In an interview with Jeremiah Moss on the Vanishing New York blog, poet and musician Mykal Skall confesses that while most people come to NYC to see the Statue of Liberty or various other tourist attractions, his dream was to come to the city and stay at the Chelsea.There will always be such rare individuals who don’t just automatically accept the Status quo, and since 1884, the Chelsea has been the place that has drawn them in. Mykal, of course, is the man who created the Virtual Chelsea on Second Life, with the noble purpose of raising awareness of the greed of the minority shareholders who want to to turn this place into a boutique hotel.But as Mykal’s creation shows, though Marlene Krauss and David Elder may have temporarily seized the physical building that houses the Chelsea, they will never be able to gain control of the heart and soul of Chelsea. It is the true artists of the Chelsea Hotel past, present, and future, who will always own that soul – people who are passionate about the unique traditions of the hotel, and loyal to the Bards, who created and nurtured those traditions.Krauss and Elder and their cronies will never gain the trusts of the true artists, because they have no idea what makes them tick. Hell, Krauss and Elder don’t even understand the BRAND of the Chelsea.They keep trying to rent the rooms to Midwestern tourists on package deals!That’s a bright spot, however, because it means they’ll continue to lose money until they cave in and Bring Back the Bards! Those of us left at the physical Chelsea will continue to fight the good fight so that those of you who dream of joining us will someday have your chance.And in the meantime there’s Mykal’s virtual Chelsea to preserve the ideals that make this iconic hotel great.– Ed Hamilton (Photo: A gathering of poets at the Virtual Chelsea via Sharron Schuman's flickr)
For nearly a hundred years, Chicago had been a rallying site for Chelsea denizens--for the 1886 Haymarket Riots, the 1893 Columbian Exposition, and now the 1968 Democratic Convention. Here, Abbie, Jerry Rubin, Ginsberg Ed Sanders, and others declared, Yippies would "take over America" and "bring the war home."
Abbie and Jerry Rubin began planning a "celebration of life" for Chicago, as an alternative to Democrats' "celebration of death." After a meeting with them in his Chelsea Hotel room, Country Joe MacDonald agreed to sing his "Vietnam Rag" there without pay--but, like many other musicians and social activists, he started to back out when Chicago started to look like a potential bloodbath.
Despite the potential for violence, Chelsea alumni, friends and residents moved almost en masse to Chicago that August. Abbie, Terry Southern, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Ed Sanders, Phil Ochs, Arthur Miller, and dozens more lesser lights led thousands of young protesters to Chicago. In a way, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was there, too since, on her instructions, following her death in 1964 her ashes had been interred near the graves of the Haymarket martyrs whose Chicago executions had radicalized Chelsea resident William Dean Howells nearly a century before.
In the end, the celebration of life failed to prevent Mayor Daley from unleashing his police on the demonstrators. As Arthur Miller wrote, "Chicago, 1968, buried the Democratic Party and the nearly forty years of what was euphemistically called its philosophy." Humphrey might as well have read his concession speech to Richard Nixon then. Chelsea alumnus Phil Ochs expressed the general Chelsea Hotel sentiment on the cover of his 1969 album, "Rehearsals for Retirement." It portrayed a tombstone with the words, "Phil Ochs (American), Born: El Paso Texas, 1940, Died: Chicago, Illinois, 1968."
Abbie Hoffman and seven others were charged under the new Interstate Riot Act with crossing state lines with the intention of inciting a riot, but the Chicago courtroom became Abbie's greatest stage. In fact the trial was later adapted for stage and film, with William Burroughs playing the judge in one production. Country Joe MacDonald's description at the trial of his meeting with Abbie at the Chelsea provided some great entertainment as well.
By 1970, the Yippies had branches in at least 70 cities, all dedicated to cultural disruption. Abbie, in his long-time role as caretaker to the outsider community in New York, regularly referred people in need of shelter to the Chelsea Hotel--such as the artist Vali Myers--and after 1972 often stayed there himself with his wife and their son, america.
Law enforcement never stopped pursuing Abbie, though, and the Rockefeller Drug Laws finally got him. Two weeks before they went into effect, he'd been involved in a lawsuit that forced the NYC Police Department to destroy intelligence files on a million people. The evening that the new drug laws went into effect, Abbie was charged with intent to sell and distribute cocaine--a charge that now carried a mandatory sentence of 15 years to life. After six weeks in the Tombs, he was released on bail, and spent a quiet, happy Christmas Eve at the Chelsea. A few weeks later, he skipped bail and went underground, where he would stay for the next six years.
