Living with Legends: Hotel Chelsea Blog

Remembering Virgil Thomson 11/25/1896 - 9/30/89

Composer Virgil Thomson was a long time resident of the Hotel Chelsea.  He resided here from 1934 until he died in 1989.

Out in Berkeley, CA, The Mark Morris Dancers are performing "Four Saints in Three Acts," which is set to a score composed by Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein.   

Interviews from the Chelsea:
"The Saint Theresa Incident," from Virgil Thomson: Composer on the Aisle.

Reflections of an American Composer

Hotel Chelsea -- The Last Years  (From: http://www.schirmer.com/composers/thomson/essay3.html

In 1934 Thomson became a resident at the Hotel Chelsea in New York, a Victorian building that opened in 1884. Many literary people -- Arthur Miller, Dylan Thomas, Thomas Wolfe, Tennessee Williams -- have lived there. Despite its regal elegance, it always had a slightly randy, seedy appearance.

Entering his apartment on the 9th floor, you walked into a past era which was very European, and which left contemporary obstreperous New York far below. Every object in it was a significant part of his history and revealed the cultural milieu of a man whose life for more than half a century was spent interacting with the international avant-garde, particularly the Paris of the 1920s. The enormous sitting room, because of pictures hung on its red and blue walls, made the apartment seem larger than it was. Book cases contained works of his friends old and new -- first editions of Stein, Cocteau, Cummings, Joyce, Gide, Faulkner, William Carlos Williams, James Merrill, Edward Albee, and Truman Capote. Photographs, periodicals of the 20s, paintings and sculpture by Maurice Grosser, Jean Arp, Florine Stettenheimer, Leonid Berman, Christian Berard, Yves Tanguy, Paul Tchelitchew, every one an irreplaceable visual memoir of a lasting friendship. A grand piano, a fireplace, his favorite armchair, and a large cupboard dominated the room. Conspicuous on the top of the cupboard was a set of Vuitton luggage. This was both a pretentious display of vanity and a constant reminder of his hasty retreat from France with Man Ray in 1940. That's all he could manage to take with him.

New York Times Obituary.

OK, So I Don't Watch Martha

And here's what I missed, Chelsea resident Nicolaia Rips, appeared on a cooking segment with Martha last week.  Nicolaia is the daughter of author Michael Rips.  Here's full coverage in The St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Tourists Have More Fun

1.  What do you do? I'm a manager in a 2nd hand record store (www.beanos.co.uk)
2.  When did you stay at the Chelsea? Last November for 2 nights to celebrate my birthday.
3.  Why did you choose to stay at the Chelsea? Because of it's musical history & I was paying tribute to Dee Dee Ramone!
4.  What was the best/worst thing that happened to you at the Chelsea? Just the whole experience was amazing...from 1st walking into the lobby to wandering round checking out the art.

5.  Would you stay at the Chelsea again? Most definitely!

Scandals Are Good for Business

From the Sept 27, 2005 issue of USA Today. The article features various hotels that have endured thanks to the buzz generated by long ago scandals.

•New York's Hotel Chelsea, where punk icon Sid Vicious allegedly stabbed his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, to death in October 1978 in Room 100. (The former Sex Pistol was charged with homicide but died three months later from a heroin overdose.)

Some guests still request Room 100, "strangely enough," says longtime managing director Stanley Bard. It isn't available, however, because the room became part of a larger suite in a renovation 20 or so years ago.

Bard prefers to talk about other notables — Bob Dylan, Madonna, Leonard Cohen and Allen Ginsburg — who have checked in. As for the Sid and Nancy episode, "I'm not happy about it, but you can't control these things," he says.

The Year of the Chelsea?

Even though they've been nominated multiple times previously The Sex Pistols and Patti Smith Group are candidates once again for induction into the 2006 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  We'll keep our fingers crossed this year.  The public doesn't get a chance to vote, but The Cleveland Plain Dealer provides a reader's survey at http://www.cleveland.com/rockhall/

Other Hotel Chelsea Music Highlights:

Patti Smith's thinks that Bob Dylan's best song is Changing of the Guards.

