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  • Jumpin Butterballs! They’re Trying to Tear Down the Marx Brother’s Home

         Jumpin’ Butterballs! You might think you’re in the Marx Brother’s movie “Room Service” around here, the way the bumbling, incompetent management keeps trying to evict the struggling artists (some things never change), but at least no one has seriously proposed demolishing the Chelsea.  But the childhood homoe of Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Zeppo doesn’t have our landmark status. 

    Marx Brothers Place is the NYC block where the beloved childhood home of the Marx Brothers still stands – as of today. But, since Marx Brothers Place is but one block shy of the boundary for the Carnegie Hill Historic District, the Marx Borthers House and every other house on th block remains vulnerable to demolition. Three beautiful 19th century houses have already been demolished to make room for a modern CONDO-Complex! 

    Please join Harpo’s son, Bill Marx; Woody Allen; Bob Weide and so many others who have signed the petitions (2) to extend the CH Historic District to include Marx Brothers Place, and to ask NYC to officially co-name East 93rd Street between Lexington & Third Avenues ‘Marx Brothers Place’.




    Spoiler Alert! In case, after 70 years, you haven’t seen “Room Service” in the end Groucho and his brothers manage to put on their play and pay the hotel their back rent. Though Stanley Bard was only a toddler when the movie first came out, he seem to have absorbed the lessons of the film.

  • Come Back to the Chelsea Ryan! We’re Not In New York!

    So, former Chelsea Hotel resident Ryan Adams has left New York because the New York Times was mean to him.  Apparently they criticized one of his songs — imagine that — and said he needed to self-Ryanadams498 edit a little better.  Well, don't we all.  But how will moving to LA help?  Can't the NYT still get ahold of his albums and trash them?  And don't people in LA read the NYT? In this day and age I think they can even get it online.  You can't escape the long arm of the NYT!
         And what's with the papers in LA?  Has he got them on his payroll?  Or will he have to pack up and move again once they criticize him?
        Well, you're always welcome at the Chelsea, Ryan.  Somtimes I'm not sure whether or not we're even in New York — but if you're like a lot of people here, you'll have no problem pretending you're on a different, friendlier and more human planet, altogether.  (For better or for worse!)
         What I'm really wondering, however, is how we can convince the NYT to be mean to Chelsea Hotel minority share holder Marlene Krauss so she'll move to Lapland or Tanzania, or blast off in a rocket to Mars. — Ed Hamilton

  • Stefan Brecht Historian of the Avante Garde Theatre, 1924-2009

    We only knew Stefan in recent years when he was suffering from a form of Parkinson and we wish Brecht we could have known him earlier in his life.  Though sometimes he came across as a misanthrope Stefan had a heart of gold.  Stefan was never a Chelsea Hotel resident but he had a studio here for over two decades and made many friends here over the years. Traveling daily between the Chelsea and his apartment in  Greenwich Village he photographed the sidewalk and recorded the vibe of the neighborhood in his poems, which humanize the underside of the Chelsea neighborhood without romanticizing it in the least.  I reviewed two of Stefan’s books for Chelsea Now and that was how I got to know Stefan and his charming wife Rena Gill.  In April 2007 Stefan’s many friends gathered at St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery to celebrate the release of his two books and to remember Stefan’s long life and illustrious career in the theater.  We are all saddened by his passing.

    Stefan Brecht was born in 1924 in Berlin, Germany, and came to America with his family in 1942. He earned a Ph.D. in philosophy at Harvard, and moved to New York in the early ’60s, becoming a critic and historian of avant garde theatre. Brecht marched beside the Bread and Puppet Theatre troupe, and documented Robert Wilson’s group when they met daily in a loft on Spring Street.

    Brecht has written poetry all his life. He self-published his first book of poetry, “Poems,” in 1975, which led to his big break when the book was spotted by editor Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who subsequently picked it up for his City Lights Pocket Series.

