Living with Legends

     Kudos to the Guardian’s reviewer, Ben Walters, for sitting through all of the movies at last weekend’s Chelsea Hotel Film Festival at the Anthology Film Archives.  He says of the Hotel: “It’s not surprising that it should have acquired a cinematic presence, what’s impressive is it’s range in diversity matches that of the hotel’s residents.”  After recounting the usual suspects such as the Chelsea Girls and Sid & Nancy, the review focuses in on the present situation at the Hotel, highlighting the fact that the recent fate of the Chelsea is part and parcel of the wave of gentrification that’s sweeping New York.

     Saturday’s Triple bill featured three films that together served to tell the ultimately tragic story of the Bard family’s tenure and ultimate fall push from power.  Doris Chase’s The Chelsea shows three generations of Bard family guiding the hotel through its heyday, including a very young David bemoaning the fact that he majored in finance rather than psychology.  The second Film, Michael Maher’s Blogging for Bohemia shows how the YMCA across the street has fallen prey to a greedy developer who carved up the beloved community resource and sold it as luxury condos to rich yuppies.Stanley is in the film (three months before his ouster) discussing how his own board of directors has lately been pressuring him to sell the Chelsea Hotel as well.  Then, in Sam Bassett’s film, a deposed Stanley is interviewed, urging Chelsea tenants to fight to preserve our unique way of life.

     The final chapter of the Bard saga has yet to be written.  Luckily, as Walters points out, we may have been able to stave off the forces of greed long enough for even larger economic forces to come to our defense.  He quotes Stanley perceptive prediction at the end of the Bassett film: “We’re not always going to be in this bubble.  We’re not always going to be in an economic boom.”  “He was proved right sooner that he might have imagined,” Walters concludes, “whether it means a brief respite or a new Renaissance for the Chelsea Hotel remains to be seen.” — Ed Hamilton