Part III: The Elvis Altar Out in the hall beside the trash bin, I found a big, white, wooden pedestal, maybe three feet high, like the kind of thing they would set a sculpture on in a museum.  I think it even had a number on it, so you could check the price of the…

Part II: The Dysfunctional Sink Another time there was a design show in the hotel, with small companies selling furniture and wallpaper and bedspreads–what have you–setting up shop in various rooms throughout the hotel.  One of the companies rented the room next to mine and set up a huge sink in the little corridor outside…

Part I:  Garbage ArtRecently, someone came and took a picture of my art work and posted it on the web—the world wide web, that is.  In a transom in the hallway—where there was once a stained glass window (a few examples still remain scattered throughout the Chelsea)—I have mounted two pink, plastic ducks, shampoo bottles…

One of the coolest places in the hotel is the El Quijote, the Spanish restaurant in what used to be the Chelsea’s dining room.  One night we were drinking at the bar, when in walked a girl in her mid-twenties whom we had seen earlier that night in the hotel.  She was scantily clad and…

II: Grotesques      When I came home one night, there was a big party at Serena’s, the club in the basement of the Chelsea.  Serena’s had only been open for a few weeks, and so it was still a novelty with the hotel residents.  Several people from the hotel, including the guys who worked…

       Maxwell was an old man, probably mid-seventies, with a pot belly and thinning gray hair pulled back from his forehead.  Though he was generally disheveled, his clothes unwashed, his shirttail out as he shuffled through the lobby on his way to the deli for a 40 of beer, sometimes he was more…

Chelsea Sound Stage Continued Unlike poor Hiroya—who’s gone on, by the way, to that Great Bohemian Flophouse In The Sky–once I get into my apartment, I’m usually able to ignore distractions, and just focus on my writing.  The walls are thick, after all.  But one night, Hollywood came knocking, and like a fool, I answered…

                                        Naked Models     On a more positive note, many times I’ve arrived home to find naked models cavorting in the stairwells.  So the presence of the film crews has its upside, though I would feel like a lecher if I stood…

                                         Chelsea Sound Stage Continued     The good news is, the older guys who are actually in charge of these film crews are usually polite and respectful, and if you approach them with a problem they’ll usually take your concerns seriously–although you…