Living with Legends

Now that we’ve swept BD Hotels into the dustbin of Chelsea history, let their onerous regulations also be exorcised once and for all from our fair building!  Remember when they first arrived, and, scowling, stood in our way and physically barred us from retrieving our mail from behind the front desk?  That area behind the desk is a common area that was stolen from us by BD.  And now that they are no more, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t reclaim it.  If you have mail in your box, go back there and get it yourself.  And strike a blow for freedom!
           Also, the desk staff should bring back their TV and their radio: what’s the harm in them listening to a little bit of music or catching the action on the Yankees game?  Especially if it’s quiet in the hotel and there’s nothing going on?

Fellow residents: cast off your shackles!  Move your furniture back into the hallways, and let your pets and your children once again run free in the halls!  (I myself will be rooting through the rubbish to find interesting items to replace my Garbage Art installations confiscated by the evil philistine Glennon Travis.)  Let us celebrate anew the spirit of freedom and non-conformity that has reigned for 125 years at the Chelsea Hotel. — Ed Hamilton  (UPDATE: Thanks to Artie Nash for sending over the photo of the rules.)

        Check out Chris Shott’s Observer article on last weekend’s confrontation between hotel layabout David Elder, recently promoted (or was he?) to a position of somewhat greater power, and hotel resident and pro-Stanley Bard activist Arthur Nash.  Amid the hilarious recounting of Elder being chased by his doppelganger, having an unspecified (hopefully noxious) liquid dumped on his head, and drinking a Shirley Temple, Shott correctly points out that Nash never physically accosted or threatened the novice hotelier.  He just gave him a piece of his mind.
            But Shott doesn’t detail the later confrontation that erupted between Nash and one of the gigantic goons Elder hired in response to Nash’s criticism.  According to Nash, what happened on Monday night was that after he retrieved his mail from behind the front desk, he was barred from entering the elevator and menaced by the approximately 6’5”,  275 lb. security guard (who had apparently been instructed to deal harshly with Nash).  After returning to his room to get his camera—he had been instructed by his lawyer to document all confrontations—Nash attempted to take the guard’s picture.  In response, the guard tried to wrench the camera away from Nash and then grabbed him in a bear hug and body slammed him against the front desk, smashing the camera (and Nash’s hand) against the counter repeatedly until the batteries flew out.  The guard continued to wrestle with Nash as Nash tried to use the house phone to call the police.  A resident who had witnessed the altercation, and who corroborated Nash’s story, said that in all his or her time at the Chelsea, he or she had never seen anything so frightening.   Nash eventually did manage to call the police, but they decided they didn’t have sufficient cause to arrest the guard.  (The photo of one of Nash’s injuries speaks volumes.)            
        The day before, Sunday, two other goons—with Elder standing behind them–had hassled Nash as well, chest butting him and trying to force him into the back stairwell off the lobby where there are no security cameras, and of course, no witnesses.  And then, on Tuesday afternoon, two goons were caught milling around outside Nash’s apartment, in an apparent attempt to intimidate Nash and his girlfriend.  (I don’t even know where the hell we’re living anymore—some kind of alternate, Bizarro Chelsea.)
           One mistake in the article: Piri Thomas is not Elder’s father-in-law.  This would imply that someone, presumably a woman, had actually consented to marry Elder at some point in time, a patent absurdity.  Piri married Elder’s mother, making him Elder’s step-father (and I’ll bet he wishes he would have paddled young Elder’s butt a bit more severely while he had the chance!)
  [By the way, Arthur’s show in DC is a scaled down version of his much larger traveling show “Infernal Machines, The Evolution of US Capitol Punishment,” and it opens on May 16^th, with the grand opening scheduled for May 23^rd, at the National Museum of Crime and Punishment in Washington D.C.] — Ed Hamilton

Well, BD hasn’t come back, and as such, I just want to step back and point out—before we lose sight of this in our ongoing struggle–that their ouster represents a great victory for the residents of the Chelsea Hotel.  And it’s a victory not only for us, but for tenants of New York as a whole, and for all those allied in the fight against gentrification.  For here’s this huge real-estate firm,  whose owners came out and stated at the outset that they intended to evict the permanent tenants, gut renovate the Chelsea, and turn it into a fancy boutique hotel.  And where are Born and Drukier and their underlings now?  It seems we’ve evicted them!
        Sure, we had help from the downturn in the economy, and from the division between BD and the shareholders, and certainly from the press and the outraged public, but basically we got rid of them by organizing and staying together.  We lost 15 of our fellow residents, and we haven’t yet won the war, but we’ve won a huge battle.  And if a bunch of self-centered artists such as ourselves can do it, surely others can do it as well.  Let’s throw the greedy profiteers out of our city and return it to the real New Yorkers. — Ed Hamilton (Photo: Robert Lambert’s most recent painting.)
 

