Saving A Piece of Artistic Community: The NYC Chelsea Hotel
Saving A Piece of Artistic Community: The NYC Chelsea Hotel 8/6/07
This morning I discovered that the art community in NYC is rather distressed by a recent management takeover of the legendary 100 year old Chelsea hotel once home to well known artists such as Sid Vicious, Dylan Thomas, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan and many other creative people. Stanley Bard, the hotel manager has now been replaced, even though he spent his life cultivating an artistic community by personally selecting 220 of the long term artsy tenants that reside in the historic hotel. The other 77 rooms are rented out on a nightly basis to guests.
Residents are concerned that the fate of the Chelsea Hotel may now fall victim to the corporate real estate take-over that has been devouring the local art community in NYC building by building. In the process of these corporate buyouts, the rents are raised so high that housing has become too expensive. Artists, musicians, actors and art galleries are moving out and closing to relocate elsewhere in order to sustain a decent standard of living and quality of life. When you stop and think about how famous the NY art scene really is, what happens when the artists in NYC are forced to move out because they cannot afford to live? Will Chelsea or Soho or Broadway ever be the same without the contribution of the creative individuals who sustain these communities?
On July 24, 2007 less than a month ago, the minimum wage was increased for the first time in 10 years to $7.25 per hour. Would anyone like to guess how many years it would take an individual on minimum wage to make enough money to afford to purchase a $500k, 1 bedroom apartment in New York City? Well what about an artist; how many paintings must they paint, art pieces must they sell, plays must they perform in order to survive or pay the rent? With the Foreclosure rate in the United States skyrocketing to 58% in 2007, with one foreclosure filing for every 134 homes. Apparently NYC is not the only city dealing with *real estate monopoly* issues. Seriously, when did it become a legal business practice to price gouge real estate and sell it to consumers beyond the legal US wage and salary grades?
The question we all need to ask ourselves as creative individuals is; is MY city's creative or rental community next to be eaten up by a greedy corporate real estate market? I suggest that every creative individual, regardless of the city they live in, or creative medium they work in, begin writing your State Representatives NOW! Request rent control and protection for your creative & personal residencies before your precious creative areas become obliterated and turned into another cookie cutter retail community.
The New York Foundation for the Arts is collecting letters from artists who are dealing with the problem of finding suistaniable housing in NYC. If you are one of them please read the following article and take a minute to write in...because historic places like the Chelsea Hotel can only be sustained when we as a creative community speak with ONE unified voice;
