Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Bard of 23rd Street
Who was Stanley Bard? Let's let him speak for himself. Once, when Bard was talking to
long-term resident Mary Anne Rose-Gentry, he asserted matter-of-factly “I am this hotel.”
Thisisnoexaggeration.Onaday-to-daylevel,Bard—aslender,well-dressedman,artic-
ulate in speech and with gentle, doe-like brown eyes—was Chelsea Hotel Central, its man-
ager and part owner. You could see in his eyes, sensitive but always darting left and right,
glancing at something over your shoulder, that Stanley Bard was the Watchman. He loved
watching what went on at his hotel. He loved his job, arriving punctually at five a.m. and
departing twelve hours later. He handled the gritty day-to-day operations, and in a build-
ing as big as the Chelsea, where hundreds upon hundreds of people went about their lives,
handling all those details was no small matter. It was Bard who admitted new tenants into
the building, managed the hotel's budget and its staff of desk clerks, bellmen, night guards,
maintenance people, and room maids.
Bard also dealt in real estate, calibrating the balance between the hotel's short-term
transients and long-term residents, tracking room reservations, signing and updating leases,
and—famously—collecting payment. He dealt with anything from room repairs and renov-
ationstoheartattacks,ambulancesandvisitsbythepolice.SomesayBardwouldphoneand
warnaresidentaspolicecaughttheelevator uptoaroomforasurprisedrugbust.Whenthe
cops arrived, all they found was a toilet still hissing. It was Stanley who handled the hotel's
pr, making sure its reputation as a haven for the arts stayed strong. And pristine, which
wasn't always easy considering the treachery, lechery, and debauchery that sometimes went
on behind its walls.
Stanley Bard knew every one of his residents. He knew their quirks, their eccentricities,
their dogs. More important, he knew who owed him money and exactly how much.
For any hotel manager in any hotel, all this would have been a demanding job. But at an
artists' hotel like the Chelsea, Bard's job required a different set of skills: the inspirational
talents of a coach, the patience of a babysitter, and the tact of a diplomat. And when these
didn't do the trick, he could transform himself seamlessly into the hectoring debt collector,
a role he performed with aplomb.
StanleyBard—befittinghisoracularlastname—wasasmuchanartistashistenants.His
masterpiece was the Chelsea Hotel.
JUDITH CHILDS
He made it possible for creative people to create. He's a kind of genius himself.
He got along very well with the artists because they're also mad geniuses.
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