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  • Club Med for Rats

    Reportedly BD Hotels plan to open a spa in the basement of the hotel.  We hope this will replace Star Lounge which genuinely needs replacing with something or the other.   We think however that the spa is Deanesmayrats_front intended to complement Star Lounge.  It will be a place where the millionaires can recharge their batteries after a night of hard partying at Star Lounge.  I suppose they think they will be able to stumble upstairs and flop out at the hotel in between but we intend to do our best to make sure that such a revolting development never eventuates.   Aren’t there enough places where these vein and deluded wastrels can be parted from their money on the dubious promise that their misspent youth can be rejuvenated? 

    As AHCB # 3’s medium reported to us earlier an elemental spirit has long made its residence in the Chelsea Hotel’s basement.  We feel fairly certain it is already pissed off by being kept awake by the insipid dance music being blasted at all hours in Star Lounge.  We hope that this will prove to be the last straw.  Hopefully when it sucks the rich layabouts with their cucumber eye patches and mud pack facials down the cosmic sewer hole into Hell the rest of the building will remain standing.  And it will be simply as if we have flushed a toilet beneath the withered bum of our superannuated dowager of 23rd Street. — Ed Hamilton

  • Where’s Stanley?

    Earlier today, right by the benches near the elevator, facing out so you could read it was a white board alerting people that Stanley Bard is no longer the Manager of the hotel.  It was quickly taken down.   But not before somebody got a picture.  Surprise, surprise people want to talk to the man who has been running the hotel for 50 years.  Imitations just don’t cut it.  Accept no substitutes. 
    Stanleygone_2

  • Family Values: Creativity, Anti-Gentrification and Rockin’ Tee Shirts

    Joe, Casebeer &  Tosh booked their room back in April before the despicable hostile takeover of the hotel.  In other words, the reason they wanted to come to the hotel was for the Bard family and the Chelsea Hotel family, not for the 99 cent Internet room specials that BD is promoting to drive up the short-term occupancy rate.  When they found out about the take over they didn’t know whether to come to the hotel or not because they certainly didn’t want to be seen as supporting BD in any way.  They decided to come on anyway and show their support for the Bards.  Since they are peaceful folks torches and pitchforks were out of the question.  These great tee-shirts are what they came up with.Leave it to the Chelsea tourists to find a creative solution.    (Some residents may recognize this family as they lived here at the Hotel in 2000 & 2001.  Joe is a musician and Casebeer is a painter. Be sure to welcome them home.)

    Casbeer

    (Photo: Tosh, Casebeer & Joe check in to the Hotel wearing their "Bring Back the Bards" tee-shirts designed by Casebeer. Click through to read their fascinating story!)

    (more…)

  • Something Fishy At the Chelsea

    Fishhead_davem It seems that the Mafia has targeted David Elder.  We’ve received multiple reports that the NYPD Bomb Squad was called to the hotel Friday because Chelsea Hotel layabout and Board Member David Elder received what he thought was a suspicious package.  Turns out it wasn’t suspicious at all it was just a dead fish head. Man, that could really ruin your day.  I hope he doesn’t find a dead horse’s head in his bed tonight. Have a nice weekend, David.

  • Filmmaker Theresa Duncan Reported Dead

    Theresa_pic Filmmaker Theresa Duncan, a friend of the Chelsea Hotel and fellow blogger, has reportedly died.   The LA Observed reports that she killed herself in New York. Her boyfriend Jeremy Blake is reported missing. In her 2005 interview with us she talks about her favorite Hotel Chelsea story and speaks hopefully of a future that would include returning to the Chelsea.

    Well, it’s a place that many legends passed through, and I’m very impressed that genius director Stanley Kubrick used to visit sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke’s apartment here when they were making "2001," but my favorite story is the great night I spent with my boyfriend Jeremy Blake there.

    It was in a vast and powerful snowstorm, and we had been dating three months or so. I remember before we went to bed we were making out in the window, looking out at the street filling up with snow, it was almost completely quiet and we were overlooking  the electric Chelsea Hotel sign, and how it was lit up and haloed by all this snow, and I remember later the wild noises that the hotel made late that night, like some madman in the basement playing a church organ made with the hotel’s old radiator pipes.
         Since that night we’ve been together ten years now, and Jeremy has had shows at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum and all over the world and I’ve written some stuff I’m really proud of and I’m about to make this great rock and roll film for kids….And our fantastic night in the Chelsea was the night of fireworks in December 1995 that kicked it all off.
    We moved to L.A. in 2002 for work, but we’ll be back to make my film early next year and I’ve been thinking about us taking a place in the Chelsea for our eight month stay. It’s a good luck place for us and for our work.

  • Save Piri Thomas

    Writers2006thomas_2 Our friends over at "Save Piri Thomas" have started a countdown to August 6th and here’s why.   
    According to the records of the Los Angeles Superior Court, Piri has indeed asked a judge to rule on David Elder’s obvious unfitness to serve as his Trustee.

    The hearing will be held at 8:30AM on August 6th in Department 11 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012 (unless Elder continues to hide his face).

    Stay tuned to find out what you can do to help.

