Chelsea

Rival operators appear to be scavaging over what's left of the bankrupt Scores empire.

Robert Gans, owner of Manhattan's Penthouse Executive Club, has applied for a liquor license at the former Scores West strip club at 533-535 West 27th Street.

Meanwhile, proprietors of the Las Vegas-based strip club Sapphire--who earlier caused such an uproar over plans to open a new location on West 23rd Street--are seeking a license at the original Scores location at 333 East 60th Street.

Both applicants are scheduled to appear before the State Liquor Authority (SLA) next week.

State regulators earlier stripped Scores boss Richard Goldring of his license at the West Side location, after employees were arrested on prostitution charges.  read more »

Last week was probably not the most fortuitous time to open a new store in Manhattan. Sex shop Passion opened anyway Sept. 30 on West 14th Street.

After a slow first night, traffic had picked up by the end of the third day of business.

"Stocks may be down, but cocks are up," Tyrone, the manager, said deviously as a few older men and a gay couple perused the merchandise on Oct. 2. "I would have expected to get mostly homosexuals, but we get a fair amount of heterosexual men, too. They always leave blushing."

Not all city sex retailers are as upbeat as Tyrone.  read more »

On Sept. 15, while the rest of the world was preoccupied with the demise of Lehman Brothers, Bank of America's acquisition of Merrill Lynch, and AIG's request for a government loan, at least two parties in this city went about business as usual.

A buyer affiliated with Anbau Enterprises bought the diminutive, five-story 124 West 23rd Street from Franpearl Equities Corp. for $19.3 million. The building last traded in 2004 for $10.6 million.

According to Anbau's Web site, "The plan is to construct a new 16-story building containing approximately 34 luxury residences, each with high-quality finishes and attractive city views. Anbau is set to deliver unique, flexible spaces tailored to this vibrant community.  read more »

It's potty time at the embattled Chelsea Hotel, where Arnold Tamasar has been hired as the new director of operations, replacing the much maligned former manager, Glennon Travis.

Chelsea Hotel gossip site Living With Legends notes that Mr. Tamasar is the former assistant director of housekeeping and style at the W New York Times Square Hotel, where he earned accolades from toilet tissue giant Kimberly-Clark for maintaining restrooms with the highest standards of cleanliness and ambiance:

The restrooms overflow with greenery. There are three tiers of wheat grass, Egyptian green limestone and white oak doors with gingko leaves embedded in the frosted glass. For special occasions such as weddings or wine tastings, the hotel adds an extra touch by providing a restroom attendant to hand out towels.

His expertise should come in handy at the old Chelsea, where plumbing issues are quite prevalent.

I just signed a lease for a one-bedroom apartment in Chelsea and my relief at having finally found an acceptable living space on Tuesday after I had all but given up has been somewhat tempered by the sheer absurdity of the whole rental experience.

I assembled my financial information on Wednesday morning and my application was approved that afternoon. The broker that I had spent all of one hour with was giving me serious guilt about dropping his fee from 15 to 12 percent, but I told him that I could not take the apartment otherwise and had worked with another broker, with access to the same apartment, who had volunteered to the same reduction.  read more »

Developers like Donald Trump and chocolatiers like Alison Nelson aren't the only ones eyeballing real estate in Dubai.

New York magazine reports that at least two Manhattan nightlife impressarios, Pink Elephant owner Josh Kaiser and Star Lounge proprietor Charles Ferri, are both planning to open new posh boites in the emirate.

In fact, I spoke with Mr. Ferri back in May about his Middle Eastern aspirations:

"Dubai is super important right now," he said. "We're looking to do a big, big club out there. They're basically flying me out there for a month."

The new venue would be located in a hotel, he added -- one of the few types of places the emirate permits booze.

Mere months after the highly publicized shuttering of Scores West, investigators have busted yet another Manhattan strip club for selling what the industry so politely calls "extras."

Cops arrested lawyer Louis Posner, proprietor of the popular Hot Lap Dance Club, located at 344 West 38th Street, and some 20 other people, including adult film star and "feature performer" Alexia Moore, on prostitution and money-laundering charges over the weekend.

I recently asked former Scores dancer Ruth Fowler, author of the new stripper memoir, No Man's Land, whether there are any New York strip clubs that don't allow that sort of thing.

