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  • All Tomorrow’s Parties: August 7 – 13, 2006

    Monday, August 7
    BLUE MONDAY –     The Touch Massage party will not be held at Serena’s tonight and is looking for another venue for future parties.  Check their website for updates. We hear that someone from the hotel complained about the nudity.  (According to a professional masseur who works the event there is no nudity. Everyone keeps their underwear on.) Ridiculous, I know.  Who on earth would care about what goes on in the basement?  It’s the Chelsea for God’s sake.  In further depressing gay-related news, the steam room and sauna at the New York Sports Club at 23rd & 8th have been closed due to "inappropriate behavior."  You’ll have to find that party at another venue as well.

    Tuesday, August 8, 12:30 p.m.
    Susanne Bartsch and Kenny Kenny invite you to HAPPY VALLEY TUESDAYS. DJ: Sammy Jo. Gummi_1 Downstairs: D.J. Ryan and Kim Ann. Afterparty for "Marilyn Monroe in Art" exhibit.
    Show: Peppermint Gummibear and Dancers (photo).  Hosts: Miranda Moondust, Kim Aviance, Astro, Theodora Ladyfag & Amanda Lepore.  Door: Andrea and Cynthia.  14 east 27 St., NY NY

    Wednesday, August 9, 8:00 p.m.
    Burlesque Room at Serenas presents "BR Acoustic Sessions." Doors open at 8:00.  Free before 10:00, $5 cover after.  DJ This N DJ That will be spinning.
    Serenas in the basement of the Chelsea Hotel, 222 West 23rd, NY NY

    Friday, August 11, 11:00 – 5:00 p.m.
    Last chance to see "On Second Thought," a group show of multimedia work including Andy Warhol’s  black-on-black “Four Marilyns” (1979-86): a 36-by-28-inch silkscreen on canvas divided into four parts, each containing a barely discernible face of the legendary actress.  One of the most interesting pieces is the 1995 video, in which Mike Kelley and Paul McCarthy restage and warp 1970s performances by provocative artist Vito Acconci — complete with frontal nudity, bath bubbles and hysterics.
    Perry Rubenstein Gallery, 527 West 23rd St., NY NY

    Saturday, August 12, 7:00 p.m.
    The 22nd Annual New York Antifolk Festival opens today. The performers include Suzanne Vega.
    Thompkins Square Park, East Village, NY NY

  • A Room With Ghost: $4 and Up

    Lifemag1960s Bids start at $15.00 for this issue of Life Magazine from the mid-60s. Sounds like a bargain to me, but so far, only one bidder. Surely this artifact is worth something to somebody. The seller promises that the article about New York’s Most Illustrious Third Rate Hotel contains anecdotes of all the famous artists, musicians, and writers who have lived at the Hotel Chelsea. In the picture I can identify Mark Twain on the left, and Brendan Behan chugging from a bottle on the right, but on the rest I’m rather shakey.  If anybody can identify the others, let us know.

  • Oliver Stones Got Nothing on the Chelsea

    This week, Newsweek has a big article about Oliver Stone’s new movie, World Trade Center, and Newsweek’s website discusses the proliferation of 9/11 art.  But of course, as usual, the Chelsea was way ahead of Hollywood. Filmmaker Luke Joerger’s short film First Person 911, a series of vignettes shot during the 9/11 attack and its immediate Joergeraftermath, was screened at the New York Underground Film Festival in 2002. The film, shot on the day of the attacks, accurately captures the whole range of emotion, from disbelief to confusion to terror, of what it was like to be a New Yorker on September 11, 2001. You can view a bit of the film online. (Photo: Ray Mendez, Luke Joerger, Anthony Paris)
    Luke, of course, has since moved on (though not, of course, from the Chelsea!)You can view some of his more recent work at Chelsea Hotel Vlogs and Pods and at Snap Films.

