If you are a fan of pugs, and a fan of Chelsea Hotel characters, Wednesday’s auction of items from the Brigid Berlin estate will ring all of your bells! Check out the pug portraits.
A couple of Billy Name monographs might be more to your liking.
Or maybe buy a music book or two.
The auction begins Wed, Apr 27, 2022 at 10am EDT.
Sadly, we have learned of the passing of former Chelsea Hotel resident and artist Donald Baechler. Only recently Baechler's black and white flower painting was returned to the lobby of the Chelsea after having been removed in 2011. We saw Baechler's work along with the work of several other Chelsea residents at the 2017 Museum of Modern Art show dedicated to Club 57. While we mourn his passing, his memory lives on at the Chelsea. ArtNews Obituary.
Lobby 2022
Lobby 2008
The Chelsea Hotel community was saddened to learn of the passing of one of its own: artist, author, and poet George Chemeche, a resident of the hotel since 1971. Though we’d run into George a few times in the past year, he hadn’t had much to say—not that such was entirely unusual for him. We know that he had been in declining health for some time, and he died of heart failure on January 11, 2022.
Born in Basra, Iraq in 1932, George emigrated with his family to Israel in 1949 at age 14. He attended a kibbutz on the Sea of Galilee, and later the Avni Art School in Tel-Aviv. Taken under the wing by such illustrious patrons as Lady Fergusson, great niece of Lord Balfour, a former Prime Minister of England, and Baroness Alix de Rothschild, George traveled to Paris in 1959, where he was admitted to the prestigious Ecole Superieure des Beaux Arts. Not that he lived like royalty, by any means: renting a small Garret in Montparnasse, he frequented the bars and cafes when he wasn’t painting, living la vie de boheme. One wonders if his legendary beret and sandals date to that era, or if they were a later addition. (Those of you who want to know more about George’s fascinating life can check out Amanda Chemeche’s wonderful essay about her father in The Forward, June 21, 2020.)
George has told us of how he arrived at the Chelsea, intending to stay only a few days or weeks until he found a suitable studio, but how Stanley Bard, impressed by his art, convinced him to stay on at the hotel, renting him the large, unused space behind the check-in desk. Several years later, when Stanley needed the space back for offices, George made no bones about it, moving his canvasses to storage and doing his painting, from then on, in his large apartment upstairs.
Stanley wasn’t the only one impressed by George’s art, as his paintings are in the permanent collections of The Guggenheim, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, The Israel Museum, and The Denver Fine Art Museum to mention a few.
For many years, a large sculptural work by George was displayed prominently in the Chelsea Hotel lobby. Perhaps the day is coming when we’ll see its return.
Anyone who has had the good fortune to be invited to George’s apartment for dinner or drinks couldn’t help but be impressed by his awe-inspiring collection of African statuary. Less well known is that George was an authority on African art with several books to his credit, including: Ibijis: The Cult of the Yoruba Twin (5 Continents Editions); The Horse Rider in African Art (ACC Publishers); and Eshu: The Divine Trickster (ACC Publishers).
Finally, George was a published poet. In writing about his work for the back cover of his 2014 chapbook, When Gods Sneeze (Finishing Line Press), I commended his language for being, while often soaring, “always well-grounded in an earthy humor and good cheer.” Though I hadn’t looked at the book in a few years, when I picked it up today it fell open to one of my favorite of George’s poems, “The Tent”, which, as it concerns a journey, I’ll quote at some length:
I was a stranger among strangers,
an immigrant among thousands of immigrants,
a homeless boy sheltered in in a hollow tent,
a foreigner in a foreign land. . . .
I lost my sweet home to a gloomy tent,
my mother tongue to unfamiliar tongue,
my playful friends to unfriendly throng,
my hope to a hopeless reality,
my magic carpet to a sand floor. . . .
In a way George’s life was defined by journeys: first to Israel with his family, then to Paris, then to New York. While “The Tent” deals with loss and what’s left behind when we leave a place, other poems, such as the enchanting “Night in Casablanca” acknowledge the necessity of change, risk, and the ability to “sail free as far as your free mileages allow”:
In that Garden of Allah, where awesome lovers blossom,
a divine thought elated your soul.
You would rather be a sinner in a foreign land
Than a household saint, wholly shackled on both hands. . . .
George is survived by his daughter Amanda Chemeche.
[A Memorial Service is planned for March 2022.]
Photo by Amanda Chemeche.
On Sunday, December 19 the friends of Bettina Grossman will host a gathering at the Chelsea Hotel, 222 West 23rd street to celebrate the life of Bettina. The memorial begins at 11:00am.
It’s the perfect success story: an artist, dedicated to her vision, labors in obscurity for decades, undeterred by lack of critical and popular success, only to be recognized and hailed as a genius in the end. Of course it’s Bettina’s story, but it’s also the prototypical Chelsea Hotel story, as perhaps such a thing could only happen in a place like the Chelsea, a mythical island where dreams can come true, in the middle of another semi-mythical island called New York—that latter island, sadly, a place where a lot of beautiful dreams go to die.
Bettina passed away of respiratory heart failure on November 2 at the age of 94. She had been staying, as we learn from Corey Kilgannon’s excellent obituary, in a Brooklyn care facility at the time of her death, recuperating from a fall suffered several months before.
Often in the evening, Debbie and I would hear a timid, almost imperceptible knocking at our door, and we would open the door to find a tiny, elderly woman, increasingly hunched and shriveled as the years progressed, finally resorting to the use of a walker. Bettina almost invariably just wanted to talk, and usually about something that was going on around the hotel. Though shy and soft spoken, she was often insightful, and had a disarmingly wry sense of humor.
A lot has been made of Bettina’s eccentricity, especially as relates to her reclusive nature and her penchant for junking up her apartment. But as to the former, even though her mobility was limited, she was always out and about in the hotel and the neighborhood. Bettina was up on our floor frequently since she was always looking for her friend Rachael Cohen, who took care of her in her final years. Once, before I really knew her that well, I remember rounding the corner in our hallway in the summer of 2003, the night of the blackout, and running right into her—quite literally. After admonishing me to be more careful, she immediately began to talk about the “young man” with a drug problem who lived on another floor and how his eyes burned with a demonic fire. “Yes,” I said, distracted, perhaps in a somewhat condescending tone, “sometimes it can be like the drug possesses someone.”
“I’m not speaking of this as some kind of metaphor,” she assured me.
Sometimes Debbie and I would bring her soup from a nearby restaurant, though we never could get it quite right: was it noodle from this particular Chinese place, egg drop soup from that, or vice versa? She was very particular. Other times we might surprise her with a treat. One time we brought her a mini Cowboy Pie, which has a bunch of chocolate chips and pecans and caramel in it. I think we bought it mainly for the funny name, but Bettina was not impressed. “You know I’m not going to be able to chew that,” she said, later adding that, “I didn’t like the ‘cow pie’”
Once, in appreciation for something we had written about her on the blog, Bettina decided she’d like to give us an artwork. And so at the appointed time we showed up and banged on her door with a rock so she could hear it, and were admitted part way into her apartment to view various candidates, such as small abstracts on paper. But she never could decide what would be appropriate, and we didn’t want to press her, and after an hour or two it became clear that she really didn’t want to part with anything. She needed her art around her.
Or maybe she had determined that we didn’t understand the work, and that its meaning would be lost on us. She did once gift us with a beautiful cabbage.