Back at the Chelsea, Abbie's family waited, supported by a sympathetic Stanley Bard. Even while underground, Abbie continued to agitate on behalf of the environment and other social issues whenever he could. But in 1989, depression overtook him. He died from a massive dose of phenobarbitol and alcohol and was found, alone in bed, his hands tightly clasped around his face. He was 52 years old. -- Sherill Tippins
Dear blog readers, I am still collecting stories about Abbie Hoffman at the Chelsea Hotel, so if you have a story, or have any corrections to what follows, I'd appreciate hearing from you via the Comments to this post. -- Sherill
If it's true that certain buildings can communicate their character and something of their past to their current occupants, it was hardly surprising that Abbie Hoffman found himself drawn to the Chelsea in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In Norman Mailer's words, the grandson of Lower East Side Russian-Jewish immigrants was "a bona-fide nineteenth-century revolutionary...a true socialist--a believer in progress," just like the people who created the hotel.
Abbie discovered politics at the University of Californiaat Berkeley in 1960. But, like Chelsea Hotel alumni Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Harry Smith, Phil Ochs,and Bob Dylan he was more fully galvanized by the music of America's outsiders--in his case, the social and political power of the gospel songs sung in a Negro church where he attended weekly political meetings in Worcester, Massachusetts. "There was something about singing freedom songs in a black church..." Hoffman wrote, "that summoned a spirit never to be recaptured."
The power of the music took Hoffman to Mississippiin 1964, where he worked with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee--teaching,registering voters,and helping create a Poor People's Corporation for selling hand-crafted goods. Increasingly alienated by a too-conservative Democratic Party, he learned from Stokely Carmichael's "spoken R&B" how to set aside his college-educated intellectualism and speak out in a way that "let people experience feelings as well as thought."
Moving to the Lower East Side in 1966, he met his future wife, Anita,as well as Chelsea habitués Allen Ginsberg, Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg of The Fugs, Jerry Rubin, Timothy Leary, and Country Joe MacDonald. Out of the conversations and debates he enjoyed with them, he realized that there was an opportunity here to harness the power of the youth movement and perhaps finally break the stranglehold of the corporate ruling class."Like freaked-out Wobblies," he wrote, "we would build a new culture smack-dab in the burned-out shell of the old dinosaur."
Unlike the Wobblies, though, Abbie and his conspirators could do this by drawing on a decade's worth of communication techniques developed by the artists, musicians, writers and actors of the Fifties and Sixties, many of them at the Chelsea. Abbie could see that artists like Andy Warhol, Bob Dylan, Harry Smith, and others had already proved Marshall McLuhan's claim that information was culture, and change in society would occur as the flow of information changed.
Abbie's means of attack would be through theater. Theatrical techniques, he wrote, would "allow players to connect directly, viscerally" with the public. He and his co-conspirators would "organize a movement around art," as the Chelsea's "founding philosopher" Charles Fourier had recommended--using the potent symbols developed by artists to draw people in and make social change fun.
Beginning in 1967, Abbie--with Jerry Rubin, Allen Ginsberg, The Fugs, The Bread and Puppet Theater, and many other fellow travelers--staged guerrilla-theater events designed for maximum political impact: dropping dollar bills onto the floor of the New York Stock Exchange; plastering the Times Square recruiting center with stickers reading, "See Canada Now"; throwing plastic bags full of cow's blood at visiting Secretary of State Dean Rusk; and simply declaring the war over and celebrating it in the streets, shouting, "Hip-hip-hurray!...If you don't like the news...make up your own." Then, in October, Abbie and 100,000 demonstrators "exorcised" the Pentagon, relying on exorcism techniques provided by the Chelsea's Harry Smith. The iconic image of one of them placing a flower in the barrel of a policeman's gun made that demonstration "the perfect theatrical event." "We were light-years ahead of the Living Theater," Abbie claimed. "We had taken it off the stage. We were not trying to represent it in art, we were trying to live it." Probably because of this demonstration, Johnson saw his power slipping and decided not to run again.(To Be Continued….) (Video -- Abbie Hoffman Makes Geflite Fish at the Chelsea Hotel, Christmas 1973)
Meet Marlene Krauss, whose voice “sounded like it had been fed a steady diet of cigarettes and broken glass”.Marlene Krauss has had a very exciting life.So exciting in fact that Alisa Sheckley has written a novel recounting her youthful exploits.(This is not to be confused with Scott Griffin’s forthcoming MARLENE KRAUSS: A LIFE, which will probably just revolt and disgust you.) We are keeping our fingers crossed hoping this novel becomes a huge bestseller.The following is an excerpt from the novel, MOONBURN:
is not the center of the universe. It only feels that way. But outside of the immense gravitational pull of that small island, there are whole other realms of existence.
For the past year, I’ve been living in the town of Northside, which is two hours from the city but subscribes to an alternate reality. Winter arrives earlier and tests your resourcefulness. The moon is more of a presence. Your regular waitress not only knows exactly what you’re going to order, she also knows how much money you have in the local bank, the status of your divorce negotiations, and your entire medical history, down to the name of the prescription cream you just called in to the pharmacy.
