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Correction: NCHM Does Not Avert PR Disaster

We have been informed, and rightly we believe, that the New Chelsea Hotel Management (aka: BD Hotels) did not actually avert a public relations disaster.  It is, and still remains, a public relations disaster.  We hope that it remains a public relations disaster until Stanley and David are back where they belong. 

It’s clear from the press release that perhaps these people have rarely stepped foot inside of the Chelsea.  A top priority is to "create more inviting and livelier common areas." Have these people never stopped to talk to the lobby sitters?  They’re a pretty lively crowd.

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22 responses to “Correction: NCHM Does Not Avert PR Disaster”

  1. Larry Avatar
    Larry

    More inviting common areas: think about the crowds of straight people from outside the city that form around the Maritime on 9th Avenue on weekend nights.

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  2. Former Resident Avatar
    Former Resident

    That press release is a load of slimy, slippery PR bullshit. We all know what these investors have been doing to the hotel for the last decade. They’ve had a free ride off the hotel, Stanley and the artists and other residents there for too long.
    In another thread, AP suggested buying them out. Get in touch with your rich friends, and chip in yourself. There are many good rich people left in the city who are true patrons of the arts, who are not tacky moneygrubbing jerks like this management company with their ugly buildings and theme hotels.
    The free ride for the investors is over. The people who have lived there have invested much more in that hotel than they ever will.

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  3. 421to323 Avatar
    421to323

    If they don’t think that lobby, the hotel living room, wasn’t inviting, then that is clear sign how they see the hotel and what they are going to destroy and change it into.
    Fight.

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  4. Zifkin Avatar
    Zifkin

    Some people don’t seem to understand that designating something a landmark
    ought to extend beyond the façade. It is the comtent that contributes to
    cultural heritage at least as much as the edifice. I lived here for a while in the early eighties. Oddly, it was one of the few places in NYC where I didn’t feel transient. It doesn’t take much imagination to conclude that much of The Chelsea’s cultural contributions would not have been possible without Stanley and the occasional leg-up that he provided (both concrete and abstract). This was no ordinary hotel management. The history and continuing vitality of this place …. that is made possible by Stanley Bard as far as I can tell. Perhaps his management must be designated “landmark” and protected.

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  5. Cowboy Avatar
    Cowboy

    Again, I’ll play Devil’s advocate here. Creating “more inviting and livelier common areas,” is something people have been talking about in the lobby since I’ve been there (albeit 2+yrs). Certainly the lobby sitters are a lively bunch, but that’s not the argument. They’re saying that it can and should be done better. They’re right.
    There are many places in this hotel that are not representative of the history of the hotel, and the lobby is a good example, if not the best.
    Don’t get me wrong, I love the lobby the way it is but come on, it’s not exactly the bastion of decor that it could be, and you can’t tell me that it can’t be improved.

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  6. 421to323 Avatar
    421to323

    And how would you change it Cowboy? How could it better represent the history of the hotel? Would the Larry Rivers Dutch Masters get to stay? the David Remfry? The Andoe horse which was painted with a sponge, painted white, then covered with black and sponged off to reveal the horse head? The pink Lady? The inexplicable yet delightful bust of Harry Truman? Should it be color coordinated? Should the colors of the art match the furniture, to steal a line from Woody Allen?
    That lobby perfectly represents the spirit of that hotel and its lively mix of very different residents.

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  7. Carrie Bedsore /Cherry Ramone / Rob from Aus Avatar
    Carrie Bedsore /Cherry Ramone / Rob from Aus

    A livelier lobby would have to be substantially larger. They mean that they plan to put in a cocktail bar.

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  8. sparkle Avatar
    sparkle

