Living with Legends

Hotel Chelsea Blog

recent posts

about

Voodoo, Jungle Cats, Poetry & Communists Banned at Chelsea

It’s worth pointing out — even if it’s rather obvious — that the Chelsea Hotel would never have become the Kddrums_2 world renowned rebel mecca that it is (or was, if you prefer) if Stanley Bard had hired security guards to rid the Hotel of the weird and/or inebriated.  In response to a question from reader "Miss H" regarding whether the ban on gathering in the hallway would preclude the legendary staging of a scene from Aida historian Sherill Tippins writes:

That was the splendid Katherine Dunham, an anthropologist, choreographer, and expert practitioner of Voodoo.  Stanley said she had asked him whether it was all right to rehearse for Aida in her room (for the Metropolitan Opera), and he’d said that was fine. Then he got a call at home that she’d arrived at the hotel in a limousine with a pair of real lions and (according to Stanley) taken them upstairs in the elevator.  He insisted that she take them out, but she got some rehearsal in first.

Dunham and the composer George Kleinsinger were the ones who rescued Brendan Behan by bringing him into the Chelsea. Dunham’s dancers tended him around the clock. Still, he would escape out into the halls, find the portly, 73-year-old Communist leader Elizabeth Gurley Flynn on her way downstairs, pick her up like a little doll and give her an affectionate shake, saying she was the best little Irish-American Communist he’d ever known.

Stanley did eventually ask Dunham to leave–not because of the lions, but because her Voodoo drums were bothering the neighbors.

Charlie Rangel has a bill in the House tight now formally honoring Katherine Dunham’s contribution to American dance.

A7_elizabethflynn I’m sure some may say that we don’t want lions (or drunks like Behan) wondering the halls, yet the point is that the Chelsea was once a magical place where the odd and unusual were part of the everyday fabric of our lives. And that’s waht we are struggling against: a return to boring normalcy. Let’s send Tilley and his guards to a Red Roof Inn at a truck stop in Cleveland where they belong. — Ed Hamilton

(Photos: Katherine Dunham, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn)

Posted in

6 responses to “Voodoo, Jungle Cats, Poetry & Communists Banned at Chelsea”

  1. History Lesson Avatar
    History Lesson

    Ed, the building at 222 W 23rd St (Chelsea Hotel) has a long history of security guards. The physical evidence can be found along the hallways on floors 1 – 10. Notice small metal boxes about waist high on the hallways where doors once were. Inside these tiny boxes are several unique “keys” attached by chains. The Chelsea Hotel’s security guards would have to place the keys into a special portable clock, and crank it. This would prove that the guard had, in fact, made their rounds, and physically visited each area with a “key.” A building manager would check each guard’s portable clock to verify.
    Today, these boxes are coated with ancient layers of brown and tan paint. having been painted over several times in the past dozen decades.
    It’s great that there is a place to go online that digs up the history of the Chelsea, but your bluster and agenda-over-facts negative attitude casts a darker shadow over your troubled home, Ed. Your blow-hard bohemian Bill O’Reilly routine is getting old, and many feel it’s a detriment to the hotel and it’s legacy.
    Although you are likely too vain to allow this to display on your site, please be aware that while we do appreciate your effort, not all residents and fans approve of your attitude.
    – Peaceful Pete

    Like

    Reply
  2. Old & Crabby Avatar
    Old & Crabby

    Peaceful Pete,
    Ed has always argued that the building’s current security system was fine and that there was no need to hire additional security. Also, you may be in denial as to why the new security guards were brought into the building. If so, then it is your business if you choose to remain clueless.

    Like

    Reply
  3. Avatar
    Anonymous

    I agree. What was wrong with the security we already had? These guys just stand there doing nothing (because there’s nothing to do).

    Like

    Reply
  4. Miss H Avatar
    Miss H

    Who the hell is Peaceful Pete?
    On anothet notye, thanks Sherill. It is so cool to have our own historian.
    And keep up the good work Ed.

    Like

    Reply
  5. The Ghosts Avatar
    The Ghosts

    It isn’t about security “Peaceful Pete,” but about the kind of security and the attitude of security.The place was more peaceful with the old guard. I for one am disturbed by fuzzy and unqualified comments like “many feel.” To counter let me say, in the same vein, that many, many, many more feel differently “Peaceful Pete.” Ed’s commentary is hardly over-the-top. What is over-the-top is the way two minority shareholders ousted the maority shareholder who happened to also be the hardworking manager of the most unique and beloved hotel in the world, and how those two minority shareholders then tried to change the atmosphere and rules of the hotel, and everything it has stood for, for more than a century. You may not value that, but many, many, many more have appreciated its contribution to culture and humanity.

    Like

    Reply
  6. Sherill Avatar
    Sherill

    Thanks for the thanks, Miss H. It’s good to have a place to post some of the stories that have turned up in research and interviews, particularly since only about 1/10 of them will fit between the covers of my book-in-progress. So–thanks to Ed, too.

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment