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Hotel Chelsea Website Undergoes Second Redesign: Bard Family Still Missing

The first redesign of the Chelsea Hotel website was undertaken during the misbegotten reign of Richard Born and Ira Drukier.  Besides being poorly written and edited, the BD site removed all mention of the Bard family’s role in managing the hotel for nearly 70 years.  Now it’s hard to tell who oversaw this most recent redesign since Marlene Krauss is refusing to hire a manager for the Hotel, Redesign but the tradition of denying the Bard family legacy remains firmly in place.  ( Nice photo of the Hotel on the splash page by the way.   This takes the campaign to erase the Bard legacy a step further than even BD, who at least had enough concern for the truth to include the Bring Back the Bards signs in their picture.)

One of  our favorite new sections of the redesigned site is called “The Chelsea.” As you can see, the site still needs an editor.  (Oh, and it also needs somebody who knows how to tell a joke!)  Gee, anybody wonder why Jerry Weinstein is the only person on staff who can speak intelligently about the history of the Hotel?  Could it have anything to do with the firing of Stanley and David Bard?

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22 responses to “Hotel Chelsea Website Undergoes Second Redesign: Bard Family Still Missing”

  1. Sherill Tippins Avatar
    Sherill Tippins

    As someone at work on a history of Chelsea, whose founding philosopher is known for saying that a society can be judged by the way it treats its women, I can’t tell you how ironic it is to see the image in that brochure of a woman stretched out in that sexually inviting way on the staircase. It’s the quintessential image of commercial exploitation.
    Decade after decade, the Chelsea’s residents have worked through issues relating to women’s place in society–from the first vagrant girl who was sent to Bellevue in 1884 for insisting that she had friends at the Chelsea, to the Victorian-era invalid, daughter of William Dean Howells, who died of lassitude, to John Sloan’s wife, Dolly, a former prostitute saved by art, to Arthur Miller’s Marilyn Monroe, Andy Warhol’s Edie Sedgwick, Shirley Clarke, Patti Smith, and the many, many women who came to the Chelsea in the Seventies to liberate themselves.
    And now, to end with this? I’m starting to feel more at home in the Second-Life Chelsea.

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  2. Blog Reader Avatar
    Blog Reader

    Sherill,
    This will not be the end. Well, maybe it will be the the end for Krauss and Elder and their reign of poop. The redesign reflects the level of desperation they’ve reached. It will be interesting to see which artists receive a poor quality reproduction of their work posted in the “art” section.

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  3. Anon Avatar
    Anon

    For $40.00 that chick on the stairs better be there when I come to go on the tour. Sorry Sherill.

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  4. Sherill Tippins Avatar
    Sherill Tippins

    Well, admittedly, Anon, I see your point…

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  5. dk Avatar
    dk

    First time visit from Curbed.com link. I understand the desire to preserve the cultural history of the Chelsea Hotel and it does seem like it is currently being run by people who don’t seem to really get it. If the goal is preserving the history/spirit of the Hotel, isn’t there a more constructive path to follow? The vitriol and personal attacks on this blog guarantee that what is best for the Hotel will not be achieved due to wounded egos.

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  6. Miss H Avatar
    Miss H

    The whole website is a fraud, as are David Elder and Marlene Krauss. There is no getting around it. They have been systematically destroying a rare thing, something that gave rise to all the art and artists they wish to exploit on their website in a theme park way in order to make money. Make money while kicking the artists to the curb. Nice. Remember, if they use your artwork, books, photos etc. without permission, you can sue them big. Using your name or work to promote a commercial enterprise without your permission is a violation of your civil rights. I’m not sure how this applies to the estates of the late greats, however. Maybe someone can check.
    Sherrill, I don’t object to a shot of a seductive woman or man normally, but you make a very good point. It’s cheesy the way they do it too. It’s as if they are trying to insinuate to the hordes of banal businessmen they hope to attract that there are attractive women just waiting for them at the Chelsea Hotel.

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  7. More Protest to Come Avatar
    More Protest to Come

    And big egos they have, the new regime. Some people tried to talk to these folks and find some rapprochement. But Krauss and Elder say one thing and do something else. When opportunities to do the right hing and turn the hotel back to the Bards have appeared, allowing them to get out graciously, they refused. They are convinced that they and they alone know what’s best for the hotel, despite spending very little time in it before ousting the majority shareholder and longtime manager Stanley Bard. They treated Stanley very badly, and he’s family to us. They’ve treated the longtime residents, commercial tenants, visiting tourists, and so on like crap. From the get go they were more interested in the “street front retail program” and clearing out longterm residents, than they have in the history of the hotel or the work done there. Everything they’ve said and done has been contemptuous of the hotel and all it represents. So whatever vitriol they get, they deserve. More protest to come.