    The recognition facilitated the publication of Brecht’s opus, a multi-volume history of the alternative theater, “The Original Theatre of the City of New York : From the Mid-Sixties to the Mid-Seventies.” Completed volumes include “The Theatre of Visions: Robert Wilson” (Suhrkamp, 1978); “Queer Theatre” (Suhrkamp, 1978); and the two-volume study: “Peter Schumann’s Bread and Puppet Theatre” ( Methuen , 1988). A hitherto untitled volume on the theatre of Richard Foreman ( Methuen) is also scheduled for release. — Ed Hamilton  (Photo of Stefan Brecht at the Hotel Chelsea, Room 1010, 1979 by Maggie Hopp. 

  • New Renaissance for Chelsea Hotel: The Guardian Reviews The Chelsea Hotel Film Festival

         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

  • The New Faux-SRO Trend

         The faux-diner has been popular for years, since, once greedy landlords ran all of the real diners Acedesknyc off adventurous yuppies craved a return to that “real New York” dining experience.  And now that most all of the residential hotels have been cleared out, their tenants scattered to the wind, up pops the faux-sro.  To give all of those faux bohemians and faux winos a place where they can pretend to be keeping it real.  On the cutting edge of this trend is the Ace hotel which was formerly the Breslin Hotel an SRO catering to artists and other genuine New Yorkers.  Instead of the crappy clapboard furniture, old record players and broken down refrigerators that were no doubt Acefridgenyc thrown out on the street when the Breslin’s tenants were evicted the Ace now features crappy ikea furniture and kitschy appliances such as turn tables and refrigerators making it look like a dorm room from the seventies.  We don’t know what the hell to make of the Joe Lewis boxing robes, though they are obviously some sort of evocation of a past era.  Maybe they’re sending a message to the tourists that they need to be prepared to go a round or two with the few remaining permanent tenants.  In today’s financial climate, if there’s not enough money to build a Acerobenyc real boutique hotel, just make it cheap and tell people they like it.   – Ed Hamilton  (Photos: www.hotelchatter.com)

  • Highlights from Chelsea Hotel on Film at Anthology Film Archives

        Thanks to all involved for making the Chelsea Hotel Film Festival a success! In addition to attending the press preview for Harry Smith’s #23—a remarkable film, though one of our neighbors tells us that Harry considered it unfinished—we also stopped by the Anthology Film Archives a couple of times over the weekend to check out a few other Chelsea related offerings. 
        We heard that the premiere of #23 was well attended and that celebrities Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye were in the audience. (Patti is featured in the film.) Additionally, Chelsea Hotel historian Sherill Tippins tells us that all the screenings of Andy Warhol’s Chelsea Girls were sold out. (Actually, this is not surprising since it’s rarely shown. We skipped Chelsea Girls this time since we’ve already seen it twice.) So despite recent unfortunate events, and despite the fact that this was Easter weekend, the Chelsea is still popular!  
        On Saturday we attended the screening of Doris Chase’s 1992 documentary Hotel Chelsea. In one of the more interesting interviews, Stanley Bard speaks of how, as a young man, he resented the hotel because his father spent so much time there. Then he goes on to explain how he too gradually came to love the Chelsea. This theme surfaces again in Sam Bassett’s film, as Stanley talks about how his own son David may have initially felt pressured to take a role in the hotel’s management, when in fact he would have rather been doing something else. But the Chelsea bug gradually came to infect David as well. 
        On Sunday, Sherill Tippins introduced the screening of Robert Flaherty’s Louisiana Story, by discussing the hotel’s early years. The Chelsea was of course designed by Fourier disciple Philip Hubert as a socialist experiment in cooperative living; but one think we didn’t know was that, in addition to artists, the building also initially housed some of the financers and builders of the Chelsea. Tippins considers Louisiana Story to be the perfect Chelsea Hotel film. For one thing, it was a collaboration between three Chelsea residents: director Robert Flaherty, composer Virgil Thomson, and cinematographer Richard Leacock. For another, it embodies the aesthetic style of naturalism prevalent in the Chelsea at the time, representing a distinctly American, as opposed to European, tradition. Finally, in an expression of one of the core values of Bohemia, the film demonstrates how master craft person and Chelsea Hotel resident Robert Flaherty is passing his knowledge on to another resident, the young Leacock. 
        What we’re really looking forward to now is a showing of Harry Smith’s great Mahagonny, though we may have to wait awhile, since the folks at AFA tell us that the royalties for the Kurt Weill score of the film are prohibitively expensive. 
        For now, this will have to do!  Recorded in Chelsea Hotel, NYC, 1965. Edited, for length, as part of the Chelsea Hotel Series – Anthology Film Archives, April 2009 Harry Smith discusses hand drawn film techniques, missing films, the process of “visual music,” or painting to sound. Smith also discusses borrowed cameras and the pawn shops they end up in, influences through dance and myth, surrealism, op art, and the cataloging of images and “sortilege” method. Interview finishes with the discussion of a future film idea involving Andy Warhol and a 20 minute picture of Mt. Fuji, Jack Smith, Robert Frank, Stan Vanderbeek animating aboriginal bark painting, a screenplay by Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs and maybe Allen Ginsberg, with Smith supervising. Also ideas to make and distribute underground movies to be shown in little towns. Audio transferred, compiled, and edited by Victoria Keddie (NYU) for Anthology Film Archives 04/09/09.

