Chelsea Hotel Scaffolding, April 24, 2012-July 18, 2022: Rest in Pieces

Chelsea Hotel Scaffolding, we hardly knew ye. Well, that’s not exactly true, now, is it? After all, you were up for over ten years. You provided shelter for the homeless—one of whom lived in the entryway to the El Quijote for two years or more—and a dry surface for all the pampered doggies from the hotel, so they didn’t have to get their little paws wet when they went out to use the potty. But you also provided cover for illicit late night vice activities. Fights were common, as were late night screaming matches, and probably muggings as well. Workers could slip out of the hotel to sneak a smoke under your sheltering boards, or, in foul weather, to sit in rows against the hotel, scarfing down sandwiches purchased from the now defunct Aristocrat Deli. Often, there were huge, filthy dumpsters, debris trucks, and oil-stained portable boilers arrayed before you to form a virtual wall, uniting with you to block the hotel from the street, and from the light of day—and of course presenting an even more hazardous obstacle to the wellbeing of any tenant venturing out after dark. Your vast array of support poles and cross bars at sidewalk level made it difficult at times to get to the entrance of the hotel, especially when the comedy club was in full swing, with unruly patrons milling around in the small walking lanes. At times you supported an even greater edifice of scaffolding, festooned in all its glory with tattered black netting, covering the entire façade of the Chelsea and stretching all the way to the gabled roof, but you went through most of your years sadly alone. Now you have gone on to greater things, darkening the doorways of who knows what unsuspecting building—perhaps even one much grander and more beautiful than the Chelsea—while we, the survivors, are left to mourn your passing. Perhaps one day you’ll be back, rising like a Phoenix from the sweltering garbage of the sidewalk, once the present owners grow bored with their dubious business model and sell the hotel to someone with another sort of “vision” that requires eleven more years of further construction. But please don’t hurry on our account.