Yet there are also secrets that are easier to conceal here, buffered by trees and mountains and distance. The city may offer a kind of intimate anonymity, but the country permits other freedoms.
The freedom to run around naked in the woods, for example. Which I do about three days a month, when the moon is at its fullest. Having lycanthropy, like having children, forces you to reevaluate the advantages and disadvantages of apartment living. Of course, I’m not talking from personal experience here—I don’t have children.
But even though I accept that I’m better off in the country, it’s been a bit of an adjustment. Before I moved out here, trying to save my doomed marriage, I’d had a coveted slot as a veterinary intern at the Animal Medical Institute on the Upper East Side. And while the education I got there was top of the line, I’ve had to unlearn a fair chunk of it.
In the city, people don’t purchase pets, they adopt substitute children to carry around in big handbags, or rescue surrogate soul mates who will wait uncomplainingly at home all day, then greet each homecoming with frenzied affection. If Basil the basset hound gets cancer, nobody blinks an eyelash at spending thousands of dollars on medical care, physical therapy, a specially designed prosthesis.
Around here, it’s a different story.
Northside dogs are considered animals, and they spend much of their day outside and unattended, having adventures that their humans know nothing about. There are exceptions, of course, but in general, country people love their dogs, though they don’t regard them as quasi-humans covered in fur. Northsiders acknowledge the wolf that resides within the breast of every canine, no matter how outwardly domesticated. “It’s no kind of life for a dog” is the verdict for most serious illness.
Looking at the massive, gore-spattered rottweiler stinking up my examining room, I had to wonder who had it better: the beloved city pets who received constant attention and care, or their country counterparts, who had the freedom to follow their instincts and roll in decomposing deer entrails.
“I don’t see or feel any cuts or abrasions,” I told the dog’s owner, a lean woman with work-roughened hands, leathery skin, and brittle, teased black hair. Her name was Marlene Krauss and she ran a hair salon out of her home. I could feel her sizing up my long brown braid the way a lumberjack sizes up a redwood.
“In fact,” I said, double checking the pads of the rott- weiler’s large paws, “I don’t think this is her blood at all. Queenie’s probably just been frolicking in something dead.”
“Oh, I don’t care about that,” said Marlene. “She’s always getting into something.” When she moved, I caught a whiff of stale cigarette smoke and some drugstore version of Chanel No. 5. If I’d been completely human, the combination would have been strong enough to mask the usual vet’s office odors of cat urine, bleach, rubbing alcohol, and frightened dog. If I’d been completely wolf, I wouldn’t have made any olfactory value judgments. As it was, I was smack in the middle of my monthly cycle, which meant that the scent of Marlene was getting up my nose and on my nerves...
Break open your piggy bank, there's no shortage of organizations with fundraisers next week-end:
Saturday, May 2, 2:00 - 4:00 Bike Ride -- Party from 4:00 - 6:00 To join the Bike Ride to support Norman Siegel for Public Advocate meet at Washington Sq Park (Under the Arch) at 2:00 p.m. The after party is at 203 West 22nd Street (CHELSEA) from 4:00 - 6:00
Sunday, May 3, 1:30 - 6:00 p.m. The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation’s Benefit Committee invites you to explore the hidden interiors of Greenwich Village and the East Village by participating in our Annual tour of Village homes. The tour offers an exclusive look into some of the Village’s most spectacular and historic homes. Click here for tickets and tour info.
Sunday, May 3, 2009 from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm Hudson Guild Adult Services will hold its annual Flea Market at its 119 Ninth Avenue location. Proceeds from the event will support its programs and services for older residents of Chelsea. The Flea Market will feature hundreds of items including crafts, jewelry, household goods, small appliances and toys. We will also feature a Food Court and are seeking food vendors to participate. A raffle will also be held with prizes included.
