Here’s a holidy pop quiz for you: which tree is in the lobby of the run-down, recently defunct, down-and-out flophouse the Allerton, and which is in the run-down, world-famous, celebrity-studded Chelsea Hotel. THe answer may surprise you. But probably not. Happy half-assed holidays.
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Lonely Planet recently published a list of hotels in which famous people have died and surprise, surprise, the Chelsea Hotel is at the top of the list. Now, Here’s a tourist who claims that “Stan” showed him the room where Sid “shot” Nancy. Almost everybody knows that nobody “shot” Nancy at the Chelsea. This is the first we’ve heard of Stanley Bard facilitating murder-tourism. The tourist goes on to refer to the Hotel’s residents as an “eccentric bunch.” Usually they just call us all flat-out crazy. Perhaps, given this and the other discrepancies in his tale, we have to question if he ever stayed at the Chelsea at all.
Sid & Nancy aren’t the only Chelsea Hotel links to The Lonely Planet list of fatally famous lodgings.
Shelton Hotel, Eugene O’Neill, who wrote The Iceman Cometh and A Long Day’s Journey into Night, was 65 when he died, broke and unhappy, in Suite 401 of the Shelton Hotel in Boston on November 27, 1953. His last words were: ”I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room — and goddamn it — died in a hotel room.” He had been born in a Broadway hotel room in New York, the son of an Irish-American actor.Landmark Hotel, Janis Joplin was 27 and recording her classic rock album Pearl when she died of a heroin overdose on October 4, 1970. She died in Room 105 of Hollywood’s Landmark Hotel, now renamed the Highland Gardens Hotel. The singer had finished her last recordings three days earlier; among them were the song Mercedes-Benz and a birthday greeting for John Lennon. Jimi Hendrix had died just two weeks earlier. He was also 27. (The Courier Mail (Australia), 11/25/06)
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These tourists put Ethan Hawke’s old room to good use. They used it as a recording studio back in November. (Tough Cookie)
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Monday, Dec. 4, 7:00 p.m.
"Chelsea is Changing," Guest speakers will include Andrew Berman of the Greenwich Village Historic Trust Preservation. Items on the agenda will include: The Allerton Hotel, High Line and Hudson River Parks, Seminary and Trump developments. A representative from the 10th precient will discuss crime statistics in the neighborhood.
St. Paul’s German Lutheran Church, 315 West 22nd St., NY NYTuesday, Dec. 5, 10:30 p.m.
Susanne Bartsch & Kenny Kenny invite you to Room Service Tuesdays. For Spanking Good Fun. Hosting service: Amanda Lepore, Astro, Kim Aviance, Ladyfag. Moondust, Theodora, Richie Rich and Furey. Music Service: Princess Superstar. Sounds in the Strip Tease Lounge: Alex From Tokyo, Show: The Ones. 35 East 21st St., Between Park & BroadwayWednesday, Dec. 6, 6:00 – 8:00
Gerald Busby will premiere an original musical composition tonight at the launch party for the third issue of the food magazine, Alimentum. Gerald’s piece is based on a based on the William Carlos Williams (food) poem: "This is just to say" Gerald will play piano and tenor Richard Byrne will sing.
Cornelia Street Cafe, 29 Cornelia St., NY NYThursday & Friday, Dec. 7 & 8, 1:00 – 7:00
Suite 303 will host an open house. Shop a selection of fine jewelry from designers Tam Tran and Karina Clark and an assortment of accessories.
Suite 303, Chelsea Hotel, 222 West 23rd, St., NY NY
Friday, Dec. 8, 8:00 p.m.
Ethan Hawke takes to the stage as 19th-century Russian revolutionary Michael Bakunin in "The Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck, Part II."
Lincoln Center, Vivian Beaumont Theatre, 150 West 56th St., NY NY
(Opening night photo via Broadway.com)Sunday, Nov. 10, 8:00 p.m.
If you live in Japan or New York and subscribe to channel NHK BS1 be sure to
watch New York Streets. Tonights show will feature interviews with many Hotel Chelsea residents including: Julia Calfee, Gerald DeCock, David Combs, Stanely Bard, David Linter, John Corley, Robert Lambert and others too numerous to mention. (Photo: Miho and her crew filming at the Chelsea.)If you have an event that you want listed on All Tomorrow’s Parties please e-mail chelblog@yahoo.com
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There are two important meetings next week which address future development of the Chelsea neighborhood.
