DECEMBER 2007
RICH KID HORSESHIT @ THE
CHELSEA HOTEL MANHATTAN?
By
Paul Hawkins
Stable Door Shut For Removal of Rich Kid Horseshit
Board
member "Ms. Krauss, the chief executive of KBL
Healthcare Ventures, said a full evaluation of the hotel
would be conducted before any changes were made. Two
years ago the board told the Bards not to accept any new
long-term tenants. “It’s been the plan of the
board for a while to have more transient guests,”
she said. “I think it’s been hard to maintain
the hotel with as many long-term tenants as we have.
We’ll look at things on a case-by-case basis.”
NY Times 190607
As
time marches on, we all get ravaged and wrinkled by the
insidious currents and thermals of the post modern global
winds of change. They can assume the properties of a
juddering, screaming, tropical hurricane or the subtle
light touch of sheer silk lingerie against ones skin.
Either way none can escape change. In particular the
fluctuating will of the Dow Seng or the Hang Jones. Those
internationally globular gambling casino`s whirr 24-7.
Even the shitty one armed bandits never ever stop, unless
their power supply is severed. As the changes seep
through generation to generation and culture to culture
our responses to mutation, metamorphisis and
rearrangement can often drag with cultural friction.
Life`s gravitational pull jammimg the cogs and wheels.
All of a sudden you realise something has happened, and
that it actually took shape, broke the mould, some time
ago. Slamming the door shut after the horse has bolted
can be an anguished reaction, or denial, as we scour the
wreckage and try and put the puzzle back together, just
like old times.
In
particular, I was drawn to the recent shenanigans taking
place in The Chelsea Hotel, Manhattan. I did a little
homework, dug around and acknowledged that this counter
cultural haven and artistic workshop of NYC had morphed,
some time ago, into a shell ripe for redevelopment and
renovation. A hoteliers wet dream. There has been a world
wide outpouring of scorn, anger and gnashing of gummy
teeth over the recent (badly handled) ousting of Stanley
Bard, whose family have been involved in managing the
Chelsea for the past 50 years. The end of an era in all
reality took place some years back, in a different time
in the same place. The current braying and bleatings,
whilst well motivated and heartfelt, may just be falling
on deaf ears. The door of The Chelsea Hotel was slammed
shut some time ago, and what is taking place now is a
clear out, to make way for the physical installation of
the new rulers. I talked with art terrorist, author and
musician Joe Ambrose about the changes that have taken
place over the years. Joe has a book out on November 29th
about the significance of The Chelsea Hotel, its
inhabitants and their tales.
Joe,
history suggests that the Board of the Chelsea have been
trying to modernize for a while, were you aware of any
stirrings when you stayed there?
I
think it's a long time since the Chelsea Hotel was a
focus for dissent or interesting art. When I was there
the predominant people living there were prosperous
Manhattanites posing as artists. people working in media,
advertising, graphic design, the film industrry, areas of
life which run parallel to art but which are not actually
art. There were a lot of rich useless people there with
lime green nail varnish and purple hair.
Surely
not all the occupants read the same Fashion magazine
though?
There
were leftovers from the old days and there have always
been creative people of importance there. Herbert Huncke
died there. Victor Bockris moved in after I left and if
anybody was ever the real thing, then Victor is the real
thing. But the Chelsea Hotel of popular mythology has
been dying for a long time. All this whingeing about the
changes from the so-called artists living there is just a
pile of rich kid horseshit.
How
do you understand the implications that the new
management team will have on the Chelsea?
It
means that an era which has been ending for a long time
can now be officially declared to be over. And that is a
good thing. Nostalgia is just a disease to which we've
all become addicted, especially as it relates to
activities carried out in the 60s and 70s. It doesn't
matter a shit to anyone except Stanley Bard and a handful
of other people what actually happens to the Chelsea now.
It doesn't matter if it's turned into condos. Manhattan
is already full of condos. It's not like they were
renting out cheap rooms to struggling artists or
something.
Years
ago that was the case at the Chelsea though, wasnt it ?
Its been a gradual change then, not a wrench?
Stanley
Bard did that at one time, for a long time, and in more
recent years he has been presiding over something
different, which is entirely his own business.
The
musician Marc Ribot once said, "I hate nostalgia, I
want nothing to do with it", is that a sentiment you
share Joe?
I'm
totally opposed to nostalgia. It goes against everything
that I believe in, everything the Chelsea stood for in
its heyday, everything that the Ramones mean. It's a
beautiful building in a city full of beautiful buildings.
If it changes irrevocably, so be it. Stanley Bard, whose
family have been involved in the running of the Chelsea
for 50 years now has a somewhat nebulous role as
ambassador following the new management takeover.
You
interviewed him for your new book, did he mention
anything about these potential changes?
No,
but it was quite some time ago that we spoke. He is a
pretty remarkable individual, entirely responsible for
the Chelsea's status as an art hotel. He went to art
school and when he took over running the hotel from his
Dad, he effectively began to curate it. Painters were his
special thing and it was in that context that the place
became associated with the Warhol crowd. It is rather
unpleasant, the manner in which he has been usurped out
of his hotel, and the way he was treated shows a certain
lack of class and style on the part of the new Chelsea
powers-that-be, as does the new website which scarcely
mentions the hotel's past. I guess Stanley Bard should
have been left in position until he was ready to retire.
He deserved that respect and courtesy. But then older
people are treated with disrespect and discourtesy and
indifference every day of the week.
I
read that the rent arrears are being called in, amongst
other directives, such as the barring of children in the
lobby.........
