The Chelsea Hotel in NYC

[GinaC]

This article was recently published in the Guardian, and it really struck a chord with me. I lived and worked in NYC in the '90's, and the Chelsea was always a magical place. I really hope that it remains at least partially intact. Bravo to the last tenants who are fighting the "sterilization".

https://www.theguardian.com/global/2019 ... -residents

[Willa]

I saw that article. There is a new book out:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1580935257/?coliid=INGFVMPEXY5TH&colid=1KDVFWUNMLB2F&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

that features many of the interiors of long term residents. It looks like a must have for fans of NYC cultural history, and eccentric decor.

The Chelsea Hotel is featured in so many accounts of interesting lives. I had no idea that there were apartments there - I thought it was only hotel-like rooms.

I just read "Trying to Float" by Nicolaia Ripps, who grew up as a child in the Chelsea Hotel in the early 2000's. Personally I thought her parents sounded like negligent narcissists vs interesting personalities but your interpretation will vary as to the charm this book holds.

[Manalto]

I found the Belnord and Apthorp apartment buildings and their residents far more interesting.

[Gothichome]

Interesting, so these are the places radical malcontents and eclectic artistic types with money dwelled. I would suppose every major old city has its own Chelsey, i’m sure Toronto has one.

[Willa]

Interesting, so these are the places radical malcontents and eclectic artistic types with money dwelled. I would suppose every major old city has its own Chelsey, i’m sure Toronto has one.

If there was ever one in Toronto I never heard about it. There have been attempts at sort of Neo-Chelsea's, like the Drake or the Gladstone Hotel. In the case of the Gladstone, it was a run down low rent mostly residential hotel. The poor residents were displaced by the gentrification as it got upscaled. I remember seeing a documentary about this, and one of the owners was weeping about having to displace these people - but they were displaced all the same ! The ugly truth is that for most of the people who are displaced, there is no other place to go. Rents are too high, even at the bottom of the bottom.

http://www.kinosmith.com/catalog/50/last-call-at-the-gladstone-hotel/

In the late 70's - mid 80's many artistic and creative types congregated in run down commercial and industrial areas, where rent was cheap or crazy cheap, your band could rehearse without neighbours calling the police, and there was usually a loose community of like minded others. In Vancouver, Expo86 began the death knoll for these places and spaces as developers began buying up previously undesirable property. The concept of the live/work space was marketed - unaffordable and useless to actual artists and craftspeople. This marketing has been usurped by "lofts" - where dull people have their fantasy of being a hip urban dweller. Toronto in the early 80's was still somewhat affordable enough for creative things to happen. Queen St. West in 1983 had a mix of old school mom and pop stores, strange wholesale businesses, vintage clothing stores, and odd artistic stores that sold...something...that was not quite clear. Many of the storefronts were also used as residences and the occupants made creative window displays. Those days are so long gone. Oddly, the film "Desperately Seeking Susan" offers a pretty good picture of what the world of that counterculture was like - and the strong contrast between the (suburban)squares (ie future loft buyers) and the occupants of run down, precarious actual loft spaces.

The cultural history of NYC has always had pockets of creative outsiders living in otherwise unlikeable areas. As they took root, the gentrifiers took note, and began to sell this as a "lifestyle brand" and the creatives (and families who lived and worked there, and businesses that had been there for decades) were pushed out.

This blog has documented the decline of NYC as greed has sunk its fangs to the bone:

https://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com

(The author's book is worth reading, too)

My older sister recently went to NYC for the first time. It sounds like she was quite disappointed as the NYC of her fantasies, full of interesting antique and artist run stores was nowhere to be found. It had existed, but that time is over, crushed by corporate interests.

[GinaC]

My older sister recently went to NYC for the first time. It sounds like she was quite disappointed as the NYC of her fantasies, full of interesting antique and artist run stores was nowhere to be found. It had existed, but that time is over, crushed by corporate interests.

Yes, I haven't been back since I left in 2002, and I don't even think I'd recognize it.