Residents Outraged Over New Security Guards Installed in Chelsea Hotel

There are at least two new security guards in the building, apparently hired in retaliation to an ongoing harassment suit being brought by a resident against David Elder.  (It may also have had to do with Sunday’s Page Six Magazine article on the hotel in which many residents openly called for the return of the Bards.)  I saw one of the guards standing by the desk yesterday when I went out in the afternoon, and then Debbie and I saw him by the door when we went out last night.  Dressed in black pants and a white shirt, he’s medium height, slightly portly, with graying hair and a goatee.  When we came into the hotel later in the night, he was standing by the door again, and then when we went upstairs to our floor he seemed to follow us up, as he was in our hall not five minutes later, saying “There’s been a report of a gathering in the hall.”  There was no one in the hall except for Debbie who was taking out the trash. (And he said his name was “John”!  This seemed like a nasty inside joke, Ha Ha Ha.)

Well, since when are hallway gatherings prohibited in the Chelsea Hotel ?!  This seemed like borderline harassment itself.  And then when we went back downstairs to look into the matter, we noticed another security guard!  This guy, dressed the same, was a huge, 6’3” African American guy.  Two security guards!?  For a Monday night?!  At the Chelsea Hotel, of all places!?
            So what we, as legal, long-term, rent-paying residents of the hotel demand to know is: Who are these people?  Who hired them: Andrew Tilley or David Elder?  What company are they with, and are they bonded and insured?  Whoever is responsible for the hiring of these guards is deliberately creating an atmosphere of overt hostility toward the residents of this hotel, to let us know that we are being watched, and that we are not wanted here.

Did I mention that this is the Chelsea Hotel ?  Never in a million years would this have happened under Stanley.  I don’t even recognize this place anymore. -- Ed Hamilton

Comments

[Anon]

There are two different guys here today. One is stationed inside of the front door of the Hotel and the other guy is stationed outside of the front door of the Hotel. Are these areas covered by the security cameras?

[Randy]

City of 9 million people. Everytime an elevator door opens there is a gathering in a hallway. WTF?

[Girl Ditzi]

Oh, be nice to the security guards! They're just a coupla unloved bitches, peoples! :(

[Resident]

This is scary. These guys are clearly here to intimidate, not protect, us. Scary scary scary.

[David Elderooni]

But people might gather in the hallways and -- exchange an idea! Ideas scare me. Also, some one might spit on me and you may not know I am deathly allergic to only three things -- ideas (see above), work, and human saliva, which leads to encephalitic brain fever and hair loss. I'm frail and sickly and none too smart. I can't defend myself against ideas and creativity and the rest of that genius stuff. Have some understanding of my position will you?

[Marlene Krausssssss]

David Elder, you weakling. Shut up and come over to my place. My corns need to be pumiced. And as for you unwashed bohemians, better be nice to the security guards. If you drive them away, I'm coming down, and next to me those security guards look like the Teletubbies. Ssssssssssssss.

[The Ghosts]

I would like to see them stop us from gathering in the hallways, or for that matter, in the thick of their dreams in the dead of night.

[Miss H]

I guess this apparent ban on gathering the hallway would preclude the legendary staging of a scene from Aida (as one example) in the hallway using real lions. (any details onthat, Sherrill?) Of course, no more hallway parties now, kids. Chatting with your neighbors at the elevators or trash bins -- now suspicious behavior and strictly forbidden. Every time the dystopic duo act Stanley looks better and better. He is one in five billion and they are run-of-the- mill small minds. It really is like the Muggles have invaded Hogwarts, to put it in a way a billion children can understand.

[Rob from Aus]

If I could say something eloquent I would but this is simply too outrageous for words. I don't know whether I want to scream or cry? Stand bold against these blatant attempts to intimidate and know that you are in our prayers. Will the gestapo be investigating the smell of herbal cigarettes that sometimes drifts the hallways? Does Deb putting the rubbish out really constitute a threat to the well being of the residents? What next? I can only hope that Nancy's ghost gives the fuckers hell. Elder is clearly a bully, a coward and guilty of first degree assholism.

I remember you well at the Chelsea Hotel indeed.

[Cat Martinez]

LMAO, only the free wheeling Chelsea would have disdain for security guards in this day and age! True Bohemes!!!!!!
I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!
(of course, they are probably just a pair of tools!)

This thuglike presnce is antithetical to what the Chelsea has always stood for, and more evidence that Marlene Krauss and David Elder wish to strip the hotel of its soul and make it boring and commonplace.

[Ted]

Why don't all these people just grow up. The hotel should be allowed to renovate and upgrade vacant units and the existing tenants should get some protected term. Hire a company to oversee the renovations and upgrades with Stanley Bard at the desk...simple.

[Sherill]

Miss H, you wrote:

"I guess this apparent ban on gathering the hallway would preclude the legendary staging of a scene from Aida (as one example) in the hallway using real lions. (any details onthat, Sherrill?)"

That was the splendid Katherine Dunham, an anthropologist, choreographer, and expert practitioner of Voodoo. Stanley said she had asked him whether it was all right to rehearse for Aida in her room (for the Metropolitan Opera), and he'd said that was fine. Then he got a call at home that she'd arrived at the hotel in a limousine with a pair of real lions and (according to Stanley) taken them upstairs in the elevator. He insisted that she take them out, but she got some rehearsal in first.

Dunham and the composer George Kleinsinger were the ones who rescued Brendan Behan by bringing him into the Chelsea. Dunham's dancers tended him around the clock. Still, he would escape out into the halls, find the portly, 73-year-old Communist leader Elizabeth Gurley Flynn on her way downstairs, pick her up like a little doll and give her an affectionate shake, saying she was the best little Irish-American Communist he'd ever known.

Stanley did eventually ask Dunham to leave--not because of the lions, but because her Voodoo drums were bothering the neighbors.

Charlie Rangel has a bill in the House tight now formally honoring Katherine Dunham's contribution to American dance.

Isn't it great that we have rent control laws that protect our homes, Chelsea art studios, and ... Charlie Rangel's 4 apartments? Really? The Chelsea Hotel community should be outraged. Clearly putting a bad light on our the laws we depend on.

[Conspiracy Theories]

I've heard two theories about why the newly arrived security guards are in place. Theory number one is that Stanley Bard came by the hotel and went behind the desk. Now, if this is true, what exactly are these guards going to do to a 73 year old man who owns the hotel? The other theory is that Tilley hired them to keep David Elder out of the hotel. Who knows?