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The Chelsea Hotel · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is Stuff you
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Should Know. The Super Cool Edition another edition in our
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: ongoing New York saga to explain every single building or
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: theme or trend in the entire city of New York.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: I feel like these are always me, so I'm sorry
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: if I'm foisting these.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Well, you love New York, I do.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Do you know the T shirt told me to.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Oh, I thought it was I Heart New York. Is
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: that what that means?
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah? I get it now, but it's iHeart New York.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: I didn't say you heart New York. I took it
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: all wrong. But now I love that city, so I
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: want to know more about it.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: It is a very cool city, and this is a
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: cool place in the city's history. For a long part
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: of the city's history, actually the Chelsea Hotel, which little
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: known fact, is actually supposed to be called the Hotel Chelsea.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: And I could not find where who first turned it around,
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: because surely it was a poet or a singer or
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: something writer. But at some point it got basically transversed
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: even though the official name is and always has been
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: since it was a hotel, that's the Hotel Chelsea.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it can be a little confusing. Same place, though,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: so don't sweat it. So you can say either one.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: But wait, wait, wait, you want to talk confusing. Okay,
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: there's a Marriotte Renaissance Chelsea Hotel in the same neighborhood.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: I mean I could see myself accidentally booking that and
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: being like, this place is a little more put together
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: than I expected.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, Chelsea is a neighborhood and every hotel
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: in there is a Hotel Chelsea. Yeah, a Chelsea Hotel. Rather.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: I love Chelsea. I think that is one of my
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: favorite neighborhoods in New York, if not my favorite. We
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: stayed there a bunch of times when we went and
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: visited New York and Chelsea.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I like it as well, and I have stayed
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: at the Hotel Chelsea a couple of times.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: I have too. But yeah, yeah, but that actually answers
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: a question that I had. I was trying to figure
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: out where you came up with this as a topic.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: I would have guessed the Taylor Swift song The Tortured
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: Poets department. Okay, because she mentions it in in there,
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: that's I guess, not where. That's not what inspired you
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: to do this.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: No club, Dylan. If anybody I got no, I mean
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: from staying there semi recently, and that's the great thing
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: about our job. I was like, Yeah, I wish I knew
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: a little bit more about this place, and here we are.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what'd you think of it.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: At the hotel? Yeah, well, you know, as as you learn.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: If you don't know that Chelsea Hotel was renovated over
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: the course of many, many many years after being closed
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: for those renovations, we'll get into all the ins and
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: outs of that. But I thought that it was a
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: top notch renovation that from what I've read, even though
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: it's a fancy pants place now, everything I've read says
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: that they did a very tasteful job. In fact, let
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: me read in fact, so I'm not just talking out
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: of my butt, but one of the people in the
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: New Yorker or something that wrote about it said it
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: presents itself subtly and doesn't scream. I've changed due largely
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: to the fact that the building was landmarked in nineteen
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: seventy seven, so many elements such as its facade and
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: famous stairwell cannot be changed in accordance with this landmark status.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: Current owners instead have worked with it and around its
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: physical history, and the enhancements are fitting one hundred and
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: fifty eight rooms in fifteen room categories from two hundred
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: square feet, who's seventeen hundred square feet and there you go.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and that's great that they did a good
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: job with it, because people all the way back to
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: the nineteen forties, with Edgar Lee Masters, the poet author
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: of Spoon River Anthology, who lived there for a while,
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: was worried about the gist of the Chelsea Hotel being
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: stripped away by new owners. And it's changed hands a
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: few times, but it's also stayed in really capable hands
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: for decades. And those capable hands, as will see, helped
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: give the Chelsea Hotel its own, like it's very famous vibe.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I should also say too that a lot
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: of people, I'm sure, think it's an abomination, and a
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: lot of times used the same people that were like,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: you know, Times Square was better or New York was
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: better when it was a dirt bag city crumbling and
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: you were as likely to get mugged walking the streets,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: or spray painted on if you stood still for too long,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: as anything else.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So, based on what we'll learn about what went
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: on in the Chelsea Hotel, I think it's very telling
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: how dangerous New York was at the time. That almost
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: to a person when they interviewed residents years later, they
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: say they felt safe in the Chelsea Hotel, and the
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: Chelsea Hotel was as crazy as a place could get.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: And yet it just goes to show you how much
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: more dangerous it was outside of the Chelsea Hotel in
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: New York at the time.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it seemed to have a very familial quality to it. Yea,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: and for good reason. So let's jump back to the
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: beginning when it was built. First of all, it's right
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: there at West twenty third Street in the Chelsea neighborhood,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: and it started in eighteen eighty four as the Chelsea
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Association Building, Nuts and Bolts. It is a twelve story building,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: was one of the taller buildings in New York at
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: the time. It is a Victorian Gothic. It is a beautiful,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: gorgeous building. If you look at it from across the street.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: It's just one of the one of New York's greatest
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: landmarks designed by architect Philip Is it Hubert or Hubert?