  • Devendra Banhart Rocks, Trashes Room; Sid’s Old Mattress

    Rock and roll is here to stay.  Responding to Steven Kurutz’s dis of the Chelsea, several readers wrote iTvwind_1n to recount their rock and roll experience at the Chelsea.
        Former resident Bluehour tells us, “One day maybe I’ll write about the very nice rock star (Dee Dee Ramone) who peeled me off a sidewalk and helped me get back to my room, after, um, too much drinking.”  We can’t wait to hear!  And, funkydollarbill tells us of “trashed halls and rooms with bed sheets tied in knots, flooded bathrooms, burnt carpet, angry neighbors, furniture used as firewood, Db_3broken condoms, broken mirrors, broken windows, broken souls and very hungover musicians and directors.”  Funkydollarbill you see directs  produces music videos by such groups as The Utah Saints, Feeder,  Lorraine, Eye to Eye, Mortis, and Bob Sinclar. After the Devendra Banhart shoot, Stanley Bard said the room was “the worst he’d ever seen in his lifetime.”  And that’s saying a lot.
              Several readers wanted to make sure that I mentioned that Dee Dee Ramone was a long time resident as were Patti Smith and Leonard Cohen.
                And my neighbor from down the hall, who delivers her comments in person, told me a story Bloodstained about a friend – or maybe a friend –of-a-friend, as they say – who checked into Room 100 in the mid-eighties.  The mattress was lumpy, the springs poking through (standard issue here), so she decided to flip it over to see if that helped – only to find a horrorendous blood stain on the other side!
         Told of any other building in the world, this would be easy to dismiss as an obvious specimen of urban folklore.  But it rings true in the Chelsea for a couple of reasons: one is the almost unimaginable uncleanliness of certain corners of this place; the other is the legendary cheapness of our illustrious proprietor, Stanley Bard.
                Besides that, the Chelsea is such a weird, mythological place, that known laws of the physical universe – not to mention of commons sense and decency – are routinely suspended.  Even if it didn’t happen in the “real world” at the Chelsea, it did anyway.  As reader Jay Hails wrote, “If the     Chelsea isn’t Rock & Roll, then there is no Rock and Roll.” (Ed Hamilton)

  • David Goodwillie Discovers His Muse at the Chelsea

    We seem to have stumbled upon a trend here. David Goodwillie is the third author we’ve interviewedGood who got into the Chelsea via a sublet arrangement.  It sounds like David’s arrangement turned out OK. He met Anna Wintour down in Serena’s and he scored a room with a view: "When I woke up and looked outside, I saw this gorgeous girl walking around topless in her apartment.  She was getting ready for work, but must have known I could see her.  I’ve never seen anyone take so long to get dressed.  And right in front of the window the whole time.  It was a good writing day…"  You can hear David read Friday at 7:00 p.m. at the Astor Place Barnes & Noble.
    What do you do?
    I’ve done all kinds of things since moving to New York City eleven years ago.  I’ve been a minor league baseball player (in Ohio, actually), private investigator, Sothebys auction house expert, investigative reporter, Internet entrepreneur, and finally, settled down to write books, which is the only occupation I’ve been successful at and is clearly what I should have been doing all along.  That said, my first effort, a memoir called Seemed like a Good Idea at the Time (it came out JuneGoodwillbook 2nd), chronicles everything I did on the way to becoming a writer, so I suppose it wasn’t a waste.  It’s a generational story about what it was like coming of age in New York in the late nineties, the exact moment when the past–the history of the city that hangs heavy around us all the time–was overtaken by the future, by endless possibility–in the form of technology and the Internet boom.  Thankfully, it was something of a mirage, though it’s scarred a lot of us who lived through it.  I’m writing a novel now.
    When did you live at the Chelsea?
    I never lived at the Chelsea, but I did write part of my book there.  I wrote in a friend (and fellow-writer’s) room for parts of 2002-03.  It was something of a sublet arrangement, I suppose, though I sometimes rented my own room as well.  It’s a great place to work.  The thick walls keep the outside world away.

    What inspired you to move into the Hotel Chelsea?

