Living with Legends

When I first heard of the new “Chelsea Hotel” (or is it just “the Chelsea” as it says on their sign?) opening in Atlantic City, I figured that sounded like a good place to move to once BD evicts us.  But on second thought, I’m sure it’s just another uptight place that would throw us out for wearing sweatshirts or the wrong hairstyle.  Can’t these unoriginal dirtbags be sued or something?

            Actually, that would be an over-reaction, given that no one could possibly take this hair-brained venture seriously.  In a bold postmodern gesture, “the Chelsea” has actually been cobbled together out of a Howard Johnson and an adjacent Holiday Inn, and the resultant Frankensteinian structure incorporates the worst features of both and ends up looking like a suburban parking garage with a housing project on bolted on top.  I know hipsters have a reputation as airheads, but are any of them really so stupid that they are going to confuse this piece of crap with the Chelsea Hotel?

            So, on second thought, maybe we can just stomp some chewing gum into their carpet—or rub a wad in poster boy Paul Sevigny’s hair.

            Actually, this new rip-off hotel is instructive, because the developers are making the same mistake as BD Hotels: confusing the timeless cool of the Chelsea Hotel, with it’s unique Bohemian vibe of acceptance and creativity , with the ephemeral “cool” of people who dress in the latest fashions and have to be seen drinking at the hottest new club.  These people hate the very idea of the Chelsea because it means being an individual rather than a mindless clone.  It’s the exact same difference as that which exists between one of these prefab glass towers and a building designed by an architect with a soul who took care to produce a beautiful, livable structure. — Ed Hamilton