Bettina found art in everyday objects; or, better yet, she felt that, through art, she could reveal the meaning that lay hidden below the surface in everyday objects. That, I take it, was what her theory of the Noumenon was about. If you just look properly, or put the pieces together properly, a new layer of meaning can emerge. That’s why Bettina photographed puddles and shadows and disembodied limbs, as a warped reflection, or an object set at an odd angle or placed in an unusual juxtaposition with another object, might be suggestive of something beyond itself. It’s no coincidence that she came up with the idea in a place like the Chelsea, as the Chelsea is a place where every day offers the opportunity for a weird chance encounter from which meaning can emerge.
Perhaps the Noumenon is why Bettina hoarded so many artworks: these works had revealed a meaning to her, or—in the case of the ongoing projects—she was waiting for them to reveal it. The leaves and sticks and rocks that she piled up in the hallway contained something she saw, and maybe others did not, a message, perhaps, if a cryptic one, that she couldn’t just allow to evaporate—or to burn away. Lately, it seems like the developers and politicians have been hell bent on wiping out all traces of the old—of the old Chelsea, and of old New York in general. But they never could keep Bettina down. She kept hanging her artworks and storing her projects in the hallways until she was no longer able to do so.
As mentioned, success for Bettina came late in life, and this was due in large part to the generous support she received from other artists, both in the Chelsea community and in the larger artistic community as a whole. The role of eyeware and jewelry artist Rachael Cohen in caring for her when she was in declining health has already been mentioned. And painter and fifth-floor neighbor Robert Lambert stood by her with companionship and encouragement through the dark years when nobody else seemed to appreciate her work. Special mention must also be made of a pair of documentary filmmakers who helped put this extraordinary woman’s life and art on the world map. First of all, Sam Bassett, who moved to the Chelsea around the time of the Bard family’s ouster, providing a creative spark when everything around the hotel seemed to be falling apart. He spent months working with Bettina to clean out her apartment so she could better showcase her prodigious work, in the process really bringing her out of her shell and giving her a much needed boost in confidence and self-esteem. We were all amazed—I think no one more so than Bettina herself—by the treasures unearthed from what Robert Lambert so aptly called an “Egyptian tomb”.
Neither Robert nor Sam are with us at the hotel any longer—the price of “progress”, it seems—but support for the Chelsea artistic community continues to flow from the larger art world. Dutch artist Corrine Van der Borch’s equally wonderful, though somewhat more accessible documentary, “Girl with the Black Balloons” gained Bettina even greater exposure. And the serendipitous tale of where the black balloons came from, and how they made their way to Bettina, is one of those “only in the Chelsea” stories that amply demonstrate why islands such as this are necessary for art and for life.
Perhaps Bettina’s greatest moment was her show at Governor’s Island, an opportunity that came courtesy of Moroccan artist Yto Barrada, who befriended Bettina and showed her own work alongside the older artist at that and other venues here and in Europe. I saw Bettina at the show, riding her scooter around the large space, circulating among groups of people, the star of the show as she was always meant to be. Now truly in her element, she couldn’t have been happier. When I caught up with her, she spoke of an upcoming show in Germany. She was very proud. Still, there was that old concern resurfacing: “They’ve taken a lot of my pieces, and what if they don’t bring them back?”
“They’ll bring them back.”
“Eventually, maybe, but I’m not going to be around forever.”
“It’s important for people to see them. They’ll bring them back.”
But I don’t think she was all that worried this time, it was just that old habits die hard. “I know,” Bettina said finally. “I know they will.”
https://www.chelseahotelblog.com/living_with_legends_the_h/2010/07/girl-with-black-balloons-wows-em-at-edinburgh.html
David Bard, beloved former general manager of the Chelsea Hotel, passed away on Tuesday, September 14, on the day of his 56th birthday. David, together with his father Stanley, from whom he was set to assume the mantle of leadership, will always be remembered as the heart and soul of the Chelsea.
As Stanley’s only son, it had always appeared to be David’s destiny to manage the Chelsea Hotel. After all, it was no mistake that he was named after his grandfather, also David Bard, who bought an ownership stake in the Chelsea in the mid-forties. So it must’ve been quite a blow when the Bard family, which had owned and operated the hotel for over 60 years, was forced to step back from their management role in 2007, and, under pressure from minority shareholders, to subsequently sell the hotel in 2011.
It’s safe to assume that Stanley, a larger-than-life figure, must’ve been a hard example to live up to. But while the elder Bard was well known for his generosity, David also had a big heart, and residents would sometimes appeal to him when they feared Stanley wouldn’t listen. David would usually do his best to meet them half-way.
But David was no clone of his father and had his own ideas about how the hotel should be run. As quoted in the New York Times on 6/28/90: “My idea was not to change that bohemian feeling that the people we’ve always had here feel very comfortable with,” said David Bard, “but to cater to the patrons of artists, as well as producers and directors, and make them feel comfortable, too.”
Perhaps the following passage, provided to the blog by Sherill Tippins, author of Inside the Dream Palace: The Life and Times of New
York’s Legendary Chelsea Hotel, best captures the touching mix of respect and protectiveness in which David held his father:
The first time I approached Stanley to interview him, he took me to the room behind the front desk where several desks were set up at the time for employees. We sat down at one of the desks, and Stanley started giving me the standard spiel about the hotel’s history and his and his family’s role in it. But then, suddenly, he veered into a rant about how the board of directors had recently kicked him off the board, and how his only his son and daughter remained in a position to try to save the hotel from being destroyed by the other board members, who were interested only in profits and had no comprehension of what the hotel stood for or what it still meant to the city of New York. As he continued, his voice growing louder and his tone more distraught with every word, a young man behind us jumped up and put his arms on Stanley’s shoulders, trying to force him back into his chair, ordering him to be quiet, that I was “the press,” and that broadcasting their problems in front of me would only make matters worse. After some time, this young man—who, I learned, was David Bard—managed to settle Stanley down a little, at least to the point at which Stanley offered to show me the rooms they had renovated in an attempt to appease the board members. While we were upstairs, Stanley told me how proud he was of his son, whom he expected to take his place as manager of the hotel, and how perfect he would be for the role because David understood what made the Chelsea residents tick. I myself could see that Stanley’s children were playing crucial roles in getting him through that difficult time. Even if they were not successful in their attempt to keep the Chelsea, they stood by Stanley, giving him their full love and support all the way to the end—which is all that a father can wish for.
I hadn’t seen much of David in recent years, though while the hair salon was still in the building next door, he was in the habit of coming in once a month for a haircut and I often ran into him on the street. Inevitably, he would express a deep sadness over what was happening to the hotel in his absence, though also a boundless confidence that it would live on in some form or other. Most strikingly, he always made sure to inquire about the welfare of the residents of the hotel, for each one of whom he seemed to have a genuine affection. Usually, he couldn’t quite bring himself to venture inside, finding the prospect too heartbreaking to bear, but had to content himself with a furtive glance through the lobby doors.
David was torn from us too soon, but he’ll always live on, in the walls of the Chelsea as sure as he does in our hearts. We know David loved the Chelsea, and we can only hope his last memories of the hotel and its people were happy ones.
David is preceded in death by his father, Stanley Bard, and his mother, Alice Beer Bard. He is survived by his wife, Debbie Bard, their two children, Amanda and Myles, and his sister, Michele Bard Grabell, and her husband, Matthew Grabell.
[The funeral will be on Friday, September 17, at 11:30 at Cedar Hill Cemetery, 735 Forest Avenue, Mount Paramus, New Jersey.]
Photo of Stanley and David Bard by Rita Barros.
Dear Mayor DeBlasio,
We are calling on you to return Richard Born’s and Ira Drukier’s campaign contributions and the $90,000 that was raised at the March fundraiser. With the presidential primaries underway and your reputation for standing up for tenants on the line, you must make it crystal clear to them that they cannot buy a Certificate of No Harassment!
