Ode to the Chelsea Hotel

One of the sorrier sights I've seen recently while traipsing around is the destruction of yet another venerable landmark of  Old New York -- the Chelsea Hotel, now marked as off limits and undergoing a gut-job renovation; the new landlord trying to evict all the old tenants, those with the most intimate knowledge of the building's mytho-poetic past.

Ode to the Chelsea Hotel

 

Property rights trump

All others in the

Landlord’s view

At least

That’s my takeaway

From the sign

I saw this afternoon

On the front door

Of the Chelsea Hotel

Residents only

No photographs

Allowed

Which I promptly

Defied so I could

Present to you

In contraband fashion

The photograph below

Irrespective of whatever

Penalties may lie in wait

Because this Hotel is

Our common property

From stem to stern

From the room that

Gave birth to sad-eyed 

Ballad of the Lowlands

Or just down the hallway

Where sad eyed Nancy expired