Exhibit in Chelsea Market takes inside look at
Hotel Chelsea apartments
BY GABE HERMAN
A new exhibit inside Chelsea
Market features works
from “Hotel Chelsea: Living
in the Last Bohemian Haven,”
a book featuring photos of the
legendary hotel and interviews
with current residents.
The Hotel Chelsea dates back
to the Gilded Age, and has seen
its share of great artists of all
kinds stay there. Many current
residents are also artists and work
in creative fields, and photos
in the project show apartments
decorated in maximalist styles,
with bright colors and various
objects and images of all kinds
throughout the spaces.
The exhibit at Chelsea Market
includes photos of a handful of
residents, along with photos of
their homes and quotes about their
apartments and their experience of living
An elaborately decorated apartment in the Hotel Chelsea.
in such an historic building. This,
the exhibit notes, is despite recent
ownership changes, legal challenges
and development of the building into
an upcoming luxury hotel.
The Chelsea Market exhibit is in a
space just across from Amy’s Bread in the
food hall at Ninth Avenue and West 15th
Street, and it runs until February 29.
The photos are by Colin Miller, who
said the project began when he was
commissioned four years ago by an
architectural firm to photograph units
in the building for renovations. While
there, he discovered some elaborately
decorated apartments. “I saw there were
still interesting people doing things at
the Chelsea,” said Miller.
Some residents were more willing
than others to participate in the project,
but Miller, along with writer Ray Mock,
PHOTOS BY COLIN MILLER/COURTESY CHELSEA MARKET
got about two-thirds of residents in the
end. Miller said the project gained momentum
over time. “Once we had a foot
in the door, it became somewhat easier.
But it still took a long time,” he said.
Miller said he found that the hotel
impacts those who live there. “It’s pretty
amazing how ppl carve out these spaces
for themselves,” he said, “and their
homes become an extension of their
personalities. And it’s especially true
of the Chelsea. There’s such interesting
people who live there.”
The building’s past often
remains present, such as the
apartment of Sheila Berger
and Michael Rips, where Miller
noted that actor Vincent Gallo
formerly lived and wrote on
the door, “Vincent Gallo lives
here.”
“People leave marks on these
apartments and they’re passed
down from person to person,
and it’s quite an incredible
place,” Miller said.
The book, which came out in
November, has gotten positive
responses, Miller said, including
from the Hotel Chelsea residents.
He said he was excited
for the exhibit.
“It’ll be very cool to see real
prints of the work,” Miller said.
“I tried to organize the exhibit in a way
that would give people a sense of the
stories behind them.”
He said an important part of the
project was capturing the hotel’s past.
“I’m hoping this project preserves
something of what the Chelsea used to
be and in some ways still is,” Miller said.
“It has a dim future, in terms of how it
may be able to grow. These are the last
full-time residents.”
NYPD officials pressed on subway homeless
BY MARK HALLUM
A joint committee in the City Council
examined NYPD’s homeless
diversion program in the subways,
which to advocates represents a
policy that fines the city’s poorest.
The city Department of Social Services
and NYPD had representation in chamber
who were questioned by members of
both the committees on General Welfare
as well as Public Safety.
Policing of individuals sleeping in the
subway system often follow policies in
which they are fined if they refuse homeless
services and often arrested for failure
to comply with laws the prohibit riders
from occupying more than one seat.
“People who choose the street over the
shelter know what the shelter has to offer,
and they choose the street,” Councilman
Donovan Richards said. “I don’t blame
you trying to help this situation. I will
blame you if what you’re trying only
serves to harass people.”
NYPD Chief of Transit Edward
Delatorre said he did not
agree with aspects of police
outreach that lands people in
the criminal justice system, but
that there are merits to the effort
which sees some homeless individuals
to finding the resources
intended to help them get back
on their feet, such as Bowery
Residents’ Committee.
The civil summonses that are
issued to homeless individuals in
the Subway Diversion Program
is the “lightest touch,” Delatorre
told City Council members.
“We’re evolving here and we’re
looking for more and more ways,”
Deletorre said explaining that NYPD has
created in roads with the courts to have
warrants expunged so people can obtain
services.
Delatorre told City Council outreach at
the terminus of the E line has been better
PHOTO BY MARK HALLUM
facilitated by using New York City Transit
station space to offer coffee to homeless
people.
Molly Park, first deputy commissioner
of DHS, said it often requires “hundreds”
of times for outreach to stick with one
individual, something homeless
individuals themselves explained
in rally prior to the hearing.
Richard Hobbs, who is homeless,
said shelters are perilous.
Stabbings and muggings are
common, but he often sleeps in
Penn Station where being hassled
by the police is at least tolerable.
Hobbs stated that while he
has been mugged attempting to
deposit $20 into an ATM, police
in Penn Station will wake homeless
individuals every two hours
and ignore complaints of actual
crimes if those reporting them
look homeless.
The rally hosted by Coalition for
the Homeless pressured the de Blasio
administration to end what Councilman
Stephen Levin called a “dumb policy”
to took the only alternative to a shelter
away from homeless individuals during
the colder months.
4 January 23, 2020 Schneps Media