Mourning for Chelsea

“Anita! Soon this Chelsea Hotel
Will vanish before the city’s merchant greed,
Wreckers will wreck it, and in its stead
More lofty walls will swell

This old street’s populace. Then who will know
About its ancient grandeur, marble stairs,
Its paintings, onyx-mantels, courts, the heirs
Of a time now long ago? . . .”

—“The Hotel Chelsea” (1936), Edgar Lee Masters

Edgar Lee Masters’ prophetic poem on the beloved Chelsea Hotel maintains its relevancy to this day; New Yorkers have come to mourn the dismantling of a cultural landmark of their city. The Chelsea Hotel has temporarily housed some of the most influential writers, musicians, actors, and celebrities to have ever lived. This building now stands as a memorial to all their contributions. While the hotel no longer accepts new tenants and anxiously awaits for when its permanent ones vacate, it is still open occasionally to the public for guided tours. Due to multiple changes in management and tedious renovation, the Chelsea is not the thing of legend it once was. Its metamorphosis is hardly reflective of the vibrancy existing all around; the hotel has diminished in grandeur and notoriety, even with the gentrification of the neighborhood of Chelsea. The hotel should continue to promote its renowned patronization of artistic individuals, rather than restructuring to make available yet another luxury hotel only affordable to the one percent. There remain a plethora of real estate opportunities for venture capitalists that will not compromise the hotel’s integrity. This place of artistic community has been profoundly beneficial to both residents and visitors, and should not be corrupted by capitalist greed. By following the methods of preceding management, such as making stipulations for “starving” yet contributing artists, the Chelsea Hotel may once again be reestablished as one of the most extraordinary wonders of New York.

Construction of the Chelsea started in 1883 and was completed by 1885 (Hamilton). It was built by architect Philip Hubert in the style of apartment cooperatives, with housing provided for all of the architects, plumbers, and construction workers; the surplus was left for residents and guests, with designated, communal studios for artistic use at the top of the twelve-story complex (Hamilton). The design had a “socialist utopian commune” air, with its tenants sharing fuel and services, while fostering creativity through various occupations (Rich). This lifestyle became defunct by the turn of the century, and the original owners went bankrupt. The hotel then went through a period of great change, exchanging hands as rapidly as guests signed in and out. Word War II caused a drastic drop in rent and allowed artists such as Jackson Pollock, Virgil Thomas, and Dylan Thomas to reside (and in Thomas’ case, die), within its rooms. Chelsea’s ledger hardly ends there: Arthur Miller, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen, Jack Kerouac, and Andy Warhol came to feed off the energy and inspiration of the city, which at times seemed to be contained solely in the hotel (Hamilton). This was a golden era, when “artists traded paintings for rent, or lived free, subsidized by the exorbitant rates paid by the troubled children of the hyper-rich” (Rich). Celebrities and artists romped throughout Chelsea’s floors, wreaking havoc through arson, destruction, and substance-fueled soirees, all while tourists loitered agape in the lobby.

The carefully curated museum that was the Chelsea Hotel could be accredited to Stanley Bard, the caretaker of the property from 1970 until 2007. He decided who was admitted and for what price. There were no real leases, and he allowed residents to fall behind on rent quite frequently. Scott Griffin, a former resident, called the eclectic mix a “cross-pollination of people of all ages, social classes, and levels of accomplishments” (Rich). Stanley encouraged the revelry and allowed nearly anything short of murder to happen under his roof. He embraced this bohemian, hectic lifestyle. This philosophy made him quite the unconventional landlord, and heirs to the other half of the hotel ownership consequentially pushed him out. His departure was the end of an epoch.

