Hotel work drags on, tenants hold on
BY CARY ABRAMS
The Hotel Chelsea, constructed
over a roughly two-year period
between 1883 and 1884, was
founded on the principles of Charles
Fourier, a 19th-century French philosopher.
Fourier espoused the utopian
ideas of creating a cooperative community
on the ideals of trust, caring and
mutual support among its members.
Though lacking such a well-defi ned
set of philosophical beliefs, Stanley
Bard, whose father bought an ownership
stake in the hotel in 1947, was a
major infl uence in continuing Fourier’s
legacy at the hotel. Under Bard, the hotel
further increased its reputation as
a bohemian refuge, a place where artists
and creative types fl ocked, congregated,
lived their lives, created masterpieces
and formed a family of sorts.
The rows of brass plaques gracing
the hotel’s entrance honoring celebrated
former residents attest to this fact.
Bard began working at the hotel as
a plumber’s assistant in 1957, and assumed
the reins as manager and part
owner in 1964 when his father died.
Over the next 40-plus years, Bard managed
to create a truly unique venue,
unlike any other in America. He supported
the creative types who fl ocked
to the hotel, be they guests or those
who chose to make the place their permanent
home.
Many artists describe how Stanley
Bard allowed them to stay on, even as
the amount of rent they owed grew.
The hotel’s lobby and walls became a
gallery of artwork traded for back rent,
bartered or given to Bard out of love
and generosity by resident artists.
In a shocking coup of sorts, minority
co-owners ousted the Bard family from
their management role on June 20,
2007. Ira Drukier of BD Hotels, who
was part of the group unseating Bard,
remarked that, “with a little work,
the Chelsea can once again become a
crown jewel of New York City.”
The last 12 years have witnessed
an epic struggle, a fable of the forces
struggling in the transformation taking
place in New York City.
Certainly, the new owners imagined
they would be able to clean house, rapidly
evict the many long-term tenants
who made the hotel their home, quickly
renovate the building, and capitalize on
its cultural cachet and historic signifi -
cance. Yet, the tenants banded together,
organized, retained legal representation,
and ultimately won their right to
remain in their homes under the New
York State tenants’ rights laws.
The owners have struggled, as well,
with ownership changing hands three
times during the dozen years. Cost
overruns, work stoppages, lengthy delays,
and the fact that the hotel remains
occupied have made the renovation
process appear endless.
While the renovation effort continues, the Hotel Chelsea’s entrance is
closed, with a temporary entryway located to the east.
More than 40 tenants have remained.
They say they have survived through
more than a decade of harassment,
along with uncertainty as to their status,
noise, dust, pollution, mice, leaks,
loss of electricity, fl oods, lack of elevator
service and possible asbestos exposure.
Against all odds, they endure.
On July 30, 2011, guests were informed
the hotel would be closed for
a year for renovation. Eight years later,
the building’s facade remains clad in
scaffolding, as renovation continues.
Declared a New York City landmark
in 1966, and added to the National
Register of Historic Places in 1977, the
distinctive Victorian Gothic, red-brick
facade with fl ower-ornamented iron
balconies is protected, while jackhammers
wreak havoc within. The longawaited
early-2019 promised hotel reopening
date has come and passed.
Certainly, the owners hope to capitalize
on the hotel’s magical name, its
cachet, its power as a place where so
many works of genius were created. Jim
Georgiou, a former resident of the hotel
who was evicted when the new owners
assumed the reins, realized this fact,
when he astutely preserved 52 doors
from hotel rooms that were being discarded
in dumpsters outside the hotel.
Georgiou convinced Guernsey’s Auction
Gallery of the importance of these
PHOTO BY LINCOLN ANDERSON
artifacts, and individual doors sold for
up to $100,000 at their May 2018 auction,
which drew worldwide attention.
Georgiou is a passionate advocate for
the history of the hotel, as he speaks
eloquently on the sense of love, trust
and community he experienced while
living at the hotel.
In speaking to tenants for this article,
I sensed a kind of weariness. Fatigue
has set in among them, which is
understandable. Perhaps the tenants
and current owners have struck a kind
of truce, accepting the hotel’s transformation,
its next incarnation. One longterm
tenant, a writer and curator, when
asked about the current status of the
hotel, responded, “I no longer discuss
the Chelsea Hotel.”
The renowned artist Phillip Taaffe,
his wife, Gretchen Carlson, and their
children remain in their ninth-fl oor
apartment, the same one that was noted
composer Virgil Thompson’s home
from 1940 until his death in 1989. One
of the few apartments not chopped up
into smaller units during the Depression,
it stands as a relic of the hotel’s
former grandeur, with much of its original
architectural detail still in place.
Suzanne Lipschutz, a famed decorator
and antiques dealer, a.k.a. Second
Hand Rose, faced the daunting task of
moving apartments to facilitate the renovation.
Her unique wallpaper-decorated
home disappeared, as she worked
her magic anew in her new space.
Ed Hamilton is the in-house Chelsea
Hotel chronicler, who maintains the
informative blog Living With Legends.
The blog provides a daily record of people
and events at the hotel. Hamilton
also wrote a book-length history of the
hotel, “Legends of the Chelsea Hotel.”
He continues to live there with his wife,
Debbie Martin, in the 220-square-foot
S.R.O. (single-room occupancy) unit,
sans kitchen — they share a hall toilet
— that they fi rst moved into in 1995.
And Lola Schnabel remains in the
apartment fi rst rented by her father,
noted artist Julian Schnabel.
Passionate Chelsea Hotel advocate
Artie Nash remains in Room 205, Dylan
Thomas’s former home when in
New York. A sign on his window facing
W. 23rd St. still proclaims, “Bring
Back the Bards.”
Stanley Bard’s art collection, including
work by Christo, Larry Rivers, Phillip
Taaffe and Tom Wesselman, was
auctioned in May 2017. Sadly, Bard
died in February 2017, in Florida, far
from the hotel he lovingly managed.
Yet, the current owners promise to
return the artwork that once graced the
hotel walls, and promise to honor the
hotel’s vaunted history.
And Dan Courtenay, who runs Chelsea
Guitars — a mainstay, occupying
one of the hotel’s storefronts for nearly
30 years — has been allowed to remain.
And a friend related that the room
where Vali Myers, the noted Australian
visionary artist who lived at the hotel
part of each year, would be allowed to
stay as a shrine of sorts to her, as she
had left it at her death in 2003.
Meanwhile, longtime tenants fought
the owners’ attempt to establish a rooftop
bar. El Quijote, the well-known
ground-fl oor Spanish restaurant, which
operated in the hotel for 80 years and
closed last year, is slated to reopen.
The current team of owners, Richard
Born, Ira Drukier and Sean Macpherson,
appear intent on completing the
renovation and reopening the hotel.
Certainly, the marketing efforts will
look to capitalize on the hotel’s rich
past. In our celebrity-conscious age,
surely, many will seek to bed down
in the room where Dylan wrote “Sad-
Eyed Lady of the Lowlands,” the fabled
bed where Leonard Cohen had his tryst
with Janis Joplin, the space where Andy
Warhol fi lmed “The Chelsea Girls.”
The more macabre types will request
the suite where Sid Vicious secured his
place in infamy.
Whether these artists’ spirits have
been chased off by the din of jackhammers
and clouds of dust remains to be
determined. Certainly, the presence of
the remaining long-term hotel tenants
will do much to ensure some connection
to the hotel’s storied past.
8 August 1, 2019 CNW Schneps Media