"Flash Dancers," replied Ms. Fowler, who performed at various venues around town. "They're really fucking strict. They're, like, the cleanest club I've ever worked at. They're so hard on girls who do extras."

This reporter was witness to some tense moments at the Chelsea Hotel over the weekend, including a verbal confrontation (pictured above) at the front desk between hotel vice president David Elder and hotel tenant Arthur Nash.

No punches were thrown, but the incident clearly spooked Mr. Elder. In recent days, a new security detail has been patrolling the hotel’s lobby and hallways. The hulking guys in suits have been particularly attentive to Mr. Nash.

The initial standoff happened during the second night of a photography exhibit entitled “Chelsea Hotel Through the Eyes of The Photographers,” scheduled to coincide with the historic hotel's 125th anniversary. But it also came at a time of lingering tensions inside the iconic lodge.

Mr. Elder is at the center of the controversy. It was his 2005 lawsuit that ultimately resulted in the highly-publicized ouster of longtime manger and majority owner Stanley Bard. Thus, he has taken the brunt of some residents’ anger. “Greed” has been scrawled on his door; excrement left on his doormat—someone even sent him a dead fish in the mail. And, the hotel blog, Living With Legends, has fervently chronicled Mr. Elder’s longstanding California court battle with his elderly father-in-law, the writer Piri Thomas, over more than $1 million in dividends reaped from hotel profits.

“I’m not doing an interview,” Mr. Elder said on Saturday, mingling with guests just one night after he was chased from the exhibit hall by a masked doppelgänger dressed in a hotel bathrobe. (A stink bomb had earlier disrupted the show.)  read more »

It's been years since the famous Chelsea Hotel opened up its Grand Ballroom. On Friday, the doors will finally be unlocked for an exhibit of more than 100 photographs taken at or inspired by the 125-year-old artistic enclave.

The show, curated by Chelsea resident and photographer Linda Troeller with the help of hotel co-owner (and rumored interim manager) David Elder, opens May 9 and runs through Sunday, May 11, from noon to 6 p.m.

The exhibition comes at a pivotal time for the iconic-yet-embattled lodge, which saw its second management shakeup in less than a year last week.  read more »

Protesters and politicans plan to rally in Chelsea on Saturday against the displacement of a handful of small businesses on Ninth Avenue by landlord Morris Monian.

Eight stores along what organizers are calling “the last ungentrified block in Chelsea” —including Chelsea Liquors, the Ninth Avenue Gift Shop, Sweet Banana Candy Store, New Barber Shop and Famous Deli—have between three months and two years before their lease expires.

Organizers said the shops cater directly to residents of the Fulton Houses affordable housing complex across the street.  read more »

BD NY Hotels, the Richard Born and Ira Drukier-led outfit hired last year to replace eccentric longtime Chelsea Hotel manager Stanley Bard, has filed for arbitration after being fired by the hotel's governing board for "willful misconduct."

The controversial management team, which installed a rookie, 26-year-old Glennon Travis in the place of the veteran manager, Mr. Bard, has claimed in court papers that it has "fully performed its obligations" under a three-year contract, signed last June, and further asserted that the hotel was more profitable on its watch than when Mr. Bard ran the place.  read more »

Rumors have been circulating for days about the looming departure of Glennon Travis, controversial manager of the embattled Chelsea Hotel.  read more »

“We all know what happens when the designer stores come in,” said Gloria Sukenick, a member of the Metropolitan Council on Housing and a 16-year Chelsea resident.

“You have to take two buses to buy a light bulb or a screwdriver…The people (in public housing) won’t have any place to shop anymore.”

Ms. Sukenick and other neighborhood activists are organizing a rally on May 3 to “Save the Mom-and-Pop stores of 9th Avenue.”

At least eight stores along this “last ungentrified block in Chelsea” could displaced within the next two years as their leases expire, she said.  read more »

Still reeling from the fallout of its highly publicized 2007 prostitution bust, embattled Manhattan strip club Scores West has filed for bankruptcy.

Court papers filed on Friday point to "mounting tax debt" and a "loss in sales" at the voluptuous 10,000-square-foot venue at 536 W. 28th St. "as a result of the actions by the New York State Liquor Authority proceeding against the [club] to revoke its liquor license."  read more »

Legendary hotelier Stanley Bard doesn't hang out in the lobby of his beloved Chelsea Hotel as often as he used to.

