Welcome to the _OTEL CHELSEA

XX

Welcome to the 

_OTEL CHELSEA

On its current web site [this article originally written May 2005] the Chelsea Hotel in NYC bills itself as "a rest stop for rare individuals." I came to live there in the Fall 1979, feeling rather "rare" myself.

This story is about the Chelsea in my time there. There's also the remeniscence of my own life experience during that time of crossroads and new beginnings. READ IT HERE.

At the time the Chelsea was just a place for me to get into without all the usual apartment hunting hassles. My marriage had ended, and soon later my career in advertising would evaporate. Let's just say that the handwriting on the wall said that it was time to look into the Perennial questions. Where am I? What am I? Where am I going? Where did I come from? Questions aplenty ... answers to search.

I was (and certainly felt) quite literally down and out at the Chelsea Hotel. Questions aplenty ... answers to search.

David D. Wronski Chelsea Hotel Apartment 4D 1980

PHOTO: Claudio Edinger

The Chelsea Hotel is a sanctuary. Even in this update in the year 2022, with all it's fancy renovations, the spirit of the place surely remains intact. In fact, from my own experience living there for a year, it just could be a portal to another dimension, completely removed from the bustling world outside. It's own world. 

When I lived there in 1980, after leaving a marriage and family and a career as a Can't Miss-Big Shot-VP- Mad Ave-Ad Biggie, it was my sanctuary. Days spent aimless by myself,[Like my Nephew Christopher who I'll tell about later]. I watched TV, rolled Tobacco cigarettes, and drank coffees from the nearby deli ... going over and over in my mind just how the F I got there. And in that situation. No family, no career, no friends; loosed from all the roles that I thought defined me. The inner journey lay in front of me. Unambiguously. And, whatever destiny would confront me. Not only did a chapter end, a whole book in fact. Like it says on the plaque on the front of the building commemorating Dylan Thomas ...

I arrived there with my Godson Christopher firmly in tow. He was then an aimless youth and had been living with me before my marriage breakup. When I left connubial bliss, naturally he was sent packing with me. He's a good man, married with children, with his own advertising agency. Let's hope his creative sense has improved, however. 

One day I left him in charge of painting the kitchen alcove in our cozy 4th floor apartment. Left the choice of color to him (artistic sensibilities, and all). Well, when I came home in the evening from work, there it was — the fiercest and brightest orange in the world. Just to walk past, it was like being instantly transported to Amsterdam. Quite a head trip, literally. It certainly was in the punk spirit of the Chelsea; but, maybe only for a young punk like Christopher. For me, no way. I immediately had him repaint to a nice, neutral shade of light green. (That was pre-Martha Stewart mind you. But, she would be happy to know that others out there share [some of] her taste.)

As you probably know the Chelsea has a reputation as the stomping grounds of many of the famous in the arts. When I resided there I was vaguely aware of that fact — I was famous too, but only in my own mind — but looking from the inside out at the time it was just a crummy hotel to me. At least at first impressions. The "H" on the neon sign outside was not working during my year there, hence the title treatment of my story.

The lobby was a high traffic area, a dozen or so steps from the outside glass doors to the front desk. The manager, Mr. Stanley Bard, in special cases, accepted original art in lieu of rent. The lobby hosted an eclectic jumble of a collection. This shows the lobby circa 1972, but much like I recall it looked when I lived there.

One day I when was hanging out watching the parade of people in the lobby I was seated on one of the benches that faced the front doors. In came a certain other resident of the hotel. I never got his name and my interactions with him were, how you say, weird. This is him in a photo from that time.

Photo Credit: Claudio Edinger

The photo was taken by another resident, Claudio Edinger, who took many resident's pictures on his way to creating his 1981 book Chelsea Hotel. He photographed me also; but, alas, fame eluded me. (Claudio, if you still have the negative — that's me wearing the varsity "D" letter jacket — I would love a print.)[Update June 8, 2024: Claudio found the photo and sent it to me today. Now it's in this story, as seen above. Wow! What a blast from the past! Thank you, Claudio, for your great photos and for your scrupulous curation.]

And so ... So here I am sitting in the lobby and this drama unfolds. The strange fellow to whom I just referred (who had the look and aggressive bearing of one of the Blue Meanies from Yellow Submarine. He wore thick black eyeglasses repaired with the requisite white tape.) he stops in the middle of the lobby just in front and to the left of me and begins to purposely insult and taunt the desk manager. After some back and forth from a distance the manager comes racing out from behind his glass partition at the front desk and gets eye to eye with our belligerent friend. They were on the exquisite cusp of something very ugly and potentially very violent. I have no idea what it was about except that they seemed to have some nasty history between them. Just in the nick of time someone else from the front desk gets in the middle and pulls the irate manager back to his station. The other guy slithers away, seemingly pleased at being able to plug the other guy into such a rage. I remember being rather relieved that nothing further occurred. Or did it?

I need at this time to say that in the short nearly a year that I stayed at the Chelsea, I came to regard it as my home. It is a fond part of me and I feel (even if there's no plaque on the front entrance with my name on it) I am a part of it. That "Red Bitch" on 23rd Street, as I sometimes called the Chelsea Hotel, had an unique essence of its own. A soul. It was alive. Certainly haunted. I'm sure that anyone who has spent some time there would agree.

Anyway, continuing with the tale, the next morning following the incident when I came down to the lobby something amazing greeted me. There on the very spot where the two fellows were doing verbal battle with one another was an oval tin waste basket. It was black with a big red rose painted on the side. Someone put it there to collect water(?) dripping down from the ceiling just above. The very spot.

True story.

When in NYC, after doing the #1 must-do attraction (walking across the Brooklyn Bridge from the Brooklyn side) stop in at the Chelsea Hotel (better yet, stay there). Take the elevator to the top floor and walk down its beautiful 12 flights of stairs.

Apparently, I am not the only one who was enchanted with that staircase:

So many times I enjoyed going up and down on those stairs. I'm remembering a time walking down those steps when I rubbed elbows with Stanley coming up. In his eyes as we passed ... pinwheels. I'm pretty certain he was an aficionado of the strong stuff; Williams Burroughs strong. His famous comment to me from one of our chats ... "Drugs of choice." Think about it. How we drug ourselves. One way or another. 

After descending the staircase to the ground floor, immediately turn left into the El Quijote restaurant, sit in a booth, and order Cod Fish in Green Sauce. That's the complete Chelsea experience.
[Update: the El Quijote, alas, since this was originally posting this has closed on March 30, 2018 after nearly 90 years.] [Lastest update: It's back!]

PS... Also remembering my time at the Chelsea there was an old musician by the name of Tex. He played a jazz guitar on the street with his partner who played a slide guitar. Tex wore a beat up old cowboy hat; his partner, a fedora (in a way that suggested Tex wore his 24/7). 

PHOTO David D. Wronski

Story is that Tex for some undisclosed [to me] reason was blackballed from the music industry. Bad karma, dog. Tex and I used to BS in front of the hotel, smoking cigarettes, sharing our world weariness together. Last time I saw him was over drinks at El Quijote when I paid a visit to the old digs some time later. I spotted him there and sidled up at the bar for a Dos Equis. 

I asked him what was up? "Back from the dead," he said. He looked real enough to me; but that may have in fact been his ghost, who knows. And, oh yes, he was wearing the cowboy hat*** that I gave him, only now nicely broken in; a look even better than that old poser, Ralph Lauren, could achieve.

*** The hat was given to me as a parting gift from the advertising business by clients from an Idaho based company. I got the hat (never felt like it was my kind of thing) and a great send-off-from-MadAv luncheon at a swell place called the Brussels. Lobster ravioli with shaved white truffle garnish. Go fuck yourself!

When I lived in my 4th floor apartment one of my neighbors was Stella Waitzkin. She, as I have come to learn, was one of the artists in residence. I visited her apartment and it was full of shelves of books, all made of resin. An environmental (of) art. She was very kind. At the time she was a nice neighbor. Take a look at her work.

Ms. Waitzkin has cited as saying, "Words are lies". It seems as if her resin sealed books were in some sense to ensure that those lies wouldn't get told. 

Them's were the days. The hotel in itself is great. Then, there's those that lived there.  

PPS...[Can't stay away] Even later, I had a most unique visit back to the Red Lady. Happened that I drove some Swamis and musicians to the hotel for an evening meditation intro at the apartment of the SUPER STAR, Viva. It turns out her daughter and mine were schoolmates at Laguardia High School, NYC. That didn't come up. What did...the notorious lady and I had a brief moment alone together in the kitchen, and — hey! — she was checking me out. Still pretty hot, after all that time.

Viva! Chelsea Hotel!

PPSS... And, oh yes...I left the hotel owing some rent (evidently, a select but large club). As collateral I left Stanley Bard a piece of jewelry, a silver pendant (abstract, articulated human face) I bought in SoHo from a designer/owner store on West Broadway; also, a dirty old Iranian tribal rug (from a SoHO antique shop), and my Nikon FTN and lenses in a custom case.

I can't quite place the time of publication, but Smithsonian Magazine did a piece on the Chelsea Hotel in the mid-1980s; in a photograph of Stanley sitting at his desk behind him there's an open cabinet with — Holy Cow! — my camera case. When I finally came back to pay my bill Mr. Bard didn't even remember the debt. But I paid it. You don't want to leave anything behind at the Chelsea.

I retrieved the camera set. No idea where the pendant and the rug had gone to, however. (If anyone has those two items, please give them back. They are paid for, free and clear. You don't want me haunting you, do you?) 

There was film still in the camera and I finished the role that day. First picture, looking south at the Flatiron Building with an outdoor sculpture by Rhonda Roland Shearer in the foreground. I didn't know her well at the the Chelsea Hotel; but, I did know her well at Johnny Jupiter (another one of my stops along the way). More on that in a later post.

Just to say that at one time after seeing Rhonda's exhibit at the Wildenstein Gallery in 1989 my comment on her work of that period was that it looked like "garden ornaments." Offputting, no doubt. She didn't want an unvarnished opinion from me, evidently. But, lo and behold, there is that thing right there on the island at the intersections of 23rd, Broadway, and 5th. Outdoors. Ornamental. And, isn't NYC a garden after all, really?

Maybe I know a thing or so about art after all! Start preparing a plaque for outside the entrance.

PPPSSS...  Also remembering one Neon Leon, a fellow resident at the Chelsea. He is alive and well as you can see:



PPPPSSSS... Once there was something very special that happened one day in connection with being a resident of the Chelsea Hotel. I found out that there was a memorial service for an illustrious resident of the hotel in the Village, just near Washington Square Park. Mr. George Kleinsinger had passed away after spending the last 25 years of his life in residence at the Chelsea. We were contemporaries only; I often saw him passing through with his entourage, self contained as if in some rare creative other world. At the memorial service I noticed this handsome, dignified older man and had an instant recognition.

When I was a young boy there was a television show called Mr. I-Magination. The eponymous host would arrive sitting on a small scale train wearing a striped engineer cap and matching overalls. He would sing sweet songs and talk to a magic (talking) mirror. I was entranced. I only saw the show a few times, then it disappeared. I pined for its loss. So here I am and I walk up to this gentleman, introduce myself, and say... "You're Mr. I-Magination, aren't you?" Indeed, so! Paul Tripp was an associate of Mr. Kleinsinger and was there to pay his respects.

Just such a lovely blast from the given-up past! Thank you, Madame Chelsea.

It must be jelly, 'cause...

Pączki, pronounced "Poonch-key" is the name of the famous Polish jelly doughnuts. It's so good that it makes you want to go-nuts!

When I was a boy in high school being shaped up by the Jesuits my cousin Kenny moved from Harper Woods, Michigan to Orange County, California. He was henceforth known as the "California Kid;" so dubbed by our Uncle Phil. (Kenny currently lives near Orange County so the experience must have been formative.)

Uncle Phil was a baker; in fact, he owned and operated a few Polish bakeries in the Detroit area at one point in time. I was a rather shy kid and I remember his withering greeting. He was missing the first to joints on his right index finger. How this happened I never learned. When I came by his home to visit he would invariably shake my hand and rub the stump into my palm. It was a soul draining experience. I'm sure he meant nothing by it except to tease me. I'm glad he stopped there and didn't give me a goosing for good measure.

Uncle Phil had a wicked sense of humor. At our summer cottage a fly once found its way into my ear. Phil quipped, "it probably went out the other side." On another occasion, I had persuaded my folks to buy me a pop gun, the double barreled kind that shoots corks.  I went with my mother to the Dime Store to buy it. I was attempting to show her how it worked. The gun had to be cocked by breaking at the breach. The spring action was very tight; and, as I struggled to cock it, it slipped my grasp and caught me in my little private personal part. Ouch! The store was a few blocks away from Phil's Northtown Bakery and I was taken there first before going to the hospital. Uncle Phil grinningly speculated that it might have to be cut off. Tough love. Later, at the hospital, that prospect was all I could think about. Imagine this little innocent boy nervously asking the doctor if it was going to be cut off. Phil!!!

Years later as a young man I visited with him and we had some real conversations. He was a good, hardworking man. Phil spent most of his time working hard in his bakery, cigar butt clenched firmly in his teeth as he kneaded dough. He became quite well to do, living in a beautiful house on Lakeshore Drive in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan, just down the road from HFII (that's Henry Ford II, of automotive fame).

His wife Genevieve was my father's sister.  Aunt Gene was so beautiful in every way. Always most kind to me, kind in reverse proportion to Phil. She is the only human being who was allowed to call me Davey. (RIP Aunt Gene, 2014.) To all others, it's David, if you please. They had a badminton court in their back yard and I loved to go there to play. Also, to go across the street to the Farms Pier to swim in Lake St. Clair during the summer; to skate on the frozen lake in the cold Michigan winters.

I vividly remember one time I was invited for lunch. They had these trendy colorful anodized aluminum tumblers. I got a nice ice cold lemonade. Trouble was, it tasted like 50% dishwashing liquid. Big time. Tact and timidity prevented me from pointing that out. Years later I now surmise that dear cousin Marlene put that mickey in my drink. Marlene!!! A chip off the old block? Well, later I evened the score. Once we went to the beach for a swim and Marlene was going into the water just ahead of me. I was the first to notice that her one piece bathing suit was not zipped up. Wicked little Davey starts running after her, yelling at the top of his voice, "Marlene, Marlene, get into the water, quick!" Everyone on the beach was put on notice. Marlene was embarrassed, of course. (As planned.) She admonished me that I could have been a little more discreet to tell her. She never suspected that I did it on purpose. Hah! How's that for quick on the feet?

But, I also remember Marlene was the one who took me aside one day to teach me the gentlemanly art of opening a door for a lady and helping with a seat. Also, how to dance the au courant Chicken. Thank you, Marlene! But... gotchya!

When cousin Kenny left for California his job at the bakery came open and I stepped in. Every Friday afternoon after school I would go directly to the bakery, arriving at around 4:30 PM working through the night until 6:30 AM. I would take a half hour meal break at around midnight. My job was to assist the other bakers in preparing many of the baked goods for the big Saturday sales day. This schedule was particularly gruesome during the summer school recess period. I learned about the blues going on the bus to the bakery on those hot, humid summer Friday's.

After arriving and putting on an apron my first task was to peel a half dozen large Bermuda onions and chop them fine in an empty 5 gallon can (the kind that fruit fillings came packed in bulk) with a dull table scraper. I would season the chopped onions with salt and poppy seeds. This was the topping for the onion buns. They were great fresh; hard as rocks the next day. I was allowed to do this job pretty much unsupervised and was impressed that they would entrust the blending to me. They were keeping an eye on me though; once I put in too much salt and was admonished to ease up.

All this time the bakers were kneading dough into individual loaves. Uncle Iggy (he wasn't my uncle, he was Ken's; but I called him that anyway) was a stone serious tool of a man. He had a gray color about him. Austere. I assisted him in moving various rolls and loaves to the proofing trays (which Uncle John, Ken's father, had made special for the purpose — he was a carpenter by trade). Iggy was quite adept at making kaiser rolls and seemed to keep the knack of twisting the dough coil into the right shape a secret from me. He did, however, attempt to teach me how to cut the slashes in the french loaves. I seemed to always cut too deep and he would bluster and fume in his exasperation with my lack of skill. I don't know if I was a good student, but I know that you don't encourage learning by highlighting the student's ignorance. May he rest in peace.

Then I had to help my Uncle Zawodski (that was his last name and that's the name he was known by, "Zawodski") load the large oven with hundreds of loaves of bread. He was a short robust man, and bald. Think Mr. Clean. He had forearms the size of hams; very strong. He also lived in Grosse Pointe (there's money in bread) and took great pride in his lawn. It was manicured like a world class putting green. He had a special mower, the kind used to trim putting greens. It was very hard device to push, and he would trim all the edges by hand on his hands and knees. Polish folks are known as hard workers. All his bushes were trimmed in a simple geometric topiary style; just so. There were deer on the lawn and a gazing ball on a concrete pedestal. Wow!

When the bread was ready to come out of the oven my job was to stand to the side at a large wood top table. Zawodski would shovel about 8 loaves at a time from his peel onto the table. That peel must have had a 10 foot handle, long enough to reach to the back of the oven. You learned right away that you couldn't stand behind the baker when the bread was coming out of the oven. It went so fast that handle must have been moving at 80 mph. I had a few near misses. My job in assisting with the finished loaves was to brush some of the tops with a corn starch and water solution. This would glaze the crust and give it a little crispy, crackly texture. Then with thick heat proof gloves I would stack the loaves onto wire racks to cool.

It seemed that most of the bread was Rye. Plain and Seeded. The latter was called Russian Rye, loaded with caraway seeds. There were an assortment of White Breads: French style hand shaped, some baked in in pans with round tops, and some Pullman style baked with a heavy cover on top to make a square slice. There were also the Challahs. These were in one, two, and three pound loaves. This bread is braided from three dough coils. The dough itself was rich in egg yolks which were delivered to the bakery in 5 gallon tins. My job around this item was to open a tin of egg yolks, stir it up, and brush the proofed loaves gently (Iggy would flip if I pressed too hard.) The smell and sight of hundreds of fresh egg yolks at around midnight would make me woozy. It was stomach wrenching. Some loaves were also covered with a streusel topping. The bakers pronounced it "strizzle." Never knew the correct term until years later. It was also a mystery what it was made of— tasted mildly sweet, crumbly, with a buttery orange note. Music to your taste buds, anyway.

A vivid memory was when my brother's first child, Christopher, was born and my dad stopped by the bakery in the middle of the night to tell me. I was particularly impressed that he took the trouble to come over to tell me personally.

The other bread that I would be remiss to not mention is the behemoth, the Godzilla of all breads, the 5 pound Russian Black Bread. It was black, man. This was sold by the pound. My job was to smear some stuff that resembled cement on the top just before it went into the oven. It made a nice crust. I was the pinochle of the baker's art.

The very last thing that I did before the end of my shift was to assist with the Pączki. In the back of bakery, behind the great oven, there was a large vat of oil heated to fry the doughnuts. My mentor for this procedure was one Mitchell Mazur. He was a dead ringer for Ely Wallach, and quite the jokester. From him I learned the answer to that age old puzzle, "how many wrinkles in a bull ass?" Trust me, you don't want to know. (Or, bend over and let me count.)

One time, to impress me I'm sure, he spit into the hot oil to test if it was ready. I knew that the heat would kill any untoward bacteria. But people did seem to smile after taking a bite of Mitchell's doughnuts, so maybe some of his jovial essence remained. When the Pączki were done on both sides (he used a stick to flip them over) he would lift 2 dozen at a time out with a wire rack previously set into the bottom of the vat. We must've made some 12 dozen in all. After the doughnuts were fried I would prepare a large bowl of sugar glaze, a bowl of granulated sugar, and a bowl of powdered sugar. Then I would load the jelly dispensers with 1) raspberry jelly, 2) prune butter (that's "povidla," pronounced "povidwa" in Polish — or also known as "lekvar") — my personal fave, and 3) custard — a close second preference. These contraptions could hold around 4-5 quarts of filling each. They had a plunger attached to a handle and a spigot at the bottom.

I would take each still hot pączek, spike and load each one with the designated filling and toss them top side down into the appropriate sugar topping. This was a multiple challenge. First the doughnuts were still very hot. And, you had to handle them very delicately or they would scrunch up. Iggy had gone home by now but the mere thought of screwing up brought me eye to eye with wrathful Ignatz. The sugar glaze was also quite hot and it would cling to your fingers. Ow! Ooh! Ouch! Almost time to go home. My one satisfaction around this was that, since I myself like lots of filling in my Pączki, I gave every one of them an extra goose. There's an old Polish expression which reads best in the original; translated it goes, "making love is like making a Paczki." Think about it. (My personal cure for premature ejaculation was to conjure up an image of Uncle Iggy. "All night long," as the song goes.)

Now my uncle Phil was one to teach a kid the value of a dollar. This slave job of mine paid 75 cents an hour. Probably right for a kid in the year 1958. I worked diligently, and even felt a little guilty taking my meal break. After a while I asked for a raise. My next pay envelope had $11.90 instead of the usual $10.50. This increment was so small I approached Phil asking about my promised raise. His response, "I gave you one, 10 cents an hour." Well I didn't see how I was going to get my butt to Lake Shore Drive in Grosse Pointe at that rate. So I quit. Finally stood up for myself and to uncle Phil. Finger! I'll give you a finger!

(Soon after this parting of ways from the bakery my brother's friend Bob Orlowski graduated from law school and gave up his Saturday job at his Uncle Norb's butcher shop. I landed that spot and in a year was taking home $25 for a 12 hour day. But that's a whole nother story. Onward and upward, however.)

Not long ago I visited Detroit and looked up that old Northtown Bakery on East 7 Mile Road a few blocks west of Van Dyke. Still there, now owned by a Bulgarian gentleman. All the old fixtures were out in front. The Balkan style (I presume) merchandising of the new owner included cheap sneakers arranged in the glass cabinet — where they used to display cakes — soda pops, and a small assortment of what we shall leave described as "sundries." And an indescribable third world dinginess throughout. In back it was like a time capsule. Not much changed from when I walked out with my 85 cent an hour pay envelope. And that familiar dense greasy, buttery aroma of countless baked goods; the odor crammed over the years into every pore in the walls, floor, and ceiling.

I took one look around and exclaimed, "UNCLE!"

In 2013 we revisited the Nortown Bakery during a stay in Detroit. The same owner, only now very bitter about how the neighborhood had gone to hell. He wouldn't let us in the back for some pictures this time. He seemed to be wary that we would publish the scene of decrepitude in some newspaper. He did say the roof was falling in.

You can't go home again. Alas.

Also, the jelly doughnut seems to be universal. Click here to find some excellent recipes from the Jewish cookbook.

HIGH ON NEW YORK

In the Summer of 1963 me and a couple of my college buddies drove to NYC from Detroit, our hometown.

We had the use of a shiny maroon 1963 Chevy Impala convertible with a black interior, buckets seats, white walls (but, of course), and (get this) factory AC.

I took the photograph shown here from the observation deck of the Empire State Building. That's its shadow pointing NE toward the United Nations Building.

I had no inkling at the time that just a few years later I would come to live in New York City and stay there for some 27 years.

xxx

Doggone It. Dog!

Our neighbor's dog was the worst. Barking all night, and chasing me viciously when I came into the back yard. The animal sure seemed like he would tear me to pieces if there weren't a fence between us.

His owner insisted, however, that all Bruiser wanted to do was play. And, if I gave him a nice treat, he would calm down and be friends.

Well it worked. To a point. Each treat, enthusiastically received, but back to barking and snarling in no time flat.

So I decided to give that dog a bone. A BONE! The treat of a lifetime.

A win-win for both of us.