  • One Month Post Ouster: Stanley Bard Talks to Gothamist

    In an extremely revealing interview, Stanley Bard talks about what the past month has been like for him. He also discusses his fears for the future of the Chelsea Hotel and its residents.
         Also, the plot thickens regarding Board Member David Elder’s demented shenaganins. Let’s just review what we’ve learned about the scoundrel of late: 1. He helped push the Bard family, owners of the hotel, out of their management roles; 2. He’s withholding money from elderly author Piri Thomas; and 3. He’s dating a tenant.  As to this final item: is this a perk of his new job?  We wonder what her rent is. Will her art work appear in the lobby? But enough about Elder for now.  We don’t want Marlene Krauss and BD Hotels (aka: Two Guys with Bank Books) to feel left out, now do we?  We’ve got a lot of fun stuff to look forward to:  SEC filings, patent infringement claims, accusations of hiring employees away from direct competitors, celebrity lawsuits — and the transmission of NASA broadcasts via baby monitors! Gentlemen, start your engines.

    http://admin.brightcove.com/destination/player/player.swf

  • Grand Ball Room to Become Youth Hostel?

    Ballroom_3  Earlier this week we noticed some very suspicious renovations going on in the Grand Ball Room.  Oddly, given the fact that they seem to be partitioning the space, we don’t see a permit on file at the Department of Buildings for this work. (We feel pretty certain that one is required.  Be sure to call the DOB and complain.) The Grand Ball Room, in addition to being a beautiful historical room with striking and unique wood moldings in the shape of gargoyles on the ceiling, was artist Richard Bernstein’s home for many years.  Some sources report that he moved to the Chelsea in the early 60s. Could this renovation be a surrepititious effort to take a rent stabilized room off of the rolls?

    Artist Richard Bernstein designed the award winning covers of Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine for 15 years. In total, he designeRb3d 120 covers. He also did covers for Time magazine and for albums by the singer Grace Jones, another former Chelsea resident.  Bernstein was found dead in his room on October 18, 2002.  We haven’t heard any reports of his ghost haunting the place, but this renovation seems like something that might conjure up an angry bohemian spirit.  BD Hotels believes in living dangerously.

    In the years following Bernstein’s death, the room served as the scene of a well attended art exhibit by resident painter Robert Lambert.  Resident/gallery owner Daniel Reich held several avant garde art shows in the space. 

    With all of the price chopping going on around here we figure they’ll probably top the partitions with chicken wire, stick a cot and a TV in them, and charge winos $20.00 per night. Maybe they figure there’s a niche, since they helped gentrify the Bowery with their overpriced boutique hotel down there.  (Thanks to Artie for the photos below.)

    Richard_bernstein_interview_mag_a_2 

    Richard_bernstein_interview_mag_a_3

  • Skeleton Key to the Chelsea Closet

    UPDATE:  Vote now to support Piri Thomas and help send David Elder back to California!

    Dig this, Happy Chelsea Campers:  our favorite Lovecraftian abomination, board member and Hotel Chelsea layabout David Elder, apparently has a long and distinguished history of separating artists from Writers2006thomas their money.  When David’s mother died in 1986, she left her 16% interest in the Chelsea Hotel to David and his two siblings in trust.  However, the trust stipulated that Piri Thomas, her husband and David’s stepfather, was to receive all income from the trust for as long as he lived. 
         David and his siblings didn’t care for that arrangement and have refused to hand over the 1.2 million that the trust has generated in income, forcing Piri to sue for the money.  Though the court called David and his siblings’ argument that the income was principal “absurd,” and ruled against them, they have tied it up in appeals.
         Piri Thomas grew up poor in Spanish Harlem and wrote the now classic autobiography “Down these Mean Streets” about his childhood there.  A true artist and social activist who worked with drug addicts, Piri is a former Chelsea Hotel resident and a friend of the late painter Herbert Gentry. 
         Sickeningly, the elderly Piri was even forced to pay $494,000 in taxes on the income he still can’t collect.  (Check out the court filing for all of the details.) David’s mother, a social welfare lawyer active in women’s right and health care issues, must be rolling over in her grave. 
         I’m not a lawyer, but wouldn’t the fact that David stands to benefit from the trust make him fiduciarilly unfit to administer?  Someone with a legal background might want to check this out.
         Oh, by the way, David, you are more than welcome to weigh in with your side of the story.  — Ed Hamilton

  • Stanely Bard: Patron of Punk Rock

         Musician/Blog reader Don has been staying at the Chelsea off and on for 10 years.  Don had already reserved a room for later this month when he got the word that the Bards had been ousted from their 265330997 management role.  Don decided to call and talk to Stanley and/or one of the old time staff members.  (Tourists, that’s a great idea.  When you call, make sure to ask for someone other than the new management!  Do what you can to let them know that they’re now welcome.)  But, now Don has a problem. Should he request the reduced rates that were listed on the blog and on the Hotel Chelsea official website?  Well, Don has been spending his hard earned money to stay here and we think he deserves a break.  Perhaps when he checks in he could wear a tee-shirt or a badge or do something else creative to show his support for the Bards. Afterall, that’s one of the things that’s keeping Stanley around.   From Don’s comment:

    "…Anyway, I call the hotel and  ask the guy who picked up how long he had been working there(I had to make sure he wasn’t one of THEM) got the responce I wanted and pressed on…though he told me what I read had been true, Stanley would be in on Monday. So, once again I call, get Stanley on the phone and after an outpouring of praise for his love of artists and the hotel and wondering if I should cancel my room (  I wouldn’t want you to stay anywhere else! says Mr.Bard.) I feel a little better, At the very least Stanley is still there. I guess if I have a point, it would be that although the rate drop is good for artists, I can’t see why the new management would do this. Just to throw everyone off? I also don’t know if I should call and see if I’m getting those rates."

    The picture above demonstrates, by the way, that Don already knows to come prepared for his stay at the Chelsea.