Have 27 Friends on Facebook?

It's been a long time since we've had a Chelsea Hotel "manager" take advantage of the Internet's social networking opportunities. Who can forget our favorite St. Louis Beach Bum Glennon Travis and Myspace?  (Those were the days.  Bring Back Gigi!)  Unfortunately, Glennon's little venture didn't turn out too well, now did it.  Well, we're now thrilled to report that Chelsea Hotel Minority Share holder David Elder is on Facebook.  Check out his "boyfriend pose."  Friend him up!

Is Dr. Marlene Krauss, Harvard MBA, PlD., Planning to Evict Chelsea Moving?

     Multiple sources confirm that Chief of Engineering Larry Mc"Laugh"lin is telling Chelsea Hotel employees that plans are already in the works to evict Chelsea Moving & Storage.  If this is true, why would Marlene Krauss want any of her employees talking about this?  And why would Marlene Krauss, Harvard MBA, seek to empty another rent paying retail client when so many unrented retail store fronts are already available to her. 
     Well, sources in the real estate industry say that, given Marlene's ocean of bad publicity, her best strategy would be to empty the Chelsea Hotel of tenants, commercial and residential alike as soon as possible. Could this be the first stage of her diabolical plan?

Official Chelsea Hotel Flower, Philosopher and Motto

Sherill Tippins is hard at working putting the finishing touches on her forthcoming history of the Chelsea Hotel.  Sherill writes to inform us that she has unearthed potential candidates for an official flower, philosopher and motto for the hotel.

I found this on a website about Charles Fourier, the Chelsea Hotel's philosophical father, and thought you might like to make it the website's Official Flower: The Crown Imperial (Fritillaria imperialis), Charles Fourier's emblematic flower.

According to popular wisdom, it symbolizes majesty.  For Fourier, it represents the true scientist or artist living poorly in Civilization, whose worth is not recognized, and who has only his enthusiasm to sustain himself.

And here's a quote of Fourier's that's appropriate for the Chelsea right now: "Truth and commerce are as incompatible as Jesus and Satan."

Who Confused "Tourists" with "Terrorists"?

Thank goodness it's not often that we receive e-mails with the subject line "MACHINE GUNS?????" Is this what new management considers the red carpet treatment? We hope not.  Thanks to Artie for the photos of the scene outside of the Chelsea Hotel earlier today.

 
 

 

 
 

 

Roll Your Eyes All You Like, Soon The Bards Will Return As Will The Mighty Stef

It must be getting close to St. Patricks Day, as we met these Irish rockers in the lobby over the weekend.  Here's what they had to say about their stay at the Chelsea.

Hey Ed,

Ciaran Here ( I met you at the Chelsea At the Weekend ) We were over for the Mighty Stef Show ! Even Bono Himself showed up, We Should have tried to get him back to the Hotel !!

 

I Picked up your Book down in the East Village, Ive been reading it all day here, Its a real Great Read.

 

Im a big Fan of the Chelsea, and it was an absolute pleasure to have stayed for 2 nights. I took a walk around the halls one morning and there is a real feel of something Special in those walls.

 

I Shall definately be back, I Really Hope all stays good with the Hotel and Stanley Gets brought back. We had a little trouble with one of the guys on the desk, and i said Cheekily that it would never have happened on Stanleys Watch!!  Its obviously a popular phrase as all the guys just Turned their eyes to heaven !

I Shall keep reading the blog and Hopefully I Shall find an excuse to get over to the Chelsea again soon.

Was great to meet you Ed

Keep up the Good fight man

Ciaran Dwyer

Rock on, Ciaran, Mighty Stef, and friends. By the way, they're coming to a town near you so check out their schedule.  In other Irish-related news, Olympic Silver Medalist boxer Kenny Egan freaked out, left home,  and checked into the Chelsea Hotel in order to escape the media feeding frenzy over an upcoming boxing match.   It seems like it's open season to rag on the guy, so we'll refrain.  Well, he was content to watch U2 on Letterman while he was here.  We'll get Bono to the Chelsea yet!

History of Activism at the Chelsea: Pt. 4: Painter John Sloan -- Fought for Change with the Socialist Party, the IWW, and the ACLU

Historian Sherill Tippins, author of the upcoming Dream Palace, a history of the Chelsea Hotel, continues her series on the lives and struggles of the Chelsea's great social activists with a portrait of painter and hotel resident John Sloan:

In 1905, the painter John Sloan was sufficiently captivated by the look of the Chelsea cooperative to paint it in half-silhouette against the New York sunset. Having arrived in New York only recently from Philadelphia, Sloan knew nothing about the Chelsea or the philosophical ideas behind its creation. Nevertheless, the painting communicates a sense of longing as the working-class woman in the foreground--Sloan's wife, Dolly--pauses in the midst of her dreary domestic chores to take in the beauty of the building and the sky.