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: I'm going to say Hubert, that's what I would say.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: All right, we'll go with that. And Hubert designed it
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: on the philosophy of a French philosopher that he was
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: a fan of named Charles. What is it? I think
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: fer Fourier, who was a utopian socialist and kind of
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: thought this concept of a co op of a community
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: should work in co ops called phalanxes, and that's what
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: the Chelsea started out as, was one of the first
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: housing co ops in New York City, where if you
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: live in a co op, then you own a share
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: of that building along with all the other owners, and
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: you also are responsible for the monies that help maintain
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: and keep up that building.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's all fun and games until you need a
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: new roof exactly. So Hubert actually followed Fourier's vision and
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: turned the Chelsea into not just the co op but
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: an attempted socialist utopian paradise where it wasn't just for
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: the wealthy like that it was I think, I don't
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: know if you said or not. It was one of
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: the tallest buildings in New York at the time, so
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: it was a very tony address when the building opened.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: And yet he set apartments aside for some of the
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: people who had built the building, like some of the
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: electricians if there was such thing at the time, some
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: of the plumbers, some of the carpenters, like they had shares.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: They were able to live in this co op because
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: there was room made for them, and there was also
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: room made for artists and musicians and writers. And the
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: point was for everybody to kind of rely on one another.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: So if you needed plumbing help, you could pay your
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: plumber in you know, a painting or something like that,
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: if your plumber would accept it. Everybody was meant to
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: depend on everyone else and be kind of self sufficient
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: as a unit.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, uh, not so big into abstract, but yeah, sure,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: I guess are you going places.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: To die?
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Exactly? They're also in that very first iteration, and this
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: is very key. You mentioned artists, but there were the
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: top floor had fifteen artist studios up there, and that
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: really kind of carried on throughout the history of the
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: Chelsea until most recently. Yeah, that version of the Chelsea
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: was about around for about twenty one years. It went
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: bankrupt in nineteen oh five, some of those residents stuck around,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: and then the rest became a hotel, and the Chelsea
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: for decades functioned as a place where you could stay
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: there as a hotel, you could stay there for a month,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: you could stay there for a week, like weekly and
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: monthly rates, where you could be a resident and live there.
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  Speaker 1: It's a very unique situation.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And so the rooms also apparently were fairly cheap,
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: especially for a luxury place, a luxury building, so if
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: you were up and coming or starving artists, you could
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: still probably afford a place there. And because it was
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: created to house artists and talent of all different kinds,
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: it was automatically attractive. It just kind of became a
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: place where art was created, not just a place where
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: artists could live. There was a long time Chelsea resident
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: named Harry Smith who I saw described as the archetypal
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: Bohemian trickster figure, and he's just Chelsea Hotel through and
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: through from what I could tell. He said that the
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: hotel exuded atmospheric vibrations that attracted artists and also helped
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: produce great art. So like the building itself and the
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: vibe that was in it, led to better art than
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: maybe would have otherwise been produced, at least according to
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: Harry Smith, who was a trickster apparently, so he might
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: have been lying.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: And also, you know, the human brain works in funny ways,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: and once a place in gets her reputation is at
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: ego in there, and that in itself, you may think
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: you're being inspired just by being there, and that ends
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: up inspiring you. You know what I mean?
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, for sure. I think some people, though
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to name names, but I think over
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: time some artists who stayed there have wanted to kind
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: of capture what that hotel does and maybe bit off
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: a little more than they could chew.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: I think, I know you're talking about.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: I think you should second to have a second thought
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: or too. If you're like, I'm going to make an
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: ode to the Chelsea Hotel where there's a song, a movie,
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: doesn't matter.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: I know exactly what you're talking about. We're not talking
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: about Oh, Henry though, who stayed there a lot. For
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: Mark Twain who stayed there a lot, or Sarah Bernhard
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: who stayed there when she came to New York to perform.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Those were all like frequent guests in those early years there,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: they were artists, you know, very famous artists at the time,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: occupying those artist studios on the top floor. From the
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: very beginning. They even held some Titanic survivors in nineteen twelve.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: That's where they went when they were when they were
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: brought in shivering in the cold.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which is pretty cool that they opened their door
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: to them. I'm sure other hotels did too, but I
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: thought that was neat. Yeah, and we should say these
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: artists that were staying here, Oh, Henry was hiding from creditors. Yeah,
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: when he stayed there, John French Sloan, he was a
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: member of the Ashcan School of Art, which made its
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: name by showing some of the grittier, more dismal side
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: of New York life, which is totally contrary to the zeitgeist.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: And so the artists were avant garde. Basically throughout the
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: entire history of the Chelsea Hotel, the artists working there
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: were like the vanguard of the avant garde.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and like a bohemian. You'll hear those words throw
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: out a lot when the Chelsea Hotel is described or
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: its tendency over the years.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: They were Czechoslovakian to a person.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: During the Great Depression of the nineteen thirties. Thomas Wolfe
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: I was a frequentor there. In fact, he died. He
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: spent the last years of his life there in Room
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: eight twenty nine, writing things like you Can't Go Home Again.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: And he died very young though, from tuberculosis, at the
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: age of thirty seven, and was known to kind of,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: you know, paste the halls looking for inspiration or that
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: next paragrapher sentence.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw that. Somebody said he ran out into
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: the street one night at like three am and shouted
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: that he'd written ten thousand words in one day. That's great,
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: that's pretty substantial. And Thomas Wolf also not to be
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: confused with Tom Wolf. No, No, he was an influence
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: in his own right. He influenced the Beats, mainly through
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Jack Karawak. He influenced the new journalists, so ironically, Thomas
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: Wolf influenced Tom Wolf.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: And in fact, there's a story that Fear and Loathing
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and at the
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: Kentucky Derby that Hunter Thompson took that from a Thomas
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: Wolfe's story.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, yeah, that's pretty cool. We saw him. It
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: done one on Hunter S. Thompson either.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: Now he might be undue. You know how remember the
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: time we did that live shows the Worst Idea, where
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: we did how humor works and we realized part way
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: through in front of a live audience that explaining humor
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: is like the least funny thing you can do.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: I don't remember that. Was that a like a tour
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: show or was that like for a it.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: Was a podfest?
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Was it really?
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah? In La Here's bad.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: I blocked that one out.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't remember.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: So you mentioned a lot of people have you know,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: done their odes to the hotel, whether it's movies or
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: songs or whatever. Perhaps the first one was a guy
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: named Edgar Lee Masters lived there from thirty one to
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: forty four and wrote a poem called the Hotel Chelsea,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: So he kind of got the ball rolling.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and he's the guy I was saying earlier wrote
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: Spoon River Anthology that was yeah, worried about it being
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: about it losing its vibe.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: Well, let's read this first couple of lines. Then. Don't
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: know who that is, but he's writing it to Anita.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Soon this Chelsea Hotel will vanish before the city's merchant, greed,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: wreckers will wreck it and in its stead more lofty
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: walls will swell. Yeah, there you have it.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: Yep. So this was the forties. I'm guessing this was
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: nineteen forty three when it changed hands I think for
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: the first or second time and was finally turned into
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: the Hotel Chelsea. But he had very little to worry
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: about because it got even more avant garde after that.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's kind of had its ups and
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: downs as far as how I mean nice it was.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: I guess it fell in pretty hard times after World
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: War Two, but it was always you know, Dave described
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: it as gruff but lovable. I mean, it never lost
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: that charm. It seems like yea, even at its divious.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Dylan Thomas, the famous author, was a heavy drinker, as
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: I think everyone knows. He drank himself to death. They're
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: at the Chelsea and nineteen fifty three and they have
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: a plaque. They all applaques for everybody, but there's a
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Dylan Thomas plaque. Dylan Thomas lived and wrote at the
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Chelsea Hotel, and from here he sailed out to die.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I read that on the day that he fell
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: into a coma that eventually he died from he said,
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: I've had eighteen straight whiskies. I think that's the record.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: It's gotta be.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: So yeah, Dylan Thomas was one of the ones whose
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: death really kind of I don't quite know how to
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: put it, but there's there's certain aspects of the Chelsea
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: Hotel and tragic figures dying in it is part of that.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: That's an aspect of it in and of itself, and
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: Dylan Thomas kind of set the tone for that, right.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, immortalized maybe.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Sure, so he became he helped make the Chelsea Hotel
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: famous in that respect by dying as a tragic figure there.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: Other people are just kind of famous, and because they
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: stayed in the Chelsea Hotel it kind of gives it
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: a little more props. Like Jackson Pollock, he lived there
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: for a little while. Little known fact the CIA paid
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: his rent. No really, virgin No, I'm kidding, Virgil. Have
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: you ever heard the theory that the CIA was behind
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: the abstract expressionist movements to make the United States seem
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: more intellectual to the Soviets?
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: No, but that makes that joke a very deep cut.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: So I don't even feel bad this time. Okay for
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: falling for it.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: So there are other people too that you may not
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: have heard of that I hadn't heard of, that were
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: longtime residents that really kind of gave it like legitimacy.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: There was a music critic and composer named Virgil Thompson
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: who was apparently just incredibly prolific. He lived there for
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: fifty years and died in Room nine twenty. Larry Rivers,
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: he's considered the godfather of pop art. He lived there
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: for about a decade. And when you put all this
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: together and then also bring in tours, because don't forget,
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: this is a hotel hell that some people are living
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: in for decades, but there's also people coming and going.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: And then you also throw in rich people who are
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: basically just trying to hang out with artists, even though
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: they have no artistic talent themselves. It's just the crowd
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: they want to hang with. You put all these people together,
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: and you've got like who you would see if you
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: went into the Chelsea Hotel.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, all right, we should take a break and
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: we'll come back and talk about David and Stanley Bard
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: right after this.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Okay, So I said earlier that the Chelsea Hotel was
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: in capable hands for decades, and those hands were initially
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: David Bard and then after that his son Stanley Bard,
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: and between the two of them they took Philip Hubert's
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: vision of this socialist utopia but really the really artsy
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: part of it, and just went to town. I saw
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: it described as Stanley curated who lived in the Chelsea Hotel.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: It wasn't like, Hey, I've got some money, I want
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: to live here. You basically had to be vouched for
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: by another avant garde artist that probably already lived there.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: That was a good way to get in.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and this I found this funny little fact that
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: you know, how little things can change history. David in
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: nineteen forty three, the elder Bard, he got together with
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: some other investors to buy the hotel out of foreclosure.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: And the reason he did that is because he was
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: a furrier who was allergic to fur and couldn't take
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: it anymore. So the reason the Chelsea Hotel, one of
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: the reasons that it kind of stayed that thing, is
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: because when David Bard took the reins in nineteen forty three,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: he kept that spirit alive with the artist and like
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: taking a painting in lieu of rent. Had it gone
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: to just some money hungry, greedy people, it made have
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: completely changed in nineteen forty three, and we wouldn't even
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: be talking about it today. So had he not been
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: a fur or allergic to fur, it may have been
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: a completely different scene there. But he ran the hotel
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: until he died in sixty four, and like you said, Stanley,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: his son took over. And Stanley Bard was great. He
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: was I've got a pretty fun like Apparently there was
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: never any like problem he couldn't handle. He was known
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: for being able to handle like whatever weirdness was going
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: on there at the time. And Arthur Miller, when he
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: was divorced from Marilyn Monroe, lived there for a period
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: of years and wrote a lot about the Chelsea Hotel.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: And here's one good example about Stanley Bard called down
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: after being so frustrated with how disgusting his carpet was. Said,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: for Christ's sake, Stanley, don't you have a vacuum cleaner
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: in the house? He said, of course, we have lots
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: of them. He said, well, why aren't they ever used?