  • Summer Infant Baby Monitor Malfunctions AGAIN; Blame it on the Blog

    There’s no end to the trouble with Summer Infant baby monitors.  Remember when we reported that they were receiving messages from a NASA satellite?  Well now it seems that they’re broadcasting signals all Horrifyalfiefinal around the neighborhood.  This mom was horrified to find that baby Alfie was starring in his own REALITY show on the neighbor’s TV courtesy of Summer Infant’s baby monitor.  

    'I ran straight over and as soon as I walked in I saw Alfie on the TV screen. Erin said I turned as white as a ghost and looked like I was about to faint. … 'It was really scary to think that anyone could have been watching my baby.'  

    Summer Infant’s response: 'We're limited to a certain number of frequency bands and they are becoming more clogged up … simply because more people have got wireless internet and other wireless equipment.'   I guess it’s the blog’s fault once again.

    Kudos to Chelsea Hotel minority shareholder Marlene Krauss and company for at least keeping the signals earth bound this time. — Ed Hamilton (via Daily Mail)

  • Long Live the Chelsea! Especially on Film & Video

    In a huge show of support from one bastion of alternative culture to another, The Anthology Film Archives is presenting Chelsea Hotel on Film, a series of films about, filmed at, or created by residents of the Chelsea Hotel.  (For more info: Brooklyn Rail, NY Times, New Yorker, Chelsea Now, Village Voice, TWI-NY)
    Here's the schedule:
    Alex Cox, SID AND NANCY – Punk rockers come from all over the world to burn candles in front of what they believe to be Sid & Nancy ’s door.  Whether we like it or not Sid & Nancy have become the Romeo and Juliet of the Chelsea Hotel. Sid & Nancy is the quintessential Chelsea Hotel movie if for nothing else than the spot-on portrayal of Stanley Bard. 
    1986, 1112 minutes, 35 mm. With Gary Oldman, Chloe Webb and Courtney Love
    Thursday, April 9 at 7:15 and Friday, April 10 at 9:15

    SHIRLEY CLARKE PROGRAM
    TEEPEE VIDEO SPACE TROUPE (1971); SAVAGE/LOVE (1981); TONGUES (1982)      Independent filmmaker Shirley Clarke  (the only woman to have a plaque on the front of the hotel) founded The Teepee Video Space Troupe, and operated it out of her Chelsea Hotel penthouse where her later videos were made, including Savage/Love and Tongues, which are a two-part collaboration with playwright Sam Shepard and actor/director Joseph Chaiken.
    Plus: Jonas Mekas: CHELSEA FOOTAGE
    Thursday, April 9 at 9:30