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  8. Anon Avatar
    Anon

    Do you seriously think wounded egos will control the fate of the Chelsea? Cold hard cash will control the fate of the Hotel.

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  9. Sherill Tippins Avatar
    Sherill Tippins

    Yes, it’s the banality that’s offensive–and the continued lack of understanding that it reveals.

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  10. Dyske Avatar
    Dyske

    Are you sure this is new?! If it’s true, then this is quite strange. This “new” website was produced using the technologies and the standards of 1999. It’s like an architectural recreation project where you try to use only the tools that were available at the time the original building was built.
    Notice that most of the images are processed as GIF (this was a typical sign of amateur websites circa 1999). Instead of seeing smooth color gradations, you see a bunch of pixels. This is called “dithering”, and it was used to get around the fact that most computer monitors back then were capable of displaying only 256 colors.
    If you look at the source code, it reveals that the designer used “ImageReady” to process the images. If you are a web designer, ImageReady is a blast from the past! I believe Adobe discontinued that product years ago.
    The way the site is handling the mouse roll over is very old school too. It’s using a lot of Javascript. These days, no code is required to do roll over.
    The site layout is controlled using HTML tables. This also was a common scheme back in 1999 when CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) was still too primitive to handle layout.
    Everything about this “new” site is so consistently old-school that I would imagine the person who created this website must be using a computer from around 1999 that he/she never updated since then. Since it is so impeccably old-school, I wouldn’t be surprised that this was done on purpose. Just to get a kick out of trying to do everything the old way.

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  11. The Ghosts Avatar
    The Ghosts

    Larry Rivers doesn’t want his Dutch Masters painting used on the website. He hates this new regime.

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  12. blog reader Avatar
    blog reader

    Did you respond to the rfp? I sense a bit of jealousy in your strange site analysis.

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  13. no reservations Avatar
    no reservations

    i couldn’t even make it to the photos of the chick laying on the stairs, which sounded extremely off-putting anyway. what happened? did she get trampled by the goon patrol while trying to check out the blog?
    just love how the “new” site touts the names of the legends who have come to experience the chelsea, but neglects to mention how you’ll probably forget what you came here for when the cops are tossing you out on the morning of your 29th day.
    the site asks: who will be next? which is just plain old false advertising. they are offering an experience that they do not and cannot and will not deliver.

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  14. Hack Avatar
    Hack

    RFP, HTML, CSS or KISS MY ASS — this website looks like pure SHITE.
    Bring back the Bard Family already, and stop this moronic charade; the anti Bard Family trespassers should know, if nothing else, that they are being ridiculed around the globe for their arrogance and that the soiled reputations they earn for themselves by running amok on the Hotel Chelsea’s traditions will follow them the rest of their dead-end careers.

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  15. Robin Avatar
    Robin

    Oh dear. The photo of the woman on the stairwell struck me as macabre. Are we sure that woman is still breathing? She looks like she’s dead. Was she a jumper?

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  16. David Elder is a Freeloading Jackass Avatar
    David Elder is a Freeloading Jackass

    More craptastic output from the simpletons holding Stanley’s job hostage.

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  17. Miss H Avatar
    Miss H

    Most of the rooms they picture on this site, weren’t they renovated by the Bards? I see at least two that Michelle Bard did (and gorgeous they are too).

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  18. Dead Woman on the Stairs Avatar
    Dead Woman on the Stairs

    Why did they leave the dead woman o0n the stairs in the photo?

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  19. Blog Reader Avatar
    Blog Reader

    Was this woman a victim of the aggressive WD40 campaign?

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  20. Legal Beagle Avatar
    Legal Beagle

    Looked like a slip-and-fall to me.

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  21. urethra franklin Avatar
    urethra franklin

    seems to me the hotel owes just about everything to this guy bard and the site doesn’t even mention him? thats all about disrespect

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  22. loans for bad credit Avatar
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    Hotel Chelsea Website Undergoes Second Redesign: Bard Family Still Missing – Living with Legends: Hotel Chelsea Blog

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