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