Bear
in mind what kind of rent arrears we might be talking
about. I think you'll find that the people paying those
rents were paying the likes of $1500 a week. So they're
not going to go homeless. And it's not a civil liberties
issue. It's rich folks whingeing about the rent. I didn't
see too many children hanging around the lobby but bear
in mind that this is a huge building. An apartment in the
Chelsea housing a family could easily be the size of an
upper middle class family home. The Chelsea Hotel is not
something like a sort of art squat or a place of innate
creativity like it once was. This is what the current
inhabitants could have one believe.
That`s
a very good point Joe, I agree, there are a lot of
bullshit opinions flying around that may lean far too
heavily on a flatulent sense of reality. Remind us of the
vibe of the place while you stayed there, working on what
would become the meat and potatoes of your new book?
It's
one of the most beautiful buildings you could possibly
roam about. Huge long corridoors and Victorian
stairwells. Stairwells full of art , much of it
appallingly mediocre. Like living in a small town full of
eccentric people. Professional upper middle class people
interested in the arts and talkative and inquisitive and
nosey. Pretty stylish place insofar as it'd seen
everything. The staff there then were pretty much
unflappable and standoffish other than Bard himself who
reigned in the lobbly, was always on the phone, was a
nice man to meet every day who always made it his
business to have something to say to one. It was very
comfortable in the winter weather with thick walls and
good central heating. The toilets were not quite so
reliable. There was nothing exasperating or uncut or
plastic about the place. It was kind of classy and
offbeat, like a lot of other things about New York.
Could
you see the building being modernized to the point of a
whole new re-design?
Yes,
it'd adapt beautifully to a modern makeover because the
basic building is a fantastic piece of architecture. You
don't get any sense of that from photographs of the
place. None of them convey its majesty. A radical
architect could do something fantastic there. Whatever
else about the pros and the cons of the changes currently
happening there, I think it is beautiful building which'd
benefit from an overhaul. It definitely needed a bit of
an overhaul when I was there. I don't see any merit in
keeping buildings looking old fashioned or in the sort of
deliberate shabiness that Paris pursues - and to some
extent that New York pursues.
Is
this change typical of the dollar hungry real estate
vultures circling Manhattan then?
The
change is just life.
The
Living With Legends website has a very comprehensive list
of who stayed and when, what went on, the comings and
goings of its tenants as well as being a huge resource
about the history of the Chelsea Hotel Manhattan. From
its humble beginnings; its art squat days, basecamp to
cultural outcasts, artists, musicians, writers and the
misplaced pariahs who graced its lobby and rooms. It also
tracks the recent changes, with lots of blogs and
opinions, stories and anecdotes. Chelsea Hotel Manhattan
by Joe Ambrose is published by Headpress on November
29th.
Paul
Hawkins for hesterglock
thejmi.com
shortlisted for a Golden Spider award
We are delighted to announce that the new JMI website has been
shortlisted for a Golden Spider Award, Ireland's premier
internet and digital media awards. Out of over one
hundred nominees, thejmi.com is one of six finalists in the "Best News and Digital Media
Website" category and the only magazine to be shortlisted.
The site was designed by Simon Doyle and
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dreamed up by Simon O'Connor, Art Director for the print
edition and PPAI 'Designer of the Year' in 2006. There
are now over 650 articles on Irish musical life online
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The Golden Spider winner will be announced
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Visit our Golden Spider shortlisted
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---
Small Country,
Think Big - Nov-Dec JMI available now!
The November-December issue of the JMI: The Journal of Music in
Ireland is now
available by subscription, online and in shops
nationwide.
In our lead article, John McLachlan looks
at the first ten years of the Crash Ensemble, the
maverick contemporary music group spearheaded by composer
Donnacha Dennehy. As McLachlan writes, "Their
programmes always reflect the messy reality of music
today...." and significantly, "They have pushed the
contemporary music culture in Ireland in a direction that
it simply wasn’t going heretofore". In his
editorial, Toner Quinn suggest why the country's size may have helped the Crash Ensemble
to thrive: "It allows us to be flexible, to change
fast and move quickly, it forces us to confront and adapt
to ideas from other musics, and it can, on occasion, mean
good ideas travel fast."
Elsewhere, Fintan Vallely argues that
there is now an urgent necessity to teach traditional
singing. He describes as absurd the notion that singing
'can't be taught' and he points out that the traditional
singing community is both dwindling and increasing in
average age. On the other hand, Breandán Ó hÉaghra,
writing in Irish, questions the idea of a new Irish
language music station for young people. Successful pop artists don’t
need another radio station, he argues. What is
needed is a multi-cultural context for contemporary
songwriting in Irish. Can a new station provide that?
Also in this issue, Kevin Stevens
remembers Jazz legend John Coltrane who died forty years
ago, Christopher Fox considers the legacy of American
composer Morton Feldman and Séamas de Barra reads a
history of music publishing firm Boosey & Hawkes,
commenting that "The Irish composer’s reaction
to this book is likely to be wistful envy as he reads of
the extent to which a dynamic and resourceful publisher
can shape a compositional career." Plus extensive CD
and live reviews (see below), a two-month guide to music
across the nation and much, much more...
For the bigger picture in traditional,
jazz and contemporary music in Ireland, check out the JMI
Visit www.thejmi.com
---
CD Reviews ConTempo Quartet,
Máirtín O’Connor, Garry O’Briain, Cathal
Hayden Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh Slide Eliot Grasso The Smith Quartet Ciarán Farrell
Live Reviews Niwel Tsumbu and Clear Sky
Ensemble Concorde
Tomasz Stanko Quartet Masters of Tradition Music 21 Piperlink Opera Theatre Company Lakker Ryoji Ikeda Estonian Philharmonic
Chamber Choir