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: He said, they're not used. Stanley, You know g d
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: Welly that you don't use them. I have never heard
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: such a thing. Why don't they use them? Or you're
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: asking me why they don't use them, Well, you're the
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: one who brought it up. Look, Stanley, just get a
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: vacuum cleaner up here, and let's just forget this conversation. Please, fine,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: how are you otherwise? Truthfully, there is no otherwise. All
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: I am is a man waiting desperately for a vacuum cleaner.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: And then Arthur Miller said, and then he would laugh,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: grateful for another happy tenant. And that was like nothing
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: was like ever wrong. Right at the Chelsea people were
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: dying and being wheeled out of there in overdoses, and
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: he would make jokes at like, no, the cops were
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: here because they lived there, and the body bags and
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: the gurneys are just props.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So apparently Milosh Foreman a true bohemian. He lived
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: at Chelsea from I think for the early seventies, about
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: the first half of the seventies, and he asked Stanley
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: once if anyone had ever died, I believe, to basically
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: get him to admit yeah, yeah, because there were a
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: lot of deaths, whether it was by suicide, murder, mattress
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: fires overdoses. Yeah, and it was just well known that
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: there were a lot of deaths that happened in the
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: Chelsea Hotel. So Milos Foreman asked Stanley once if he
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: could think of anybody who ever died there, and he
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: could only come up with one person, and he was
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: a painter named al Fais Cole.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: That's funny.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: He died in nineteen eighty eight, the oldest man in
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: the world at one hundred and twelve. He died at
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: the Chelsea Hotel. And that's the one person that Stanley
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: could think of. And the entire time that he was
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: running the Chelsea Hotel.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Stanley ran it for forty years after his
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: dad died. But like I said, his dad had the
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: same attitude. They asked David the elder Bard why he
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: didn't ever evict a tenant who apparently was playing the
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: drums and everyone was complaining and it was even driving
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: him nuts, And his answer was, I like people.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it was cool, like you could get away
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: with from what I saw, You could get away basically
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: anything up to murder essentially, And Stanley would put up
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: with it because that was the rhythm that his father
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: had kind of laid out, and if you want to
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: cultivate an avant garde artist colony in the middle of
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: New York, you're going to have to do that, or
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: else just give up because it's not going to work otherwise.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I got to read this other Arthur Miller quote.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: It's pretty good too. He said the Chelsea, and this is,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: by the way, from the Chelsea Affect affect about the Bards.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: He said, the Chelsea, whatever else it was, was a
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: house of infinite toleration. Yeah. This was the Bard's genius.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: I thought to have achieved an operating chaos which at
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: the same time could be home to people who were
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: not crazy.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which I don't know who those people were.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: I saw Matt as a Hatter used more times in
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: the oral history of the Chelsea Hotel than I ever
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: have anywhere else.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just about everybody there.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: So my favorite Arthur Miller quote, by the way, is
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: these pretzels are making me thirsty. Y. It's a great one.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So let's jump into the sixties and seventies, because
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: that's when the Chelsea seemed like it had some of
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: its most notable events and residents, even if they were
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: part time my favorite guy. Bob Dylan stayed at the Chelsea,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: stayed in room two eleven for about three years, you know,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: off and on because he was going up to Woodstock
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: as well. But sixty one to sixty four is when
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: he was hanging out with Ginsburg and doing his thing.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: He wrote most of, if not all, of Blonde on Blonde,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: which is his seventh album, and very specifically in the
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: song Sarah, which was about his wife, his wife Sarah
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: that he married in sixty five. There's a great line
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: in that song storms are bruin in your eyes, No
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: different Sarah. Okay, this one is very skating, tough song.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: Bob Dylan was the champion of the anti love song.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: This is kind of one of them. But he said,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: he writes about staying up for days in the Chelsea
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Hotel writing a sad eyed Lady of the Lowlands for you.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: So he references another song on the same Sarah.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a song to his ex wife, And he said, basically,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: I remember staying up for days writing sad eyed Lady
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: of the Lowlands for you.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and no time is a good time for goodbye.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Have you seen the Dylan movie? Do you care about
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: that at all.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: Nope, yeah, gotcha. So, but yeah, that was pretty seminar.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's one of his biggest albums, right, And
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: I saw that at the time too, that Bob Dylan
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: and Andy Warhol went basically head to head over Edie Sedgwick,
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: who also stayed at the Chelsea Hotel. And apparently that
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: was the end of Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgwick's Red
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: hot I don't know what you'd call it, not a romance,
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: just interaction of relationship. Sure, we'll just go with that,
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: but it was something other than that, and it lasted
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: less than a year. But apparently Andy Warhol was so
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: jealous that Edie Sedgwick had become totally obsessed with Bob Dylan,
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: who may or may not have returned her advances. It
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: just depends on who you ask. Bob Dylan says no that,
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: but Andy Warhol lost because Bob Dylan was at the time,