It would be thirty years before Sloan and Dolly themselves moved into the Chelsea. Now, in 1905, they lived in obscurity in a shabby, unheated top-floor loft at 165 W. 23rd Street--the same loft, about a block from the Chelsea, that Stephen Crane and his friends had occupied a decade before.

In those days, Sloan was drawn to paint the city's factory workers, immigrants, and unemployed people merely by instinct--and because as a poor man himself, married to an alcoholic and former prostitute, the working-class life was all he knew. He didn't realize that paintings of bread lines and tenement children conveyed a political message until a critic referred in print to the "socialist" content of his paintings. To figure out what the critic meant, Sloan started reading the Socialist newspaper, The Call--and grew increasingly excited as he found credible explanations there for so much of the unfairness and cruelty he had only intuited as an artist. By 1910, he and Dolly had joined the Socialist Party, and Sloan began contributing scathing political cartoons to the Call and the Coming Nation.

In 1912, during the groundbreaking I.W.W. strike at the American Woolen Company in Lawrence, Massachusetts, Dolly helped temporarily transfer the half-starved strikers' children to the homes of sympathetic New Yorkers, while a few months later Sloan became art director of The Masses, helping Max Eastman make the case for the working class through powerful images and sharp, often satirical captions.

In 1913, when the I.W.W. organized another millworkers' strike in Paterson, New Jersey, Sloan joined with "Wobbly princess" Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and playwright Percy MacKaye (son of Steele MacKaye, the first director of Chelsea architect Philip Hubert's Lyceum Theater), Big Bill Haywood, John Reed, and others to stage a giant pageant in Madison Square Garden depicting the millworkers' desperate struggle to secure fair working conditions.

Flynn had learned the value of a dramatic presentation as a teenager giving soapbox speeches on 125th   Street; she had seen the power of Joe Hill's and others' working-class songs while touring the mining and logging towns of America. She and Haywood were experts by now at grabbing press attention by turning politics into theater. While they helped the millworkers create such scenes as "The Mills Alive, The Workers Dead" and "The Workers Begin to Think," and John Reed composed songs for the strikers to sing, Sloan painted a giant backdrop for the Madison Square stage--an enormous image of the silk factory where the strikers had spent most of their adult lives. On June 7th, 1,200 millworkers marched across the bridge over the Hudson River and through Manhattan to Madison Square Garden to perform their show to an audience of more than 15,000. The pageant succeeded in helping the workers feel the spirit of community action, even though the strike itself failed shortly afterwards.   (Paterson Pageant poster attributed to John Sloan)

Sloan would continue to agitate in support of New York's working poor for the rest of his life, though he would drop out of the Socialist Party for its refusal to "strike" against the First World War.  He joined the ACLU and signed petitions against the "disgrace to the nation," the House Un-American Activities Committee. When he moved to the Chelsea in 1935, he found a kindred spirit in the poet Edgar Lee Masters, who had passionately supported the populist presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan and had personally berated Theodore Roosevelt for his imperialist leanings. The two aging curmudgeons liked to get together to drink cocktails, play old gospel and fiddle tunes on Masters' Victrola, and talk politics.

By 1950, Sloan's outspoken resistance to the HUAC hearings and other activities had caused the FBI to reactivate his file. Plans were made to include him in the next wave of attacks in Congress on "communistic" artists who were "corrupting" American life--but Sloan died before he could be summoned. "It's a fight, isn't it?" he said to his wife on his deathbed in a Delaware hospital in 1951. For Sloan, it had been--but he eagerly fought every battle, motivated by the human goodness he had observed in ordinary New Yorkers as he had painted them throughout his life.  (Photo: "Sunbathers on the Roof" John SLoan, 1941)

News Bohemians Can Use

NYU finds that surveillance cameras do not deter crime.  The study reviewed "five years of evidence from Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town in Manhattan."  The researchers question whether the trade-offs in cost and loss of privacy are worth it.

Tishman Speyer may now have to pay $200 million back to tenants (at Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village) because a court has ruled that they "had wrongfully raised rents and deregulated thousands of apartments after receiving special tax breaks." According to the NY Times, the ruling could "affect hundreds of other apartment house owners who, like Tishman Speyer, obtained tax breaks under the city’s J-51 tax program for property renovations and then raised rents beyond certain set levels. The Appellate Division ruled that apartments must remain rent-regulated as long as the building owners enjoy J-51 tax benefits."