ENTERTAINMENT: A new play about the life and music of American composer Virgil Thomson will receive its world premier in NYC in May. The play is set in the Chelsea Hotel. Oh Virgil! A Theatrical Portrait written by Wallace Norman in collaboration with Larry Alan Smith. A two-week limited engagement will run May 1 thru May 10. The play is produced by Woodstock Fringe in association with Judson Arts. Opening night is Friday, May 1 at 8:00 p.m. (PDF)
Judson Memorial Church 55 Washington Square South (corner of West 4th Street and Thompson Street ) FRI, SAT at 8pm, SUN 3pm
We came across this little gem when we were reviewing the Google search terms that people use to find Chelsea Hotel blog.Usually the searches are for something like “hot naked babes,” "chelsea hotel ghosts," or “room 100 chelsea hotel”.We’re not quite sure what to make of the user search for “ Chelsea hotel heroin addict blog” but we hope it means that there’s another blog around here somewhere that’s way more entertaining that Legends.Glad to know that somebody else is gonna be taking up the slack.Since it’s our four year blogging anniversary does this mean we can retire the Hotel Chelsea Blog? (click on the image to enlarge)
We hear that there's a lot going on over there at the virtual Hotel Chelsea in Second Life. For starters, the "Bring Back the Bard" campaign has been SUCCESSFUL and as you can see from this screen grab Stanley Bard has been firmly installed behind the desk. And, according to Mykal, the creator of the virtual Chelsea Hotel "I'm meeting actual hotel residents who have been in Second Life for some time! (did you know you lived in the midst of avatars?) This will help me to make the hotel even more accurate! As for rent? I plan on doing it the old school way... first of all real residents get dibs, secondly, your art is more important than your rent. Yes, it costs me a bit of money monthly to do this, but if it helps the cause of the hotel residents, it's worth it. If I could live there for real, I would.. this is my substitute for now... enjoy."
Been missing your mail?Pick it up at the virtual Chelsea Hotel on Second Life, where they still have the old time mailboxes.In a timeless hotel where Stanley Bard will always be the manager, cowboy artist David Combs still seems to be painting the lobby.May he paint throughout eternity!Though there’s a convenient cab waiting at the door, in an unfortunate oversight, there’s no Dan’s Guitars.Maybe virtual Marlene Krauss has evicted them.Ah well.And actually, I lied about Stanley being there. (Maybe somebody has to create his character—they should get right on that.If not, Arthur Nash will have to start a Second Life Bring Back the Bards campaign).Gigi Travis and Wee Willie Tillie should join and then they can be dueling failures. Chelsea Hotel was created in Second Life by Michael Skall who has been "enamoured with the Chelsea Hotel for quiet a few years." In an e-mail he explains his project: "Second Life (www.secondlife.com) a virtual online 3D world where all of the content is user created. I regularly perform my music there live, but I've also created the Hotel there from several pictures that I took while there. It's totally interactive, and even has one working elevator, that works sometimes... lol I've also built a virtual lounge where the El Quiote should be, call it virtual poetic license. I plan on hosting poetry reads there, as well as music. "SL" is a great venue to get music and poetry out in almost real time to people all over the world....
I would like your input if you see any way that this can help the cause of saving the Chelsea for what it should be? I may be able to raise awareness, and even have benefits, but I don't know what else I can do to help your cause...
I've attached some pics, and if you are or may get into SL (it's free btw) here's the SLURL you'll need to find it http://slurl.com/secondlife/Lanestris/57/149/99 The music is currently all Chelsea related, and if you click on the sign you get a history notecard, as well as the pictures and other plaques give a list of residents." There you have it! El Quixote has been replaced with a lounge for the poets and musicians to perform their work! Well, better that it happen in Second Life than in First Life I say. Here are the pics if you haven't joined the brave new world of Second Life.
Jumpin' Butterballs! You might think you're in the Marx Brother's movie "Room Service" around here, the way the bumbling, incompetent management keeps trying to evict the struggling artists (some things never change), but at least no one has seriously proposed demolishing the Chelsea. But the childhood homoe of Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Zeppo doesn't have our landmark status.
Marx Brothers Place is the NYC block where the beloved childhood home of the Marx Brothers still stands - as of today. But, since Marx Brothers Place is but one block shy of the boundary for the Carnegie Hill Historic District, the Marx Borthers House and every other house on th block remains vulnerable to demolition. Three beautiful 19th century houses have already been demolished to make room for a modern CONDO-Complex!
Please join Harpo's son, Bill Marx; Woody Allen; Bob Weide and so many others who have signed the petitions (2) to extend the CH Historic District to include Marx Brothers Place, and to ask NYC to officially co-name East 93rd Street between Lexington & Third Avenues 'Marx Brothers Place'.
Spoiler Alert! In case, after 70 years, you haven't seen "Room Service" in the end Groucho and his brothers manage to put on their play and pay the hotel their back rent. Though Stanley Bard was only a toddler when the movie first came out, he seem to have absorbed the lessons of the film.
