Stanley Bard - This Ain't no Holiday Inn: Down and Out at the Chelsea Hotel 1980-1995 - page 150

Chelsea Time
Tolerance has its perils. Desperate artists, or unprincipled ones, could take advantage of
Bard's generosity. But being an adept businessman, he adopted a strategy for squeezing as
much money out of poor artists as he reasonably could. It was a complex strategy befitting
his complex artistic clientele.
If you zoomed back to see the big picture, his approach had a certain logic and consist-
ency. Its foundation was the Five-Year Plan.
ROBERT CAMPBELL
Stanley would let people who weren't properly paying their rent stay at the hotel
for about five years. In the long run, it was good for business. The hotel had all
these tourists that came there from all over the world, and the tourists wanted to
see some freaks living at the Chelsea. So Stanley picked out these people, these
artists,andifhefeltliketheywerecreative,hegavethemfiveyearstogetontheir
feet and get going. After five years, if you didn't get there, you were out the door.
He would call you up and razz you a little bit first.
Long-term artist residents paid $500 to $750 a month for a small room on the lower floors.
Tourists, on the other hand, paid at least a hundred dollars a night. To Stanley, the artists
were an investment used to attract the higher paying tourists.
Bard's five-year probation grew to be known as Chelsea time. To the artist tenants,
Chelsea time meant “give yourself five years to show real progress at becoming the artist
you dream to become. Don't get all worked up too quickly about results.”
Five years were pretty generous terms, better than any artist retreat or colony. Rent was
comparatively cheap. Even so, over the years, some “promising” artists—including Robert
Campbell—ended up owing over ten thousand dollars.
Chelsea time was akin to tenure in universities: produce or empty out your desk. If an
artist made it after five years, or at least made enough money to pay the overdue rent—or
pay most ofit—hegottokeephisroom.Butiffiveyearshadpassedandanartisthadmissed
a rent payment or a dozen, and had not accomplished much as an artist, then Bard began
Stage Two of his management strategy.
StageTwowasformoreproblematicindividuals,artistswhoturnedouttohavelittletal-
ent and less money, often the ones who slid into hard partying and general debauchery.
In his observant way, bellman Paul Volmer watched how these problem types cycled in
and out of the Chelsea's lower floors with great regularity. Bard knew he could get rent out