An in-depth article in The Indypendent explains why tenants should support repealing the "vacany decontrol" law. "The top priority for the tenant movement, however, is repealing “vacancy decontrol.” Enacted in the 1990s, it lets landlords deregulate vacant rent-stabilized apartments if the rent can legally be $2,000 per month or more. (Rent stabilization covers buildings with six or more apartments built before 1974, or buildings where the owner accepted it in exchange for tax breaks.) Once an apartment is deregulated, there are no restrictions on rent increases and the new tenant has little to no housing rights. The bill to repeal vacancy decontrol, S. 2237, has 23 co-sponsors.

As we reported earlier on the blog, efforts are underway to reform the DHCR's Individual Apartment Improvement Code which allows landlords to use the 1/40th increase to pad the cost of apartment improvements in an effort to deregulate units.  

Stanley Bard Hard at Work at the Chelsea Hotel

Some things never change. Here's Jerry Weinstein in 1981 looking the same as ever.  Unfortunately, though, some things do change.  In this nine minute clip from the 1981 BBC Arena documentary, Chelsea Hotel, you'll find Stanley Bard hard at work.  Now days you couldn't find a General Manager if your life depended on it -- chiefly because Marlene Krauss won't hire one. Bring Back the Bards.  P.S. Does anybody know the white-haired telephone operator?  That was a bit before our time.
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Yeah, and His Hair Sucks Too!

 
(Image via New York Magazine, February 16, 2009, p. 13)

The Noble Pedigree of Queen Marlene, MD, Pld., Harvard MBA, and All Things Great and Glorious That You Wish You Were But Will Never Be

Our sovereign ruler, Mistress Marlene Krauss, was born on January 17, 1941, in New York City. Consulting an old Farmer’s almanac, Legends has learned that, on that exact date, the Earth underwent a complete solar eclipse, the moon passing in front of the sun, blotting out its life-giving rays and enveloping our fair planet in a stygian darkness.  But of course that’s just a coincidence.

Marlene’s father, Julius Krauss, was born on March 16, 1898, in Hungary.  A plumber by trade, Julius presided over the destruction of the Chelsea Hotel ’s famous stained glass windows and plate glass mirrors, among other irreplaceable treasures.  He died in sunny Florida on September 18, 1978, his dream of completely demolishing the Chelsea left to his daughter to fulfill.

Marlene’s mother, Pearl Moldovan, was born on December 18, 1908 in  Hungary.  Feeling that Stanley Bard was getting a lot of undeserved attention, she urged her husband to take a greater role in the management of the Chelsea.  She died on May 5, 1983, also in Florida, her dream bequeathed to Marlene as well.

After Marlene’s birth, Julius and Pearl decided not to have any more children.

Pausing briefly from her busy schedule, Marlene married Zachary Berk on September 16, 1984.   Consulting our Farmer’s Almanac we discovered that there was a rain of frogs that day, always propitious.)

Marlene is Zachary’s second wife, good ol’ Zack having divorced his first wife, Suzanna Thomas (talk about having the last laugh!), in 1979.  Zachary was born on November 27, 1947, and—though Legends reported in error that the lovebirds met at his funeral -- Marlene hasn’t killed him yet. Marlene and Zachary have three children, and Zachary brought three of his own to the union.  So it must be kind of like the Brady Bunch around their house—only without the laughs.  (Photo: Zachary Berk via Google)

Dark Mistress Marlene also has a child from an extramarital affair with Cthulhu. As the spawn of this unholy union increases in power daily, Marlene’s control over him wanes, and he now threatens to devour her. -- Ed Hamilton
 

The History of Activism at the Chelsea Hotel, Part 3: Writer Herbert Croly, Co-found of The New Republic, Had Chelsea Ties

The Croly Family, David, Jane, and their son Herbert, crusaded for social justice and fought to extend the utiopian ideas of the Chelsea to the nation as a whole.  Historian Sherill Tippins, author of the forthcoming Dream Palace, a history of the Chelsea hotel, fills us in on the details:

In 1884, when the Chelsea was built, the writer David Croly praised the new cooperative as a "living temple of humanity" that offered limitless possibilities for improving urban life.  "We are clearly in the beginning of a new era," he wrote in his journal, Real Estate Record, in which he tried demonstrate the close link between the city's real estate issues and its larger social aims. He urged other architects to join in Hubert's idealist mission--to "build tremendous stairs for [the] brave one hundred; splendid cities with pillars and arcades; front doors as wide as those of a cathedral and as rich in carved tracery." After all, he wrote, "Is not this what architects have long been looking for, this material and spiritual need for a new kind of building?"