Monday, Dec. 4, 7:00 p.m.
"Chelsea is Changing," Guest speakers and representatives from the 10th precient will discuss The Allerton Hotel, High Line and Hudson River Parks, Seminary and Trump developments. (Photo by Larry Persons)
St. Paul’s German Lutheran Church, 315 West 22nd St., NY NYThursday, Dec. 7, 6:30 p.m.
The High Line is secure from 30th Street south, and construction on Section 1 is underway. But at the West Side Rail Yards, between 30th and 34th Streets, the future of the High Line is in doubt, and the structure may be fully preserved, altered or removed.Please join FHL on Thursday, December 7, for a presentation of the High Line’s potential at the rail yards and an overview of the public planning process that will decide its future. The presentation will be followed by a public discussion.
High Line Rail Yards Forum, Chelsea Market Community Room, Chelsea Market, 75 Ninth Avenue RSVP Required: community@thehighline.org or (212) 206-9922
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The Chelsea’s own Rita Barros has a show of her photographs currently running at the 80 Washington Square East Galleries. Though it’s a group show, Rita has a whole room to herself and
17 of her photos are up (and it’s the front room too; that should give you a hint that the curator thinks highly of her work), so it’s definitely worth dropping by.“Spoken loneliness is prophesy, in the moon a hundred years ago or today in Kansas…” So says Allen Ginsberg in his poem “Wichita Vortex Sutra” and the loneliness of Rita Barros’s photos are their most salient detail. Her photos are pregnant with foreboding and anticipation: you expect something to happen, something must happen. The Images are incomplete. They call forth a figure (God? Satan?) to complete them, to add the finishing touch in the creative act.
There are two series of Photos: a series of dark, dreamy visions shot in available light, and a series of glittering, almost giddily full-colored images apparently photographed under a spotlight. The photos are purported to tell a story– a journey from home to a funeral, perhaps–but I think a
straightforward narrative hardly exhausts the images’ meaning and I fear it may even trivialize the primal response they inevitable evoke in the viewer. Though we reject the photographer’s guidance at our own peril, it soon becomes clear that her photos transcend the bounds of her own interpretation.Many of the photos in what I’m calling the first series are shot in a simple, Spartan room, bringing to mind immediately the question of who lives there. A coffee pot sits on a burner as the blue flames lick it’s belly, aglow with the preternatural light of the scarcely-waking state of consciousness with which one moves through this early morning world. Similarly, in another photo, a hand cups the eerie red flame of a lighter, illumining stacks of dishes framed inexplicably in a square–as if images in some puppet theatre out of Plato’s Cave–giving them a false order and ourselves a false assurance against the chaos that looms within the impenetrable blackness of the surround. In this twilight between sleeping and waking, where a darker logic holds sway, we glide like ghosts, only half-aware as we perform our secret habitual rites of the morning. In a third photo, echoing and reinforcing this image, the square screen of a television, silently humming with it’s gray snow-static, portends a passage into the sliver of un-peopled city glimpsed in the wall beyond.
In the second series we burst forth into light, though not quite the light of the “real” world; it is rather the light of Times Square, the Carnival, the hallucination. We view images of day-glow blue
fabric with leaves, a blue-cloth wrapped bicycle seat, spangly gold slippers, and a votive candle lit not with it’s own soft light, but rendered in Technicolor by the spotlights of our unearthly new consciousness. Though these objects appear at first glimpse more like what we see our waking world to be, the light here is artificial. The dimmer vision–of dreams and the unconscious—turns out to be, in it’s inception, closer to our lived reality. And when you realize this, what at first seemed cheerful now seems falsely optimistic, a dizzy manic delirium, a Prozac Oz. Are we in Heaven, or a cloyingly sweet version of Hell?It is in the dialectic interplay between these two disparate visions of reality that we discern the true import of Rita’s world view: turning inward, meaning lurks below the surface, but also outwardly sparkles above it as we ascend through a hypnogogic dream state into a hyper-consciousness of our surroundings where spirits perch epiphenomenal on the shimmering surface of each drop of dew. And yet, despite this revelation, we plod on, still dreaming our solipsistic dream, still haunted by an absence, still utterly alone.
