You can add the community newspaper Chelsea Now to the growing chorus of voices outside of the hotel that realize that the Chelsea Hotel can only be managed by the Bard family. (The same has previously been said by hotelier Ira Drukier and actor Ethan Hawke.) In the wake of Andrew Tilley’s shameful abdication, Chelsea Now proposes a compromise between the minority shareholders and the Chelsea Hotel ’s tenants: bring back David Bard as general manager of the Chelsea under the (hopefully limited) direction of the minority shareholders. Chelsea Now is right in saying that tenant activists would support this compromise, and so now the only barrier seems to be minority shareholder Marlene Krauss’s perverse desire to bury the Bard family at all costs. And costly it has been indeed for the Chelsea Hotel and its shareholders, as occupancy rates reportedly sunk to 20% or less under Tilley’s incompetent stewardship.
We would like to point out, however, that while Chelsea Now claims that “. . .the more outspoken tenants’ guerilla tactics have been disgraceful. . .” referring perhaps to Tilley’s unproven claim to have received panties and magazine subscriptions in the mail, the newspaper fails to mention the hotel management’s own far more reprehensible tactics, such as hiring goons to assault a tenant (David Elder admitted to this in a DHCR hearing), endangering tenants with illegal construction, and evicting tenants, including the elderly. THIS IS OUR HOME, FOLKS! There is a vast difference in kind here between the tactics of dedicated, unpaid activists (which no one would be complaining about if they hadn’t been successful) and those of management. While Tilley may have been made uncomfortable by some tenants’ actions, I have yet to hear of anyone showing up at his home in New Jersey and attempting to turn him out into the street.
Nobody is trying to evict Marlene Krauss either, though it she keeps investing in ponzi schemes, she may finally come to empathize with the plight of the Chelsea Hotel’s tenants. – Ed Hamilton
Living with Legends
Hotel Chelsea Blog
16 responses to “Local Paper Chelsea Now Says Bring Back David Bard”
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Most people agree that David Bard should return to manage the hotel although they are afraid to say it in print.
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Quack Quack
I’m back.LikeLike
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Getting David Bard back on the payroll and premises would be a great thing. David Elder behind prison bars and Marlene Krauss in the poor house would be worth selling tickets to.
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The only way Marlene can redeem herself as a businesswoman in the wake of the Madoff ponzi scheme is for her to recognize its time to cut her losses. Now is the opportune time. The Hotel will never make real money without the Bards.
Marlene, just hire a retired Federal auditor to manage the books. If she and Elder are opposed to such a proposal, one that SHOULD satisfy all parties at the table, that would tell me Krauss and Elder have designs on siphoning the Hotel’s profits. We already know that Elder and his lawyers have pccketed over a millon dollars in Hotel revenues legally owed his stepdad. The California Supreme Court ruled it so. What an incredible shanda, but since Krauss and Elder feel they’ve been ‘left out’ of the Chelsea party all these years who knows what they’re capable of. Besides bankrupting the corporation.LikeLike
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Talk about disgraceful behavior….
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20% occupancy should account for guests that walked in off the street. Did Tilley do any-thing to promote the Hotel that sells itself? I’m guessing No.
Indeed he inflicted a great deal of damage to the Hotel in his brief stint as manager and converted the hostile atmosphere cultivated by Glennon Travis & BD Hotels into one that was downright threatening and even dangerous to tenants. Only those who bought into his silly promises to promote their art are bemoaning his departure. David Bard would be welcomed with open arms, of course.LikeLike
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The clock is ticking. Marlene has a chance for a compromise. But she has to act fast. The best thing for her and the shiftless David Elder to do would be to sell their stock to the Bards or those sympathetic to the hotel. But I will go along with having David back as a compromise if it is done quickly. Otherwise it is back to war.
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Marlene’s cash reserves must be really, desperately low. She says she’ll make no attempt to hire a replacement for Tilley, and terminated the revolving squads of security thugs that have been needlessly lapping up the Hotel’s profits for a year, ever since Elder stupidly admitting he had a resident assaulted on two consecutive days in ’08.
But Marlene’s common sense meter is surely malfunctioning, to boot. Sticking a dip like Elder back behind the Chelsea’s desk after what he admitted in an official forum is not only irrational, but guarantees Marlene will spend her twilight years as the subject of uncomfortable, deeply-probing depositions from unsympathetic lawyers.LikeLike
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This was a welcome commentary from Chelsea Now and really spot-on in terms of what the overall goal should be. It missed a couple points that the Blog noted such as assaults set up against activist tenants by minority layabout David Elder — exceptionally disgraceful and, in fact, criminal — but I’m confident Chelsea Now will cover that angle in due course and Elder will get whats coming his way. In jail he’ll have a surplus of time to pore over the types of inane TV shows and movies that led him to think he could hire goons to solve his problems….
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Time’s up.
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That isn’t hot coffee Stanley is holding; its the last eighteen months profit under Krauss, Elder, BD, Tilley, and the parade of buffoons they brought with them.
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Quack Quack
Chelsea Now is wack.
I’ll never go back to my sis’s studio, Suckers! Not if I have to siphon Piri’s last penny!LikeLike
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i’ve lurked long enough. an excellent editorial by patrick hedlund although in my opinion chelsea residents have actually shown a great deal of restraint and while on the topic of restraints, WHY isn’t david elder in police custody after what he’s tried to pull off? not only to the tenant he had assaulted but also to the physical structure of the chelsea? its like common sense this guy should be kept far, far away. who ever heard of tearing up an historic landmark without even filing for authorization? i’m not even the worlds biggest bob dylan fan but i recognize how his past presence there can, does and might have continued to inspire younger generations of musicians passing through the hotel. its not ‘fetishizing’ to want to experience the past. only a truly soul-less person could defend whats been done.
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Chelsea Now should run a story about the Chelsea’s “Deep Throat”
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Pretty sad the way ‘New Management’ believes they can “banish” Chelsea Now’s newspaper from the building, as if we dont all get copies of it on every corner. First Andrew Tilley thought Chelsea Now would trumpet his cause but that was before they saw what a deceptive prick he was and moved in the opposite direction. Now according to their latest issue it is forbidden to have copies in the lobby. Thats a laugh. You can’t stifle freedom of speech, expression or the Press, you morons, and come out smelling like anything but what you are which is third-string misfits, not ready for prime time. Or members of of the Facist party, which would be a step up. Pack your pencils and spy cameras your time her is almost finished.
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Its a plain stoopid idear to try and banish a community newspaper from the lobby. I mean DUMB. In a place where free thought and expression are allegedly the golden rule? The press is only going to turn around and write about the banning which makes Tamasar (and/or whomever HE blames that decision on) look really bad. The Hotel always had a variety of newspapers to offer guests when Stanley and David were here. Now the lobby has none, and New Management’s fear of their own bad publicity is as good an explanation why as any I’ve heard.
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