Don’t look now, but Big Brother Elder may be watching you. A Chelsea Hotel resident recently sent us this photo of a spy-cam disguised as a smoke detector. Although we have long had 
cameras mounted in the stairwell on each floor to record who gets on and off the elevators, this one was placed at the end of a hallway where none had been before, and seems designed to stifle the freedom of assembly. Although this is the only new camera we know of as yet, residents are advised to keep their eyes peeled for more of these things popping up around the building. This camera was set up in the hallway of a resident who has been very outspoken against the new management, and as such can only be construed as a form of harassment. As you can see from 
the pictures, the resident fought back by providing the spies with a highly obnoxious viewing prospect, thus virtually guaranteeing that no one person, however strong his stomach, could stand to watch the monitor for long. (Maybe all those extra hires will come in handy after all.)
Strangely enough, just as we were getting ready to write about this outrage, someone surreptitiously removed the spy-cam. Though we can only speculate as to the management’s motive for this abrupt reversal, perhaps a lawyer or someone with a modicum of sense got wind of the stunt, and thought it would be better to avoid compounding the substantial harassment already suffered by the outspoken resident. — Ed Hamilton
Living with Legends 
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