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: like basically the biggest person in like alternative culture, the
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: counterculture at the time, like even more than Andy Warhol was.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: Like he was just huge, and it's kind of it's
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: kind of difficult to overstate what a big deal this
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: very big person living and working in the Chelsea Hotel.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: Like what it did for the Chelsea Hotel's reputation.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And it's also mind blowing to know
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: while Bob Dylan's up there in room two eleven literally
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: typing out one of the seminal albums of all time,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: at the same time, Arthur C. Clark is adapting the
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: screenplay for two thousand and one A Space Odyssey on
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: a different floor, in a different room, So like these
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: kind of creative you know, and Andy Warhol is in
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: there shooting parts of Chelsea Girls. Like stuff was really
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: really happening. It didn't earn its reputation just it wasn't
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: overblown at all, you know.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: Right now, Another really famous thing that happened around that
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: time was from Edie Sedgwick. She set her mattress on fire.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and on purpose.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: I think was it on purpose because this was not
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: her first department fire.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it was on purpose.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: Okay, So it's possible this is a very turbulent time
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: for her. Yea, she could have been heartbroken over Bob Dylan.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: She could have been upset Andy Warhol had turned his
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: back on her. I know the previous apartment fire in
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: a different building was because she had shot up a
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: speedball and the cigarette fell out of her mouth and
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: onto her mattress and set her her house on fire.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: That's kind of on purpose too, I guess.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, but that kind of leads me to something.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: There's something that just doesn't show up in the histories.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: I mean here or there. It kind of comes up,
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: but I think it's really understated the effect that had
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: on the community that developed in the Chelsea Hotel from
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: the entire time that the building was open. And that
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: has drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs. Like so everybody
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: from Sarah Bernhardt, the French actress, to Bob Dylan and beyond.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't put it beyond Ethan.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Hawk, he lived there for a while.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So I mean the club kids, like with the
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: Capital C and the Capitol K in the eighties and nineties,
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: like some of them lived there and they were definitely
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: doing drugs. They're like it was just a really big
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: part of the experience of living at the Chelsea Hotel.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: It was like essentially one of the muses that was
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: walking around the halls of that building all the time.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. I mean Gabby Hoffman, the actor. She
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: was raised there from birth till she was eleven years old.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: Her mom was Viva, who was another one of Warhol's superstars,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: and little Gaby Hoffman from Sleepless in Seattle. You know,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: she's a grown lady, you know, middle aged woman now
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: and has talked a lot about it. She loved living there,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: but you know, she was stepping over people, you know,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: passed out with hair and needles in their arms, and
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: you know, on her roller skates and just you know,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: kind of a crazy life. But to her, it was
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: just like, yeah, I just lived in this sort of
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: legendary divy apartment building. Like there was a gazillion non
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: famous ones in New York, this one just happened to
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: be famous. Did see where her mom Viva? Eventually, I
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: don't think it was ever published, but she wrote a
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: book because writers always like very chicully say that like
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: Gabby Hoffman was sort of the Chelsea Hotels answer to
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: Eloise the children's book. And apparently her mom wrote a
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: book called Gabby at the Chelsea. But I don't think
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: I would try to find out think it was ever released.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: That's cute. I would love to see that. Yeah, how
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: about some more famous stuff that happened there.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: Huh Yeah, like Liaison's Janis Joplin and Leonard Cohen. That's
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: a big one.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah. He wrote about that in Chelsea Hotel number two,
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: one of his songs, very famous song. So they were
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: together from sixty eight to seventy when Janis died. I
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: don't know if they were like an item or if
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: they just, you know, liked hanging out.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: If you know, sure, I think I know Jimi.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: But regardless, they were just a famous couple from there. Yeah,
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: that's not the right word. I'm having trouble pulling words
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: out of the air. Another couple that you could probably
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: call more of a couple was Patty Smith and Robert Maplethorpe.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: They moved into the Chelsea They were totally broke at
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: the time. Patty Smith became like the poet of the
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: punk scene. Robert Maplethorpe famously became the devil incarnate with his.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: Photos, provocative pictures, that's.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: One way to put it. Sure of BDSM culture and
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: gay culture in the eighties, and like almost got the
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: National Endowments for the Arts canceled, Although I think it's
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: unfair to say it was him. Jesse Helms almost got
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: the NEA canceled, and it was Robert Maplethorpe was just
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: making art and Jesse Helms just did not think a
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: bullwhip coming out of a man's rectum was art.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: That's right. I had that book. I haven't read yet.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: It's on the shelf with a bunch of other rock
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: and roll books that I have yet to get to.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: But the Jesse Helms story no exactly what a rock
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: and roll Patty Smith's book that she wrote about her
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: time with maple Thorpe, I think it's called Just Kids
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: that I'm looking forward to getting into. But boy, can
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: I tell a quick Patti Smith Bob Dylan story. Is
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: there nothing to do with the Chelsea Hotel?