In what was for me the most poignant image of the show, a bed frame sits in a tiny, bare room bathed in greenish, light. The setting is stark, institutional. Significantly, the mattress has been stripped from the bed to avoid contagion, and we sense the presence of the unseen patient who has abandoned the bed, perhaps to death. Reinforcing this perception, a photo larger than the rest is mounted on the opposite wall (I almost missed it). In what is obviously another room in the same building, bathed in the same green light now reinforced by a glimpse of greenery in the window (from a springtime the deceased leaves behind?), a chair sits waiting for an exit interview: what have you learned during your time at the institution? Ed Hamilton
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We’re probably running this inot the ground, so we’d better make this the last post about Cindy Gallop’s party. Reporter Vivienne Lehney asked our friends, all long time Y members, to give their impressions of the evening, and of the recent changes in the Chelsea neighborhood. (ChelseaNow.)
Did you have any expectations before going to the party about Cindy or her home?
Peter & Dorte —
We had no expectations about Cindy. We expected her to have a large fancy place, but had no idea how fancy.George Chemeche — I didn’t expect to find an ex swimming pool turned to such lavishly designed condo apartment!
Penelope Anderson — I was very excited to have been invited (a last minute cancellation of one of Debbie’s guests.) Of course, I was curious about the apartment that had once been the Y. And hoping I would fit in.
What are your impressions of her after the party?
Peter & Dorte – Nice, pleasant, good-humored, diplomatic (concerning Ed) and rich.
George — Cindy is a full-of-pepper women who loves to enjoy life and share it with others.
Penelope — Warm, gracious, true to herself, enjoyed sharing her home. All very positive. Lots of space and Cindy loves it and loves living there.
Sherry Mazzoccohi — I thought she was extremely charming and surprisingly intelligent. Usually people are one or the other, rarely both.What are your impressions of her home?
Peter & Dorte — More like a nightclub than a home in some ways (I guess this was also her intention, from reading the New York article). She has some amazing art.
George – It might not fill everyones expectations. But, for sure, it has a warm, cuddling ambiance. And for sure it reflects her personality. Very important.
Sherry — Her apt was pretty wonderful. The NY magazine photos didn`t do it justice. She has an amazing art collection and probably the most taxidermy I have ever seen in one place except the natural history museum.
What do you miss most about the McBurney Y?
Peter & Dorte — I was pretty depressed about the demise of the last Manhattan Y with gymnastics and the other sports (but you know this). Dorte and I joined in 1991, and were members until shortly before the building was closed.George — I miss the roof in the summer and the friendly staff members of the Seventies. I was a member for about 30 years. By the way, I wrote an obituary poem about the Y after it closed.
Penelope — I’ve been a member since 1992. Originally is was a home away from home. It was a place to meditate with exercise and enjoy the community of members. And it was filled with history and caring staff, and you were a part of that history.
Sherry – It is hard to convey what the Y meant to all of us. That’s where we all met and became friends. There are some people I have completely lost track of-that’s a little like losing a part of yourself. Sure I miss the Y. I was a member for ten years. It was a more like an extended family than a gym.
What do you feel about recent changes in the Chelsea neighborhood?
Peter & Dorte — This is a tough question. My feelings about the changes in Chelsea are very much those about New Yorkin general. The steep increase in housing prices pushed the middle class out of their enclaves, and they in turn pushed the poor out of their’s. As a result that many neighborhoods are becoming more class-homogeneous. This isn’t an especially original observation. I don’t think it is a conspiracy, but it is a shame.
George —It changed for good. I think it is the most dynamic and interesting part of the city.Penelope – Cheaply built high rent buildings that are pushing out low and middle income people. I moved to Chelsea in 1991 because it was a family neighborhood. Now I feel that I am living in a shopping mall, without a sense of community. It’s sad, but I am getting used to it. (Photo: Penelope)
Sherry – Chelsea is changing rapidly. But that’s the way things are.
What was your favorite part of the get-together?
Peter & Dorte — The art and the food!
George — To be with a group of people, most of whom live in small rooms or modest studio apartments, and still enjoy the lavishness of the hostesses fortune without any jealousy or resentment. That was heart-elating evening . . .