So, former Chelsea Hotel resident Ryan Adams has left New York because theNew York Times was mean to him. Apparently they criticized one of his songs -- imagine that -- and said he needed to self- edit a little better. Well, don't we all. But how will moving to LA help? Can't the NYT still get ahold of his albums and trash them? And don't people in LA read the NYT? In this day and age I think they can even get it online. You can't escape the long arm of the NYT! And what's with the papers in LA? Has he got them on his payroll? Or will he have to pack up and move again once they criticize him? Well, you're always welcome at the Chelsea, Ryan. Somtimes I'm not sure whether or not we're even in New York -- but if you're like a lot of people here, you'll have no problem pretending you're on a different, friendlier and more human planet, altogether. (For better or for worse!) What I'm really wondering, however, is how we can convince the NYT to be mean to Chelsea Hotel minority share holder Marlene Krauss so she'll move to Lapland or Tanzania, or blast off in a rocket to Mars. -- Ed Hamilton
We only knew Stefan in recent years when he was suffering from a form of Parkinson and we wish we could have known him earlier in his life. Though sometimes he came across as a misanthrope Stefan had a heart of gold.Stefan was never a Chelsea Hotel resident but he had a studio here for over two decades and made many friends here over the years. Traveling daily between the Chelsea and his apartment in Greenwich Village he photographed the sidewalk and recorded the vibe of the neighborhood in his poems, which humanize the underside of the Chelsea neighborhood without romanticizing it in the least.I reviewed two of Stefan’s books for Chelsea Now and that was how I got to know Stefan and his charming wife Rena Gill.In April 2007 Stefan’s many friends gathered at St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery to celebrate the release of his two books and to remember Stefan’s long life and illustrious career in the theater.We are all saddened by his passing.
Stefan Brecht was born in 1924 in Berlin, Germany, and came to America with his family in 1942. He earned a Ph.D. in philosophy at Harvard, and moved to New York in the early ’60s, becoming a critic and historian of avant garde theatre. Brecht marched beside the Bread and Puppet Theatre troupe, and documented Robert Wilson’s group when they met daily in a loft on Spring Street.
Brecht has written poetry all his life. He self-published his first book of poetry, “Poems,” in 1975, which led to his big break when the book was spotted by editor Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who subsequently picked it up for his City Lights Pocket Series.
The recognition facilitated the publication of Brecht’s opus, a multi-volume history of the alternative theater, “The Original Theatre of the City of New York : From the Mid-Sixties to the Mid-Seventies.” Completed volumes include “The Theatre of Visions: Robert Wilson” (Suhrkamp, 1978); “Queer Theatre” (Suhrkamp, 1978); and the two-volume study: “Peter Schumann’s Bread and Puppet Theatre” ( Methuen , 1988). A hitherto untitled volume on the theatre of Richard Foreman ( Methuen) is also scheduled for release. -- Ed Hamilton (Photo of Stefan Brecht at the Hotel Chelsea, Room 1010, 1979 by Maggie Hopp.
Kudos to the Guardian’s reviewer, Ben Walters, for sitting through all of the movies at last weekend’s Chelsea Hotel Film Festival at the Anthology Film Archives.He says of the Hotel: “It’s not surprising that it should have acquired a cinematic presence, what’s impressive is it’s range in diversity matches that of the hotel’s residents.”After recounting the usual suspects such as the Chelsea Girls and Sid & Nancy, the review focuses in on the present situation at the Hotel, highlighting the fact that the recent fate of the Chelsea is part and parcel of the wave of gentrification that’s sweeping New York.
Saturday’s Triple bill featured three films that together served to tell the ultimately tragic story of the Bard family’s tenure and ultimate fall push from power.Doris Chase’s The Chelsea shows three generations of Bard family guiding the hotel through its heyday, including a very young David bemoaning the fact that he majored in finance rather than psychology.The second Film, Michael Maher’s Blogging for Bohemia shows how the YMCA across the street has fallen prey to a greedy developerwho carved up the beloved community resource and sold it as luxury condos to rich yuppies.Stanley is in the film (three months before his ouster) discussing how his own board of directors has lately been pressuring him to sell the Chelsea Hotel as well.Then, in Sam Bassett’s film, a deposed Stanley is interviewed, urging Chelsea tenants to fight to preserve our unique way of life.
