the Chelsea Hotel: now living with ghosts?

Patti_Smith_at_Chelsea_12_11_2011.jpg
Patti Smith performing for the one percent at the Chelsea Wednesday night


UPDATE: Citing the wishes of the Chelsea's tenants, Patti Smith cancelled Thursday night's concert, to which they had been invited. Her statement appears on her web site. Score another one for the 99%.


The Chelsea Hotel seems to be attracting more tourists than ever these days; do they know that what they have come to photograph is now a shell, that it has already been destroyed, in a process begun three and a half years ago?

We live almost directly across the street from it, and I have passed by its front doors almost every day for 25 years. I also have wonderful memories of both strangers and friends, and of the provocations of both visual and performance art projects which could only have come out of this amazing community.

I can't bring myself to look inside the lobby these days. I stopped going in when the bouncers appeared, and later the new owners removed all traces of the life with which the building had been so richly endowed as they tossed out the odd furniture and the amazing collection of art, both accumulated over many decades. Adding insult to injury, the walls were then essentially - and revealingly - whitewashed.

Those of us who remember the Chelsea Hotel when it was still a vibrant cultural hive have been made both saddened and angered by the unfolding story of its demise, driven by an unfettered greed absent during the 70 years it was under the management of the Bard family.

I admit I don't understand much of what is happening inside 222 West 23rd Street, and I don't think many people do. More to the point, I can't believe that so little is known about the owners' plans for such an important landmark and once-living monument, if only because of its importance as real estate in a real estate-obsessed city. Permits have to be applied for - and granted (or not) - and I would think the media would be on top of any developments in the story, even if they turned out to be rumors.

All of this brings me to the latest development in the saga of the beautiful 127-year-old relic of brick, iron, and passion: A Patti Smith concert is to be held tonight inside the old hotel ballroom, a concert which may or may not be sponsored by the Chetrit Group, the new corporate owners. The New York Times finds the response to the announcement newsworthy, but doesn't add much light to the larger story. The newspaper neglected to mention that last night Smith was at the hotel to play what the Village Voice wrote "appears to have been a new-hotel-management-planned event to which tenants were not invited, but the architect and others were".

This is a story which wouldn't exist at all if it weren't for the fact that a number of people still live in the 12-story landmark, and obviously have a more personal stake in its future than those who merely love it; these people have paid for their attachment to the Chelsea, and they continue to do so. It is their home, but they also stewards of its heritage, on behalf of all of us. We should do them the honor of respecting their concerns and join them in asking for answers to questions apparently not being asked anywhere else.

I was moved, in coming up with a title to this post, by the indispensable in-house Chelsea Hotel blog, "Living with Legends", published by our friend Ed Hamilton. We want to see Ed, his blog, and the Chelsea thrive; our hope is for continuing living legends, not just ghosts.

"Jeremiah's Vanishing New York" and "Living with Legends" are asking friends of the real Chelsea to meet outside the hotel tonight at 8pm during the second, tenants' concert, to raise lit lighters, and recite the lyrics of Smith's song "People Have the Power":


I was dreaming in my dreaming of an aspect bright and fair

And my sleeping it was broken
but my dream it lingered near

In the form of shining valleys
where the pure air recognized

And my senses newly opened
I awakened to cry -
That the people have the power to redeem the works of fools

Upon the meek the graces shower
it's decreed
the people rule.

The people have the power
the people have the power

The people have the power
the people have the power.

Vengeful aspects became suspect and bending low as if to hear

And the armies ceased advancing because the people had their ear.
And the shepherds and the soldiers lay beneath the stars


Exchanging visions and laying arms to waste in the dust

In the form of shining valleys where the pure air recognized

And my senses newly opened
I awakened to the cry -

The people have the power
the people have the power

The people have the power
the people have the power.

The power to dream
to rule
to wrestle the world from fools

It's decreed
the people rule
it's decreed
the people rule.
Listen: I believe everything we dream can come to pass through our
union

We can tun the world around
we can turn the earths revolution.
We have the power
the people have the power

The people have the power
the people have the power.
The power to dream
to rule
to wrestle us from fools

It's decreed
the people rule.
We have the power
we have the power

The people have the power
we have the power.


[image by Maydersen via the Village Voice; lyrics from STLyrics.com]

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Published on January 12, 2012 12:23 PM.

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