Check out Chris Shott’s Observer article on last weekend’s confrontation between hotel layabout David Elder, recently promoted (or was he?) to a position of somewhat greater power, and hotel resident and pro-Stanley Bard activist Arthur Nash. Amid the hilarious recounting of Elder being chased by his doppelganger, having an unspecified (hopefully noxious) liquid dumped on his head, and drinking a Shirley Temple, Shott correctly points out that Nash never physically accosted or threatened the novice hotelier. He just gave him a piece of his mind.
But Shott doesn’t detail the later confrontation that erupted between Nash and one of the gigantic goons Elder hired in response to Nash’s criticism. According to Nash, what happened on Monday night was that after he retrieved his mail from behind the front desk, he was barred from entering the elevator and menaced by the approximately 6’5”, 275 lb. security guard (who had apparently been instructed to deal harshly with Nash). After returning to his room to get his camera—he had been instructed by his lawyer to document all confrontations—Nash attempted to take the guard’s picture. In response, the guard tried to wrench the camera away from Nash and then grabbed him in a bear hug and body slammed 
him against the front desk, smashing the camera (and Nash’s hand) against the counter repeatedly until the batteries flew out. The guard continued to wrestle with Nash as Nash tried to use the house phone to call the police. A resident who had witnessed the altercation, and who corroborated Nash’s story, said that in all his or her time at the Chelsea, he or she had never seen anything so frightening. Nash eventually did manage to call the police, but they decided they didn’t have sufficient cause to arrest the guard. (The photo of one of Nash’s injuries speaks volumes.)
The day before, Sunday, two other goons—with Elder standing behind them–had hassled Nash as well, chest butting him and trying to force him into the back stairwell off the lobby where there are no security cameras, and of course, no witnesses. And then, on Tuesday afternoon, two goons were caught milling around outside Nash’s apartment, in an apparent attempt to intimidate Nash and his girlfriend. (I don’t even know where the hell we’re living anymore—some kind of alternate, Bizarro Chelsea.)
One mistake in the article: Piri Thomas is not Elder’s father-in-law. This would imply that someone, presumably a woman, had actually consented to marry Elder at some point in time, a patent absurdity. Piri married Elder’s mother, making him Elder’s step-father (and I’ll bet he wishes he would have paddled young Elder’s butt a bit more severely while he had the chance!)
[By the way, Arthur’s show in DC is a scaled down version of his much larger traveling show “Infernal Machines, The Evolution of US Capitol Punishment,” and it opens on May 16th, with the grand opening scheduled for May 23rd, at the National Museum of Crime and Punishment in Washington D.C.] — Ed Hamilton
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Hotel Chelsea Blog
8 responses to “Goons Body Slam Resident, Prowl Chelsea Halls”
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This is just crazy. And stupid. And mean.
Crazy, Stupid and Mean is no way to go through life.
I hope Ms. Krauss to rethinks this one, and fast. It’s not just residents that should be worried with this clown “in charge”.LikeLike
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These people have shown nothing but disdain – at best – for Chelsea residents, the Chelsea history, and the Chelsea ethos that governed it so well for over fifty years. Goons in the Chelsea hotel! well, if one lives long enough, one sees everything. These two heirs should be ashamed of themselves.
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As someone who happened upon this drama while casually researching The Chelseas’ rich history, I have a question. Why has this story apparently escaped the interest of all the local media except The New York Observer? It seems, given the presence of such a large artistic community in NYC, that this story would garner a substantial public outcry and subsequent extensive media attention. What am I missing?
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Most of the working artists have been driven from Manhattan. and indeed all new York city, by rising rents.However, the story has been regularly covered also by New York Magazine, The New Yorker,Gawker, Curbed and Hotel Chatter. It has been periodically covered by media from all over the world, including India, France, the netherlands, Mexico, Germany and Canada. ABC Australia has done Tv coverage as have local NY TV outlets.
Abel Ferrara’s documentary “Chelsea On the Rocks” will premiere this month in Cannes.
The Observer, however, has provided the msot extensive coverage.LikeLike
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Yes, let the stinkbomb thrower run a hotel…, great. Did he become now part of the “Infernal Machines?” Let’s throw a stinkbomb in his exhibition (just kidding…)
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Dear LP,
yes, you are missing something: Some premature stinkbomb throwers pretend to run a hotel; the public is getting tired of that nonsense.LikeLike
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better than David Elder or BD Hotels, I’ll take a well placed stinkbomb thrower over those douchebags anyday
the revolution marches onLikeLike
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Premature stinkbomb throwers?? Listen ye of poor word choice, the biggest stinkbomb hit that hotel when Marlene Krauss and David Elder pushed out the Bards and took over, since then demonstrating their complete incompetence and lack of understanding of the hotel. You may have meant immature, in which case I’d argue that the spoiled children in this scenario are not the residents but two smalltime heirs who felt entitled to the whole hotel despite doing nothing for it or knowing much about it. David Elder is a walking stinkbomb every day in that place.
Could the stinkbomb thrower run a hotel? <aybe not. He/she and his/her supporters don’t want to run it, they want the Bards back to run it. If you two minority shareholders leave now and give it back to the Bards we’ll forget it ever happened. Otherwise you’re just going to rack up more google hits as villains every time someone says something displeasing about Marlene Krauss and David Elder. Almost the whole world now knows your names but not in a good way. I promise that when you return the hotel to Stanley, we will stop trashing you and instead just cheer for the Bards. Deal?LikeLike
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