Obviously, Croly understood the the Chelsea was more than an apartment building. It was an idea.  If residents could share the costs of land, fuel, food preparation, domestic service, and home maintenance, they would have to work fewer hours to pay for these necessities and thus could spend more time on creative pursuits.  If they also dined together daily, entertained one another with concerts and parties in their rooftop garden, and met for conversation in the lobby and on the stairs, their exchange of ideas might stimulate their thinking and improve the quality of their chosen work. 

By 1900, many residents of the Chelsea cooperative had been persuaded by such books as Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward and Stephen Crane's Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, promoted by former Chelsea guest William Dean Howells, that their creative energy could best be put to use helping the poor. Chelsea resident Charles G. Wilson, President of the new Board of Health, helped Jacob Riis research his shocking expose of Lower East Side poverty, How the Other Half Lives. George Iles, a writer and book collector, agitated for the creation of public libraries, and left his enormous book collection to the public library across the street when he died. The glamorous Baroness de Bazus, newspaper publisher and former sister-in-law of Oscar Wilde, donated millions to the suffragist movement. The sculptor John Sanford Saltus established prizes and other funds for deserving artists (before dying in London after drinking a glass of poison that he thought was ginger ale). Daniel Greenleaf Thompson wrote such books as Social Progress and The Problem of Evil. And William Howland, publisher of the progressive Outlook, helped create the League for Social Service, the American Civic Association, and the Society for the Protection of Italian Immigrants.

After David Croly died, his widow, the crusading journalist Jane Croly, moved into the Chelsea. A quasi-utopian cooperative suited her, since she and her husband had hosted one of New York's first idealist philosophical salons in the 1850s, inspired by the writings of utopian philosopher Auguste Comte. The Crolys were so committed to the idea of social justice that they christened their son, Herbert, in Comte's Religion of Humanity and dedicated his life "to the good of the human community." When Herbert was a child, his father used to take the shy, stammering boy on walks through Central Park, explaining to him man-to-man his responsibility to help achieve "the solidarity of mankind" and advance civilization by applying scientific principles to social problems.

Herbert Croly did his best to meet his parents' expectations by writing The Promise of American Life, which advocated progressive taxation, formal recognition of labor unions, and a centralized federal government, and Progressive Democracy, which favored replacing America's "live-and-let-live" political approach to a "live-and- help-live" attitude. He co-founded the progressive journal,The New Republic. And he became an advisor first to Theodore Roosevelt and then President Woodrow Wilson. If he ultimately failed in his well-intentioned efforts to inject Chelsea-style utopian theory into American government, as the centralized government served business interests more than the people's and the nation slid into World War I, at least he had helped establish an argument for a society based on "the religion of human brotherhood" and the "ardent and intelligent cultivation of the essential art of living."

The Chelsea's utopian dream would live again.   (Photo: Herbert Croly, via Wikipedia)

Harvard MBA Doctor Marlene Krauss May Want Your Used Car - The Question is: Why?

According to car4donation.com, Chelsea Hotel Minority Shareholder and Harvard MBA Doctor Marlene Krauss may want your used car in return for a nice tax deduction.  After all, it is that time of year.  It seems Marlene's charitable "arm", the Krauss Berk Foundation, is prominently listed there as a potentially interested donor for secondary autos, jalopies, tin lizzies, and other junkyard remnants.  The big question is: Why?

According to papers filed in 2007, the Krauss Berk Foundation had assets of $61,100 and states that their charitable mission is as a religious, educational, charitable, scientific or literary organization.   The attorneys who filed for this foundation, Spielman Koenigsberg & Parker LLP  (the same attorneys who filed for the assessment on her house in Westport, CT), make no mention of used cars in their mission statement on file.  (We'll have more on Marlene's charitable giving in the near future.) 

So, what does Marlene intend to do with your 1973 AMC Gremlin?  Your prized Pinto?  Is she - in keeping with the spirit of her regime here at the Chelsea - intending to sell these things for parts?  Certainly, old spare tires could help shore up BD's lumpy mattresses and a cheaper source of WD-40 to further Arnold Tamsar's paint greasing experiment on the central staircase cannot be found.  (NB:  Arnie, according to Wikipedia WD-40 is a massive dust attractor.) 

Or, is Marlene's secret intention to use all of the unleased commercial space now available on the rental market (some for more than two years) to open Manhattan's largest and finest secondary auto showroom or scrap metal salvage yard?  We're unsure.

We are also uncertain as to what auto parts manufacturer Inline Pro has to do with Marlene's grand plan but we intend to find out. 

Bohemians, if you have any thoughts or suggestions - or a used car you're trying get rid of - we welcome your comments.  --NKOTB

(Photo courtesy of Inline Pro and NASDAQ)