Don’t let yourselves be evicted. All across the US people are taking their financial destinies back from the banks and corporations that sought to possess them. There’s a lot more involved in the concept of ownership of a building than meets the eye. Just because a building owner says shut your mouth and pay, doesn’t mean you have to meekly give in. There is a social contract involved, and the owners of this and other buildings are breeching that contract. We have struggled to create the community of the Chelsea Hotel and we own a piece of this building too and have a say in what goes on here. Join a growing nationwide civil disobedience campaign which will kick off on Thursday in New York and other cities. You won’t be the only ones chaining yourselves to your radiators, and Police are becoming more and more hesitant to evict someone for conditions caused by the excessive greed of the rich property owners. Also, as part of the campaign, if you are being evicted, a network of people will show up at your door to create a barricade and help prevent the eviction. — Ed Hamilton
Living with Legends
Hotel Chelsea Blog
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Continuing her series of articles on the history of social activism at the Chelsea Hotel, Sherrill Tippins, author of the upcoming Dream Palace, a history of the Chelsea, writes:
William Dean Howells, former editor of Boston's prestigious Atlantic Monthly, stayed at the Chelsea as he was moving to New York in order to write for Harper's magazines and lead the development of American literature in New York. At the Chelsea in 1888, he read Looking Backward, the utopian novel by his Massachusetts protege, Edward Bellamy. Bellamy's vision of a Henry-George-type society in which all natural resources are owned by the state, reducing the waste of private enterprise and freeing
citizens from penury, covetousness, and neglected talents, changed Howells's life. Previously a comfortable armchair liberal, Howells became an angry activist for social justice–pushing the cause of literary realism as a tool for creating social change, writing his own realistic novels addressing the damaging issue of real estate prices in New York; the plight of factory workers in Massachusetts; the rising anger of the working class in downtown Manhattan, etc. He embarrassed his upper-class friends with his sarcastic columns in Harper's criticizing American imperialism in Cuba and the Philippines, railing against the executions of the alleged conspirators in Chicago's Haymarket riot, and praising Tolstoy's socialist ideas. (In 1892 he also wrote a novel titled The Coast of Bohemia that captures the atmosphere of the Chelsea, and of the city's social and artistic changes, in the late 1880s.) But in the end, Howells was unable to venture fully out of his fastidious middle-class worldview. It would take years for another shabby young protege, Stephen Crane, to persuade Howells to actually venture inside some of the miserable tenement apartments on the Lower East Side–and to show the older writer how a truly realistic New York novel like Crane's own Maggie: A Girl of the Streets really could create social change.
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Today (Feb. 16, 2009) at 5:00 p.m. the tenants of the Jane St. Hotel will protest against their slum lords Sean Mcphearson and his sidekick Glennon "GIGI" Travis. The Jane Street Tenants Association has extended an invitation to Chelsea Hotel tenants to join the protest. The Jane Hotel is located at 113 Jane Street between West and Washington Streets in the West Village. If you can't attend the protest please follow their struggle on youtube.
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You can add the community newspaper Chelsea Now to the growing chorus of voices outside of the hotel that realize that the Chelsea Hotel can only be managed by the Bard family. (The same has previously been said by hotelier Ira Drukier and actor Ethan Hawke.) In the wake of Andrew Tilley’s shameful abdication, Chelsea Now proposes a compromise between the minority
shareholders and the Chelsea Hotel ’s tenants: bring back David Bard as general manager of the Chelsea under the (hopefully limited) direction of the minority shareholders. Chelsea Now is right in saying that tenant activists would support this compromise, and so now the only barrier seems to be minority shareholder Marlene Krauss’s perverse desire to bury the Bard family at all costs. And costly it has been indeed for the Chelsea Hotel and its shareholders, as occupancy rates reportedly sunk to 20% or less under Tilley’s incompetent stewardship.
We would like to point out, however, that while Chelsea Now claims that “. . .the more outspoken tenants’ guerilla tactics have been disgraceful. . .” referring perhaps to Tilley’s unproven claim to have received panties and magazine subscriptions in the mail, the newspaper fails to mention the hotel management’s own far more reprehensible tactics, such as hiring goons to assault a tenant (David Elder admitted to this in a DHCR hearing), endangering tenants with illegal construction, and evicting tenants, including the elderly. THIS IS OUR HOME, FOLKS! There is a vast difference in kind here between the tactics of dedicated, unpaid activists (which no one would be complaining about if they hadn’t been successful) and those of management. While Tilley may have been made uncomfortable by some tenants’ actions, I have yet to hear of anyone showing up at his home in New Jersey and attempting to turn him out into the street.
