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Bard Family Out?

June 16, 2007

Update — We have talked to a source who has spoken with the Bards. They have been forced out of their management role. As far as we know they still retain their ownership share. Stanley Bard took over operation of the hotel from his father, David Bard, in the mid-1950s. (By the way, today, June 16, is Stanley Bard’s 73^rd birthday. How weird is that?) Stanley has always managed to keep the rents at least somewhat affordable for the writers and artists in residence, but now his partners (represented by a board of director) have forced him and his son out of their management roles. This certainly means the end of an era for the hotel. We have been hearing rumors since early 2006 that the board was putting pressure on Stanley to make the hotel more profitable. —
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Numerous sources are reporting that the Bard family is no longer in charge of the Chelsea Hotel. Apparently this occurred Thursday night when a member of the board came to the hotel to deliver the news to Stanley that he was out. Stanley was seen staggering out of his office in disbelief at the news. Although he had been under pressure from the board for some time this apparently came as a bolt out of the blue.

We have it on good sources that an outside management corporation will take over operation of the hotel on Monday. Of course, we’ll all wait to see what Monday brings. There is still a possibility that these rumors will prove unfounded. Stanley Bard is a tough cookie. So no one should panic yet.

We will add to this breaking story as we learn more information.

Posted in Hotel Chelsea

13 responses to “Bard Family Out?”

Don

June 16, 2007

This must not be true! How could this happen? Stanley Bard is the Chelsea!!!

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bluehour

June 16, 2007

Those greedy, soulless bastards. I hear the board of directors want to get the artists out so they can get high-paying hotel guests in. They are going to kill the Chelsea, and everything it had stood for.
This must be fought.

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Artie & Blair

June 16, 2007

Its soul-less corporate horseshit. Are we just going to stand for it? They have no right to deprive Stanley of his birthright which is to be carried out of this hotel feet first.

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Artie & Blair

June 16, 2007

PS
HAPPY 73rd BIRTHDAY STANLEY!!!
We Love You and wish this was not happening but you’re far smarter than those corporate ingrates.
Lets show them what the door is for!
XO
Artie & Blair

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Room421to323

June 16, 2007

Unbeleivable. This one one of the last true, beautiful, REAL places in Manhattan. And they are going to kill it. How much money so they need? Soulless is too mild a term. Those greedy people will never be able to create in a lifetime what Stanley helped create in that hotel in one day. Arthur Miller, Robert Altman, and Dylan Thomas are rolling over in their graves. Bastards.

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sparkle

June 16, 2007

Happy Birthday Stanley, and thanks for everything. I wrote five books in that hotel, and have not written as much or as well since I left. I met Arthur Miller, Robert Altman, Arthur C. Clarke, Dee Dee Ramone, Joey Ramone, Larry Rivers, Richard Bernstein, Paul and Carol Sills, Estelle Parsons, and many others there. I made friends for life, and had an unforgettable experience. Thanks for keeping the Chelsea’s spirit alive for as long as you did. I hope you will return triumphant to save the place, somehow.

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bloggy

June 16, 2007

Breaking news – Bard Family forced out at the Hotel Chelsea

Hotel Chelsea Blog reports that the Bard family has been forced out of their management role. The family has…

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Theresa Duncan

June 16, 2007

Terrible news, I have had a bit of anticipatory anxiety about this for years…..
They are turning the Puck Building, where my office was for five years into condos.
Happy Birthday Stanley, you are one of the low gods of New York City.
God bless you Chelsea Hotel, you brought me good luck and big love.

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Scott

June 16, 2007

It really doesn’t matter who has taken over from Stanley. They won’t keep their office on site, they won’t take art in lieu of rent and they won’t keep it The Chlesea beause only Stanley could and would.
If Stanley is out then it’s just a short, sharp elevator ride to hell for the Chelsea Hotel. I give it 18 months before a short fingered vulagarian like Donald Trump or some Asian megaglomerate takes over and fucks it up beyond all repair and recognition.

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Annie

June 16, 2007

That’s terrible. I really hope this isn’t true.

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Carrie Bedsore /Cherry Ramone / Rob from Aus

June 17, 2007

Fuck that! Stanley is the Chelsea. I won’t be back until Stanley is restored to his rightful position.

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hatman24

June 17, 2007

trying to get the word out. Digg it up and people will know!!!
http://digg.com/celebrity/The_end_of_the_Chelsea_Hotel/blog

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Former Resident

June 17, 2007

I certainly don’t think people should lay down and take it. It’s the Chelsea, there should be a creative, nonviolent, witty protest. Regret should haunt the greedy ones’ every step in that place. Every luminary who every created there should get together with Stanley to buy out the place. And if by some chance these efforts fail, and the Chelsea does succumb to this Sickness the boad of directors has, these peop,ke who value mammon over art and soul, it should go out with a bang not a whimper.
This is worth repeating:
The Hotel Chelsea
Edgar Lee Masters
Anita! Soon this Chelsea Hotel
Will vanish before the city’s merchant greed,
Wreckers will wreck it, and in its stead
More lofty walls will swell
This old street’s populace. Then who will know
About its ancient grandeur, marble stairs,
Its paintings, onyx-mantels, courts, the heirs
Of a time now long ago?
Who will then know that Mark Twain used to stroll
In the gorgeous dining-room, that princesses,
Poets and celebrated actresses
Lived here and made its soul;
In after years, so often made and unmade
By the changing generations, until today
It stands a tomb of happiness passed away,
Of an era long overlaid?
Floor What loves were lived here, what despairs endured,
What children born here, and what mourners went
Out of its doors, what peace and what lament
These rooms knew, long obscured
Will be more lost when fifty years from hence
The place thereof will have no memory,
When men must hunt its picture, so to see
What it looked like amid this turbulence!
Few now remember even the noted names
That loved its hospitality in past years.
Who will remember me when wrecking shears
Clip like a leaf this room of troubled aims,
And make this window one with the sky’s space,
By which I sat looking into the court?
This table that I write on will not report
My dreams, gone by without a trace.
There will not be a seat for any ghost,
No room left for a musing ghost to smile
On kisses, vows, regrets, that for a while
Made life, and then were lost.
The blue-eyed woman who went out and in
The entrance door, time and the tooth thereof
Will take her, take the man who gave her love,
Both will be lost ere twenty years begin.
With purest love this woman was beloved;
With pain her lover looked upon her grief,
Her past, and strove to give her heart relief,
Himself by Life so moved.
All this will be but currents of the air
Veering and lost. Tell me how souls can be
Such flames of suffering and of ecstasy,
Then fare as the winds fare?
Tell me how love that fills the human heart
With a sense of things eternal must submit
To what is eyeless, and is infinite,
And hears so soon the word ‘depart/”
Anita! You can perpetuate by thought
What we have lived, when this hotel is gone.
Passing its site remember I was one
Who sought for peace and found it not.
Remember that I loved you, scarce could bear
My helplessness to give your spirit thrift –
Remember this as with the tide you drift,
Others will not remember, nor even care.

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