As you know, Born and Drukier are the principals of BD Hotels, and they are principals in an LLC that presently owns the famed Chelsea Hotel, where, since 2007, dozens of residents, most of them in the arts, have been evicted to make way for luxury accommodations. Since August 2011, the remaining residents have endured years of seemingly never-ending demolition and construction (often involving demolishing new construction and rebuilding over again).
The Certificate of No Harassment (COHN), issued by the city’s HPD, is intended to protect tenants from exactly this sort of abuse. Though Born and Drukier well knew of the requirement for a CONH, as they have applied for CONHs at other buildings they own. Additionally, they were fired from the Chelsea Hotel once before, in 2008, for their refusal to apply for a CONH. They have been doing construction without one for 3 years while tenants continue to experience interruptions of basic services, leaks, exposure to toxic dust, and constant ear-splitting noise.
Mr. Mayor, we invite you to visit the Chelsea Hotel and experience for yourself the conditions of the building, such as Gothamist did in October 2018. Currently, a portion of the tenants in the building have been without cooking gas for a month and the entire building has been without hot water for over 24 hours.
In any event, you must not allow your reputation as a tenant’s advocate to be besmirched by this appearance of impropriety. That’s why we are asking you to return the $57,000 donated to your campaign by Richard Born, Ira Drukier, and their associates. Return the $90,000 raised at the March 4 fundraiser. Only then can the public be assured that the HPD’s ongoing investigation into the harassment of the tenants of the Chelsea Hotel will be allowed to continue without undue interference. We hope you will do the right thing.
Sincerely,
Chelsea Hotel Bloggers
Seven years and two months later and this is what we've got! A concrete landing that blocks more than half of the beautiful skylight.
It’s been seven long years and here’s what we’ve got at the Chelsea Hotel! This, and a projected early 2019 opening.
Anniversary Lowlights:
June 20, 2007 - The Bard Family was ousted and BD Hotels steps in to manage the Hotel for the minority shareholders. " Ira Drukier of BD thinks that with a little work the Chelsea "can once again become a crown jewel of New York City."
May 5, 2008 - It took less than a year for the minority shareholders to oust BD from their management role.
July 30, 2011 - Guests were told via email that the Hotel would be closed for one year for renovations. Tenants were told nothing.
July 31, 2011 - The deal goes down to the wire.
August 1, 2012 - Hotel Chetrit: A Brief Journal of the Plague Year
March 12, 2013 - Chetrit sues the original owners.
August 27, 2013 - Ed Scheetz's King & Groves buys out the Chetrit's interest in the Hotel.
December 9, 2013 - Troubled Times at the Hotel Chelsea: The Recent Past and Plans for the Future
March 12, 2016 - Ed Scheetz leaves and BD Hotels step in again.
As for Lords of the Schoolyards relation to my first two books: the Chelsea Hotel of Legends of the Chelsea Hotel is a world unto itself, a secret society for sure—or a whole bunch of them, for who knows what’s hidden behind that weirdly painted door at the end of that dark, forbidding corridor? It’s a place where different rules apply and where deviance is a badge of honor. Creativity is valued above all, as artists, writers and musicians are the stars. And even junkies and schizophrenics rank higher than lawyers and business men —though anybody with money is certainly tolerated by the starving artists, that’s for sure! And regarding the characters in The Chintz Age, their comfortable subcultures are collapsing as the city gentrifies, they’re being evicted from their apartments and shops, and they’re struggling to carve out a niche for themselves where they can remain relevant (or at least remain in New York) as they ride out the onrushing societal juggernaut. Read the full interview here.
Famed hotelier Stanley Bard, the guiding spirit of the greatest experiment in bohemian living in the history of New York, if not the world, passed away this morning in Boca Raton, Florida, surrounded by his loved ones. Bard, 82, who had been ill for the last few years, succumbed to a massive stroke.
Known affectionately to all by his first name, Stanley was the majority owner and managing director of New York’s famed Chelsea Hotel. Built in 1883, the Chelsea was purchased by Stanley’s father, David, together with two other investors, in 1940. Upon his father’s death in 1957, Stanley took over as manager of the hotel, continuing in that post for 50 years, up until his departure in 2007. Though Stanley inherited a building that was already known as a haven for the arts, he presided over the greatest artistic flowering in the history of the hotel, playing host to the Beats of the 50s, the Warhol superstars of the 60s, and the punks of the seventies.
A list of Stanley’s guests, most of whom he came to know personally, reads like a Who’s Who of the New York art world: Dylan Thomas, Arthur Miller, Bob Dylan, Arthur C. Clarke, Stanley Kubrick, Virgil Thompson, Charles James, Leonard Cohen, Christo, Larry Rivers, Dee Dee Ramone, Nico, Dennis Hopper, Brendan Behan, Shirley Clark, Derek Walcott, Madonna, Robert Mapplethorpe, and the Warhol Superstars Edie Sedgwick, Viva, Nico, Holly Woodlawn, and Candy Darling, and on and on and on. A stay at the Chelsea has long been regarded as a right of passage for almost everyone who was anyone in the world of art, music, literature and the theater during the fifty years of Stanley’s brilliant tenure.
Born in 1934 to David and Fanny Bard, Jewish immigrants from Hungary, Stanley was just a boy when his family took over management of the hotel. He immediately fell in love with the old building, and soon knew it inside and out, crawling around in the crawl spaces and secret nooks and crannies as he worked as an assistant for Julius Krauss, the plumber and part owner of the Chelsea. In college, Stanley studied psychology, which he always claimed, half-jokingly, helped him to understand and deal with the odd and unusual collection of bohemians who passed through the hotel. (Photo: Arthur Miller, Arnold Weinstein and Stanley Bard by Rita Barros.)
Stanley’s final years brought new challenges. Despite the supercharged climate of gentrification and the pressure of investors to cash in on the hotel’s good name, he did his best to keep the rents affordable for the hundreds of artists, musicians, writers, and actors who called the hotel their home in the new millennium. Over the years, Stanley was well known for helping artists in any way he could, financially, emotionally, and by providing a nurturing environment that fostered creativity, and he would continue to fight for their well being up until the very end of his tenure. Stanley himself said it best: “Over the years people here have created some really beautiful, meaningful things, and they just needed that little bit of help to be able to do it. This hotel has heart and soul and it’s not all about the bottom line!”
Stanley was a genuine New York character, one of the people who make the city the great place it is. A tireless cheerleader for the Chelsea, Stanley’s love for the venerable hotel was such that he often said that the Chelsea was the most famous hotel in the world,
sometimes going even further to claim that it was the most famous building in the world. And while he was understandably reluctant to discuss a certain notorious slaying in 1979, it was also quite difficult to get him to admit that anything bad had ever happened at the Chelsea. Director Milos Forman, jokingly attempting to get him to admit that the hotel has suffered its share of misfortunes, asks him, in Abel Ferrara’s movie Chelsea on the Rocks, if anyone has ever died at the Chelsea. Well yes, Stanley admits, in a building this old, certainly a few people have died. He then goes on to cite exactly one, the painter Alphaeus Cole, who lived to be 112! (Photo: Stanley and Alphaeus Cole by Allan Tennanbaum)
Stanley is survived by his wife Phyllis, by his two children, David Bard and Michele Bard Grabell, by their spouses, Debbie Bard and Mathew Grabell, and by five grandchildren. Stanley’s first wife, Alice, the mother of David and Michele, predeceased him, as did his older brother, Milton.