Nobody is trying to evict Marlene Krauss either, though it she keeps investing in ponzi schemes, she may finally come to empathize with the plight of the Chelsea Hotel’s tenants. – Ed Hamilton -
For the fabulous occasion she has selected funky yet stylish glasses desiged by Mercura, the design company founded by the Chelsea Hotel's own Rachel Cohen and her sister Merrilee. The Feb. 14 fashion show will feature work by 50 designers and will be shown live on www.barbie.com
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On Wednesday, Man-Kinda-Sorta-In-Charge Arnold Tamasar had workers take down the letters “RD” in the room next to tenant activist Arthur Nash. The tenant who previously lived in the room had allowed Arthur to use her windows to display part of his message in support of the return
of the Bard family. Unfortunately, the tenant was forced out by management a couple of weeks ago, as part of their program to clear the building of permanent tenants (they are concentrating on this wing of the second floor, where Bob Dylan’s room is also located). Fortunately, management will not be able to do any demolition/renovation in the room at this time, as the building is under a DOB stop work order due to illegal construction in Dylan’s room. — Ed Hamilton
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Over the course of its long history, the Chelsea Hotel has been primarily associated with the arts. But the hotel also boasts a proud tradition of social activism. From Philip Hubert and William Dean Howells to Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Abbie Hoffman and beyond, Chelsea Hotel residents have refused to
knuckle under to the forces of oppression, choosing instead to refuse and resist, to fight back, and to struggle for the betterment of the human race. Those of you who want the full story will have to read Sherill Tippins’ upcoming history of the Chelsea, Dream Palace. (Fun Fact: the Chelsea may have been designed to encourage celebratory orgies!) But in the meantime, she has been good enough to give us a preview:
First up: Philip Gengembre Hubert, Chelsea architect, child of the socialist uprisings in Paris and supporter of many of utopian proto-socialist philosopher Charles Fourier's ideas. Fourier believed that it is society's duty to adapt itself to the desires and needs of human nature of all kinds–as opposed to the current state of affairs in which individuals are forced to conform to society's commercial and industrial requirements. Fourier designed large palaces, called phalansteries, in which residents would choose their own work–changing their activities every two hours or so to prevent boredom–while enjoying five elegant, stimulating meals per day together, working together on elaborate opera productions, eschewing marriage, domestic chores, and individual child-raising in favor of free love, a communal kitchen and laundry, and nurseries for the children, and marking their group successes with celebratory orgies. For a phalanstery to work in harmony, Fourier believed, it must include at least 1620 people. (He later decided that 810, or even 400, people would so in a pinch if necessary.) A group this size was likely to contain at least one of each basic type of human being. In Fourier's philansteries, every type was welcome and each type given work and an environment suitable to his or her nature–no matter what his or her age, social background, talents or interests, sexual proclivities, or moral makeup. Only by refusing to restrict any expression of the true self could a society remain healthy and fully productive, Fourier claimed. Artists in particular needed such an enviornment in order to perform their role as members of the avant-garde, seeking out new directions for society to go.
The Chelsea's dimensions are remarkably similar, if not identical, to those of Fourier's phalansteries. (Though Fourier's were shaped like a squared-off letter "U," like traditional palaces, New York lot sizes required a folding in of the two wings toward the center, resulting in a central wing of double thickness, with an eight-foot-wide corridor running through the center.) The building is large enough to hold the minimum number of 400 people. Shared dining rooms and roof promenade were provided. The purpose was to create an atmosphere of freedom in which an American culture could begin to form. At the same time, down the street at 23rd and Park, he also built the original Lyceum, then a community theater (that is, non-commercial)–probably the first ever built in the city. Along with it, he created the Lyceum School of Drama, later to evolve into the American Academy of Dramatic Arts–the first successful drama school in the city open to all students, male and female, regardless of their ability to pay. The theater and school stood in for Fourier's opera house, where citizens of the phalanstery worked out the stories that would define their life together.
Because Philip Hubert's cooperatives made housing so inexpensive, New Yorkers stood in line to get an apartment in one of his buildings. He made a fortune from what he called his Home Clubs. In 1886, when the socialist reformer Henry George ran for New York mayor–backed by some of the city's wealthiest former abolitionists and other old activists–Hubert (a resident of the Chelsea at the time) became George's largest financial backer. Henry George's demand that New York's (and America's) increasingly valuable real estate and natural resources be taxed at nearly 100% as a "single tax," freeing Americans from having to pay income tax, sales tax, or any other fees that discouraged productivity, increased poverty, and encouraged damaging speculation through real estate warehousing, evictions, etc., inspired huge marches through the streets of the city in support of his plan. He nearly won the election, but the Tammany machine managed to slip in enough votes to snatch power out of the socialists' hands.