Penelope — Meeting the gracious host and hostess. Meeting other neighbors. Meeting a gracious journalist. The conversation was fun and yes, it never hurts to be reminded that good people come in all economic levels.
Sherry — I think my favorite part of the evening was when we all admitted we read Jamie Bufalino’s column first, then the horoscope in Time Out. I felt like we all sort of bonded over that.
George in his apt at the Chelsea. -
Those of you who have been following the blog know that, upon reading my criticism of her loft in the old McBurney Y building, Cindy Gallop invited us over for drinks. Though we suspected a hoax at first, it soon became clear that she was for real.
Taking Cindy up on her courageous invitation to come on over, we invited a few friends from the Y and headed to Cindy’s place in the old McBurney Y. We really had no idea what to expect, but Cindy could not have been more gracious and welcoming. If she bore me any malice, she certainly hid it exceptionally well. I think she’s very self-confident, and believes in her own choices in art and living space and my little bit of criticism didn’t shake her.
It was an evening full of surprises. For one thing, it surprised us to learn that she treasured the Y and its heritage. In my review I criticized her practice of dressing her waiters in Y towels, but apparently she must have meant it as a sort of homage to the Y.Cindy demonstrated how her trendy peek-a-boo bath works – it fills from the ceiling. It was a surprise for painter George Chemeche when Cindy turned the spigot and he got wet!
Yet another surprise was that Cindy had so many works by Paul Richard. (You can see his Pope and Gerbil in the background) We have been seeing his work all over the Village since the late nineties and have always thought he was a very good artist. We attended a show of his on Hudson Street in 1999 and he gave us a small piece.
Another thing that surprised us was that she had so many books. I was most envious of all her shelf space, since we have to throw most of our books out for lack of space.
Of course, none of us are too happy that our Y was converted into million-dollar condos, but if anyone has to live there, I guess I’m glad it’s Cindy. We and our friends from the Y feel that the Y has abandoned its charitable and community mission and is fast becoming little more than a non-profit sports club. Tomorrow we’ll have opinions from other party goers.
(Thanks to Steven for the photos)
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We heard them come in late last night; several people checked into the transient room next door and all had to go to the shared bathroom in the hallway, one after another. The next morning I met the last of them as he was clearing out, a thin man in his late thirties dressed in rugged winter gear with a Afghani hat and carrying a green army duffle bag. He said he was from Montana, which (maybe) would explain the getup, and that they had driven thousands of miles in 33 hours to get to New York. “Sounds peaceful,” I said, meaning Montana, not the drive. They had one more night in New York, he said—though not, apparently, in the Chelsea—and then it was back on road, back to Montana. (Maybe they came to see the Macy’s parade.) “I know this building has lots of history,” he said. “You have no idea,” I replied and took that opportunity to hand him a blog card. “Come here,” he said, leading me back into the transient room, “I want to show you a letter I left on the desk here.”
Ever the suspicious New Yorker, I thought, Oh shit, it’s going to be one of those goddamn
chain letters and now I’m going to be cursed if I don’t send it to a hundred people. Instead, he had left a pen, a stamped envelope and a notepad with a note on it that said: “Write that letter today. You know which one I’m talking about. You’ll feel better if you do.” “That’s nice,” I said, thinking, hell, nobody from New York would ever think to do that, we’re all too selfish, too caught up in our own lives. The man said he had checked into a hotel several years back and had seen a note just like this sitting on a desk, and that it had led to a bout of soul searching with the end result that he had sat down at that desk and written a long, and long-overdue letter to his father (he left the details to the imagination). Since then, he said, whenever he checks out of a hotel room he always leaves the note and the rest of the stuff.He asked if the maid would leave the note and I said yes, though actually I wasn’t quite so sure; it was just that I didn’t want to say no, since it was such a touching gesture in such a God forsaken place as this that I didn’t want him to take it back. For the next few hours I listened for the maid and when I heard her rustling around over there I rushed over just in time to see her closing the pen up in the notepad and getting ready to take it away. She said she didn’t know what that was about, but I told her she was supposed to leave the things and I believe she did.
Oh, one more thing: I told the guy that I had just been to my cousin’s wedding in Montana this summer, though I couldn’t remember the name of her town. Now I remember. So in case your reading, guy from Montana, it’s Lewistown. (Ed Hamilton)