Stanley is survived as well as by thousands of people in the arts who have called the Chelsea Hotel their home—for a night, a week, a month, a year, or for several decades—and who will continue to honor his memory in their lives and their art for many years to come. And even beyond that, as long as the Chelsea Hotel stands, the spirit of Stanley and his undying dedication to the arts he so loved will live on.
Services will be Thursday at 10:00 at Temple Emmanuel, 180 Piermont Rd., Closter, NJ. 07624.
-- Ed Hamilton
Deena Kaye Rose is a Nashville songwriting legend. She has written songs for some of country’s most renowned stars like Johnny Cash, Jerry Reed, John Denver and wrote the theme song to the all-time American classic movie, Smokey and the Bandit. In Deena Kaye Rose’s new book, Some Days Are Diamonds, she chronicles the best and worst times of living the raucous and crazy musician life all the while knowing that she was suppressing her true feminine self.
In the mid-70s, she landed at the Chelsea Hotel. As she writes in her book, Some Days are Diamonds, “The manager had given me a “long-term artist's” rate: $60 a week. Of course, nothing in my room worked properly and I think I had housekeeping once a week, whether I needed it or not. As a hotel, possibly the worst. As an inspiration for a creative artist, probably the best. And I loved it dearly.” Download "Alive and Well at the Chelsea Hotel - Chapter 28" from Some Days are Diamonds.
How did you learn about the Chelsea Hotel?
I learned about the Chelsea Hotel from studying about creative artists who had spent time in New York City. The Chelsea has long been that citadel of the muse for so many.
How’d you rate your room at the Chelsea?
On a scale of one to ten, it was about a minus two! But as inspiration it was ten to the tenth power!
Can you describe the Vibe of the Hotel at the time (mid-70s)?
There were some full time residents at the Chelsea who were quite interesting characters; one old fella dressed like a cowboy all the time. Out on the streets of New York he looked a little out of place but at the Chelsea, he fit right in. There was one middle-aged guy who dressed like a pirate complete with silk pantaloons, a black sash, and a pirate doo-rag. I thought perhaps he was a doorman at a seafood restaurant, but no, he was a pirate!
Daytime piano music drifted down from the upper floors that contained small studios and at least one grand piano. It was beautiful.
Do you think the Chelsea has a special creative energy?
Absolutely! I always felt a physical tingle, a buzz of electrical energy from just walking through the entrance. The thought of so many great artists and creative souls who had walked these halls, trod upon these stairs, or occupied a bar stool in the first floor bar was thrilling for a romantic like myself. Sitting in my room and looking out on Twenty-Third would invariably lead me to muse about others who had gazed upon this same midnight, this same street scene, as they also awaited a visit from the muse.
Have you written any songs about the Chelsea Hotel or songs that were inspired by your experience staying at the Hotel?
I wrote the liner notes for my third album while living at the Chelsea on one nocturnal evening, gazing out through the ornate cast iron balcony.
Thumb-humped rhythms in the A.M. Quiet,Star-crossed words in a hot tea buzz...
To say how it is!
Not how it should be.
Or even how it was.
I bring a mirror,
Not a pulpit.
Here, People,
I wrote these songs for you!
These lines are included in my book, Some Days Are Diamonds, in the chapter about the Chelsea.
Has your song writing been influenced by any artists associated with the Chelsea Hotel?
My goal has always been to never try and emulate other songwriters. If I learn to write exactly like Steven Sondheim it wouldn’t mean a thing. We already have a Steven Sondheim. My focus has been with poets, novelists, film makers, artists that create in a genre entirely different from the one I am attempting. Dylan Thomas was certainly a poet whom I admired greatly. Thomas Wolf, yes, and I even have some leaves that I picked up along the sidewalk of his boyhood home in Ashville, North Carolina. But there is one songwriter/poet of the Class of Chelsea whom I love dearly—as a fan. That would be Leonard Cohen. Genius!
Are there any transgender role models who you admire who are/were also part of the Chelsea Hotel scene?
Holly Woodlawn! Yes, yes, YES. This courageous lady made her statement in a time when it was most difficult to express an alternative lifestyle. She definitely took a “Walk on the Wild Side.” Holly Woodlawn was one of the Godmothers to us all. The footprints of her high heels are always to be found on the pathway before me.
How did you get interested in Country music?
My childhood was spent in western Missouri, a mostly agrarian part of America. Our “popular” music was the folk music done by artists like Woody Guthrie, the Western Swing of Bob Wills and mixed with the Appalachian influences of European Americans. We didn’t have a symphony but we had a square dance every Saturday night where the local musicians played things like “Wildwood Flower” and “Under the Double Eagle,” songs from the nineteenth century.
Chet Atkins once said, “There are only two kinds of music; good and bad!” That has always been my feeling. It seemed to me that Rock and Roll was always so optimistic: “We’re gonna do this and it will be great!” Jazz was more like; “We’re Doin’ this and isn’t it great!” But Country Music was more like; “We did this and it wasn’t always that great!” I love real life emotions told with great lyrical lines.
What was it like working with the greats of country music?
Terrific! During the time when I was writing for Johnny Cash, I thought, Wow, I am writing for someone who actually was a great influence in shaping “how” I write now. I once played John a song and I said, “I stole this idea from you and one of your songs.” John listened and said, “I don’t hear any theft there.”
What is your favorite song that you wrote and why?
Songs are like children: a parent could never choose one over the others. Feels to me that at any given time I will always have two favorite songs: the last one and the next one!
Perhaps some of my works could be singled out as having some historical significance in regards to my career. “East Bound and Down” has played over a million times in broadcast play in North America alone, as has, “Some Days Are Diamonds.” And, yes, each of these compositions was a financial Pleasure! But there is another song that I wrote and that was recorded by The Kingston Trio entitled “Jock and the Trapeze Lady” that didn’t make nearly as much money but that I love just as dearly.
Can you tell us about your experience transitioning into a woman?
Well, I guess I first had the feeling that I should have been a girl rather late in life—I was three years old! But knowing that I was trans for the whole of my life and deciding to do something about it were two different things. The most surprising thing about my life after Transition was the soul-deep JOY that I have found. I was prepared for disappointments but I had not anticipated being so HAPPY. Since transitioning three years ago, the worst day I have had as a woman is better than the best day I had as a guy in the dozen years before that in Nashville.
Do you think it is easier now for people who transition?
Certainly there are more resources available and a little more understanding in the cisgender community. We have learned that there are others just like ourselves. Gender reassignment is not something that one can undertake on a whim. The decision is a lifelong commitment. It is not akin to walking through the pet store and suddenly deciding to buy an Angel Fish.
How was your transitioning received by your fellow artists in the country music industry?
Wonderful! The old friends who have reached out to me have been great. I have a dear friend in the onstage, performing area of the Entertainment Business who, as guy, I have known for over thirty years. Just a few months ago, I reached out to him and explained my “cha-cha-cha, Changes.” He was much more excited about him and his wife getting together with me to have dinner and talk about creativity and music, without having superficial conversations about Transsexuality! We have done just that several times.
I am still a creative artist; it is just that now I am a female creative artist.
What inspired you to write your book?
My first thought about a post-transition life was that I would live in “stealth,” a term used by transpeople to denote living in a new gender without referring or alluding to the previous life as the old gender. Hence, we call our birth name our “deadname.” But I noticed that a common misperception was that Trans folks are totally incapacitated by being transgender: that we have spent our pre-transition time hiding in dark places waiting for grs so that our lives could actually begin.
Porcine Dip!