    I’d always loved the place, or at least revered it, been awed by the history of it, and it seemed to me–and still does–a kind of anomaly, even in New York City.  It was a place where art–and the varied lifestyles that word produces–came first.  Being offbeat is almost a prerequisite at the Chelsea, and in a rapidly homogenizing world, that’s quite alluring. 
    Do you think the Chelsea has a creative spirit?
    Yes, of course, in the way that any historically intriguing place has a certain spirit.  It’s funny: for all the hubbub about celebrities and artists forever roaming the halls, the actual halls, once you get up and out of the lobby, are usually incredibly quiet.  Even at night.  The heavy guestroom doors can seem like barriers protecting the secrets inside.  When I was stuck on something, I used to get up and walk around–up and down the big central staircase–wondering whose room was whose.  What had happened in this one, in that one?  Where did Leonard Cohen live?  Which room did Edie set on fire.  I was always too shy to actually ask anyone.  I never wished walls could tell stories until I spent some time in the Chelsea Hotel. 
    Has your writing been influenced by any current or former Chelsea Hotel residents?
    My writing is influenced more by the city than any one person living in it.  And in that way the city–at least my version of the city–has a lot to do with the Chelsea Hotel.  When I was writing an early draft of my book, I got really frustrated one night and asked my then-girlfriend what she thought the theme of the book really was: Careers? Coming of Age? Commitment?  Relationships?  She thought about it for a minute and the said something I’d never considered before.  She told me I’d written a love story, an ode to my ongoing affair with New York, the city itself.  And she was right.  Within that city, there are a few epicenters, symbols of the place and its living past.  The Chelsea Hotel is one of them.   

    Who, among contemporary authors, do you most admire?

    James Salter, Adam Gopnik, Phil Gourevitch, Joan Didion, Martin Amis, Zadie Smith, David Gates, Colson Whitehead, Amy Hempel, Jay McInerney.  Language, the way words work together, is important to them.  And they all, whether writing fiction or non-fiction–have an incredible ability to place you in a vivid setting (yes, often New York), before strapping you in and taking you for a ride.   

    What was the best/worst thing that happened to you while living at the Chelsea?
    I had rented a room on the far right side of the hotel (the left if you’re facing it), and the windows looked across a "courtyard" (one of those urban wastelands between buildings) and into the apartment Tpgirl building across the way.  When I woke up and looked outside, I saw this gorgeous girl walking around topless in her apartment.  She was getting ready for work, but must have known I could see her.  I’ve never seen anyone take so long to get dressed.  And right in front of the window the whole time.  It was a good writing day… 
    The worst?  I got stuck in one of the elevators for twenty minutes.  Alone.  In mid-summer.  Not that fun.    
    Did you meet any famous folks while living at the Chelsea?
    I used to see Ethan Hawke and Rufus Wainwright coming in and out all the time.  Ethan was usually Aw alone, Rufus with a group.  I was friends with Sam Schaeffer, who along with his mother Serena Bass, were the original owners of Serena, so I spent a lot of time at the bar down there after long days of writing.  Sam knows everyone, so it was always quite a parade coming in and out of that cavernous basement.  I had my 30th birthday party at Serena (in 2002), and when I went in one afternoon to plan the thing with Sam, his then-stepmother Anna Wintour was there.  When I met her, she told me she liked my shoes.  I don’t think I took them off for a month after that.

    The marketing materials for "It Seemed Like A Good Idea at the Time," doesn’t promote that part of the book is set in the Chelsea, why?
    The time line of the book (1994-2001) takes place before my time at the Chelsea.  That said, the place Ccap affected me so much that I had to include it.  So I wrote a prologue (attached) that takes place at the Chelsea.  It’s at the beginning of the book, though it takes place sequentially after the book is done.  I think it serves to root the story in New York, because the first chapter (which immediately follows) actually takes place in Ohio, at a tryout for the Cincinnati Reds.  You can probably guess how that went.   
    Are you currently working on any projects you can tell our readers about?
    A political novel about modern-day America and the two sides of my generation–those who care too much, and those who care too little.  I’m trying to figure out which is worse…

    (more…)

  • Historian Unearths William Dean Howells’ Rent Receipt

    Sherill Tippins, the author of a forthcoming book on the history of the Hotel Chelsea, has been spending her time visiting the archives of famous former residents.  Among other interesting artifacts, she has been known to find old Hotel Chelsea rent receipts.  Recently she sent us a list of what apartments rented for at the Chelsea when it was first built (late 1800s), along with the conversion rate in today’s dollars:

    Pcone_3 A 3 to 4 room suite cost about $50-$100 per month, equaling about $1,000 to $2,000 in today’s dollars.
    An artist’s duplex rented for about $100 per month, i.e., $2,000 today.
    You could get one of the rambling, 10-12 room apartments for $167 to $250 per month, which translates to $3,000 to $5,000.

