State Senator Tom Duane’s office—and in particular his aid Jared Chausow— was very helpful in getting the Department of Buildings (DOB) to issue the Stop Work Order halting the illegal construction in the building (including Bob Dylan’s room), and for that we owe them a huge debt of gratitude. As Duane stated in a recent Chelsea Now article, the crux of the matter is whether or not a Certificate of No Harassment (CONH) is required for major construction work—and that’s for the DOB to decide.
However, the DOB can’t do its job properly if it doesn’t have the correct information in front of it, and that’s what happened in this case: the DOB granted a permit based on false information. Andrew Tilley, as general manager of the hotel, is ultimately responsible for guaranteeing the legality of any work that goes on here, but it wasn’t him who falsified the permit application, since the document was submitted to the DOB before his tenure began.
So who falsified the Permit application, saying that the Chelsea is not an SRO? The obvious place to start is with the people who signed it: minority shareholder David Elder, representing the ownership of the hotel, and an architect who also happens to be a tenant of the hotel. Now if you’ve been following this blog then you know that we don’t have much good to say about Elder, who is living at the hotel rent free and seems to be trying to make a living by bilking old men out of their money and property (ie.
Stanley Bard and Piri Thomas). We would expect as much from Elder.
But what of the Tenant-Architect, a person well-liked and respected around the hotel, apparently an ethical person as well? Aside from the potential damage to his fellow tenants, we find it hard to believe that he would knowingly endanger his livelihood—risking his architectural license, as well as his right to sign off on permits of this sort—for such a half-assed boondoggle of a job. Admittedly, it may be hard for people to feel sympathy for somebody who was hired as an expert to sign off on the construction permit, but we have reason to believe that certain lies were told to him, and certain promises made, that may have influenced his judgment in this matter.
Still, it will be difficult for us to prove that this tenant-architect was unknowingly used to commit what is coming to look increasingly like fraud. We can only urge him to step forward and let his story be told, before he’s used as a scapegoat in this case.
Living with Legends
Hotel Chelsea Blog
11 responses to “Tenant-Architect’s License in Possible Jeopardy Over Illegal Construction Boondoggle”
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excellent suggestion, ed. no point taking the rap for a guy (elder) who has set a new low standard for abusing the hotel and its residents. if the architect got bogus documents from ownership then the onus should be on them, not him.
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Who is this tenant architect? He should step forward and tell his story before they throw him to the wolves like they do everyone else.
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Wait, there is a pattern forming here… Didn’t Elder also ask a tenant to say that THEY compensated the goons who, he later admitted, he hired to assault a rent stabilized tenant? Now he wants a longtime tenant to assume blame for defrauding the DOB? If I was that tenant I’d say NO WAY!!!
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Another one of David Elder’s schemes, obviously. The man is a crook.
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There is only one place David Elder belongs, and that’s jail!
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No question slimy minority shareholder David Elder is responsible for these falsifications. He came in here acting like there were no rules that applied to him and this is the end result of all that. He fabricates the truth whenever it suits him and from the looks of this he thought he wouldn’t get busted. Or, as this blog post suggests, that he could just brush off any consequences on the architect who filed the papers. Like I said, slimy!
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Agreed! The architect should step forward, his name is on the documents, and explain where the bad info came from.
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Ihope they nail David Elder’s ass to the wall for this, and I hope he takes that mean-spirited, greedy, boorish Marlene Krauss with him.
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Until someone comes forward, we really don’t know if it was David Elder’s brainchild, or that of the architect.
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not easy to differentiate between lies and truth around here these days; we gots jokers in management, pinnochios behind the desk; but maybe whoever they got to do the architectural job fell for their lies too, its not inconceivable.
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Stanley Bard should just have his lawyers sue the minority shareholders for running the Chelsea down. This one’s a no brainer, a slam dunk, a shoe in, and every other cliche that Krauss and Elder have tried introducing to the Hotel Chelsea this past year and a half. As we all move together into the New Year, those two ought to consider putting down the battleaxes and reconciling their differences with the Bard Family, who made money hand over fist for shareholders. Nevermind the masterpiece of a community they created, lets not go into all that trivial stuff…right now they’re spending most of the Hotel’s profits on covering up one of David Elder’s several major blunders (Note to David Elder: its illegal to have tenants in NYC or anyplace else roughed up… Where did you take your Hotel Management training? Guantanamo?)
Warren Buffet said ‘its only when the tide goes out that you can see who’s swimming naked’ and its pretty plain that Krauss/Elder cabal was not cut out to run a Hotel where actual human beings reside. The economy is not getting better and neither will Hotel profits until the natural balance is restored.LikeLike
Living with Legends 
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