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: Well, you know what I'm gonna say, it does I'll
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: say she told him here. If you're a Dylan fanuel
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: like this, you can just check out for a second.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: But on Bob Dylan's very famous Rolling Thunder tour that
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: he took up in seventy five seventy six, some people
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: look at that as like some peak Dylan live performance,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: unbelievable stuff. But he has a performance of his song
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: isis one of his great songs after the record is
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: off the record Desire where it's just one of the
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: great live performances of anyone ever is his performance on
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Rolling Thunder of Isis and he doesn't play the guitar
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: and he's just standing there and he didn't do that
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: a lot. And he Patty Smith is the one who
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: encouraged him. He said, Bob, you should, you should do
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: Isis without the guitar. And he said, Patty, I don't
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: know what to do with my hands, and she said,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: make them into fists.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: So did he yell, heck, yeah, you did, okay?
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: And Patti Smith that wrote also about the Chelsea a
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: lot in the restaurant there. It's not officially part of it,
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: but it's connected. You can get to it through the hotel.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: Al Quixote underwent a lot of renovations to reopen. It
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: was a pretty big dive of a place back then,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: but it was cheap food and it was Spanish food,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: and so people ate there, even though apparently the food
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: wasn't good. I saw it described was it. The piea
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: could have been consistency of yesterday's oatmeal. The taste of
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: the sangria might be best described as purple but before
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: the Woodstock Music Festival, Patty Smith went to the Chelsea
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: or was living there, I guess, And she said, I
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: walked into Alcahoti's Bar one afternoon in nineteen sixty nine
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: to find musicians everywhere, sitting before tables laid with mounds
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: of shrimp and green so payea, pictures of sin gree
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: and bottles of tequila. Jefferson airplane was there, so was
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: Janis Joplin and her band Jimmy Hendrix sat by the door. Like,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: can you like just walking into a restaurant and seeing
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: something like that happening? Incredible?
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you'd be like, I don't really care about any
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: these people, No I do.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: I love Jimmy Hendrix, and clearly I love at least
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: Jefferson Starship.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: Right, you were like, one day you don't know it yet,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: you're gonna write a song called Sarah, that's right.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: And I spent at least one summer just listening to
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: Dennis Joplin's greatest hits over and over again, so I
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: could be down with that scene.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: Man, Should we take a break, Yeah, all right, we'll
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: be right back and we'll finish up on the Chelsea Hotel, right,
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: for this. All Right, we talked about people dying at
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: the Chelsea, so we should probably talk more specifically about
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: this because it seemed to happen a lot.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, there were people who jumped out of windows.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: Remember it was a twelve story building and this was
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: nothing new. People. There was a there's a rumor of
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: a ghost of a woman who supposedly lived. There was
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: an artist who was upset with herself and cut off
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: her hand and then threw herself out the window. And
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: this would have been in the first couple decades of
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: the twentieth century. But it didn't stop with her. It
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: just kept going and going and going. And then even
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: if someone didn't die by suicide or it wasn't murdered
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: or their place wasn't set on fire, just the day
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: to day grimy grittiness of it of heroin addicts like
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: shooting up in the bathrooms or sex workers like washing
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: their underwear in the bathrooms. That was another quote from
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: the Oral History of All Places that Vanity Fairhead on
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: the Chelsea Hotel, Like there was just a definite dark
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: side to it, which was just kind of underscores what
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: I was saying before. The people were like and I
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: felt so safe there, and it was like, what was
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: it like outside of this building? If this was what
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: it was like inside, you know.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good point. There was a very notorious
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: death there, depending on who you ask. Said Vicious murdered
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: his girlfriend Nancy Spongeen there in room one hundred in
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: October of nineteen seventy eight. We can't say for sure
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: because he denied it to his last days, which was
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: before he went to court. He died of a heroin
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: overdose before he was able to go to trial for that.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: But what we do know it's it. Nancy Spongeen was
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: stabbed to death there.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah. There's a a biographer author named Phil stre Man
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: or Strongman. I would call myself Phil Strongman if that
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: were my name. But he wrote a punk nonfiction book,
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: I guess called Pretty Vacant, and he points to rockets
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: Red Glare, who was a bodyguard for the Sex Pistols
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: at the time, who was the last person known to
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: have seen Nancy Spongent alive. And there was also supposedly
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: a bunch of money cash in the apartment that couldn't
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: be accounted for after her body was discovered. So he
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: makes a pretty good case. Apparently also Rockets Red Lair
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: was admitted to it later on to some people, So
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: who knows, But I don't think it was sid vicious.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know Rockets Red glare from a lot of
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: those early Jim Jarmish movies. Interesting dude, Rufus Wainwright lived
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: there in two thousand to work on a record, and
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: there's a pretty funny story there where he was. He
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: called down to the front and asked that they could
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: send up a quart of milk, and apparently the bellman
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: arrived with a tray full of just tons and tons
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: of drugs because milk, beknownst to Rufus, was the code
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: word at the Chelsea four drugs.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because he was the only person in the history
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: of the hotel who actually wanted milk at one point.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: And you mentioned Ethan Hawk or that's about say old friend.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: We don't have nothing to do with him, you know.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: I love Ethan Hawk. I think he's a great passionate,
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: artistic dude. But he lived there for three years when
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: he was sort of I don't know think he was
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: fully divorced, but was when he was with Uma Thurman.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: They were kind of on the rocks. Yeah, and he
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: made the movie Chelsea Walls in two thousand and one,
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: which is a series of short films about a day
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: in the life of people at the Chelsea Hotel.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: So you know something about him. I've become more and
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: more of a fan over the years. I think he's
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: really kind of grown into his talent.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think it's I like the guy a lot,
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: and I like his daughter, and I like I think
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: I am a big fan of that family. Yeah. Who's
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: his daughter, Maya Hawk? She's an actor.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: No, I don't know, I'm not familiar.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: Up and coming. She's on Stranger Things is probably what
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: most people know are from these days.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, so what else, Chuck?