In recent years, many post-transition persons have made it a point to embrace achievements conducted in the previous gender, the gender assigned at birth. The Wachowski Sisters, genius film makers and transladies, Kristin Beck, former Navy Seal and Transgender woman. Chaz Bono, Jennifer Leitham, and, of course, Caitlyn Jenner, and many others have been effusive in acknowledging previous successes I felt it was my obligation to my trans family that I should make my statement: that even a male Country Music songwriter from Nashville, who wrote for Johnny Cash, wrote for macho, truck drivin’ Burt Reynolds film, Smokey and the Bandit, was not immune from being transgender. I did not choose Transgenderism—Transgenderism chose me.
Do you have any new creative projects coming up that we should look out for?
I am working on a book of poetry that will include all new, never before published works. I have a ton of new songs I wrote for and about the Trans community. Some pending speaking engagements are on the horizon. And, of course, there is the current autobiographical book, “Some Days Are Diamonds”, that is available on Amazon at this very moment. Believe me, it has a happy ending!
ABOUT DEENA KAYE ROSE
Deena Kaye Rose is a Nashville songwriting legend. She has written songs for some of country’s most renowned stars like Johnny Cash, Jerry Reed, John Denver and wrote the theme song to the all-time American classic movie, Smokey and the Bandit. In Deena Kaye Rose’s new book, Some Days Are Diamonds, she chronicles the best and worst times of living the raucous and crazy musician life all the while knowing that she was suppressing her true feminine self. Today Deena is a transgender woman and activist, sharing the history of her journey in performances and lectures around the country. She is letting trans persons know they are not alone. Deena’s hope is that her tale of growing up knowing she was a transgender woman in a time when those topics were considered either taboo or nonexistent in the Bible Belt of the United States, may add a positive note to the transgender conversation.
For more information about Deena visit her website at www.deenakayerose.com
Follow her on Twitter @DeenaKayeRose
Like her on Facebook www.facebook.com/DeenaKRose
Buy her book on Amazon
The Chintz Age is about bohemians and the middle class struggling to survive and maintain relevance in an urban climate that has become overly expensive and increasingly hostile to their very existence. While the stories are set in NYC, the themes they deal with are equally relevant to any rapidly changing urban environment.
Can living in a bland glass and steel tower erode your soul? In “Highline/Highlife,” a young writer who enters into a marriage in bad faith to advance his career, willing himself to be a sort of master of the literary universe, becomes trapped in his glass apartment overlooking the Highline, the disintegration of his life and career on display for the amusement of poorly dressed tourists. The writer is driven to adultery, and then madness, through living under the constant scrutiny of passersby.
The displacement of mom and pop shops by chain stores and bank branches has become a hot button issue of late, as cities become increasingly standardized and suburbanized. In “Fat Hippie Books,” a bookshop owner, faced with the imminent closure of his small East Village shop due to skyrocketing rent, sets off on a journey of self discovery intended to mirror one of Beat legend Jack Kerouac’s famous road trips.
The decrease of affordable housing has led to a climate of increasingly cutthroat competition for living space in NYC. In “The Retro-Seventies Manhattan Dream Apartment,” the novella that completes the collection, a schizophrenic dinner theater actress and a psychopathic computer programmer, dark soul mates bound together in a twisted love affair, engage in a battle of wills in a bid to control a valuable piece of rent stabilized real estate.
The Chintz Age is Available Now - Buy here or on Amazon. Or buy directly from the publisher by clicking here.
Watch the trailer:
The Chelsea Hotel community mourns the passing of Jerry Weinstein. Jerry was born October 3, 1933 and spent his early years growing up in the Bronx, which is where he met
the Bard family. After a career in Social Work he joined the Chelsea Hotel staff as the front desk manager in 1979. A job offered to him by his childhood friend, Stanley Bard. Jerry served as Stanley’s right-hand man up until 2007, when the Bard family was ousted.
In addition to his official duties, Jerry also conducted a series of very popular tours of the Chelsea Hotel. And, for the Hotel’s guests, getting to meet the legendary Jerry was almost as good as getting to meet Stanley Bard.
One Chelsea Hotel guest wrote to the blog:
“I can't imagine a Hotel Chelsea where the people at the desk (and doorman?!?) don't have a clue about the history. I still remember the first time I stayed, upon checking in, Jerry went into a long story about an actress (who has the same name I do) and her husband and their stays at the hotel... of course, I always learned something new about The Chelsea everytime I stayed. I LOVE THAT!”
And, former Chelsea Hotel employee Charlie wrote:
Personal Note To Jerry,
Hey Jerry, I hope you chance this note of thanks. The one thing that made my day, everyday, working with you, was your singing, "Charlie Me Boy", and your daily joke. I have one for you...
A new manager of a hotel reviewing a potential employee's application notices that the person never worked in a hotel before.
He says to the person, "For someone with no experience, you are certainly asking a high wage."
"well Sir," the applicant replies, "the work is so much harder when you don't know what your doing."
Hey Jerry, That makes you PRICELESS!
Your Friend, Charlie
Jerry is survived by his wife Rose, daughters Tammy, Lisa & Beth. Grandchildren Hayley, Joshua, Sam, Jordan, Rachael, & Chelsea. Sister-in-law Janice and Son-in-laws – Alan and Leon. He is also survived by many nieces, nephews, cousins and friends.
Services will be held Tuesday at 11 am. Louis Suburban Chapel, Inc. 13-01 Broadway (Route 4 West) Fair Lawn, NJ 07410 tel: 201-791-0015 toll-free: 800-525-3834
(Photo: Rita Barros)
The family will begin greeting guests at 10:15 am and services will begin promptly at 11:00.
Jerry celebrating his 80th birthday with his grand kids.
With Lisa Weinstein Morris, Josh Morris, Alan Dalewitz, Jerome Weinstein, Hayley Amiel, Michelle Weintraub Rimland, Leon Amiel and Alan Morris.
It is with sadness that the Chelsea Hotel community learned of the recent passing of Nikki Nichols. According to his good friend, Gabriel Marchisio, Nikki was born in Portland, Oregon in August 1941and died there on December 7, 2014. Nicky Nichols was an actor and costume designer, best known for his work on Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain (1973). Nikki resided at the Chelsea Hotel from 2003 - 2006.
During that time, Nikki and his pug Wallis, were welcome fixtures in the Hotel Chelsea lobby. Nikki was someone who could always be counted on to support the work of other artists in the Hotel by attending their events and shows. Nikki was also known as a gracious host. One of the most eagerly anticipated social events of the year would be the birthday party Nikki would host in the lobby on the occasion of Wallis' birthday. Champagne flowed freely and animal owners from all over town would attend.
Nikki came back for a visit to the Hotel Chelsea in 2010 and was looking forward to another visit at the time of his death.
(Photo: Gabriel Marchisio)
Poetry readings are a decidedly mixed bag: they can be interminable snooze-fests, or, like Wednesday night’s show by the folks from Poetic People Power, exciting, engaging, and inspirational. In the show, seven New York area poets took on the topic of the ongoing gentrification of New York and how the increasing rent and destruction of community space is making it impossible for artists to live here anymore.
The seven poets—Shetal Shah, Pamela Sneed, Justin Woo, Scottt Raven, Tara Bracco (who also produced and hosted), Andy Emeritz, Vaimoana Niumeitolo were all highly competent and energetic, reading poems commissioned especially for the show.
Shetal Shah sang/read a wonderfully evocative poem about how when she was young New York City used to hum. She loved the grit and grime, and wandered through the city deliriously, her heart about to
explode. But now that they’ve scrubbed the sidewalk down to sterility, she goes out looking for just a little bit of that authenticity. She seeks out the places that still hold the magic, little corners forgotten by Starbucks. (Please excuse the paraphrase of Shah’s poem. I was taking notes in the dark. The real thing is great, I assure you.) (Image by Mark Rywelski, White | Hutch | Productions.)
Pamela Sneed declares that “Brooklyn is the New Rwanda,” and tells us that when she gets mad about people of color being displaced from their longtime neighborhoods, she’s often told that she shouldn’t take it personally, that it’s just about money, or business, or whatever. But, she replies, when
people like her, lesbians and people of color, are always on the receiving end, somehow it doesn’t seem so arbitrary. How can she help but take it personally?!
Andy Emiritz, of Field Theory fame, provided a welcome musical interlude. Finally, Vaimoana Niumeitolo read a very funny poem about “crois-nuts,” those mutant treats which are, or should become, some sort of symbol of the banality and vapidity of the people who are taking over New York. Have a regular doughnut at the Donut Pub on 14th St. in Chelsea, a neighborhood institution, before it goes the way of so many other great places before it.
The readings of the various poets were informed by a sense of urgency because, in addition to the
pressures that all creative people face in their struggle to stay true to their own individual visions in a rapidly transforming city, their group, Poetic People Power, which has been presenting political poetry for 12 years, recently lost its funding and was only able to put on this year’s show due to a fortuitous, last minute donation from a private source. Even worse, the venue, Theatre 80 on St. Mark’s Place, a family business that’s been in the building since 1963, may soon be in imminent danger. Both recent mayors—Bloomberg and Di Blasio—raised the building’s property taxes, which climbed in recent years from $50,000 to $130,000 a year. Needless to say, if places like this go, then so does the theatre scene.
Far from simply bemoaning the situation, Poetic People’s Power does indeed seek solutions to the problems it poses. In response to a show about the water crisis in a previous year, producer Tara Bracco co-founded the Project Solution, which funds infrastructure projects in 11 developing countries. Bracco also put in a plug for Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York, and I’d like to second that: it’s a great website documenting the ongoing decimation of old New York. Hopefully Jeremiah won’t be covering the demise of Theatre 80 anytime soon. Hopefully, too, Poetic People Power will be around for another show next year—perhaps about the triumph of art and the human spirit over the obscene greed of capitalism! As Andy Emeritz (once again, in my blind-as-a-bat paraphrase) says: The stream of art will not be stopped. Diversity of novel thought bubbles up from below, always making rivers, flowing from the New York underground. . . . - Ed Hamilton
(Images by Mark Rywelski, White | Hutch | Productions.)
As Brooklyn social worker and performer Imani Henry points out, and as most of us are seeing first hand, “rents are increasing while incomes are decreasing.” In a recent article in The Guardian, Chris Toenes, a social worker who supports Henry's program, relates an anecdote about an older man who is astonished to find out that the old African American neighborhood of Braggtown, North Carolina, has now been rechristened as “Colonial Heights”, by developers hoping to attract a more well-to-do class of residents.
The neighborhood’s new name, of course, betrays an ominous significance. Gentrification is completely out of hand, not only in New York and San Francisco, but in cities large and small all across the country. Is it a vast social engineering project, or merely a confluence of many and disparate forces such as real estate speculation, privatization of resources, the weakening of unions, globalization, political corruption, etc. etc.?
It’s hard to say. But the important thing is to fight back on a local level in whatever small way we can. To this end, Henry has developed a web-based art project called “Before it’s Gone—Take it Back”, to have residents document neighborhood life in Brooklyn—“weddings, backyard barbecues, quinceaneras, bar/bat mitzvahs,” etc.—and to tie it to the history of their neighborhoods. It’s important to connect what’s happening today to the history of a place, because history is one of the main things that these developers want to expunge—or rather, to sanitize in order to present their own more palatable, squeaky-clean vanilla version of the past. Such an whitewash makes it that much easier to ignore the cries of the working and middle class people that gentrification displaces.
Help Imani Henry thwart the developers Orwellian intentions. To learn more about his project, to perhaps kick in a few dollars, send a selfie, or even to be inspired to start your own local project, go to "Before it's Gone - Take it Back". -- Ed Hamilton
(Photo: New York Post - )
With their backs to the wall, creative artists are struggling to come to terms with the forces of gentrification that are altering their lives beyond recognition. So, in a sense, it’s no surprise to find a playwright wrestling with this subject, which after all, touches many of them personally. On the other hand, probably
due to the complexities of the issues surrounding rent control, eviction proceedings, social engineering, city corruption, etc., there haven’t been many attempts. That’s why Between Riverside and Crazy, a new play by the Atlantic Theatre Company, represents a real act of courage by playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis. Handily defeating the dark, depressing nature of the subject matter, the play was hilariously funny, poignant, and infinitely enjoyable. Clocking in at just under two hours, the time went by in a flash. After the intermission, as an attempt is made to move the plot forward, the play becomes both less funny and less believable at the same time. However, the first act alone is well worth the price of admission.
The play opens in the kitchen of the rent stabilized apartment of the main character, “Pops,” an elderly retired cop played by Stephen McKinley Henderson. Having lost his wife a year ago, Pops is in poor health, he drinks a lot, and he’s fallen prey to his middle-aged son and his son’s no-account friends, an air-headed prostitute and a drug-addled thug who live in the apartment rent-free. Ominously, Pops has been ignoring court summonses from his landlord. To further complicate matters, Pops’s old NYPD partner and her corrupt upper-brass fiancé arrive to try to talk Pops into accepting a settlement in his lawsuit against the city. For Pops, it turns out, was disabled when a white cop, in an apparently racist incident, shot him in a bar eight years before.
The actors are uniformly good, especially Stephen McKinley Henderson who, as Pops, an irascible, Fred Sanford-like old curmudgeon, ranges from mirth to righteous anger, dominating the play seemingly effortlessly—scarcely moving from his dead wife’s wheelchair—and is a joy to behold. Hopefully we’ll be seeing a lot more of him. Michael Rispoli, of Sopranos fame, gave a typically fine performance. Victor Almanzar as Oswaldo the confused drug addict, and Rosal Colon as the chipper, dippy prostitute, also excelled in their roles.
The set, by designer Walt Spangler, is impressive: with the high ceilings, the ornate moldings, the tubular steel table and chairs, the accumulation of bric-a-brac, it really looked like an old pre-war apartment that someone had been living in for decades. My favorite touch is the apparently authentic glass-fronted art deco kitchen cabinets.
One of my few quibbles with the play is that, while admittedly still in previews, the plot is a bit convoluted, requiring some contortionists tricks at the end to pull all the elements together and then to tie up the loose ends. The reasons for Pops’s eviction aren’t really well spelled out, either. It’s suggested that he is being accused of violating the terms of his lease by harboring criminals engaged in shady enterprises—but whether this would be enough to evict an elderly, disabled former cop from a rent stabilized apartment that he had occupied for three decades, is open to debate. There’s also a few vague hints that the police, who want Pops to settle his lawsuit, may be colluding with the landlord in some way. And maybe that happens sometimes. But they’d also have to fix things with the courts and the various housing agencies. The logic of gentrification and eviction sometimes seems so arbitrary, so unfair, and so counterproductive and absurd that, for anyone not well up on the issues, it probably does just seem like it’s all controlled by the fiat of “The City”—or by some vast conspiracy of corrupt politicians and greedy developers.
In any event, everyone who cares about the state of our nation’s great cities, and in particular New York, should see this play, if for no other reason than to laugh in order to keep from crying. -- Ed Hamilton
Opening July 31, 2014.
