Built in 1883 and located at 222 West 23rd Street, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, the Chelsea Hotel, a mythical place of New York’s artistic life, has built its reputation on the long stays of many residents: musicians, directors, actors, painters and even writers. The building has been a New York City Historic Landmark since 1966 and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1977.
Initially, the building was part of an initiative to house artists and upper-middle-class families in urban apartments. In 1903 the building was bought by a group of partners and transformed into a hotel. Thus the Chelsea Hotel will become an essential place of the artistic life of New York. When Stanley Bard took over as hotel manager in 1955, succeeding his father as manager in 1939, the hotel became famous for hosting artists for free, sometimes for several years.
“The most beloved – and enigmatic – character who has ever graced the halls of Chelsea is, of course, our illustrious landlord, Stanley Bard,” writes tenant Ed Hamilton in “Legends of the Chelsea Hotel”. Among his many endearing qualities, Stanley possesses a congenital inability to admit that something bad has happened in the hotel. Stanley Bard, a Robin Hood of the Inns who nurtured talented writers and artists and tolerated slackers as the manager and co-owner of the Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan for more than 40 years, died Tuesday in Boca Raton, Florida. He was 82, leaving a legacy of ghosts.