    Being in that lobby is like being inside a beautiful, odd and very interesting brain. We have been introduced to so many fascinating people there, all of us. It used to be, if you went down there after midnight you could join in a conversation with Dee Dee and Hiroya, while watching your neighbors straggle in from parties and art shows and dates. Halloween was always a treat in the lobby. I always liked that the chair Edie sat in after she burned down her apartment was still there, in the same place, on the west side of the lobby by the big white radiator. The lobby wasn’t overly-decorated, it was really was like a “living room” for all of us. When you were about to explode from being in your room too long working, you could just go down to the lobby, hangout, connect with your friends, be they neighbors or staff or both.
    I remember after 9/11 one of my neighbors, who worked close to the WTC and had seen people jumping to their deaths, collapsed in the lobby and another friend, Casebeer, got down on the floor and hugged him and they cried together. That day one of my neighbors, and one of the most radical,offbeat and brilliant bohemians in the hotel, said about all the stockbrokers rescuing their co-workers in the WTC, “I used to think Yuppies were scum, but today Yuppies were heroes.” They could be heroes here too, I suppose, if they wanted to.
    I remember Turk’s dog, Gengie, who hung out in the lobby, asleep in front of the desk, his tail flicking like a metronome. Gengie had the run of the hotel and would often ride the elevator until it stopped on any floor — it didn’t matter, Gengie had friends on every floor, and would often show up at my door for some attention.
    A lot of people seem to think in the same vein:
    http://images.google.ca/images?q=%22hotel+chelsea%22+lobby&svnum=10&um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&start=20&sa=N&ndsp=20
    http://images.google.ca/images?svnum=10&um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=%22chelsea+hotel%22+lobby&btnG=Search+Images
    Evidently, the outcry has made the board of directors and the management company backtrack slightly, giving a “role” to Stanley. So hey, protest works! And can keep on working.
    For all the talk about junkies in these threads… I was friends with a number of heroin addicts and recovering addicts. Huncke for one. One of my cats died in my arms during that big electrical blizzard in 96 that shut the city down. It was a slow death. The on-call vet was just three blocks away but wouldn’t leave his cocktail party to come give my cat a shot to put it out of its misery. (I could hear the party chatter and ice cubes clinking in the background.) Desperate, I called down to explain the situation and find out if there were any heroin addicts in the hotel who would come give my shot and was, on promise of discretion, given several names. I would have paid everything I had for that cat to have had an easier death, but none of the addicts were home. I met several of them through that experience, and they were pretty nice people overall.
    Will El Quijote be able to remain? Will it be trendy enough for the New Order? It’s its own animal too, with its mixed decor and clientele.

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  9. Former Resident Avatar
    Former Resident

    Here’s an independent story that almost gets it right:
    http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2679473.ece
    I never had any trouble flushing my toilet in any of the rooms I stayed in. Did anyone else? And that comment about dirt is an insult to the staff. With all the people, furniture and art supplies that tramp through that place, the only way to keep it spotless is to have a team of housekeepers positioned around the hotel to clean up dirt as soon as it happens.

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  10. DexterFlash Avatar
    DexterFlash

    Stanley eyed two travellers in 1985, asking for a room. Two working class guys in town for a look at Yankee Stadium and to hit a few jazz clubs and sample some deli food…nothing remotely artsy or “cool” between we two , for sure. Stanley rented us a beautiful room for a ridiculously low room rent, and we enjoyed our week-long stay immensely, and met some very nice people in the lobby, several times. I think of that trip often, and how nice Stanley was to us. This news is shocking, and it does, quite frankly, piss me off.

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  11. Artie & Blair Avatar
    Artie & Blair

    Harry Truman? Isn’t that a bust of David Bard, Stanley’s father?
    In any event, its worth saying again: Stanley Bard may have begun this journey as a hotel manager, but through his love for this place and “his people” he became of the most visionary artists who ever passed through here, or ever will.
    Art imitates life, but Stanley wasn’t satisfied. He created LIVING art.

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  12. A witness Avatar
    A witness

    Their plan is to put some shops in the lobby. Stanley has been resisting this idea for quite some time.

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  13. Cowboy Avatar
    Cowboy

    421to323,
    Your argument assumes that all those things have to go. That’s not the argument I’m making. But since you asked, I’d get rid of the two suspended sculptures by the window and the new curtain, give the walls a new paint job, and get some better, more comfortable furniture (does “culture” demand a sore ass?).
    Sparkle,
    Nice Post. El Quiote apparently has a hundred year lease, so that gives him at least another half-century. That’s a lot of dead lobsters.
    Artie & Blair,
    The bust is Truman. I had heard from some residents that it was Stanley’s father David Bard but it was Stanley himself who set the record straight. He seemed amused that there was confusion.

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  14. 421to323 Avatar
    421to323

    The chairs in the lobby were plenty comfortable when I was there last on a visit, very different from when I lived there though I don’t recall getting a sore bum. You suggestions for improvement sound modest, but alas, it is not you who will be designing it but the people involved in the Maritime Hotel and the grotesque glass towers. People will differ on which art they like and don’t like in that lobby, but it won’t be the residents who get to decide.
    I don’t understand, if they just wanted a fresh coat of paint Stanley Bard could have looked after it for them.

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  15. sparkle Avatar
    sparkle

    Betty and others, your ideas and the other ideas posted here are inspirational. We have to keep this in the media. The investors should never be able to relax and say, oh, nobody’s looking now, we can do what we want, quick!
    In addition to the postcards being sent, buy flowers – they’re not expensive at the Korean grocers and you can sometimes get three small bouquets out of one big cheap one — and stick them in the railings outside the hotel, in the stairwell balustrade, wherever. Deliver them to the desk! Attach a big cheery card addressed to Marlene Krauss and David Elder, to Andre Bal-however you spell his name and Drukier, with the message of your choice.
    There’s a wonderful Indian film called Lage Raho Munnabhai – rent it if it’s available. It deals with a similar situation in Mumbai. It’s a romantic musical comedy about Gandhian protest and an old folks home threatened by an underhanded developer named Lucky Singh. Very sly, sweet and entertaining movie, and only the coldest of hearts isn’t thawed by it. In the movie, they set themselves up outside the building, and have flowers delivered to Lucky with get well cards. The idea spreads and soon Lucky can’t go anywhere without someone handing him a bouquet and hoping he gets well soon. Before long, every time he sees a flower anywhere he is reminded of his guilt.
    Those who can’t afford real flowers, or are out of town, can send a few art cards or cyber bouquets a day to the reservation email address (once we get a proper one outta somebody) to cheer them up as they weather the outcry.
    Moma has decent e-cards in a variety of categories, including painting and sculpture:
    http://www.moma.org/ecards/
    The Met too, click on the link below and then go to the bottom of the page to “The Timeline for Art History” and clink on the e-card link there.
    http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/splash.htm
    Or you can just fill in the online comments form at http://www.hotelchelsea.com, and write the word Flowers in the comments space.

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  16. lp Avatar
    lp

    I’m sorry, Witness. Did you say Shops? In the lobby?
    That says it all. I hope to God that isn’t true.
    I wonder how long the investors have been plotting this behind Stanley’s back with the new management team. These arrangements aren’t worked out overnight and usually involve long negotiations and many billable hours.
    Think about that. Yeah. Nice. And they reportedly told him in a phone call. And gave him no notice. After fifty devoted years of service.
    Is anyone still expecting fairness from these people?

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  17. sparkle Avatar
    sparkle

    I’m very happy to hear that El Quijote will be around for a while, and outlive me. A lot of hotel history happened there and how perfect is it that it landed in as quixotic a place as the Chelsea hotel. Heh. Stanley’s Dad gave them a hundred-year lease! Bless his heart. It seems only fair to acknowledge what Stanley’s dad David did for the Chelsea and New York too. As well as artists and workmen, he took in European refugees from Nazi Europe. He took in people other hotels wouldn’t admit, blacks, openly gay people, actors, burlesque performers, drunk Irish geniuses…

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  18. A witness Avatar
    A witness

    I interviewed Stanley about two years ago. During the interview, he suddenly got very upset and said that the Board wanted to put shops in the lobby and that he was trying to prevent that. He was already off the Board then, so he didn’t have a lot of power. His son, David, was there supporting him in a very kind way, but asking him not to talk about such things to reporters. So yes, this struggle has of course been going on for some time.

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  19. Former Resident Avatar
    Former Resident

    Shops in the lobby. Omigod. What sort of shop?
    It’s too bad Stanley didn’t give everyone 100 year leeases.
    Well, this must be fought in every way possible. I think the reservation email is reservations@chelseahotel.com — no doubt they’ll change it, and we will find it out again. Everyone who writes and paints and sings should make sure these names are never forgotten for this crime – Marlene Krauss and David Elder. They clearly don’t get it. I expect that they aren’t only interested in making a lot of money off the Chelsea, off Stanley’s back and the backs of the artists over the years. I would guess they also want to be in a position to exploit it socially and get their names in Page Six.
    We should make sure their names are everywhere, but not in the way they might intend,.

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  20. A witness Avatar
    A witness

    A souvenir shop, probably, and one for drugs (not the good kind) and sundries. The Board considered the waste of potential commercial space in the lobby a sign of serious mismanagement.
    When I talked to him, Stanley pointed at a couple of tattooed guys in sunglasses shooting the breeze and said something like, “The Board doesn’t understand that that’s what this lobby is for!”

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  21. Former Resident Avatar
    Former Resident

    Thanks Witness.
    Stanley is right.
    But I fear the Board doesn’t have the capacity to understand the place. It’s all about money to them. It’s a crime.
    I am thinking of doing a new series of paintings, called “Marlene and David” to protest and express my shock and hurt about all this.

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  22. itsasecret Avatar
    itsasecret

    My thoughts go to all of you who live there and a going through this right now..

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