But, two weeks ago, the hotel's infamously ousted manager made a rare appearance, joining the director Milos Forman (himself a former hotel resident) for an on-camera interview smack-dab in the middle of the lobby.

"The new management comes running out of the back and is like, 'You can’t shoot that here!'" said the writer Ed Hamilton, a 13-year resident of the iconic lodge on West 23rd Street. "He tried to charge Stanley $600 to film in the lobby. Of course, Stanley wouldn't pay that."

Mr. Hamilton relayed the recent lobby incident during a panel discussion about the historic and embattled hotel last night at the Museum of the City of New York.

Mr. Hamilton, author of Legends of the Chelsea Hotel: Living with the Artists and Outlaws of New York’s Rebel Mecca, interviewed Mr. Bard himself recently for a short video by fellow hotel resident and filmmaker Sam Bassett.

In the interview, played during the panel discussion, Mr. Bard took a few jabs at the hotel's controversial new managers.  read more »

Prolific hotelier Sam Chang just keeps on a-wheelin' and a-dealin'.

One day, he's selling his unfinished Sheraton on Canal Street for $83.5 million, according to The Real Deal.

A few days later, he picks up a new site for $24 million, according to city records. Mr. Chang's latest acquisition, at 431 West 33rd Street, is, according to PropertyShark.com, a 7,000-square-foot parking lot.

Now, the voracious developer may not be known for his valet skills, but he did build a Holiday Inn Express.

One can only assume another McSam hotel is in the works. But which chain? Hilton? Comfort Inn? Candlewood Suites? Stay tuned.

The pioneering gallery that ignited Chelsea’s transition into a contemporary arts hub is being developed into a rental building with exhibition space.

We first broke in early December the news that the Dia Art Foundation had sold its building at 548 West 22nd Street for $38.55 million to an unknown buyer. Back then, the Dia’s director, Jeffrey Weiss, said the museum was looking to relocate to “disused space” in a different neighborhood, and ruled out opening a new branch in Chelsea.  read more »

Chelsea's rental market remains one of the most expensive in Manhattan, according to the Real Estate Group's 2007 year-end report, but some apartment sizes weathered an erratic year better than others.

Daniel Baum, the group's COO, told The Observer what most suprised him in the 2007 data was Chelsea's resiliency.  read more »

West Chelsea's bipolar nightspot Club Myst/Retox Rock Bar will be closing its doors for two whole weeks on Jan. 7, pursuant to a settlement agreement with city prosecutors.

Or, as the club spins it, "CLOSING FOR RENOVATIONS."

See our previous coverage here.

But before shutting its doors, Myst/Retox is throwing some high-profile parties this weekend, including tonight's featured performance by ex-con cum sex-tape star turned turntablist Amy Fisher, which earned a Page Six mention today.  read more »

Byron Dobell, one of the most respected and accomplished editors in New York magazine publishing history, is also a painter, and his seventh solo show, “Recent Works,” is currently on view at Chelsea’s First Street Gallery (526 West 26th Street). Mr. Dobell, who’s 80 (but doesn’t look a day over 65!), worked as an editor at many important magazines in the city, including Time, Esquire, New York and American Heritage, and edited writers like Tom Wolfe and David Halberstam before they were household names. But 17 years ago, Mr. Dobell left the media world to pursue a lifelong passion: portraiture painting. Over the years he’s painted many friends and colleagues, including New York magazine founder Clay Felker; Tim Forbes, chief operating officer of Forbes, Dominique Browning, editor in chief of late House & Garden, and feminist icon Betty Friedan (the Friedan piece now hangs in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery).

At his Recent Works’ opening last week, Mr. Dobell dressed in a sharp navy jacket, an eye-catching tie and round, thin-framed spectacles. The room was noisy and bustling with his friends, mostly graying folks from the magazine business, who braved the biting cold to make it to the party. They held their hands behind their backs and considered Mr. Dobell’s small, sketchy “Life Study” chalk drawings of his less famous models lounging, seemingly in mid-air. There are also serene landscapes inspired by his travels to Scotland, Rome and New Hampshire. In some paintings, little trees sway in front of fuzzy bushes swirled with strands of India ink.  read more »

So much for the Chelsea Hotel's resident "eurotrash beachbum."

Glennon Travis, the new director of operations for the embattled bohemian enclave, whom The Observer profiled last week, has scrapped his revealing MySpace page following the article's publication.

Nevermind that part about "[d]espite the teasing, Mr. Travis has yet to remove or even alter his MySpace presence."

Yet the new guy continues to provide more juicy gossip for writer Ed Hamilton's blog about hotel life, Living With Legends.

Mr. Hamilton further reports that Mr. Travis is engaged to be married: "Congratulations Glennon!"

Fortuna Realty Group, headed up by Morris Moinian, has paid $31.4 million for a pre-war rental building at 112 Ninth Avenue, at the border of the meatpacking district and Chelsea, city records show.

Recognize the name? Morris, who tends to stick to building hotels, is the brother of the development mogul Joseph Moinian, CEO of the Moinian Group.  read more »

There's hope for the old fleabag yet!

In a surprise 6-to-1 vote last night, the landmarks committee of Manhattan's Community Board 5 voted to recommend designating the historic and endangered Hotel Pennsylvania as an official city landmark.

If approved by the full board next week and later by the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission, the proposal could save the old 22-story inn from the wrecking ball. Owner Vornado Realty Trust wants to tear it down and erect a giant office tower in its place, possibly as a new headquarters for Merrill Lynch.

The board's vote ran counter to the wishes of the Municipal Arts Society, which informed the panel by letter that it did not support the designation for fear of interfering with Vornado's planned redevelopment of the nearby Farley Post Office.

Even Joyce Matz, perhaps the panel's most zealous preservationist, did not support the motion, noting that the "banal" building was actually designed by "lesser junior staff" members of the hallowed architecture firm McKim, Mead & White. (Both Charles McKim and Stanford White were dead by the time the hotel was built in 1919.)

"I had discussions with three very noted architectural historians, and the feeling was this, [the hotel] is not the best, nor one of best, hotels that McKim, Mead & White designed," Ms. Matz said. "It is not a significant design, nor is the facade of exceptional interest."

Others, though, pointed to several unique cultural attributes, including the Glenn Miller-popularized "Pennsylvania 6-5000," which remains "New York's longest continually used phone number."

The hotel is also "one of the last surviving examples of very large hotels built to accomodate train travelers," noted writer Carter B. Horsley, who typically doesn't speak out on such issues, he said.

The full board will take up the issue on Nov. 8. The meeting takes place at 6 p.m., located at 227 West 27th Street, Building "C", Haft Auditorium, 2nd Floor.

It's often said that the ghost of Sid Vicious hangs out around the first-floor elevator at the Chelsea Hotel. Current resident Ed Hamilton may have also spotted the spectre of Thomas Wolfe.

Today's Daily News adds a new twist to the hotel's haunted lore:

Swanky Star Lounge, located in the hotel's basement, has lately seen a rash of strange events, including an unexplained power outage.

After sawing through the ceiling, workers reached a tangle of wiring that had been rearranged.

"We had to cut the drywall to get to these wires, and they were switched," says [owner Charles] Ferri. "How could anyone even get to these wires? It's still a mystery."

The incident prompted Ferri, a skeptic, to reexamine a string of odd happenings. Lights had routinely flicked on and off. Odd noises could sometimes be heard from the bar's back-room office, but ceased upon inspection. Once, the furniture in the locked lounge was rearranged overnight.

A visiting self-proclaimed psychic told Ferri that she sensed the presence of an older woman in the bar.

"If they bought enough bottles," Mr. Ferri said of the phantoms, "I would for sure let them have the space."

Artsy denizens of the embattled Chelsea Hotel turned out en masse to the not-so-bohemian Barnes & Noble on Sixth Avenue and 21st Street last night, as fellow hotel inhabitant Ed Hamilton read passages from his new book, Legends of the Chelsea Hotel.

"It's good he decided to dress up," one attendee joked as Mr. Hamilton took the podium dressed in jeans, a button-up shirt, and a blue baseball cap bearing the logo of a recent New York blogger summit. (Mr. Hamilton also operates a hotel-centric blog called Living With Legends.)

Painter Hawk Alfredson and photographer Mia Hanson (who's also pictured in the book) were among those present.

Before delving into the text, Mr. Hamilton waxed nostaglic for the hotel's old junky-friendly vibe and bemoaned its becoming "more and more of a fancy boutique hotel."

He described the book as part fact, part fiction. During the reading, Mr. Hamilton pulled from two chapters—"scary stories for Halloween," he said—one involving a druggie Dead-head zombie reanimated on the hotel's rooftop and another describing a seemingly personal encounter with the purported ghost of writer (and former Room 829 resident) Thomas Wolfe during the 2003 blackout:

"[A] large, hulking man," Mr. Hamilton described the phantom. "His broad back curved over a drafting table where an array of papers was spread out before him. He seemed to be working on some sort of outline... The man was wearing a starched white shirt, and the papers were white, which added to the brilliance of the scene."

Later, as the author autographed copies, this reporter asked him how much of the Wolfe ghost story was true.

"Well, it didn't happen during the blackout," Mr. Hamilton said. And, he added, "I don't know if it was him."

Tomorrow morning, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, State Senator Tom Duane and Rob Walsh, Commissioner of Small Business Services, will place 10 candles on a giant market-shaped cake in honor of the Chelsea Market’s birthday. The festivities will also include free product samples and live music.

It all starts at 11:30 at the Chelsea Market concourse on Ninth Avenue between 15th and 16th streets.

Men in pinstriped suits and women in little black dresses floated around the Sara Tecchia Gallery last night, at a party celebrating the near completion of 100 West 18th Street and the success of NBC4HD's new show "OpenHouse NYC." The guests were surrounded by the art of David Fried--images of bubbles floating in space covered the walls, interrupted only by the photographic renderings of the condo units on display.

The space was the epitome of all that is Chelsea--art and real estate overlapping.

The tone was celebratory, the hosts beaming. Their 10-story residential condo is set to finish in December, with occupancy beginning in January, and they are 60 percent sold. The Brauser Group has made it look easy, and Scott Aaron, the director of development, was all smiles. "The process has gone very smoothly," he said. "We have a wide variety of people." The Observer reported the breakdown of buyers here.

Mr. Aaron described the new building. The interior layouts are varied depending on the unit, a characteristic which Mr. Aaron said would give more flexibility to buyers. In addition, instead of designing another glass structure, this new development has a black stone facade, infused with iron ore.

"It's a more grown up design for Chelsea," Mr. Aaron said. "It's a cosmopolitan industrial look. Chelsea is such an incredible mixture of fashion and art--next to an art gallery is a meat-processing plant. It gave us an opportunity to do something a little different but remain true to the roots of Chelsea."

There to celebrate with Mr. Aaron was the architect, Garrett Gourlay, and the team behind "OpenHouse NYC," a new show about New York City real estate. "We're honored that LXTV and NBC were interested in profiling our building," Mr. Aaron said. "It validates the vision that we had from the beginning."

But the crew from LXTV and NBC had their own celebrating to be doing. "OpenHouse NYC" premiered this summer, and has received good ratings. Launched as a show for New Yorkers who are "buying, selling, improving, or just dreaming," it covers these processes both on the weekly broadcasts and on their corresponding blog.

David Hyman, vice president of programming and creative services at NBC4HD explained the show's success. "We found that real estate is the sexiest sport in New York," he said.

The guests were swept up in the excitement of both of these projects. Over by the sushi and edamame platter, Tamir Shemesh, the executive vice president of new developments at Prudential Douglas Elliman chatted with interior designer Andres Escobar, of the firm of the same name.

"It's not a glass structure in a mid-block location. They are on a corner, and there is a view but it's not like you're facing the water. People are concerned with privacy," Mr. Shemesh commented. "The location is wonderful, the product very nice. I think they will do very well."

Karaoke night on Tuesday at the Star Lounge in the basement of the Chelsea Hotel brought out a mix of leggy model types fluttering around stringy young men dressed invariably like the characters from HBO’s Entourage.

Oh well.  read more »

State and city officials said Tuesday night that they would try to save the three northernmost blocks of the High Line when they choose private developers for the western rail yards, but they made no promises.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which owns the six blocks worth of rail yards in the West 30s, will be asking bidders to submit two plans: one in which the sections of elevated track along 30th Street and 12th Avenue would be preserved and the other in which they would be removed, according to city officials. The M.T.A. would determine whether the lost profit from maintaining the train track would be worth it.  read more »