I recently watched an Arena documentary from 1981, about the famous Chelsea Hotel in New York City. You know you’re in for something unusual, when it starts with a singing tour guide shepherding his group into the lobby to visit the Chelsea’s equally famous manager, Stanley Bard, before processing through its innards and discovering some of the eccentrically creative tenants. Much as Mussorgsky configured Pictures at an Exhibition around his own perambulations through an art gallery. Or possibly The Shining, to which the documentary refers by having a kid riding a tricycle down endless corridors. A glorious building from a time when hotels and apartment houses had proper architectural oomph. This video gives an idea of what it’s like inside.
The Chelsea was famous for welcoming innovative artists, writers, and musicians, regardless of whether they could afford to pay at that point in their careers. An astounding number of creative artists found a home from home there. It’s a Who’s Who of the arts, everyone from Mark Twain to Madonna, including Leonard Cohen and Janis Joplin. Cohen wrote Chelsea Hotel 2 about Janis Joplin. Stanley Bard, part-owner and manager, collected talented people.
Needless to say, this kind of Bohemian approach to the hotel business had its critics, and Bard was ousted as manager in 2007. Joseph Chetrit, a real estate developer, bought the Chelsea in 2011. In August, he closed its doors to new guests, although there are still long-term residents. Definitely the end of an era – bankers hold the whip hand now. Here are Bard’s thoughts on his last day at work in 2007, and a year later. I predict high-end condominiums, once Chitrit has squeezed out the residents.
In celebration of this bright, sad, beautiful soap bubble of creativity, here’s the first part of the Arena programme. For the other parts, see 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay 