Workers removed the bar from the CBGB Gallery a few weeks ago. Designer John Varvatos will be peddling $125 guitar T-shirts from there soon.

Designer John Varvatos gave Voice writer Lynn Yaeger the brush-off despite repeated attempts for comment and then officially announces that he's opening a boutique in the storefront that once housed CBGB on the same day her article "All Sold Out at CBGB" hit newstands. That's so punk.

Said Jesse Malin of the news: "“After getting to know John over the years and seeing him host wonderful live music performances, I can't think of anyone better to keep the spirit and soul of rock music alive on the Bowery in the old CBGB's location.”

Me too!

“I think it’s great … now all the old CBGB punks will become the best dressed CBGB punks in the world,” declared Alice Cooper.

Totally, those punks are just hanging out on the Bowery waiting right now. You see them every day. Punks drinking forties. Punks sleeping on stoops. Punks everywhere. We hear, a lot of the "old CBGB punks" are going to get $3,495-leather-jackets at the same time and reform the old LES crew.

In the press release, the Varvatos people say "among the many ideas being considered for the new store are a special merchandise mix geared to a rock & roll customer, a stage permanently integrated into the store design, an in-store performance series featuring up and coming musical artists, and a new John Varvatos collection designed specifically for 315 Bowery, from which a portion of the proceeds would benefit an artist development fund."

Hmmm. Potentially cool. Better than Starbucks, I guess. Hard to say. Starbucks is a total ripoff but at least you could afford to buy something there if you wanted overpriced burnt coffee. Can't say that about a Varvatos store.

I never really thought too much about how the rest of the country perceives New Yorkers. I couldn't really care. I'd always heard the stereotype was something along the lines of pushy, loud, rude, ornery, and, even perhaps, criminal.

Though not entirely accurate, I felt those stereotypes useful. They kept away the people who didn't want New York badly enough and attracted people who simply had to be here because they couldn't fit in anywhere else. Or had some dream that could only be fulfilled in NYC. But I guess that's an outdated stereotype.

I was a little shocked when I read the first paragraph of ""The Fey Highwayman", Rob Harvilla's review of Sufjan Steven's BQE symphony:

All my friends who don't live in New York hate New York. Near as I can tell, they imagine the city as one giant, loathsome American Apparel ad, a crass, joyless, narcissistic, careerist, emaciated, insincere, hopelessly uptight, suffocatingly twee cesspool of white-privilege Williamsburg hipsterdom. I'm paraphrasing; they're stereotyping.

I think that begins to describe how a lot of people in this city feel about the new New York. I just hadn't realized that those changes had gotten to be so ingrained and permanent that that's how people in the rest of the country imagine about New York these days too.

Does that sound about right?

The Bowery, once synonymous with being down on your luck, is now the hot address for the i-banker crowd.

There's a phrase that describes what you're feeling when you walk around Manhattan—or Brooklyn or anywhere in the city—shaking your head at the latest luxury condo sprouting up and muttering to yourself about the bank branch that replaced another mom-and-pop store: angry nostalgia.

That's what author Luc Sante called it in an interview in this week's Voice. So don't despair. At least, you're not alone in suffering from angry nostalgia. Then again, maybe you should despair. Sante left the city and is now living in Kingston.

Sante said:

For a while, I was consumed by this sort of angry nostalgia, remembering the New York I knew. But now it's just gone. So I can marvel at what they're doing to the Bowery and Little Italy, putting up these pocket skyscrapers on these blocks of six-story tenements. Fuck it—let 'em do it. The more they erase my New York, the further it's emotionally removed from me, the better. Let them turn it into Beijing.

Welcome to New York City in the New Gilded Age.

In this week's Voice, Tom Robbins takes a look at a new construction project in Chelsea that's just one example of the "age we live in, where the excesses of conspicuous consumption offend at every turn."

The building, 200 Eleventh Avenue, features en suite parking, meaning the captains of industry who will live there can just drive their Hummers right into their building, get on an elevator and park their FUVs right next to their apartment. The building's web site has an disgusting video explaining how it all works.

From the Robbin's piece:

Could even the Great Trump top this?

The answer is no, or he would have done so already. Everyone knows that the will to privacy is greatest among the rich, and the in-house garage concept offers something priceless—no more nodding to the doorman, no more waiting on sleepy garage attendants, no more worrying about some klutz scratching the Beemer. The idea must have struck the designers of 200 Eleventh Avenue like a bolt of lightning: suburban-style attached garages in the city! McMansions stacked high into Manhattan airspace!

Looks like the dream is over for Astroland.

Barring a last-minute reprieve from developer Joseph Sitt, Astroland appears to be heading the way of Luna Park. The New York Post reported Friday that the city hasn't been able to find a new Coney Island home for the beloved 45-year-old amusement park.

"We just couldn't find the right fit," Lynn Kelly, president of the city's Coney Island Development Corp. told the Post.

So it would be up to developer Joe Sitt to give longtime Astroland operator Carol Hill Albert a lease extension for one more summer. That appears unlikely as both sides are millions apart in their negotiations.

As Neil deMause reported in Runnin' Scared last week:

Recchia also reported that Thor would be willing to meet with Astroland owner Carol Hill Albert to negotiate a new lease. This came as a surprise to Albert, who was at that moment standing a hundred feet away inside the park gates—she hasn't officially endorsed the Save Astroland campaign, though park employees have helped collect signatures. Albert told the Voice that every time her representatives have met with Thor in the last nine months, the developer's offer has remained the same: Agree to a rent hike from her current $190,000 a year to $3 million, or get lost.

If you got any good Astroland stories, share them, please.

Photo by Andrew Coulter Enright

It appears that it's only an illusion that New York City is being overrun by Midwestern hipsters, at least in 2005 anyway, according to a report released by Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr.

The city lost nearly 300,000 residents in 2005 to other parts of the country, while less than half as many people made the relocation from other parts of the country to New York City.

So only 150,000 people moved to New York City from other parts of the country in 2005. Wow. You'd think NYU would be responsible for that amount of people alone. Maybe the 300,000 New Yorkers that moved away are the coolest people ever and those that took their place are the most annoying ever. That might explain it.

Thompson's analysis of domestic migration also found that "families earning between $40,000 and $60,000 annually were the most likely to leave the five boroughs," confirming what most people know: the city is increasingly becoming a playground for the rich.

But Thompson's number-crunching also presented a mixed outlook, finding that "those most likely to stay put are households earning $60,000 to $140,000 per year."

Other key findings:

* In 2005, about 4 percent of the city’s population “turned over,” not including natural population changes caused by births and deaths. At that rate, more than a one-third of the city’s population would change over the course of a decade.

* Migrants to New York City from the rest of the country are young, well-educated, and usually single. Almost two-thirds of the domestic migrants to the city in 2005 held a Bachelor’s or higher degree and about two-thirds were unmarried.

* About 40 percent, or 76,000, of the adults who left the city in 2005 had a BA degree or higher. When international immigration is factored in, approximately the same number of college-educated people arrived in the city that year.

* The average age of the heads of households who left the city was 40 years old, compared to almost 50 years for those who stayed.

* The average income of households who left the city in 2005 was $72,000, slightly higher than the $66,500 average of those who stayed.

* Moderate-income ($40,000 to $59,999 annual income) and higher-income households ($140,000 to $249,999 annual income) were most likely to leave the city, while middle-income ($60,000 to $139,999) and wealthy households ($250,000 and above) were least likely to leave.

* Black, White, Hispanic and Asian New Yorkers each left the city roughly in proportion to their share of the city’s population.

* Controlling statistically for other factors, households with young children were most likely to leave the city.

* People who were born in other states are more likely than native New Yorkers to leave the city, while foreign-born residents are less likely to leave.

Save Astroland campaigner Brian Gotlieb tries to keep the dream (or at least the swinging pirate ship) alive.
Photos by Neil deMause

Yesterday was the official last day of business for Astroland, and supporters of the 45-year-old Coney Island institution turned out in hopes of sparking an 11th-hour reprieve that would keep the park's 23 rides and three game arcades open into 2008. Brian Gotlieb, the former Community Board 13 chair who formed Save Astroland last month, came bearing an estimated 9,000 petition signatures calling on all parties involved to broker a deal; he told the few dozen Coney fans who rallied outside the gates at noon, "The idea behind this is to keep things open until the plans for Astroland's successor are finalized."

The Hungry March Band entertain last-night parkgoers. Moments later, they would pile onto the Astrotower and ascend to the skies, still playing.

Next behind the bullhorn was Tricia Vita of the Coney Island History Project, who issued a direct plea to Joe Sitt, owner of Astroland's landlord Thor Equities. "Mr. Sitt: You like to think of yourself as Joey Coney Island. You say you want to be a hero. Now's your chance. You can create so much good will by giving Astroland and the businesses on the Boardwalk a one-year lease. That's all we're asking for." The rest of "we" were a bit more in the mood to be demanding: When Coney Island artist and former Rock Steady breakdancer Africasso, whose mashup sculpture of Coney attractions past and present is on display at the History Project booth under the Cyclone, said, "If we had our way, [Astroland] would be open forever and ever," it drew the biggest cheer of the day.

None of this was any surprise. What was unexpected was city Councilmember Dominic Recchia, the only local elected official to have spoken favorably of Sitt's timeshare-hotel plan for the Astroland site, addressed the crowd. Sounding at time like he was auditioning for the job of Sitt's new spokesperson, Recchia said he didn't want to see any "residential" development in the amusement district (bringing the day's second-biggest cheers)—and insisted that Thor had no intention of pursuing the scorched-earth policy that Sitt openly threatened earlier this year. "They have told me with confidence that they don't want to see this piece of land stay vacant," said the councilmember, adding: "One way or another, there will be rides on this property next year."

Recchia also reported that Thor would be willing to meet with Astroland owner Carol Hill Albert to negotiate a new lease. This came as a surprise to Albert, who was at that moment standing a hundred feet away inside the park gates—she hasn't officially endorsed the Save Astroland campaign, though park employees have helped collect signatures. Albert told the Voice that every time her representatives have met with Thor in the last nine months, the developer's offer has remained the same: Agree to a rent hike from her current $190,000 a year to $3 million, or get lost.

Notwithstanding hopes of a last-second deal—several rallyers made reference to Mayor Bloomberg's purchase of the landmark B&B Carousell on the eve of its auction two summers ago—it's looking increasingly likely that nothing is going to get worked out before the Coney Island Development Corporation issues its rezoning plan for the area, probably sometime in October. With all indications being that the rezoning will bar any hi-rise development between the Cyclone and Keyspan Park, Sitt will then face the decision that the Voice outlined last month: Flip his land to another developer, start knocking down buildings to try to scare the city into changing its mind, or take the city's offer to swap Astroland and his other parcels for city-owned land where he would be allowed to build condos.

This uncertain future cast an unsettling mood over what was otherwise a perfect late-summer day at the beach. In the early afternoon, the Coney land wars claimed another victim, as the Zipper ride located on the otherwise-vacant lot owned by Thor between West 12th Street and Stillwell Avenue was loaded onto a flatbed truck and began the long drive to its new home, reportedly at an amusement park in Honduras. (Its neighbor the Spider headed south last week.)

As for Astroland's final night (aside from the kiddie park, which will say open weekends through October 1 to serve the Sukkot holiday crowds), it was a busy one, though not too noticeably different from the usual haphazard cross-section of Brooklyn socioeconomics that would be there on a normal Sunday night. The Hungry March Band danced through the park, lending the air of an especially shambolic wake.

The throngs eventually shuffled off into the night, as Astrostaffers snapped pictures of each other and the camera crews that have taken up residence in recent weeks looked increasingly aimless. Albert walked the grounds, sharing tearful hugs with her employees, some of whom have been with the park for decades.

And then, at 10:48 pm, the operator of the Pirate Ship ushered off his final boatload of riders, declaring, "They never caught me! That's it! There are no more rides at Astroland." A few seconds later, the floodlights snapped off, casting Astroland into sudden darkness. The 50 or so remaining parkgoers went "Ooooh!"—one final thrill, and Astroland was shuttered, if not forever, at least for now.

The Zipper is packed up and on a flatbed truck. The Zipper and The Spider are both heading for an amusement park in Honduras, according to the New York Post.

The call to arms has gone out on the Coney Island Message Board: Rally for Astroland. Noon. Sunday. Surf Avenue Entrance to Astroland.

See you on Sunday, Sept. 9, at high noon at the Surf Avenue entrance of Astroland, to demonstrate our support for Astroland. Bring yourself, your friends and family. Don’t forget to make signs! If you don’t have materials, come early (11am) and create your own sign. I'll have foamboard and markers on hand. Wear colorful clothes- this is not a wake or a funeral! We will march through Astroland to celebrate our attachment to the park and express our desire that it reopen for the 2008 season! Remember how the B & B Carousell was saved on the eve of the auction? We're hoping for another last minute reprieve.

What does the future hold for Coney Island? A Wal-Mart?

Neil deMause had an interesting analysis of the situation in Runnin' Scared last week that lays out the three courses developer Joe Sitt could take to end his stalemate with the city. This is the option that has a lot of people worried:

Take a bulldozer to the buildings he owns along Surf Avenue—which include the Grashorn Building, Coney's only surviving 19th-century structure, and the Henderson Building, where Harpo Marx made his stage debut—and gamble that either this mayor or the next will cave on the rezoning once faced with vacant lots.

Johnny brought his van down to CBGB one last time.

For every eight Abercrombie & Fitch-wearing robots that walked by the former CBGB Wednesday afternoon oblivious to the fact that there was once a club on the Bowery called CBGB, about one person stopped and mourned Hilly.

Louise Parnassa, a former booker for the club and Hilly's right-hand woman, paused to remember her former boss. One of the guys from Ultra Violence, an old NYHC outfit, stopped by and tagged an RIP. Mandy Stein, the documentarian and daughter of Sire Records president Seymour Stein, was there recording it all for a forthcoming documentary on the club.

Johnny, a lifelong Brooklynite who refused to give his last name, came by in his van.

Johnny, who uses his van to drive around Jesse Malin and other musicians, shared some of his thoughts on the passing of Hilly Kristal.

On why he brought his van:

"They used to be more people outside hanging out than inside. That's why I used to bring my van. And that's why I brought it today. I figured if people were still hanging out. We used to go across the street, get beers, and hang out."

On the neighborhood:

"This is it as far as the neighborhood goes. This is the final bullet...we all might as well go home and drift away now."

"It's not like there is anyone around to care. Everybody is gone who would have cared. This is class warfare in New York. And guess who's winning. It started when Giuliani let Trump build all those condos on the West Side and all the developers have been doing whatever they want ever since. It's a psychological war. They just get you to give up and leave."

On Hilly's fight with his former landlord Muzzy Rosenblatt:

"And look now, Nobody wants to rent the place. Do you think Starbucks want to be next door to that [The BRC homeless shelter], people coming in and out all day and messing with their customers. Think about the money he's lost by not renting the place for almost a year. He didn't have to kick him out. He lost a lot of money....It basically came down to two old Jewish men fighting—it doesn't get more New York than that. "

On Johnny Thunders:

"We used to tell his dealer "Give him the good stuff. Put a little speed in his dope. We want to see a good show, so give him the good stuff. Don't give him stuff that's gonna knock him out."

A little of the old Ultra Violence.

Photo by Emily Geoff via Flickr

I've walked by the Whole Foods on the Bowery for a few weeks now, and I've resisted the urge to go inside. It's part of a stubborn and silly refusal of mine to accept what the Bowery—and almost all of the city—has become.

But I checked it out. The store is quite good. It's the customers that were bad.

I gotta say that I really wanted to hate it. But here's the crazy thing: many of the prices were cheaper than those at the Key Food in my neighborhood in Brooklyn. My favorite yogurt was 20 cents cheaper. Half-and-Half was also 20 cents cheaper. Plus I got a bunch of other cool stuff: sourdough wholewheat bread, some dulce de leche from Argentina, emmenthaler cheese, and some nice salami.

All in all, it was positive, then I got in line and heard the following:

"They want 6-point-7," a man waiting on the line next to me said in a self-satisfied way into his cell phone. "$6.7 million is not a problem. But do you know what's across the street? Low-income housing. I'm not paying $6.7 million so I can look out the window at public housing."

Chris Bryne, the co-owner of Rocky Sullivan's, says the show will go on in Brooklyn. The Manhattan location closed last night.
Photo by Hollow Sidewalks via Flickr

"They can take away our Guinness, but they can't take away our freedom," screamed one fairly inspired reveler from the landing of Rocky Sullivan's pub on Lexington Avenue on Tuesday night. It wasn't exactly the case, but the crowd roared back anyway. The reworking of the famous Braveheart line was close enough for them.

They're not taking away anyone's Guinness. Just moving it to Red Hook. After more than 11 years, the last pint has been pulled at Rocky's Lexington Avenue location.

Chris Byrne, who co-founded the bar with journalist Patrick Farrelly, was philosophical about the move to Dwight and Van Dyke streets.

"With the way the rent went up, it was just impossible for us to remain a working man's bar," said Byrne, both a former cop and member of Black 47. "It was more than double the rent. I've been fighting to stay here for the past three years. But with the rent increases and the neighborhood changing, I just gave up fighting and now I'm looking forward to Brooklyn."

And just how has the neighborhood around 28th and Lexington changed in the last decade?

"It's not bad, if you're looking for a night out in Orlando," Byrne said casting a weary glance down Lex. "But it's not the Manhattan that I grew up in."

The new Rocky's, the former Liberty Heights Tap Room, is four times bigger than the old Lex location and has an outdoor deck that's a "smoker's paradise," said Byrne. Plus, now he'll serve food: pub grub and the same brick oven pizza served by the former owners.

The live music will remain. And so will the readings that have drawn big names such as Roddy Doyle, Frank McCourt, Edna O'Brien and Pete Hamill among others.

On August 27, he'll have his first: Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes, reading from his debut novel Triple Homicide.

"I went through my angry phase, but I'm over it," said Byrne. "I'm not trying to get all Bill Clinton on you when I tell you I really am looking forward to Red Hook."

Questions about the proposed film regs? Juliana Luecking breaks it down.

Fed-up New Yorkers will rally at Union Square at 6:30 pm on Friday to protest against yet another piece of proposed legislation that aims to squeeze even more of the freedom and creativity out of our increasingly sterile yet still beloved city.

A particular worry is a new law proposed by the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre & Broadcasting that could negatively impact even the most amateur of photographers and filmmakers looking to take pictures or film around city sidewalks.

Picture New York Without Pictures—a new coalition of concerned filmmakers and photographers— will be joined by the Rev. Billy and the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir, the Rude Mechanical Orchestra, Critical Mass riders, and others for a celebration of the First Amendment, and a protest against the proposed film regs and other laws that seek to impose limits on dancing, bike riding, and assembly in the city. (What is this Footloose?)

The city, which made the rule change public on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend, will be accepting public comments on the rules until Aug. 3. Picture New York has set up an online petition where New Yorkers can voice their concerns about the proposed regulations. A complete copy of the proposed rule changes can be found here.

Angry residents of the Hotel Chelsea have championed the case of Piri Thomas.

As the fight between longterm Hotel Chelsea residents and the new management gets uglier and uglier, residents have pinned some of their hopes on a court case in California involving Piri Thomas, the author who detailed his Spanish Harlem childhood in the classic autobiography "Down These Mean Streets."

When reached at his California home, Thomas—who is battling his step-son David Elder, the man who residents say orchestrated the boardroom coup that ousted hotel lifeblood and long-time hotel manager Stanley Bard—was surprised that he has become a cause celebre among hotel residents. He couldn't believe that his once obscure case had been thrust into the spotlight after languishing in the courts for years.

But Thomas said he hoped to prevail:
"The trustees have just been doing us dirty," Thomas said. "They have been spending all the money so that we won't have any. It's just been terrible."

The Living with Legends blog has brought the case into the spotlight, and an ad-hoc blogspot site, which may or may not be related to Living with Legends, Save Piri Thomas, has also cropped up in the last month.

This is Living With Legends analysis of the legal battle:

When David’s mother died in 1986, she left her 16% interest in the Chelsea Hotel to David and his two siblings in trust. However, the trust stipulated that Piri Thomas, her husband and David’s stepfather, was to receive all income from the trust for as long as he lived.
David and his siblings didn’t care for that arrangement and have refused to hand over the 1.2 million that the trust has generated in income, forcing Piri to sue for the money. Though the court called David and his siblings’ argument that the income was principal “absurd,” and ruled against them, they have tied it up in appeals.

Thomas' wife, Suzie Dod Thomas, said she didn't want to comment on the case outright but clarified some information that's been reported. The next big date in the case is August 20 when a court-appointed mediator will consider Thomas' motion to have Elder removed as a trustee of the estate, she said. The appeal regarding the $1.2 million is indeed still pending, she said.

Some of the California court documents can be found here.

The Voice Tricia Romano took a look this month at some of lesser known residents of the Chelsea.

Photo by Hallowsidewalks via Flickr
If memory serves me correctly, that's Chris Byrne, the bar's owner.

Building by building, store by store, person by person, Manhattan just keeps getting less interesting and more generic. The latest news: Rocky Sullivan's is closing it's doors on Lexington Avenue at the end of the month.

The Irish literary hangout is relocating to Red Hook and Gowanus Lounge has a picture of new sign going up on the corner of Van Dyke and Dwight streets. By some accounts, the new Rocky's is already open.

Calls to the bar were not returned. (Why won't they take my calls? That was four years ago. I was drunk. And I apologized.) But word has it that the landlord tripled the rent. Surprise. Surprise.

A little history from the Rocky Sullivan's web site:

In the late spring of 1996, musician Chris Byrne (Seanchai, Black '47 and Paddy-A-Go-Go) approached journalist Patrick Farrelly (HBO's Left of the Dial, Irish Voice, Michael Moore's TV Nation) with a proposition. Byrne was tired of bars with lousy jukes, loud televisions, watery Guinness, yuppie wannabee customers, and pretentious bartenders. "The only way round this problem is to open our own," Byrne concluded. Farrelly agreed. In September, 1996 Rocky Sullivan's opened its doors at 129 Lexington Avenue, between 28th and 29th Streets in midtown Manhattan.

Rocky Sullivan's marked itself on the overcrowded Manhattan bar map as a joint with a difference. It's Wednesday night readings have drawn enthusiastic crowds and top flight writers—Roddy Doyle, Frank McCourt, Edna O'Brien, Pete Hamill, Rosemary Breslin, Mike Lupica—to name a few.

The music line up is distinctive, nothing bloodless or bland is allowed—from Seanchai's Friday night Irish hip hop party, to various local and international guests (music guests have included Karen Casey,The Popes, Damien Dempsey, Terry "Cruncher' O'Neill and many more).

On Tuesday and Wednesday nights Irish language classes are held in our back lounge.

Apart from that, you can wander in, ignore all of the above, and settle down with a pint of Guinness that, we are told, is best in the city.

Some of the beautiful photographs from Linda Troeller's upcoming book Atmosphere: An Artist's Memoir of the Chelsea Hotel are reprinted in the photo gallery that accompanies Tricia Romano's "Down At the Chelsea", a story about some of lesser known, but equally colorful, residents of the hotel. Troeller's book also prints letters to the hotel, from both residents and guests, who felt blessed to have taken shelter there.

Dear Chelsea Hotel,

Nina Hagen, Grace Jones, who can stay anywhere, choose this hotel, as they know they are among artists. Viva was living here and used to hang her clothes to dry on the roof garden. It was my space, but she looked at me, “you’re new here, don’t bother me.” The painter, Julian Schnabel, would sometimes have 30 paintings packed under a tarp under the roof. I’d see Dee Ramone, waiting to be recognized sometimes. I worshiped Richard Bernstein, who has done covers for Interview and I used to work with Arthur Weinstein, who does lighting for clubs. Just like a club you wanted to look good—‘cause you’d be seen in the lobby and it gave you a kind of self-esteem. The staff is really loose and they understood who you are. The hotel is like a nightclub. Stanley is the impression. The transients can be anything but there are the steady regulars, the residents like at membership club. There’s a sexual undertone in the hotel, which also is similar to how people see each other in a club. I think Stanley knows he’s running a club – that he’s really a club operator. He maintains the vibe of the hotel, creates a balance. He is an artist in his own way –dressing in a coffee shop manner – creating a nightclub of intellectual values.

Steve Lewis, Nightclub Owner

Christo and Jean Claude also wrote a note:

Dear Chelsea Hotel,

In 1964 a Paris gallerist told us that when we were going to go to NYC she said artists always stay at the Chelsea Hotel. We came for an exhibition at Leo Castelli Gallery and needed to construct the storefront piece for the show in our room, as we had no money to rent a studio. Since we were from France, we weren't sure if this was allowed so Christo would use his hand saw late at night. One of the storefronts needed a doorknob and we loved the one on our bathroom door, so we exchanged that one for one from the local hardware store. The piece is now in the collection of the Hirshorn Museum in DC.

Christo and Jean Claude, Artists

Madonna also had a history at the Chelsea:

Dear Chelsea Hotel,

Madonna would stop by where I was bartending my first year living at the Chelsea Hotel in 1980-81, (Keene’s, a chophouse on 36th Street.) She was a singer, around 23, quite unknown, but even then carried a method-acting book. We started hanging out and my boss would give me trouble as she’d dance on the bar and we started dating. She’d call me at the hotel to make plans but I would be on the phone with a lot of friends, so Josephine, the front desk person, would interrupt my phoning to tell me there was a woman on the line. When I wasn’t in my room, 915, Josephine left messages; “Madonna called,” in my mailbox. One night she cancelled a date saying she had a gig in Long Island. Somehow I ended up at a bar I didn’t go to regularly and saw her kissing another guy. We arranged to meet at El Quixote Bar, and she didn’t think there was a problem, but I had had it, as I wanted someone more attentive. I told her to come back when she had grown up in five years. Three years later “Holiday” had come out. When I saw the music video where she wore a brown slip, I thought perhaps my photography of vintage slips influenced her. In another video she dances through long hotel halls and I wonder —is it a memory toward her nights with me at the Chelsea Hotel?

Roger Jazilek, Photographer

Overhead last weekend: Two women, who graduated college this May, discussing "East Wiliamsburg"

Woman 1: So, do you have a job now?
Woman 2: I got a job, working at an investment bank.
Woman 1: Oh, where do you live? Manhattan?
Woman 2: No. I live in Williamsburg.
Woman 1: Oh, How do you like it?
Woman 2: Well, it's OK. I live in the part of Williamsburg that's called East Williamsburg, so it's not really like downtown Williamsburg, which is really built up.
Woman 1: Do you like it there? What's it like?
Woman 2: I don't know. It's really not that, um, nice.
Woman 1: So, what are going to do?
Woman 2: I don't know. I just, like, really want to live in Manhattan.

On the flipside of that coin, Tom Robbins appeared on The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC this morning to discuss his June 26th cover article, The Second Battle of Bushwick, which details how landlords are breaking the law to toss out longtime tenants of Bushwick to make way for the new residents who believe they are inhabiting "East Williamsburg."

"It was almost like as if someone had just sent out an alert to the speculating communities that said 'Bushwick is hot. Let's get these properties,'" Robbins said. "And it's really created a crisis."

As noted in the article, Robbins said that if the city would do a better job enforcing housing code violations and the rent stabilization laws, it would go a long to protecting vulnerable tenants, most of whom wind up in Housing Court without representation, or take a pittance to move out, having suffered months and months of no heat and substandard conditions.

"To his credit, Mayor Bloomberg has focused attention on the need for affordable housing in the city, but he's mainly focused on creating new housing," Robbins told Brian Lehrer. "This other piece of holding on to existing rent stabilized housing stock, this is where the greatest, really, affordable housing resource is in the city and I don't think this one has really made it the mayor's attention."

Photo by Flickering Sheriff via Flickr

The dangers of the old Times Square—hustlers, muggers, fake ID scammers, murderers even — were all too easy to spot. And while its easy to romanticize that era, anyone who was ever victimized along the old Times Square knows better.

But things aren't all they seem behind the flash, lights and glitz of the Times Square of today either. The new victims in the new Times Square, says the Service Employees International Union, are the workers, often toiling with no health insurance at minimum wage jobs for employers accountable to no one.

So the union took the unusual step yesterday of renting a double-decker tour bus to give residents and journalists a tour of the new masters of Times Square: private equity firms. From Dunkin Donuts to Madame Tussauds, private equity companies, the leveraged buyout firms that take public companies private, are quietly reshaping the American economy.

In addition to the tour, the union launched a BehindtheBuyouts.org a web site that explains why the average New Yorker should care about little known world of private equity. An interactive map on the site details how pervasive private equity has become in New York.

In the 50 blocks that make up Times Square and its environs, the union said, "there are 53 stores or offices of 28 different companies that have been, are, or are about to be controlled by private equity....The buyouts of companies with locations in Times Square have together totaled more than $106 billion. Combined, those companies employ more than 530,000 workers across the United States."

“In Times Square and across the country, the wealthy buyout industry is an engine of economic inequality at a time when it’s harder and harder for working people to get ahead," said Stephen Lerner, Director of the SEIU (Service Employees International Union) Private Equity Project."

Photo: Matthew Krautheim via flickr

It hasn’t taken long for the new management of the Hotel Chelsea to lay down the law with the landmark's longtime residents. Days after ousting the hotel’s longtime manager, part-owner and lifeblood, Stanley Bard, the new guard sent a short letter to long-term residents this week asking them to make sure they’ve paid all “outstanding balances.”

It’s the first time in 50 years that the hotel has sent such a note. Many residents see it as the precursor toward demolishing the novel payment system Bard instituted to nurture both artists and the hotel’s bohemian environment before the Chelsea is converted into a pricey boutique hotel or condos.

For many residents, it’s not merely about the destruction of yet another unique cultural institution as the rising tide of real estate prices homogenizes New York. It's a question of survival.

“We were always on a pay-as-you-can basis,” said Mia Hanson, a photographer who has lived in the West 23rd Street hotel with her husband, Hawk Alfredson, a painter, since 2001. “That’s the only way we could live in the hotel or in Manhattan for that matter or anywhere, period. We always fell behind but always paid up too. Sometime we pay $10,000 at once. We’d sell a painting and give Stanley a $10,000 check.”

Completed in 1885, the 12-story Queen Anne-style building has been a temporary home to luminaries in all fields of artistic endeavor. It’s famous because Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen wrote songs there, Arthur Miller worked on “A View from the Bridge” there, and Dylan Thomas got wasted there. It’s infamous because Sid Vicious fatally stabbed Nancy Spungen there.

The new management, BD Hotels, which operates the Maritime Hotel among many other luxury properties, said in a press release that it seeks to burnish and build upon the hotels artistic history. Longtime residents who occupy about 60 percent of the hotel's 250 rooms see that so-called burnishing as a pretense for tossing them out.

The residents' worst fears seemed to be confirmed today by a Page Six item, which reported that renowned hotelier Andre Balazs -- the man responsible for the renovations at the Chateau Marmont, the famed Sunset Strip hotel where John Belushi shot his last speedball -- will have a role in the renovations and new management of the Chelsea.

“Now all he has to do is figure out how to entice people who have long lived there for little to no rent to vacate,” the Page Six item concluded.

The new guard is unapologetic about acknowledging the need for renovations. "We don't come to places like this to wreck them," Ira Drucker, the hotel heavyweight who is taking over management, told the England’s Independent newspaper. "That's not what we do. But if the toilet flushes better I don't think we will have any complaints."

The Chelsea was designated a landmark in 1966, but that protects the building’s façade and not its interior and certainly not its residents. It’s for that reason that the bohemian air of the musty old hotel is tinged with fear, rumor, and worry, said Ed Hamilton, a resident who writes the Living With Legends blog about life at the old hotel.

“Many of the people here have no problems paying,” he said. “But there are some people whose work hasn’t sold in a while. I’m not sure how those people are going to pay. And those are the people that I’m worried about. Without Stanley, what’s going to happen to them?”