Monday, February 25, 2013

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


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