Living with Legends: Hotel Chelsea Blog

Capitol Fishing Tackle Owner Supports the Bards

I own Capitol Fishing Tackle Co. I went to work at the store in 1973 and bought it in 1974.The Bards treated me fairly. The space wasn't cheap, but I made a living and it was fun.Stanley and his family are wonderful people. We were all in tears when we found out that Capitol Fishing could no longer remain at the Hotel Chelsea. I moved the store for two reasons. I couldn't think about closing a business that was 109 years old at that time, and, more importantly, our son wouldn't let me. Fishing is his passion and he loves working in the store that will some day be his. Our famous sign is at 132 W 36th St. We have a great landlord and a very long lease. I didn't let Marlene Krauss and David Elders win. Believe it or not, Marlene Krauss's father was a gentleman. If he was alive today, he wouldn't be proud of his daughter.   -- Richard Collins

Memorial Service for Stefan Brecht

Stefan Brecht, who wrote about and performed in the new and revolutionary theatre that erupted in New York in the 1960’s and early ‘70’s, will be remembered at a memorial to be held Sunday, Nov. 8 at 6 PM, at St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery, E. 10^th St. at 2^nd Ave. 

The memorial, a celebration of his life and work, will include performances created for the occasion by Peter Schumann, of the Bread and Puppet Theatre and, on an audio disc, by Robert Wilson; Jim Neu, a playwright who performed with Stefan in early Robert Wilson plays, will read the letter, which Brecht wrote, from Wilson’s “A Letter to Queen Victoria”.  Drumming, musical performances and readings of Brecht’s poems will be part of the memorial, as will photographs and projected footage from his performances with Charles Ludlam, Robert Wilson, Stuart Sherman and Leandro Katz.

Brecht’s series on The Original Theatre of the City of New York: From the Mid-Sixties to the Mid-Seventies was left unfinished when he became ill, in 2001, with a form of Parkinson’s that destroyed his ability to write or speak.  His intent was to preserve, for those in later and much changed times, as much as possible of the sense of being there in New York in the ‘60’s-70’s; his writing ranged from detailed on-the-spot descriptions, sometimes poetic in language of the time, to analysis, to documentation of the particulars of the scene that gave rise to the radically new.

Completed books are: Queer Theatre, centering on Jack Smith and on Charles Ludlam’s Ridiculous Theatrical Company; The Theatre of Visions: Robert Wilson, evoking the “Nothing happens” spectacles of ’69 and the ‘70’s evolutions with the communal Byrd Hoffman company; and Bread and Puppet Theatre, with vivid accounts of the protest theatre on the ‘60’s streets and the first circuses in Vermont.  His account of Richard Foreman’s Ontological Hysteric Theatre is due for publication in 2010.

City Lights published his Poems; a later collection appeared in 2006, Eighth Avenue Poems, along with a book of photographs of the street pavements, 8^th Avenue. 

Guest Comes Clean on Ghostly Sighting at Chelsea Hotel

hi, this is Matt, the guy who wrote about this experience. I'm sure that it's hard for people to imagine something like this happening, but I have no reason to fabricate a story such as this. FWIW, I've been completely sober for almost 2 years now and my friend had 1 drink during our stay in the city and it wasn't on this night. to be honest, I doubted my friend after he had told me about seeing the ghost. I've known this guy since I was 4 and we like to play jokes on one another a lot, but we always laugh like 30 seconds into our jokes which gives us away. however, on this night I could easily see that he wasn't trying to pull one over on me. talking to him about this today, he thinks we ushered the ghost into our room due to the fact that I was playing "Something Else" and "My Way" by Sid Vicious. I was a big Sex Pistols fan back in high school so, I thought it would be fun to listen to these songs where Sid had lived. my friend had never heard Sid sing before and was appalled by his voice. after insulting the songs, he told me to turn them off. also, after we checked into the Chelsea, we took a walk around the city. we ended up passing St. Patrick's Old Cathedral and had the strange notion to walk inside. we lit candles and dipped our fingers in the holy water despite not being Catholic. in retrospect, we believe we did this random act based on our spirits warning us of the demons (negative energy) in the Chelsea. the holy water, candle and prayers may have been a protective shield which explains why we were not bothered by the ghost until our last night in the room. I didn't include those tidbits in the original story because they are just thoughts of ours. the events which transpired in that room really got to us. I couldn't think of anything else for the next month and kept asking myself, "why, why, why did this happen to me?" these are the only logical reasons I can think of unless, of course, there is no logical reason which is a logical reason, lol.