A museum dedicated to the Ramones recently opened in Berlin.

Ryan Adams has a new CD, Jacksonville City Nights.

Chelsea Sound Stage continued

                                        Naked Models
     On a more positive note, many times I’ve arrived home to find naked models cavorting in the stairwells.  So the presence of the film crews has its upside, though I would feel like a lecher if I stood there watching such a spectacle for any length of time.  Sometimes, though, it can’t be avoided.  One time there was a naked girl right in front of my door.  There were three guys, one with a camera, standing over the girl, who lay prone in the corner of the corridor.  About twenty years old, the girl was quite pretty, with dark brown hair, slim, with a good body.  She had on dark make-up to make her look like a vampire, though she was sprinkled in glitter too, and so I didn’t know quite what to make of her: a glittery, naked Goth girl.  My jaw dropped and I just stood there gawking like an idiot.

“Can I help you?” one of the guys said.

“Uh, pardon me,” I said.  “I need to get into my apartment.”

“No problem,” he said. One of the other guys helped the girl to her feet and they all three moved aside.  When I closed my door I heard them gather back around my door to continue the shoot.  Just another day in the Chelsea.  Copyright 2006 Ed Hamilton  (Next Week:  Hollywood Knocks on My Door)
Click here to read more Slice of Life features.

All Tomorrow's Parties - Sept 26 - Oct 2

Monday, September 26th
It's Banned Books week.  Included on the list of the top 100 banned books of the last 10 years is Madonna's Sex (photographed in room 822).  Sex comes in at number 19 on the list.  Read a banned book!

Thursday, September 29th, 8:00 - 11:00 p.m.
"Norman's Big Night Out."  A simmering cocktail of Vaudeville, Vegas, Classic Burlesque, English Music Hall and all the pleasures of the Past & Present, Alive and Kicking in Downtown Manhattan.  Featuring this week Norman's All Time Favorite Beauties: Miss Heather von Domhoff, Miss Saturn, and Miss Amelia, who resembles Sheena Queen of the Jungle, except she's much prettier.   Everybody pays $10.00.
Scenic, 25 Avenue B (Between 2nd & 3rd), Showtime 9:00 sharp.


Friday - Sunday, September 30th - October 2nd

If the Hotel Chelsea doesn't have enough literary events to keep you hopping this week, go ahead, be a traitor and see how the other half lives.  The Dorothy Parker Festival is in full swing at the recently sold for $74 million, fancy pants Algonquin.  Just so we won't feel left out, the event organizer Kevin Fitzpatrick points to some connections between Mrs. Parker and the men of the Chelsea.

Friday, September 30th
Celebrate the live of Virgil Thomson, who died on this date in 1989.  Stay home, listen to music and prepare coq au vin.  Here's the recipe, handed down from Virgil to Gerald Busby and now to you! (Photo from Rita Barros' book, Chelsea Hotel)

Cut up the chicken into eights.
Braise chicken with a rendering of beef suet.
Add a cup of shallots and a cup of your best Burgundy.
Simmer until done.
Serve with the rest of the Burgundy.

Saturday, October 1st, 8:30 p.m.
Catch the premiere of Richard Daniel's "Telling Tales," an evening of solo dance, duets, and a quintet.  The fourth section is a new, commissioned score featuring a composition by Hotel Chelsea resident, Gerald Busby.
Danspace Project 131 E. 10th St., NY

Sunday, October 2nd, 12:00 - 6:00 p.m.
Last chance to view Hotel Chelsea resident/painter Hawk Alfredson's exhibit at the Silk Mill.
540 39th Street, Union City, New Jersey

Literary Hotel Envy

While other hotels are mere Chelsea wannabes, the Algonquin can give the Chelsea a run for her money in the literary department.  The Algonquin was home to literary great, Dorothy Parker. The seventh annual Dorothy Parker festival happens next week, and festival organizer Kevin Fitzpatrick has written an overview of Parker's encounters with the men of the Chelsea:

"Dorothy Parker was a resident of the Algonquin and Plaza hotels, but probably never at the Chelsea. Her residences extended as far south in Manhattan as 44th Street.  But she did venture downtown; indeed her tattoo was inked in a village shop; her friends Edmund Wilson, James Thurber, Andy White and Franklin P. Adams all lived below 23rd Street.  However, she did have a connection with at least four Chelsea Hotel all-star writers.