The final chapter of the Bard saga has yet to be written.Luckily, as Walters points out, we may have been able to stave off the forces of greed long enough for even larger economic forces to come to our defense.He quotes Stanley perceptive prediction at the end of the Bassett film: “We’re not always going to be in this bubble.We’re not always going to be in an economic boom.”“He was proved right sooner that he might have imagined,” Walters concludes, “whether it means a brief respite or a new Renaissance for the Chelsea Hotel remains to be seen.” -- Ed Hamilton
The faux-diner has been popular for years, since, once greedy landlords ran all of the real diners off adventurous yuppies craved a return to that “real New York” dining experience.And now that most all of the residential hotels have been cleared out, their tenants scattered to the wind, up pops the faux-sro.To give all of those faux bohemians and faux winos a place where they can pretend to be keeping it real.On the cutting edge of this trend is the Ace hotel which was formerly the Breslin Hotel an SRO catering to artists and other genuine New Yorkers.Instead of the crappy clapboard furniture, old record players and broken down refrigerators that were no doubt thrown out on the street when the Breslin’s tenants were evicted the Ace now features crappy ikea furniture and kitschy appliances such as turn tables and refrigerators making it look like a dorm room from the seventies.We don’t know what the hell to make of the Joe Lewis boxing robes, though they are obviously some sort of evocation of a past era.Maybe they’re sending a message to the tourists that they need to be prepared to go a round or two with the few remaining permanent tenants.In today’s financial climate, if there’s not enough money to build a real boutique hotel, just make it cheap and tell people they like it.– Ed Hamilton (Photos: www.hotelchatter.com)
Thanks to all involved for making the Chelsea Hotel Film Festival a success! In addition to attending the press preview for Harry Smith’s #23—a remarkable film, though one of our neighbors tells us that Harry considered it unfinished—we also stopped by the Anthology Film Archives a couple of times over the weekend to check out a few other Chelsea related offerings. We heard that the premiere of #23 was well attended and that celebrities Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye were in the audience. (Patti is featured in the film.) Additionally, Chelsea Hotel historian Sherill Tippins tells us that all the screenings of Andy Warhol’s Chelsea Girls were sold out. (Actually, this is not surprising since it’s rarely shown. We skipped Chelsea Girls this time since we’ve already seen it twice.) So despite recent unfortunate events, and despite the fact that this was Easter weekend, the Chelsea is still popular! On Saturday we attended the screening of Doris Chase’s 1992 documentary Hotel Chelsea. In one of the more interesting interviews, Stanley Bard speaks of how, as a young man, he resented the hotel because his father spent so much time there. Then he goes on to explain how he too gradually came to love the Chelsea. This theme surfaces again in Sam Bassett’s film, as Stanley talks about how his own son David may have initially felt pressured to take a role in the hotel’s management, when in fact he would have rather been doing something else. But the Chelsea bug gradually came to infect David as well. On Sunday, Sherill Tippins introduced the screening of Robert Flaherty’s Louisiana Story, by discussing the hotel’s early years. The Chelsea was of course designed by Fourier disciple Philip Hubert as a socialist experiment in cooperative living; but one think we didn’t know was that, in addition to artists, the building also initially housed some of the financers and builders of the Chelsea. Tippins considers Louisiana Story to be the perfect Chelsea Hotel film. For one thing, it was a collaboration between three Chelsea residents: director Robert Flaherty, composer Virgil Thomson, and cinematographer Richard Leacock. For another, it embodies the aesthetic style of naturalism prevalent in the Chelsea at the time, representing a distinctly American, as opposed to European, tradition. Finally, in an expression of one of the core values of Bohemia, the film demonstrates how master craft person and Chelsea Hotel resident Robert Flaherty is passing his knowledge on to another resident, the young Leacock. What we’re really looking forward to now is a showing of Harry Smith’s great Mahagonny, though we may have to wait awhile, since the folks at AFA tell us that the royalties for the Kurt Weill score of the film are prohibitively expensive. For now, this will have to do! Recorded in Chelsea Hotel, NYC, 1965. Edited, for length, as part of the Chelsea Hotel Series - Anthology Film Archives, April 2009 Harry Smith discusses hand drawn film techniques, missing films, the process of "visual music," or painting to sound. Smith also discusses borrowed cameras and the pawn shops they end up in, influences through dance and myth, surrealism, op art, and the cataloging of images and "sortilege" method. Interview finishes with the discussion of a future film idea involving Andy Warhol and a 20 minute picture of Mt. Fuji, Jack Smith, Robert Frank, Stan Vanderbeek animating aboriginal bark painting, a screenplay by Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs and maybe Allen Ginsberg, with Smith supervising. Also ideas to make and distribute underground movies to be shown in little towns. Audio transferred, compiled, and edited by Victoria Keddie (NYU) for Anthology Film Archives 04/09/09.
There’s no end to the trouble with Summer Infant baby monitors.Remember when we reported that they were receiving messages from a NASA satellite?Well now it seems that they’re broadcasting signals all around the neighborhood.This mom was horrified to find that baby Alfie was starring in his own REALITY show on the neighbor’s TV courtesy of Summer Infant’s baby monitor.
'I ran straight over and as soon as I walked in I saw Alfie on the TV screen. Erin said I turned as white as a ghost and looked like I was about to faint. … 'It was really scary to think that anyone could have been watching my baby.'
Summer Infant’s response: 'We're limited to a certain number of frequency bands and they are becoming more clogged up ... simply because more people have got wireless internet and other wireless equipment.'I guess it’s the blog’s fault once again.