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: And she looks just like Uma. Oh really Yeah, it's
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: really funny. I mean a little bit of Ethan in there,
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: but she's got Imma's mannerisms and voice. It's pretty cool. Nice.
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: So you mentioned that the Chelsea Hotel underwent renovations for
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: a long time, over a decade. From what I saw,
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: the whole thing started when Stanley Bard was forced out
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: back in two thousand and seven or eight. I saw
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: both Remember that his father, David Bard, had purchased the
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: Chelsea with two other families, two other men. Well, their
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: errors were basically like, you are not making money here,
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: like he was very Stanley was very famous for accepting
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: art in lieu of rain if you were hard, you know,
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: down on your luck, but you were an artist, like
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: he would just you know, look the other way for
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: a few months. Like he was not running it like
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: a business, and he was very open about that. So
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: apparently the airs of the other two owners were like,
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: you need to get out. We have two thirds of
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: a vote and you're out. And that was when things
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: just kind of, yeah, big bummer. Things just started to
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: change because a few years after that they sold it
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: to some investors. I think that was in twenty eleven.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: They sold it for eighty million dollars. The investors came in,
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: fired all of the staff because they were union, and
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: brought in non union workers. They did away with basically
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: everything that was cool and intangible about the place, and
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: they also took down all the art, Like one of
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: the things Stanley did was hang art by the artists
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: who'd lived there all throughout the place, it was just
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: laden with art. They took all of it off the walls,
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: put it in storage. Apparently some that was, and Stanley's
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: that wasn't. The hotels too. The Larry Rivers Foundation is
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: suing to get one of his paintings back that they
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: say was just on loan, and from that point on
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: it just became kind of ham fisted and not very
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: pleasant for the people who lived there in the Chelsea.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very controversial renovation because, like you said, there's
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: still people living there. Some of those residents held out
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: and fought it and for as long as they could.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: Some other residents were mad at those residents because they
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: were like, we're just living into under construction because it's
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: taking forever. Because you're fighting this like it's going to happen.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: Just give up so we can at least get this
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: finished and live in normal life again. So it really,
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: you know, it depends on your perspective. There's a really,
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: really good documentary that I highly recommend called Dreaming Walls
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: from twenty twenty two where they go inside a lot
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: of these original residence apartments see what they're like. There
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: are also some good books about this. From what I
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: found as of now, I think there's about forty of
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: them still there. Original residence in those apartments and when
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: you stay there. You're walking down the hall to your
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: room and all the doors look the same, and then
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: you'll come across the door that's not the same, and
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: that's an original resident.
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which is pretty cool that they're still there. They're
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: also rent controlled, I believe, which is how they're sure.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it is one of those things where I
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: really like staying there, but I feel like, man, I
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: bet these people hate people like me that like staying
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: here is walking around I know, and like, you know,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: with my nine year old daughter, who's not Gabby Hoffman.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: Right, she's not on roller skates, she's not an uncle Buck.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: I know. So have very mixed feelings about the whole
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: thing about like if staying there support that kind of
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: action in general or.
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, you bring that up. I thought that too,
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: you mean, and I say there a couple of times
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: over the years we did the most avant garde thing
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: you can do. We stayed at the Chelsea Hotel when
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: we went to see comedian Tom Rhodes at the Gotham
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: Comedy Club next door.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: Oh that's very close.
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's super undergone. But I mean, I totally get
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: that feeling that you're talking about where it's just like
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: this was something and now is this the like the
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: dulled up version, like kind of the fake disneyfied version
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: of what it used to be? And that leads me
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: to a question that I had throughout researching this, Chuck,
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: where is whatever the Chelsea Hotel was? Now? Where is it?