Meanwhile, large apartment houses including Hubert's cooperatives were banned in New York–ostensibly from fear of fires or the spread of disease in such large buildings. But since hotels were not similarly restricted, the ban appeared to be at least partly designed to target the "socialist" cooperatives. In any case, even after the ban was lifted, the true communal purpose of the cooperatives was forgotten over the decades and just the financial advantages were retained. Hubert himself, frustrated by his inability to see his program through after 1895, moved to California, where he spent the rest of his life designing small homes and labor-saving devices for the working poor. To the end, he considered The Chelsea his greatest creation.
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On Thursday, February 6, the police were called to escort a 75-year-old man from his room at the Chelsea Hotel. The elderly gentleman, a regular at the hotel when Stanley was in charge, no
doubt thought the same rules would apply when he checked into the hotel in January. He had been expecting to be able to stay on indefinitely, as he had been in the past, and had actually paid his rent through to the next week. He was on his 29th day in residence, when Director of Operations Arnold Tamasar swooped down on him with the cops at approximately noon, ordering the gentleman to be out by 4 PM. (Actually, it took a lot of negotiating to get this extension to 4, as Tamasar wanted the resident out immediately.)
The police acted with professionalism and courtesy, but many of them expressed obvious disgust that they were forced to carry out this unsavory task. One officer, incredulous, even asked Tamasar, “You’re evicting a 75-year-old man?!”
Though Tamasar claimed to be acting within the letter, if not the spirit, of SRO laws intended to protect the most vulnerable New Yorkers from ending up on the street, it is likely that the man was here long enough to make a claim of permanent status. (As Stanley said,
everything they do ends up in litigation, and this will be no exception.) In any event, with the hotel at 35% occupancy and forced to rent even the largest suites for $89 per night, how much sense does it make for Tamasar to turn up his nose at a stable tenant paying much more? (Answer: it only makes sense if they intend to get us all out.)
The issue is complicated by Tamasar’s bizarre claim that the man threw a bag of orange powder, marked BIOHAZARD, from the balcony of his room, somehow managing to wing it underneath the hotel awning. Much of Tamasar’s time, upward of two hours, that afternoon was spent observing and audio taping myself and other concerned residents as we struggled to move the gentleman’s belongings out before the deadline. Additionally, he wasted more time attempting to entrap the elderly gentleman into some kind of admission of guilt in this matter.In your face, Tilley! cocky bathroom specialist Tamasar must be saying, You were only able to evict three tenants in your whole six months on the job, and I’ve already booted one in my first week! — Ed Hamilton (Photos provided by Arthur Nash. 1 – Tamasar and Cops, 2 – Man searches for receipts while cops discuss situation.)
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Chelsea Hotel resident Mickie Esemplare's dog Lucky passed away on Friday, February 6. Lucky was fortunate in that he spent the last 8 years of his life at the Chelsea Hotel where he had many friends of both the two-legged and four-legged variety. Lucky hadn't been able to go out much lately as he was having trouble getting around. He'll sure be missed by all of the denizens of the Hotel.
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Last week the complete list of Bernie Madoff’s “victims” was released by the courts. And low and behold, the Chelsea Hotel’s own Marlene Krauss, Chair of our board of directors, was featured in its pages, with not one, but two listings. Unfortunately, the document doesn’t reveal the amount of money she “invested,” though maybe that will come to light at a future time.We’re sure that the
money is from her own personal fund rather than that of the investors in her heath care venture capitalist firms (KBL Healthcare Corp III and KBL IV), as such would, we understand, not be quite kosher. Though the temptation might have existed to put the KBL money in what appeared to be a higher-yield fund such as Madoff’s, we’re sure Marlene would want to do the right thing and put the approximately $350 million into a more secure fund such as treasury bonds. But what she worry? With room rates at the Chelsea Hotel slashed to $89/night for even the most expensive suites, she’s sure to make her money back in no time. Expressions of sympathy should take the form of personal checks, money orders, loose change, S&H Green Stamps or gently used coats, and can be sent to Mistress Marlene at her POB Box or dropped in the convenient repository at the Chelsea’s front desk. — Ed Hamilton
Living with Legends 