Kudos to Chelsea Hotel minority shareholder Marlene Krauss and company for at least keeping the signals earth bound this time. -- Ed Hamilton (via Daily Mail)
In a huge show of support from one bastion of alternative culture to another, The Anthology Film Archives is presenting Chelsea Hotel on Film, a series of films about, filmed at, or created by residents of the Chelsea Hotel. (For more info: Brooklyn Rail, NY Times, New Yorker, Chelsea Now, Village Voice, TWI-NY) Here's the schedule: Alex Cox,SID AND NANCY -- Punk rockers come from all over the world to burn candles in front of what they believe to be Sid & Nancy ’s door.Whether we like it or not Sid & Nancy have become the Romeo and Juliet of the Chelsea Hotel. Sid & Nancy is the quintessential Chelsea Hotel movie if for nothing else than the spot-on portrayal of Stanley Bard. 1986, 1112 minutes, 35 mm. With Gary Oldman, Chloe Webb and Courtney Love Thursday, April 9 at 7:15 and Friday, April 10 at 9:15
SHIRLEY CLARKE PROGRAM TEEPEE VIDEO SPACE TROUPE (1971); SAVAGE/LOVE (1981); TONGUES (1982) Independent filmmaker Shirley Clarke (the only woman to have a plaque on the front of the hotel) founded The Teepee Video Space Troupe, and operated it out of her Chelsea Hotel penthouse where her later videos were made, including Savage/Love and Tongues, which are a two-part collaboration with playwright Sam Shepard and actor/director Joseph Chaiken. Plus: Jonas Mekas: CHELSEA FOOTAGE Thursday, April 9 at 9:30
Doris Chase, THE CHELSEA (1993) 67 minutes, video. THE CHELSEA is an entertaining and informative account of the eclectic personalities who resided at the hotel in 1993. Many of them still live here! Plus: Michael MaherBLOGGING FROM BOHEMIA (2007) In the last documentary filmed at the hotel prior to the Bard family's ouster Maher's short documentary reports on the forces of gentrification threatening the Chelsea neighborhood as seen through the eyes of the blog. Stanley Bard discusses the pressure he's under from the minority shareholders. Ed Hamilton & Sam BassettINTERVIEW WITH STANLEY BARD (2008) Filmed one year post ouster Stanley Bard offers a message of hope for struggling Chelsea residents. Saturday, April 11 at 3:00
Andy Warhol, THE CHELSEA GIRLS (1966) ca. 210 minutes 16 mm double-projection. Showcases the glamorous, drugged out personalities of Warhol’s entourage, featuring Nico, Ondine, Marie Menken, Mary Woronov, Gerard Malanga, International Velvet, Ingrid Superstar, Mario Montez, Eric Emerson, and Brigid Berlin. This is the best film ever made about the hotel and it is rarely shown so you should go down there and see it while you have the chance! Saturday, April 11 at 7:45 and Sunday, April 12 at 5:00
Robert Flaherty, LOUISIANA STORY (1948) 78 minutes, 35 mm. This film represents a collaboration between three talented Chelsea Hotel residents. In addition to the director Flaherty, the score was composed by Virgil Thomson and the cinematographer was Ricky Leacock. Writer Sherill Tippins will be on hand to introduce the screening and speak about the Hotel's early days. Sunday, April 12 at 3:00
New York real estate legend Dan Peckham sent us this e-newsletter produced by Belkin Burden a few years back, but we didn’t make the connection that the law firm trying to evict him was also the Chelsea Hotel’s law firm!They haven’t had much luck getting rid of Peckham, now have they?That certainly gives us reason to be optimistic. On the other hand, this newsletter should make your head spin.In it Belkin Burden is basically advertising that they can get rid of rent stabilized tenants through luxury decontrol and demolition application.(The latter presumably includes the so called “phony demolition” that they used against Peckham.) At least it’s good to know where we stand with these guys.Get ready to rumble indeed.
Here in New York we don’t always get the latest news on the literary scene in Norway.Luckily Hilde Kvalvaag, a writer from Norway doing an article on the Chelsea filled us in on the recent fame and fortune of former Chelsea hotel guest and novelist Sara Stridsberg.Some of you might remember our post about Stridsberg from May 2005 when she was in town with her friend and they were sitting in the lobby banging away on a manual typewriter in an attempt to recreate the notorious Chelsea Hotel resident and Warhol shooter Valerie Solanas’ Scum Manifesto. Well, since then Stridsberg has published her novel “The Dream Faculty” about Solanas in Norway where it was widely read, and earned her a prestigious Nordic Council Literature Prize which carries an award of 350,000 kroner which Hilde tells us is approximately the equivalent of $50,000 U.S. Let’s all raise a toast to a Chelsea fellow traveler who made good. Who says hanging out in the Chelsea lobby can’t be profitable?