    Harry Smith, FILM #23 —  1980s, 23.5 mintues, 16 mm. A composition of portraits, string figures and sand animation, similar to Smith’s earlier film Late Superimpositions (1964).  Recently restored with support from the Andy Warhol Foundation. Prior to this preservation only one print was said to exist. 
    Plus: Michel Auder VIDEO VISIT – HARRY SMITH, ROOM #705, CHELSEA HOTEL 1971
    Friday, April 10 at 7:00, Saturday, April 11 at 5:30, and Sunday, April 12 at 9:00

    Doris Chase, THE CHELSEA (1993) 67 minutes, video.  THE CHELSEA is an entertaining and informative account of the eclectic personalities who resided at the hotel in 1993.  Many of them still live here!
    Plus: Michael Maher BLOGGING FROM BOHEMIA (2007) In the last documentary filmed at the hotel prior to the Bard family's ouster Maher's short documentary reports on the forces of gentrification threatening the Chelsea neighborhood as seen through the eyes of the blog.  Stanley Bard discusses the pressure he's under from the minority shareholders.
    Ed Hamilton & Sam Bassett INTERVIEW WITH STANLEY BARD (2008) Filmed one year post ouster Stanley Bard offers a message of hope for struggling Chelsea residents.
    Saturday, April 11 at 3:00

    Andy Warhol, THE CHELSEA GIRLS (1966) ca. 210 minutes 16 mm double-projection. Showcases the glamorous, drugged out personalities of Warhol’s entourage, featuring Nico, Ondine, Marie Menken, Mary Woronov, Gerard Malanga, International Velvet, Ingrid Superstar, Mario Montez, Eric Emerson, and Brigid Berlin. This is the best film ever made about the hotel and it is rarely shown so you should go down there and see it while you have the chance!
    Saturday, April 11 at 7:45 and Sunday, April 12 at 5:00

    Robert Flaherty, LOUISIANA STORY (1948) 78 minutes, 35 mm.
    This film represents a collaboration between three talented Chelsea Hotel residents. In addition to the director Flaherty, the score was composed by Virgil Thomson and the cinematographer was Ricky Leacock. Writer Sherill Tippins will be on hand to introduce the screening and speak about the Hotel's early days.
    Sunday, April 12 at 3:00

    The Anthology Film Archives is located at 32 Second Avenue, NY NY

  • Rumblings from the Chelsea Hotel’s Law Firm Belkin Burden

         New York real estate legend Dan Peckham sent us this e-newsletter produced by Belkin Burden a few years back, but we didn’t make the connection that the law firm trying to evict him was also the Chelsea Hotel’s law firm!  They haven’t had much luck getting rid of  Peckham, now have they?  That certainly gives us reason to be optimistic. 
         On the other hand, this newsletter should make your head spin.  In it Belkin Burden is basically advertising that they can get rid of rent stabilized tenants through luxury decontrol and demolition application.  (The latter presumably includes the so called “phony demolition” that they used against Peckham.) At least it’s good to know where we stand with these guys.  Get ready to rumble indeed.
    Belkinrumble

  • Norwegian writer brings word of former guest Sara Stridsberg’s fame in Norway

        Here in  New York we don’t always get the latest news on the literary scene in Norway.  Luckily Hilde Kvalvaag, a writer from  Norway doing an article on the Chelsea filled us in on the recent fame and fortune S_ker_195843w of former Chelsea hotel guest and novelist Sara Stridsberg.  Some of you might remember our post about Stridsberg from May 2005 when she was in town with her friend and they were sitting in the lobby banging away on a manual typewriter in an attempt to recreate the notorious Chelsea Hotel resident and Warhol shooter Valerie Solanas’ Scum Manifesto. 
             Well, since then Stridsberg has published her novel “The Dream Faculty” about Solanas in Norway where it was widely read, and earned her a prestigious Nordic Council Literature Prize which carries an award of 350,000 kroner which Hilde tells us is approximately the equivalent of $50,000 U.S. Let’s all raise a toast to a Chelsea fellow traveler who made good. Who says hanging out in the Chelsea lobby can’t be profitable?