Limited Engagement through August 16, 2014
Atlantic Theater Company at the Linda Gross Theater (336 West 20th Street)
In May, Brett Whietely’s “Tahiti” was auctioned by the Chelsea 23rd Street Corporation, the former owner of the Chelsea Hotel. It will be reoffered for sale in Melbourne in July. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, "...Paul Gauguin on the Eve of His Attempted Suicide, Tahiti, has been shown in public only once, during an exhibition in New York’s Marlborough Gallery in 1968. Like many other works produced by Whiteley during his time in New York, it never left the US. His other works painted at the Chelsea include two portraits of Dylan (one of which is missing)."
Well, there is that other matter regarding the two Brett Whietely’s that hung for many years over the desk in the lobby. “Tahiti,” as far as we know, never hung in the Chelsea Hotel instead it appears it was part of a private collection.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/brett-whiteley-painting-used-to-pay-rent-at-chelsea-hotel-up-for-sale-20140628-zspbf.html#ixzz368Lrwbcb
Photo:Jason South
Stanley Bard and his wife Phyllis celebrated Stanley's 80th birthday in style earlier this month by dining at El Quijote. Stanley said that one of his all time favorite dishes was El Quijote's Chicken Villeroy, but he ordered something different just to change it up on this particular occasion, looked like the Fish in Green Sauce to me, another yummy dish. Phyllis also recommends the baked chicken. "It's the best in town," she said. Here's to Stanley celebrating many more birthday's to come in El Quijote. The famous off-key pink guerrilla was no where in sight.
(photo by Rita Barros)
Sadly, we have learned that Stormé Delarverié, a long-time Chelsea Hotel resident and icon of the LGBT community passed away yesterday. Stormé had been living at the CABS Nursing Home in Brooklyn since October 2010. UPDATE - The funeral service for Storme will be held Thursday, May 29 at the Greenwich Village Funeral Home from 7 - 9 pm.
Despite health issues in recent years, Stormé continued to remain active in the gay and lesbian community. She could be seen proudly waving from the Stonewall Veteran Association’s Cadillac during the Gay Pride Parade held each June in Manhattan.
In 2006, Stormé participated as a speaker in "Kings and Queens of New York City: A Drag Summit".
On June 7, 2012, Brooklyn Pride, Inc. honored Stormé at the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture, citing her ground breaking work as a drag performer in the Jewel Box Revue an early racially integrated traveling gay drag show. And just last month she was honored, along with Edie Windsor, by the Brooklyn Pride Community.
Born on Christmas Eve, 1920, in New Orleans, Stormé worked professionally as a drag king and torch singer. Pictures of her in drag show her to be suave and handsome; uncompromisingly androgynous. In the forties through the sixties she was the emcee—or, better yet, the ringmaster--for the Jewel Box Revue, a traveling gay drag show, the first in America to be integrated. Playing to mixed race, as well as mixed gay and straight, audiences, the revue gained mainstream acceptance in larger cities around the country. In this context, Stormé was the subject of the 1987 film, Stormé: The Lady of the Jewel Box. Produced by DC filmmaker Michelle Parkerson, the movie emphasized Stormé’s appropriation of male symbols of power, such as suits and ties, in furtherance of the gay rights struggle. [And, as Stormé once told me, “I’ve got a story, I chopped off my hair, put on men’s clothes, and joined the Jewel Box Review!” ]
But Stormé’s real claim to fame is that she’s the person who threw the first punch at Stonewall, the rebellion (named for the bar) on Christopher Street that gave birth to the gay rights movement. Prior to Stonewall, gay people were subject to arrest, pretty much arbitrarily, for such offenses as kissing or holding hands in public, or for dressing in the clothes of the opposite sex. The police staged raids on gay bars at unpredictable times, arresting whoever they pleased. The night of June 27, 1969, was seemingly like any other, with one exception: earlier that evening the city had mourned the passing of gay icon Judy Garland in a funeral attended by twenty-two thousand people. Whether this had anything to do with what happened next is open to speculation, but this time, when the police raided the Stonewall Bar in the early hours of June 28th, they soon found that the gay people had had enough and were ready to fight back—in particular one formidable drag king.
I doubt that Stormé went there that night looking for trouble, but she wasn’t going to run from it either. When a plain-clothed policeman punched her outside the bar, she retaliated, slugging him in the jaw. When asked what the policeman did next, Stormé, in an interview for the gay TV news magazine, In The Life, replied, with characteristic terseness, “He was on the ground. Out.” -- (Excerpt From Legends of the Chelsea Hotel.)
In later years Stormé worked as a bouncer at the Henrietta Hudson bar. She also acted as an informal security guard at the Chelsea Hotel making sure the lobby was cleared of riff raff late at night. And, she enjoyed spending evenings with good friends at the nearby restaurant East of Eighth. When the hotel was taken over by developers in 2007, Stormé, though nearly 90 years of age, still understood exactly what was happening and never wavered from her opposition to the people who were trying to evict us from our beloved Chelsea Hotel. Stormé was a real original, a true Chelsea Hotel artist who was always willing to lend a helping hand to others. She was one of the sweetest people you’d ever meet, although you didn’t want to get on her bad side. There won’t be another like Stormé. She will be missed.
For directions - http://www.eldridgestreet.org/
The Chelsea Hotel community mourns the passing of one of its guiding lights, the poet, painter, art critic, and Warhol Superstar Rene Ricard, who died this past Saturday, Feb. 1. The cause of death was cancer.
Rene, who will always be remembered for his quick wit, sparkling intellect, and generosity, passed away at the hospital surrounded by some of his many close friends. Rene, who had lived at the Chelsea Hotel continuously since the early 90s and sporadically before that, was 68.
Rene was probably the most famous remaining member of the (now seriously depleted) Chelsea Hotel community. And no account of the history of the Chelsea Hotel, or of its famous creative energy, is complete without him. In fact, in these dark times when the city, including the Chelsea Hotel, is being carved up by developers, those of us fighting against gentrification, would do well to remember Rene as the very embodiment of the New York artistic bohemia that we seek to preserve. Rene was one of the last of a dying breed, someone for whom money was secondary, and who survived in the city by his wits and the force of his personality and his larger-than-life talent and artistic vision.
Poet, artist, actor, dancer, critic, jack-of-all-trades and all-around wild man, Rene Ricard was born in 1946 and grew up in New Bedford, Massachusetts. He ran away to Boston at age sixteen, where he supported himself by working as an artist’s model, and by eighteen he was in New York City, becoming involved with Andy Warhol’s Factory scene. Warhol soon cast Rene in a movie, Kitchen, in which he spends most of his time with his back to the camera, washing dishes, while Edie Sedgwick sneezes and runs a malted machine to cover up the fact that she’s forgotten her lines. Rene had a better role in 1965’s Chelsea Girls, in which he stars in the “Boys in Bed” episode, rolling around in his underwear with two other boys in a room at the Chelsea Hotel. In his (and Edie’s) last film for Warhol, The Andy Warhol Story, Rene embarks on a speed-fueled diatribe, rattling off every nasty thing he can think of to say about Andy. This is the kind of part Rene was born for, and surely it must have been his finest role, but sadly the film has been lost. An art critic in the eighties, in 1981 Rene published “The Radiant Child,” the first major article about Jean Michel Basquiat, in Artforum. Rene has published three books of his poetry: Rene Ricard (1979), God With Revolver (1989), and Trusty Sarcophagus Co. (1990), and was portrayed by the actor Michael Wincott in Julian Schnabel’s 1996 film Basquiat. Rene brought out a book of his art in a limited edition in 2003.