In 2007, Marlene Krauss, a minority shareholder, was part of the hotel takeover, and later sold the hotel for $81 million to a developer, Joe Chetrit. Chetrit completely gutted the hotel, making it unrecognizable. After laying waste to the beautiful Chelsea, he handed it over to its current owner (Davis). The new proprietor, Ed Scheetz of Founder, King & Grove, has turned the hotel into its antithesis: he has closed the Chelsea for the first time in 106 years; the plethora of artwork which had adorned the walls has been catalogued and filed away; tenants have been forced out during renovations, and the remaining lodgers cling to their homes only by fortunate New York City rent laws (Davis). As painter and resident Michael Zalopany has put it, “It’s a tomb now. There’s no life anymore. The human energy has changed completely. I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone” (Rich). What was quintessentially the Chelsea is no more.

The Chelsea Hotel seemed almost to have escaped the slow yet steady gentrification of Chelsea. Along with surrounding areas like Soho and Williamsburg, the Chelsea neighborhood has morphed into a luxury condo development; commercial and residential real estate prices have been constantly climbing since the 1990s, making the cost of living only slightly less expensive than the West Village (Malbin). The majority of artists are unable to afford such rents, and either must live in artistic “communes,” or move to alternate neighborhoods or boroughs. Even more disheartening, in an attempt to make luxury-housing advertising more effective and garner more interest, PR firms are pouring thousands of dollars into “pop-up art installations” (Davis). Not to overstate the gentrification of Chelsea or the transformation of the artistic scene, Chelsea is still a culturally vibrant hub, with hundreds of galleries and shops. Yet it seems that the artistic values that proliferated from the Chelsea Hotel were of a different, extinct sort than what is typically promoted today. As a financial adviser interviewed by the New York Times has said, “It’s nice to have more amenities in Chelsea, but I think the people who live here don’t want it to become as slick as SoHo or as polished as the West Village” (Malbin). A sufficient way to back this claim is to simply interview one of the devoted residents of the Chelsea Hotel.

Solely by its placement on the historic register, the Chelsea Hotel should not be subjected to the grand schemes of apathetic real-estate brokers and money-grubbers. The Chelsea Hotel was made a landmark in 1966, and has since stood as a memorial to artistic movements spanning generations and genres (Postal). While gentrification is sometimes seen as necessary, even beneficial, it is something that should be given generous consideration when an icon is its target. The Chelsea is more than a hotel in need of a fresh coat of paint and renovated plumbing. It is not a dilapidated structure begging to be gutted and have installed jacuzzi tubs, surround-sound, or other luxurious amenities. The Chelsea HoteloHotel is a piece of living history, and it is an injustice to euthanize it in such a way. It is tragic that the Chelsea should be slighted with such disregard for its past, yet it seems this is the way modern society treats its elders. As the artist and Chelsea Hotel admirer R. Crumb has quite accurately remarked, “At a certain point you just give up on Manhattan. What can you do to stop it? Nothing, unless the whole fucking economy collapses. Manhattan is going to keep pushing in that direction, more and more expensive condos, apartments, hotel rooms. Then again, it’s always the end of some era in New York” (Rich).  As aforementioned, Edgar Lee Masters’ anticipated bereavement of this monumental loss to all artists and art admirers shows that even decades ago havens such as the Chelsea had a singular importance that would remain undiminished by gentrification.

Works Cited

Davis, Ben. “Are Artists to Blame for Gentrification, or Would SoHo and Williamsburg Have Gentrified Without Them?” Slate Magazine. N.p., 15 Oct. 2013. Web. 08 May 2014.

Hamilton, Ed. Legends of the Chelsea Hotel: Living with the Artists and Outlaws of New York’s Rebel Mecca. New York: Thunder’s Mouth, 2007. Print.

Malbin, Peter. “If You’re Thinking of Living In: Chelsea; Gentrified, Yes, but Still Unpretentious.” The New York Times. The New York Times, n.d. Web. 08 May 2014.

Postal, Matthew A., Dolkart, Andrew S.  Guide to New York City Landmarks (4th ed.) New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2009. Print.

Rich, Nathaniel. “An Oral History of the Chelsea Hotel: Where the Walls Still Talk.” Vanity Fair. Conde Naste, 08 Oct. 2013. Web. 08 May 2014.