    Tippins goes on to say, “These prices were considered outrageous, but the Chelsea was built in the midst of a real estate boom and everyone was worried that housing prices were pushing out the middle class. (Not to mention the artists.)  Aside from the fact that the apartments were new then–at the time of the prices I gave you–those rents were also a much smaller part of the renters’ income, I think.  William Dean Howells’ income was about $850 per month [his salary equaled about $200,000 per year today], so a $250 apartment would have cost less than a third of his monthly nut."

    Howells The writer/editor William Dean Howells wrote to his father, after he rented a place at the Chelsea, "I watch my money flow as a stuck pig its life-stream.  It’s horrible to spend so much but I seem bound to it hand and foot." 
    William Dean Howells: now there is a writer who you don’t typically associate with the Chelsea. After all, he’s not listed on the hotel’s authoritative website. We were thrilled to learn of this connection, and mentioned it to one of our neighbors in passing, and he replied, “Too bad they don’t read him anymore.”   They’ll read him again now that they know he lived at the Chelsea!

  • Queer Eye Gets Help from Suite 303

    Suite303_176pxTonight’s episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy features a female to male transgender makeover.  April Barton of Suite 303 will be on hand to lend her expertise. 10:00 p.m. Bravo channel.

  • THE LOST ART OF ANGLING (IN THE HUNDRED-DEGREE HEAT OF JULY)

                Capitol Fishing Tackle, which has been in its present location on the ground floor of the Chelsea Hotel for sixty-five years, is moving at the end of July.  Since we’d never been in there before, my Capitolfishinggirlfriend Susan and I figured we should visit the store at least once, and maybe even buy something to show our support.

                Inside the tackle store we looked at various lures and bobbers and sinkers, and finally decided on a cheap rod and reel to use to play with the cat who lives on our floor.  At the register a tall, gaunt man with red, curly hair rang up our purchase, scarcely even glancing at us.

                “I heard you guys were moving,” I said.  “What happened?  Did Stanley raise the rent on you?”  Stanley Bard is the owner and manager of the hotel.

                The man looked up.  “Twenty-one-thousand he wants!  Can you believe it?  Up from nine-thousand he’s getting now.”

                “He’s raising it on a lot of us tenants too.”

                “He’s got a good thing here, good people,” the man said in a Brooklyn accent.  “Why’s he Capitalfishing want to screw it up?  He don’t know what he’s gonna get with the new people, he don’t know who’s gonna move in here.”  The man seemed bitter.

                “At these prices he’s going to have to provide luxury accommodations,” I said, half-jokingly.

                “Yeah.  And this place is fallin’ apart.  You don’t know the kind of shit we’ve had to put up with here.  It’s just greed.  Greed is all it is.”  He shook his head in disbelief.  “Sixty-five years,” he said.  “Why would he want to ruin a good thing?”

         Back on our floor at the Chelsea, I couldn’t wait to try out my new toy.  I unwrapped the reel—a Shakespeare!–and fastened it to the rod, then threaded the string through the eyelets and tied it to plastic casting plug.  But the cat was nowhere to be found.

                It was sweltering inside the hotel as well.  Susan and I went out to the stairwell and I hung the Nicimar rod over the edge and let the plug drop the eight stories down to the first floor landing.  “Works pretty good, eh?” I said as I reeled it back up.

                Somebody came into the stairwell on the second floor and started down the stairs.  “I’ll freak this dude out!” I said, and I let the plug drop. (photo)

                As I reeled it back up, a gray-haired man stuck his head over the railing and looked up at me.  “Oh, shit!” I said, ducking back out of the way.  “It’s Stanley Bard!” 

                Susan laughed, and said, “Quick, do it again!”

                I let the plug drop.  This time our illustrious proprietor was on the final flight of stairs before the first-floor landing.  When he heard the plug hit the ground he reached out for the line.  I jerked it out of his way but he ran down a few stairs and grabbed the plug as I was reeling it in.  He was surprisingly spry and quick for a seventy-year-old man.