The King of the Chelsea Eccentrics, Rene gives one the sense of a being not of this world. He flits around the hotel, ethereal-like, on a cloud of his own creation. Tall and gaunt with a wispy goatee, a porkpie hat atop his head, he’s a bundle of nervous energy, unable to sit still. Rene is quite learned and knowledgeable about art and culture and many other subjects besides. When he speaks he’s agitated, restless, wringing his hands, almost frantic sometimes—though often he positively bubbles with good humor. His speech can best be described as a sort of off-the-cuff intellectual rant. Though what he says is never uninteresting, and you’ll always want to hear more, he speaks quickly and is gone. Blink and you might miss him. If you’re lucky enough to run into Rene on the elevator, he will sometimes share a poem, often an obscene or ribald one. He’s often seen with a cigarette dangling from his mouth, and the mind immediately turns to thoughts of fire. (Source: Legends of the Chelsea Hotel, DaCapo 2007; Photo: Wallpaper)
The fire, of course, was in Rene’s fevered and intensely creative imagination. Like all of us at the Chelsea Hotel, since the ouster of the Bard Family in June 2007, Rene had been engaged in the struggle to save his home and his way of life. And though he managed, for the most part, to keep himself above the fray, the stress—construction noise, poisonous dust, denial of services, and disrespect—and the uncertainty connected with the constant threat of eviction, no doubt took their toll on him as well.
But Rene was not one to succumb to despair. At the time of his death Rene was experiencing a rebirth in the interest of his paintings, fueled by a successful Vito Schnable –curated show of his work.
Rene’s close friend Rita Barros says, “Rene died on his own terms and surrounded by his close friends. We will all miss him dearly. New York will never be the same without him.” Whatever happens to Rene’s earthly shell, and to the shell of this old Hotel, Rene’s creative fire, and the spirit of the Chelsea Hotel that he embodied will live on.
A simple gathering with a blessing to send Rene off in peace, will be held this Thursday, February 6, 2014, from 10:30 am – 12:30 pm at Greenwich Village Funeral Home, 199 Bleecker Street, NY NY 10012
Welcome both to old friends and to those new to the site. Since we haven’t been posting much lately, we thought an update would be in order.
Musical Churls: Changing Ownership of the Chelsea Hotel
In June of 2007, the Bard family (headed by the inimitable Stanley Bard) who ran the hotel as an artistic mecca for 60 years, were ousted by minority shareholder Marlene Krauss, the former Hotel Chelsea plumber’s daughter who wanted to cash in on the super-heated real-estate market; in 2011, Krauss sold the hotel for $81 million to Joe Chetrit, a billionaire Moroccan real estate developer who proceeded to lay waste to the historic building; and then, just this past year, Big Joe in turn palmed off the place to King and Grove honcho Ed Scheetz, of Las Vegas tabloid infamy.
By the way, Chetrit also snatched dozens of paintings—donated or loaned by resident artists over the years—from the walls of the lobby and stairwell of the hotel. Who knows what has become of these artworks, some worth big money, but most of them valuable only for their connection to the Hotel Chelsea.
Hard Rock Hell: Destruction and Renovation of the Hotel Chelsea
By 2007, Stanley had just completed a modest, historically sensitive, 10-year renovation project on the common areas of the hotel. He was also in the process of slowly renovating some of the rooms. When Krauss took over, she attempted to fast-track the destruction/renovation, but the Department of
Buildings quickly put an end to this ill-conceived effort. Chetrit, however, didn’t mess around: he brought in a non-union demolition crew that tore down walls and ripped out original fixtures and woodwork, gutting historical rooms such as the ones where Thomas Wolfe and Arthur Miller lived and created.
Besides that, Chetrit partially installed new electrical, plumbing, and heating and air conditioning systems—none of which, however, is yet working.
Despite all the sound and fury, Chetrit completed renovation on only a couple of model units on one wing of the hotel, the 7th floor east. The offending architect, Gene Kaufman, is famous mainly for designing Holiday Inns, and the result, as you can see from the photo, is predictably chintzy. Though Scheetz’s resume as manager of the Las Vegas Hard Rock Hotel may raise some eyebrows in chi-chi design circles, he reportedly realizes that the 7th floor east is a disaster, and intends to redo it. For this he has retained several new vendors including David Belt (DBI Construction Consultants) and Marvel Architects.
Goodbye Redbrick Road: Evictions
Since Krauss took over in 2007, approximately 66 residents in 55 rooms have been evicted. Most of these tenants were artists, writers, actors, or others in the arts, and some of them were unable to find affordable housing in Manhattan, thus contributing to the ongoing cultural impoverishment of New York. Though evictions have slowed down recently, Scheetz still has a number of tenants in housing court (most of them originally sued by Krauss or Chetrit). The good news is that approximately 87 of us in 57 rooms still remain, and we aren’t giving up easily.
Chelsea Hotel at the End of the Universe: The Future
If there’s a Rock-n-Roll Heaven, it will have to put its stars up in some other hotel for the foreseeable future. In other words, don’t look for this place to open back up anytime soon. The last I heard was that Scheetz was telling people that the Hotel Chelsea will reopen in Summer 2015, but, even if he’s willing to commit tens of millions of dollars to buy rent stabilized tenants out of their apartments, that date seems unrealistic. The hotel is an absolute wreck: bricks and masonry exposed, metal frames lining the halls, wires and pipes hanging from the ceiling, gutted rooms boarded up with plywood, sidewalk sheds clogging the hallways, plastic over everyone’s doors in an effort to keep out the dust. And since Scheetz has taken over, “construction” (deliberately slow and disruptive under Chetrit, and often amounting to little more than harassment) has almost ceased entirely.
The plan, of course, is to turn the Hotel Chelsea into a boutique hotel with a trendy club on the roof and a lounge in the lobby, but don’t call for reservations yet. The situation could change at any time, however, so stay tuned. -- Ed Hamilton
…. He takes me on a
tour of the Hotel 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”)…
The Chelsea Hotel community,
together with music fans from around the world, mourn the recent passing of
South African jazz singer Sathima Bea Benjamin (Oct. 17, 1936 – Aug. 20, 2013). She was 76.
A
longtime resident of the Chelsea, Sathima moved into the hotel in 1977
with her husband, the celebrated jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim (aka Dollar
Brand). She remained at the Chelsea
until 2012, when she and her family moved back to Cape Town.
In her long career, Sathima and her husband worked with jazz artists as diverse as Dexter Gordan, Ben Webster, John Coltrane, and Thelonious Monk. Sathima recorded ten albums over her long career, including Morning in Paris with Duke Ellington, and Dedications, which was nominated for a Grammy in 1982. Though she often worked in the shadow of her more famous husband, Sathima’s incredible career is the subject of a 2010 documentary film, Sathima’s Windsong, directed by Daniel Yon (below is the trailer).
Sathima was an important part of the Chelsea community, and many residents attended her 70th birthday party at the New York jazz club Sweet Rhythm. But the last time we heard Sathima sing was at an event at a Village club honoring longtime friend and fellow jazz performer Stormé Delarverie. Early in the evening, standing in the restless crowd as disco music throbbed through Henrietta Hudson’s, Sathima expressed some reservations about singing: “I think we’re at the wrong place. I don’t think these people want to hear me sing. I think they want to dance.” We assured her that they would love her singing. “For Stormé,” she said, “I’ll sing.” And in the end, she had them eating out of her hand. In the cab ride home, satisfied with her performance, she said, “I came, I did my thing for Stormé, and it wasn’t hard work for me!”
Sathima is survived by Ibrahim and
her two children, Tsakwe and Tsidi (who performs as the rapper Jean Grae).
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