A tipster writes in to report that David Elder’s twin made an appearance at the Chelsea last evening and Elder himself was none too pleased. He tried to bar his long lost relation from entering the ballroom.  When he came face-to-face with his doppleganger — a reflection of his guilty conscience –he fled in terror to cower in the inner sanctum of his office. You can run Elder, but you can’t hide. The truth will follow you to your grave.  The tipster even sent along some photos for our enjoyment.

Now that she has fired the elite BD Hotels from their job of managing the Chelsea Hotel, Marlene Krauss has launched an aggressive outdoor ad campaign to attract a new manager.  Obviously, she has quickly come to the realization that anybody who walks in off of the street could do a better job than Chelsea Hotel Board Member David Elder. If you’re walking by on the street and got a spare moment come in and apply. Our standards are not real high at this time.  NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY — OBVIOUSLY.
 

Chelsea Hotel historian Sherill Tippins has written in to provide us with this fascinating tidbit that we hadn’t known before:

      "I just rediscovered this little factoid while editing Part I of my book:
       The Chelsea Hotel’s birthdate (the day it opened and residents began moving in) is Oct. 1, 1884."

So, the 125^th anniversary of the opening of the Hotel will be on Oct 1, 2009. 

David Elder’s various plots to fleece the elderly are not bearing much fruit lately.  His attempt to take Stanley Bard to the cleaners has now cost him and Marlene (and of course the other shareholders) a ton of money, as well as the last shred of their already tattered credibility.  And now a California judge has thrown out Elder’s appeal of an earlier decision that granted his stepfather, renowned author Piri Thomas (Mean Streets), the right to collect the $1.2 million in dividends of which Elder sought to deprive him.

To recap: Elder administers a trust, set up by his deceased mother, Betty Gross Thomas, consisting of shares representing 16% of the Chelsea ’s ownership.  The 81-year-old Thomas, a former Chelsea Hotel resident, is supposed to receive the dividends from this trust.  In 2001 Elder decided he wasn’t going to pay the dividends to Piri anymore.  So Piri sued Elder for the $1.2 million which Elder had failed to pay him. (Piri still had to pay taxes of $494,000 on the money!) 

This dispute has been going on since 2001, with Piri winning every round.  Even after they reached a settlement in March 2005—with Piri generously agreeing to pay Elder $177,500, presumably for his legal bills–Elder sued again, based on a bogus interpretation of a new law that had been passed by the California State Senate.  The trial judge tossed the case out, saying, basically, that it had already been decided.  Elder appealed again, which brings us to the present case, where the appeals court just ruled on April 10^th that there was no merit to Elder’s case, saying it was “. . .nothing more than an attempt to resurrect their prior claim under the guise of a new claim. . .”

At one point in their long battle in the courts, Piri sued to remove Elder as a Trustee for breach of trust.  For you see, Elder has a vested interest in depriving Piri of his money (as well as in prolonging the case), as, once Piri dies, Elder becomes the beneficiary of the trust.  As part of the earlier mentioned settlement, Piri dropped these charges—only to be sued by Elder in return.

            Although it appears that Elder is being manipulated by lawyers who are filling his head with dreams of becoming some sort of millionaire real-estate mogul, it doesn’t change the fact that he has proven himself both morally and fiduciarily unfit to administer the trust in question.  For this same reason, he should be removed from the Board of Directors of the Chelsea Hotel.
        Anyway, congratulations to Piri for his victory in a fight he did not seek.  Justice has been done, and let’s hope that this is finally the end to a truly shameful saga of greed and moral depravity. – Ed Hamilton

     Legends has recently been able to obtain the court documents filed in BD’s suit contesting their termination by Marlene Krauss.  Among the more disturbing revelations is BD’s claim that there is still asbestos in the building.
     This is a ticking time bomb, and it is outrageous that the residents of this building have not been informed.  This could affect the health of each and every resident in the Chelsea Hotel.  (I guess now we know why you’re seldom around.  For God’s sake, there are children and ill people living here, Marlene.) When were you planning on telling us this?  We demand to be informed of the full extent of the asbestos threat.

Here is the relevant passage from the letter.

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