                “Oh, we caught a big one!” Susan exclaimed.

                Plug in hand, Stanley looked up and called out, “Why are you doing that?”

                I was at a loss to explain it.  “We’re practicing for our fishing trip to Montana,” Susan said.  Sounded good enough for me.

                “Well, stop it!”

                My rod bowing, I jerked at the plug and tried to reel it back in, but Stanley didn’t want to let go.  I think he was trying to either break the line or untie the plug, but I had it on there pretty good.  Finally, he released the plug and it shot back skyward.

                Stanley came up in the elevator.  “It’s you!” he said with surprise when he saw me.

                “Yes,” I replied.

                “You could hurt somebody with that.”

                “I’m just dropping it straight down,” I said.  The first floor landing is enclosed by the railing, and nobody can get in there.

                “A little kid could stick his head out and get a concussion,” Stanley said.

                Whoops.  I didn’t think of that.  Seemed unlikely, the plug was too light, but he did have a point.  “OK, I’ll stop it,” I said.

                Stanley Bard: patron of the arts, sworn enemy of fishing.  I guess he has to put up with a lot around here too.  Some idiot casting a fishing reel down the stairwell, what next?

    (Ed Hamilton)

  • All Tomorrow’s Parties: July 31 – August 6

    Monday, July 31, 8:00 p.m.
    Gabriel_1Get a massage while you still can.  We hear that Serena’s will soon be closing for renovations.  Wonder if they will be able to make it look less like a basement?
    Serena’s in the basement of the Chelsea Hotel, 222 West 23rd St., NY NY

    Tuesday, August 1, 10:30 p.m.
    Hv_1 Susanne Bartsch and Kenny Kenny invite you to Happy Valley Tuesdays. As usual, there will be DJs (Alexander Technique and Mike Probe) and a hot show (Rose Wood). Downstairs: The Look, DJ Ryan and DJ John Selway) Hosts: Sophia Lamar, Miranda Moondust, Kim Aviance, Theodora and Amanda Lepore. (Photo: Surgery’s flickr pool)
    14 East 27th St., NY NY

    Wednesday, August 2, 8:00 p.m.
    Good_1David Goodwillie will read from Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time, at the Varisty Letters Reading Series hosted by ESPN.com columnist Dan Shanoff. In an interview with Legends, which we’ll publish in the near future along with an excerpt from the book, Goodwillie discusses the memoir’s mysterious Hotel Chelsea connection.
    Varisty Letters Reading Series, Happy Ending Bar, 302 Broome St, NY NY
    Goodwillie’s agent has written to let us know that Wednesday’s reading has been postphoned.  However, you can hear David read at 7:00, Friday, August 4 at the Astor Place Barnes & Noble.

    Friday, August 4, 9:35 a.m.
    WsThe heat’s on, so stay inside in the air conditioning and catch Wallace Shawn in My Dinner with Andre. Fascinating table talk between an actor and his writer-director friend. Directed in cinema-verite style. Flix Movie Channel.

  • Shameless Self Promotion: Legends Receives Blog of the Day Honor

    Each day, Six Apart selects one blog to promote as featured blog of the day.  Last Sunday, Trophy Legends received this honor.  Here’s what Six Apart had to say about our blog: “An amazing Slice-of-Life blog that chronicles the tapestry of personalities at the Chelsea .” They also reprinted a comment from one of our readers: “ This really is the most consistently fascinating blog on the internet…”

    Six Apart, for those of you who don’t know, is a company that provides blogging software and other services to thousands of blogs.  They are, in other words, that rarest of creatures: a web 2.0 company that is actually making money.  The software we use to maintain Legends is called Typepad.  It’s easy to use and fairly reliable.  Although Six Apart has had a couple of server failures during the course of the year—and hey, shit happens–they compensated customers by giving them a free month of service.  Also impressive is their ability to respond quickly to questions such as, “How can I add video to my blog?”

    In recognition of being selected as featured blog of the day, Six Apart sent us a couple of tee-shirts that say “Typepad loves me.”  We would have preferred  “Blog of the Day” (or better yet, “Blog of the Century”) but it’s still nice to get something.  So, thanks, Six Apart.