Sherill Tippins Op/Ed piece in today’s NY Times reminds us that when the Chelsea was built New Yorkers were facing a similar housing crisis. She writes, "The Chelsea was built to address this problem. A French-born writer, inventor, architect, and idealist, Philip Gengembre Hubert, introduced the cooperative apartment system to New York, specifically to free New Yorkers from the burden of overpriced housing and to encourage the cross-class intermingling neded to nurture a cohesive culture." Tippins also mentions how readers of this blog have responded with creative solutions as to how to deal with the recent hostile take over of the Chelsea. Here’s one of the more interesting.
Surely, if the Soho artists could get an entire neighborhood zoned just for artists, the Chelsea, with its landmarked status, could work with foundations, friendly investors,
artists-with-money, the Bards, and residents to create a zoned hotel for the arts.
First, all current residents would be grandfathered in. No one would feel any pressure to leave.
Second, the transient hotel sector would remain, since it’s part of what keeps the Chelsea lively and at the forefront of public consciousness.
As for the residents: how about regulating a mix of 10% of residents unrestricted (any income level, any occupation); 60% artists; 30% middle and low income? The Chelsea Corporation could be run by an elected Board of Directors with the same percentages, and with Stanley as permanent appointee.
Maybe Ethan Hawke has a lawyer on retainer, or maybe there’s a lawyer-artist in the building (I think there is) who would find it interesting to look into that possibility, or a variation of it. And it does sound like something Bloomberg might find it useful to back, doesn’t it?
Frankly, it seems to me an improvement on the top-down system of a corporate-owned hotel anyway. The Chelsea was built as one of the city’s first co-ops. Maybe it’s time for it to return to its origins.
If anyone has more ideas please add them to the mix. Yesterday, a reader from Canada posted another idea on his blog.
Living with Legends 
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