Scott Smith takes us back to the early 1980s, a time when fabulous tranny hookers, crack dealers, and punk-wannabes ruled the Chelsea Hotel. According to Scott, it was also a time of extreme sadness at the Chelsea, as many of the residents began to succumb to AIDS.
What do you do?
I'm a writer presently completing a novel. Portions of my blog Bill in Exile will be excerpted this fall in a collection being published by Kleiss Press. Bill is actually my blogging partner and oldest friend in New York. We've known each other for more than 23 years now. We ran Bill in Exile for just over a year and shut it down a couple months ago. It was very popular. Bill is in prison for 7 and a quarter years for selling meth and our blog was simply the letters that we exchanged with each other every day and that I put up on the internet.
What inspired you to move into the Hotel Chelsea?
What inspired us to move into the Chelsea was that my boyfriend at the time and I were both in our early twenties, I had just gotten out of the Marine Corps and we were dead broke and living in a shooting gallery on 10th and Avenue C in the east village when that part of town was scary beyond belief and we thought the time was right for a move uptown to a "de-luxe apartment in the sky". We had heard that the Chelsea might have vacancies and that they liked artists which my boyfriend was. Plus I loved the design of the building.
How'd you score your apartment?
Our interview with Stanley Bard the longtime manager of the Chelsea was, I thought at the time, pretty straight forward. Realize that I had just gotten out of the Marine Corps and hailed from Kentucky so I didn't know a damn thing about much of anything, least of all New York real estate. Mike (the bf) and I walked into Stanley's office with a couple of Mike's paintings and started talking to him about renting 
an apartment. Stanley wanted to see the paintings we brought and we were only too happy to show them since we intended to try to use them in lieu of a security deposit. Stanley looked at them, snorted a couple of times and handed us a set of keys to an apartment on what I recall was the 4th floor. It was basically a large hotel room with a kitchen but it had a cute little wrought iron balcony outside right next to the Hotel Chelsea sign. After we saw the apartment we told Stanley we loved it and he said "you can move in tomorrow" and that was that. No security deposit no rent in advance. I later learned that Stanley's way of doing business was not in the least the norm for New York landlords.
Were the punks still around lighting candles to Sid?
The early 80's had pretty much seen the demise of punk at the Chelsea by then especially after the Sid Vicious Nancy Spungeon killing. Mostly you saw a lot of punk-wannabees and those who came around hoping to discover some truth about Sid Vicious, but mainly there were really cool tranny hookers in the hotel at the time. They all had lived in the building for ages and remembered Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungeon and her killing in '78. They all had great stories.
How would you describe the Chelsea vibe in the early 1980s?
The vibe at the Chelsea for me has always been really interesting. When I lived there it was right before crack hit New York really hard but there were definite hints of things to come within the crew that made up the residents of the hotel. You saw people starting to succumb to the drug and slowly, or not so slowly, and disappearing from it. Actually, my drug dealer lived a floor above us while we were there and he continued to live in the same apartment for over ten years until he died of AIDS. That was the big impact on the hotel and the city at that point. AIDS. AIDS and Crack. Chelsea as a neighborhood had a quickly growing gay population since everyone in the village to the south was dying like flies and gays that were still alive wanted to flee the hot zone. During the early 80's the hotel had a kind of sadness hanging over it since so many residents and friends of residents were dying and the gay boys who lived there, like me and my boyfriend, all were pretty much figuring that we'd be dead in a matter of months too. So when we lived there I'd say that AIDS hung over everything. AIDS and drugs.
Were celebrities dropping by in the 80s?
Lets see, I walked up the stairs with a very young, very cute Mathew Modine once. I think the elevator was out and we started chatting and I didn't realize who he was until later which is typical of me since I'm completely hopeless when it comes to spotting celebs. He's very tall. I rode the elevator with Ed Koch once. I think he was heading to one of the big penthouse apartments to visit someone. He's really tall too! I used to see Andy Warhol in the lobby all the time with various members of his 
Factory entourage and his last protégé, Christopher Makos the photographer. Chris and I became friends and lived near each other in the village for almost 20 years from the late 80's on. (Photo: Christopher Makos and Andy Warhol, c. 1981) A later celebrity connection that I had to the Chelsea was that of Ethan Hawke. Although I had long since moved out of the hotel when Ethan lived there he and my brother Kenneth were friends and went to prep school in New Jersey together and even performed together in school plays. I saw Ethan perform in The Glass Menagerie when he was 16 years old.
What was the best/worst thing that ever happened to you at the Chelsea?
The best and worst thing about living at the hotel was that this pre-op tranny hooker named Simonette used to live in our apartment before we moved in. She had a boyfriend named Tyler who was this incredibly beautiful 20 year old cadet at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. (Don't ask me how he got away with it but suffice to say that Simonette could pass for a girl under all but the most extreme scrutiny). Anyway, Tyler had gotten dumped by Simonette before we moved in and apparently she moved without forwarding information and Tyler being smitten and deeply in love was basically stalking her, or at least trying to stalk her but without too much success. He would show up at our apartment door at all hours crying for her and begging to be let in. My boyfriend and I ran him off repeatedly at first and he was really making us nuts but then one night we let him in and after sitting around talking to him for hours we basically became best friends. We ended up helping him get over Simonette and I remain friends with him to this day.
Do you think the Chelsea has a creative spirit?
Oh, yes. Without a doubt the Chelsea has a creative spirit. All one needs to do to confirm that is to walk the halls and you'll feel it. Or you can step out of the lobby onto 23rd street and look at the various plaques commemorating who lived there if you're less spiritually inclined. The list of Chelsea residents is long and storied and includes Bob Dylan and Janis Joplin, Bill Burroughs, Gore Vidal, Allan Ginsberg and Tennessee Williams (tons of homos!) and I think the hotel attracts people who are creative as well as a bit nuts in part because of its history and in part because Stanley used to make it really easy for artistically talented individuals to find a home there. I also think that the people who live there, once ensconced in residency, feel that artistic spirit within the buildings walls and develop a sense that they need to live up to it and try hard to do so.
Get a massage while you still can. We hear that Serena's will soon be closing for renovations. Wonder if they will be able to make it look less like a basement?
Susanne Bartsch and Kenny Kenny invite you to Happy Valley Tuesdays. As usual, there will be DJs (Alexander Technique and Mike Probe) and a hot show (Rose Wood). Downstairs: The Look, DJ Ryan and DJ John Selway) Hosts: Sophia Lamar, Miranda Moondust, Kim Aviance, Theodora and Amanda Lepore. (Photo: Surgery's flickr pool)
David Goodwillie will read from Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time, 
The heat's on, so stay inside in the air conditioning and catch Wallace Shawn in My Dinner with Andre. Fascinating table talk between an actor and his writer-director friend. Directed in cinema-verite style. Flix Movie Channel.
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