There’s been no end to Chelsea Hotel minority shareholder Marlene Krauss’ troubles lately.Luckily she has a convenient scapegoat: the blog.She managed to alienate one of the top hotel firms in the city, BD Hotels, and now she’s locked in arbitration that threatens to cost the hotel half a million dollars.But don’t you know, that’s the blog’s fault since we drew attention to Glennon Travis’ myspace page where he called himself a “St. Louis Beach Bum.”Then, after scraping the bottom of the barrel to come up with somebody stupid enough to want to work for her, “Piccadilly” Andrew Tilley turned out to be totally incapable of managing the place, costing the hotel another half-million in salary and bonuses.Oh, but of course he had to quit because the blog criticized his hairdo.Now Krauss is stuck with the dimwitted duo of Tweedledum and Tweedledee “managing” the hotel, the first of whom (David Elder) had a tenant assaulted by goons paid off of the books, and the second of whom (Arnold Tamasar) evicted a 75-year-old man.Apparently reading the blog so dazzled these dips that they became unaware of the most basic of laws.
And then there’s the matter of the destruction in Bob Dylan’s room.It was apparently the blog that falsified those permit applications and neglected to get a Certificate of No Harassment, and probably even the blog that wrote the inconvenient law that made that work illegal.Finally, when occupancy dipped into single digits at the hotel and then hovered at around 20% for months, it was the blog’s constant cheerleading for the hotel that caused people to not want to come here.
As for Marlene’s other business related problems, such as falling victim to Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme; being threatened with having her “Spac” company, KBL Healthcare III, de-listed by the New York Stock Exchange; and her “resignation” from the board of Summer Infant, she was probably just too preoccupied with reading the blog (it is certainly engrossing!) and working herself up into a state of constant rage over the fact that we pointed out that her father was Stanley’s plumber.
Hey Marlene, blogs don’t bankrupt hotels; people bankrupt hotels.
Harvard Business School announced yesterday that former Chelsea Hotel manager Stanley Bard will be awarded an honorary MBA for his fifty years of service to the New York hospitality and arts communities. “It’s a no brainer,” said Associate Harvard Business School Dean Richard Cremona, “I mean, the guy basically founded this wonderful cultural institution, and turned a profit for 50 years through thick and thin, and nobody else seems to able to run the Hotel. They’ve had a top New York hotel firm in there, and,ironically, a Harvard MBA, and they’ve tried to manage the hotel, only to fail miserably.We could all learn something about business from Stanley Bard.”Mr. Cremona also added that he felt that Harvard owed New Yorkers an apology for insufficiently preparing minority shareholder and Bernie Madoffponzi scheme victim Marlene Krauss to deal with the realities of the hotel business. The degree will be awarded in June.Mr. Bard will also speak at the Harvard Business School commencement exercises. -- Ed Hamilton
We hope we're not getting an "upgrade," since these people running this place now have little or no taste. Let's all pray to the landmarking god for the swift return of our historic mailboxes. They may not look like much, but the mailboxes together with the surrounding woodwork at the desk were one of the most picturesque and widely photographed features of the lobby. Who knows what further "improvements" tomorrow may bring. Bring back the mailboxes and bring back the Bards while you're at it. Arthur Nash has more photos on myspace. Update: We were hoping that management was just going to repaint or refurbish the boxes in some way, but word is they have been destroyed, apparently out of spite. Plenty of people around the hotel, us included would have liked to have had them. Tamsar and Elder no doubt knew this and so we hope this wanton act of vandalism makes Tamasar and Elder happy.
Today, April 1, 2009, the case ofDaniel Peckham vsCalogero will he heard up in Albany .Everyone who can make it should go up to Albany and support Dan and his campaign to preserve his rent stabilized apartment against his greedy landlord Larry Tauber.Dan Peckham, you might remember, is the heroic tenant activist who is the lone hold out in his building on West 21st St. in Chelsea.He has single handedly thwartedthe plans of developer Larry Tauber to transform this rent-stabilized building into luxury condos, costing Tauber hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenues and legal fees while the case has slowly been making its way through the courts.Peckham is a yoga instructor who uses his discipline to avoid the stress of his protracted battle.Dan has also generously met with the Chelsea Hotel’s tenant activists and shared strategies for fighting greedy landlords.
At the heart of the case is the so called “phony demolition law” whereby landlords take advantage of a provision in the law allowing them to evict tenants in order to demolish a building.In this case Tauber is merely gut-renovating the building and trying to claim that it’s a demolition and therefore gives him the right to evict Peckham.Peckham is joined in this case by the DHCR. This case is important because it could set a precedent and close a loop-hole that has been used to evict many NYC tenants. Landlord Larry Tauber – surprise, surprise – is being represented by none other than the law firm of Belkin Burden who has been representing the Chelsea Hotel recently in its efforts to evict tenants.If somebody out there travels to Albany let us know how it goes. -- Ed Hamilton
Recent Comments