Thomas Wolfe -- Thomas Wolfe visited Mrs. Parker in Hollywood in September 1935.  "Dorothy Parker seems to like me," he told editor Max Perkins, "Swears she does, and last night told a room full of people that I was built on a heroic scale and that there was no one like me.  Maybe the old girl is laughing at me behind my back and making wicked jokes about me but I think she meant what she said.  She and her young husband are living in a magnificent imitation Colonial house...and the liquor and hospitality flows like the Mississippi -- I am going there again this afternoon."

Vladimir Nabokov -- In October 1958 Mrs. Parker tipped her pen to Nabokov upon the U.S. publication of Lolita.  She was a sometimes book critic for Esquire magazine, her last regular writing assignment.  "I do not think that Lolita is a filthy book," she wrote.  "I cannot regard it as pornography, either sheer, unrestrained, or any other kind.  It is the engrossing, anguished story of a man, a man of taste and culture, who can love only little girls..an anguished book, but sometimes wildly funny, as in the saga of his travels across and around the United States with her."

Arthur Miller -- The National Institue of Arts and Letters inducted Dorothy Parker into its memberhsip in 1958.  IT was the great literary achievement of her career.  She was also invited to Columbia University, where playwright Arthur Miller was speaking.  Mrs. Parker wanted to attend, not so much as to meet the great man of the theater, but to get an audience with his new wife, Marilyn Monroe.

O. Henry -- The first literary prize Dorothy Parker was awarded was the O.Henry award for best short story of the year, in 1929.  It was for her gem "Big Blond" -- a semi-autobiographical novella of love and loss.  Parker and O. Henry had another connection through New York World columnist Franklin P. Adams, a member of the Algonquin Round Table and mentor to Parker.   Adams and O. Henry (William Sydeny Porter) collaborated on a play.

Moving Day for Ethan

The Divine Movers van parked in front of the Chelsea is being filled with the contents from Ethan Hawke's apartment.  In true Chelsea spirit, the elevators have been malfunctioning all day.  Moving is always such a bitch.  This can only mean one thing.  Soon, a very nice apartment will be available!

Fashion Week Wrap-Up

Hotel Chelsea resident fashionista Sally Singer reviews the collections:

Michael Kor --  "He took a Madame X silhouette and did something new with it," said Sally Singer, Vogue's fashion news director. "There were lots of pieces that can be worn by all sorts of women across this country. He showed a range of strengths: a jersey gown with a touch of lace, that black metallic gown with ure and crunch. He can do a great bikini and do a great eyelet so that a full skirt doesn't look too immature."

Gwen Stefani --  "Gwen has a certain style that is entirely her own, and a logical extension of her enthusiasm," says Sally Singer, Vogue's fashion news and features director. "She has a stylist and a fashion designer in her as well as an original point of view."

Vera Wang --  "She's connected with the moment very well," observes Sally Singer, Vogue's fashion news director. "Women's fashion right now isn't about conveying power and promotion and fabulosity, it's about lifestyle clothes, clothes you wear to work, wear them out and pick up your kids in them. ... It's now about a seamless transition between professional life and family life. Vera lives that life."

Marc Jacobs, Proenza Schouler, & Narciso Rodriguez --   "The new look is flattering, if a bit youthful, Singer said. But beware - higher waists usually mean mid-calf skirt lengths. "   ``That doesn't really flatter many women,'' Singer said.