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: I don't think it's in New York anymore. I don't
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: think it's something like that can survive in New York
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: because it's just gotten so wealthy and wealthy and wealthy
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: and wealthiness is not really it doesn't really jibe with
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: what the Chelsea Hotel was. And it's heyday, So like
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: where is it? Is it somewhere else in the world?
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: Is it in Kansas? Like where did this go? I
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: really want to know who's doing really interesting cool work
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: these days? Where can you find it? Or is it
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: just not around?
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: I know, I'm with you. And also the notion of
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: like it's a pretty easy target, but like you know,
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: I bet the Holiday and Express and Times Square kicked
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: out some residents for whatever building they took over. You know, like,
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: is there any hotel group on the earth that isn't
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: gross and did things like that in these dense cities?
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, look what happened to San Francisco, Like
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: it lost a lot of it's Oh yeah, I don't
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: want to say luster, because it wasn't luster that made
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: it so charming, but it lost some of its jam.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah for sure. But you know, El Quixotie is awesome now.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: They've got some really good chefs that work there. You know,
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: A big shout out to John Paccini, he's the general
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: manager there. He's the stuff you should know, listener. He's
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: always been very kind to me, so big shout out
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: to him, and he's just he's done a great job.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: And the pie is good now. And I've had some
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: really great experiences in that restaurant and in that hotel.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: The lobby bar there is amazing, Like it's a truly
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: great place to go have a drink. And if you
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: if you stay there, you can get in. But if
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: you don't stay there, you can still go get a
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: drink there. I would recommend it. So I don't know,
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: it's It's definitely makes me question things. But like I said,
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: is there a place in New York where original residents
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: weren't screwed over in some way or another to make
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: way for some new expensive thing.
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: Oh. I mean also not just like people living there,
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: I mean like the art, the tho oh yeah, the
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: artistic vibe that was there where total because it's not
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: like no, I you.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: Know, I know, I know, And a lot of those
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: forty residents or some of them are still artists making
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: art there.
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, they just got to.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that documentary was accurate, but I
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: think that the residents either aren't allowed to use the
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: main entrance or maybe they just prefer not to.
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: I could see either one. Actually I really could too. Actually,
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: well that's it for the Chelsea Hotel. We could keep
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: going on and on and on, but I feel like
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: this is a good place to stop, don't you.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: Uh yeah. I mean, let's quickly mention that there were
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: some very famous things auctioned off. Some of the famous doors.
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: Bob Dylan storer was auctioned off. I think either Leonard
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: Cohen or Janis Joplin store was auctioned and that iconic sign,
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: as best I can figure, was renovated. But part of
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: that renovation included replacing the letters, and those original letters
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: were sold off.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: Cool. Thank you for figuring that out, because I could
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: not make heads or tails of how the sign was restored,
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: but then they auctioned off the sign.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think just pieces of the original. You know,
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: you got to see on both sides and H and
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: E on both sides, and you know, I think you
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: found even that they had them wired so you could
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: put it in your your loft and light it up.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: Pretty awesome, pretty cool. Uh Okay, Well that's it. That's
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: it for Chelsea Hotel. If you want to know more
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: about the Chelsea Hotel, go check out the Chelsea Hotel.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: And since I said Chelsea Hotel three times, as was
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: foretold in two thousand and eight, I've unlocked listener mail.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: That's right, and to prevent another listener mail. Yes, we
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: know naked Lunch was written.
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: There, thank you, Thank you, sir, And a lot of.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: Other stuff was written there. You can't cover it all, no, Hey, guys,
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: this is about inner monologues too, because I mentioned, aside
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: from me thinking weird things when I'm falling asleep, I
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: mentioned Emily's thumb spelling, and it turns out a ton
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: of people do stuff like that, and I told her
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: and she was just delighted to find out that she
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: is in a club. Hey, guys over after a decade,
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: I finally have the inspiration to write. On the latest episode,
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: Chuck mentioned Emily spells outwords with their thumb while stressed.
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: I do something extremely similar, but instead of tracing the letters,
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: I spell them out in the sign language alphabet.
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: And there were all kinds of variations. Some people air type,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: sometimes it's cursive, sometimes it's sign language. It's really interesting.
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: I spelled them out and sign language alphabet, have been
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: doing it since I was at least eleven, and have
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: never heard of anyone else spelling out words well stressed.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: I would love to know the reason, but I'm also
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: just content to know that someone else has a similar eccentricity.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: Thanks for sharing such a lovely anecdote of what it
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: means to love someone with all their little oddities. And
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: peccadillos one of my favorite words. Yeah, it's the acceptance
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: and enjoy in the mundane and extraordinary in life that
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: keeps me coming back every week for a new episode.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: I'm a sandwich listener. I'm sure you're going to get
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: dozens of these emails claiming to be Emily's long lost
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: finger spelling twin, But I had to write in because
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: I've always wanted to stay weird. And Lauren Nider or Niter,
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure how you pronounce it. You are in
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: a larger club because we got heard from a lot
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: of you.
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's really cool. I'm glad. Emily's delighted. Yeah, I'm
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: delighted too, me too. Well, if you want to be
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: like Lauren and write in and let us know that
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: you're a part of a club too, well, we love
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: to hear that kind of stuff. You can send it
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: off to Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: H