We received the following comment and questions from a Dutch reporter:
I am a dutch reporter for the magazine HP/De Tijd. I am following this daily blog because of the change at the Chelsea. A new management has been installed since June. There are a lot of rumours going around in the papers, television and even here, in the tiny Netherlands.
But for now, nothing seems to have changed. Ok Bard is gone, but that’s all for now.
The fact that the Bard family is no longer managing the hotel is in fact a critical change. The Bard family is responsible for making the hotel what it is, a haven for creative minded individuals. Though some of us have had our differences with Stanley Bard we realize that he and the rest of the Bard family are necessary for the hotel to continue as the cultural mecca it has become. Anybody who thinks the Chelsea Hotel will remain unchanged without the Bard family is kidding themselves.
Can you give me some examples of what has changed since the new management has taken their place behind the desk?
Not that much has changed outwardly. BD Hotels partitioned the Grand Ballroom and turned it into office space, and they have been renovating a bathroom for an unusually long time, but that’s the only construction we know they have been doing. We know they are planning to terminate the leases of all retail tenants, though they may not be able to get away with it in all cases (for instance, El Quijote, the Spanish restaurant that has been in the Chelsea for 70 years, has a very long lease). Though they claim they are going to fix the place up, restoring the historical detail, they have, in reality, been allowing the hotel to deteriorate, refusing to take care of the famous cast iron staircase, for instance, allowing pieces of it to be stolen for souvenirs.
At the present time there seems to be a deep confusion, among residents, staff, and even the new management itself, as to who is actually in charge. The needs of the residents, especially the elderly and marginal residents, are not being met, and nobody knows to whom we should address these concerns.
Even more significantly, the vibe of the hotel has changed. BD has been slashing rates to some of the rooms in an attempt to achieve a high occupancy rate (probably for some sort for financial scheme), and they’ve been filling the rooms with tourists—booked over the internet– who know nothing of the Chelsea. The transient population has always been a big part of the élan of the hotel, and it has usually been composed of artists, musicians and others who value the history of the Chelsea. Besides this, and though it’s hard to describe, it’s just not the same place with a soulless corporation in charge.
What do you think that will happen to the Chelsea? Will it become something like the Gramercy park Hotel? Will they plan a complete turn-over? Tell me about your concerns.
The hotel is being run by a corporation, and as always with a corporation, the goal will be to maximize profits. (As a matter of fact they were brought in by the minority shareholders because the millions the Bard family were making for them were apparently not enough.) In New York at the present moment, with the overheated real estate market, that means getting rid of rent stabilized tenants so that the apartments can be rented at market rate or sold as condos. There are several different techniques that corporations use to achieve this end, including doing unnecessary construction, offering buyouts, and challenging “illegal” tenants (often the challenge is made on a flimsy pretext). There are also other financial schemes that can be employed using mortgages and the courts, and we are watching the situation closely to see if BD makes any moves in this context. And even if BD decides not to evict any tenants, they aren’t letting any new ones in, and so that spells the death knell for the Chelsea right there.
Living with Legends 
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