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(boat horn blaring)
(helicopter blades whirring)
(traffic rumbling)
- (car horns blaring) - (indistinct chatter)
(mid-tempo music playing)
Patti: This is the first place I came to in New York,
was the Chelsea Hotel,
because Dylan Thomas, like, was one of my big heroes.
And so, like, Dylan Thomas used to hang out
on this very roof.
And I'm sure, like, he threw up a couple... (chuckles)
...one too many rums or something off this roof,
looked at the old
Empire State Building right here.
And I've always liked to be
where the big guys were, you know?
(tense music playing)
(chuckles)
(tense music continues)
(siren wailing)
(horn blaring)
(car engine revving)
Man: I am lost in the Chelsea.
I forgot the stairs were over here.
(girl laughing in distance)
(indistinct chatter over radio)
(telephone ringing)
(indistinct chatter)
Man: Holy, holy, holy, holy Holy, holy, holy, holy...
Holy, holy, holy, holy, holy. The world is...
Woman 1: And on this floor, at one time,
Oscar Wilde stayed here. Now, he didn't live here, of course,
he just stayed here when he was visiting.
So all the immortals of the 20th century
at one time or another
have probably stayed at the Chelsea.
Woman 2: Are there any messages or anything for me?
(telephone ringing)
Okay, Stefan Brecht, room 1010.
Another international letter for the son of Bertolt Brecht.
Wunderbar, wunderbar.
Woman: Hello? Can someone help?
Man: I told you this kid's worth big bucks.
You drop, you're dead.
Don't touch. Jerry, the elevator is stuck.
(elevator bell dings)
Merle: Hey, I've got...
I'm wondering, I got a rent check.
-Do you want to handle it, or... -I can't.
Merle: Okay.
I'm going to put this on.
(phone rings)
(elevator bell dings)
- Merle: Hi, John. - John: How are you doing?
I'm here, how are you feeling?
- Terrible, terrible. - Well...
(indistinct chatter)
- Merle: Who's that? - Timothy.
- Merle: Timothy? - Yes.
Merle: Okay, I could not... Oh, are you wearing...
Oh, yeah I... Once I lay it down,
you'll recognize me.
Merle: You work today? What'd you do?
- What are they doing today? - I was on the roof.
Merle: Doing, what are they doing?
- A lot. - They do... Like what?
They're finishing up the sheetrock up there,
they're doing the fire safety,
they are running the fire safety wires.
Yeah, and that's why they were doing that on our floor.
Actually, I was on the eighth and ninth floor today,
cutting out holes, two by two...
For the fire safety?
Are they making a spa on the roof or something?
- That's what I heard. - Merle: Okay.
(whirring)
(thudding)
(whirring)
Zoe: You see that one, the golden one,
you can put together with the Victorian ones.
(whimsical music playing)
Zoe: Where is the Murano red one?
- It fell by chance? - Nick: It's possible.
Zoe: You know, we had... Oh, no, it's here, it's here.
Nick: All right, so we should start cutting.
Yeah, I think so. (chuckles)
(phone line trilling)
- Gerald: Hello? - Zoe: Hello, Gerald.
This is Zoe, how are you?
Gerald: Hi, Zoe, I'm still kind of in bed...
Zoe: Oh, I'm very sorry. So you probably won't be
at the tenants association meeting
because of that.
Gerald: No, I probably won't, I'm sorry.
After the meeting is over,
you are going to be happy because...
Let me ask you something.
You would like the building to be finalized, would you?
Gerald: Yes, I would.
Woman: The hotel needs to be finished.
- Absolutely. - Woman: You know,
I love my apartment, but it's a mess.
Most of the decent people in this building
want to have the building done.
Woman: You know, it's a personal attack,
- you know, in a sense... - It is.
Woman: ...to have this last for such a long time.
- Nothing is ever possible. - It is, it's a personal attack.
Woman: Nothing is ever completed, nothing...
- We are in the ninth year. - Nick: Hudson Yards.
So, the Hudson Yards was built,
I mean, that's 1.8 million square feet. I mean, come on.
We want to cry or to scream, really.
I think that the second part is better.
Nick: You know, these tenants that are making misery...
and preventing the landlords from finishing up the work.
Those people are gonna benefit from the beauty,
but they are the ones that are slowing things
up terribly. It's practically extortion.
Zoe: Nick, would you make a little bit less noise maybe?
You can put it in, but just because I'm trying to talk to...
- (whirring) - (thudding)
(indistinct chatter)
Merle: How are you doing?
Man: I'm okay, ma'am. How's everything?
- Merle: You like working here? - Man: Yes, of course.
Merle: What do you like about it?
Oh, there's a lot of history in this building.
And...
There's a lot of ghosts going on around here.
- Merle: Did you feel anything? - Yeah.
- Merle: In what way? - Well, some ghosts,
they just died here. You know what I mean?
They're just here. Some ghosts, they're really lost.
- Merle: They're lost. - They're lost.
They're trying to find a way out,
but they can't find it
because at the time they was...
Some ghosts in here, they was killed.
Merle: Yeah.
Some of them took their life.
Merle: Which ones? Do you remember?
I don't know,
but since I started feeling a lot of stuff in here, like,
I went to the internet and I googled Chelsea Hotel.
- Merle: Right. - And it says everything,
that a girl has been killed on the first floor.
In the lobby, a guy committed suicide.
And there's a lot of interesting people here.
A lot of musicians, a lot of art people, painters.
When I was a kid, I wanted to be an architect,
you know what I mean? That's my dream.
- You never know. - Man: Right?
You still got a whole life ahead of you.
Yeah, I like to read a lot about Da Vinci.
- I think Da Vinci was... - Merle: Fabulous.
He was not in this planet. I think Da Vinci's mind
is coming from a different planet.
You know what I mean? His mind, it was too...
- Merle: Very quick. - Yeah.
- Merle: Yeah. - Yeah, yeah.
Well, art takes you out anyways.
Man: Of course, art puts you where you want to be.
So the dances I did
was kind of a lot of artistic kind of things.
- Are we gonna dance? (chuckles) - Merle: We can do it.
But I dance differently. (imitates music)
I've done that too. I've done that also.
- Man: Yeah? - Yes, I have.
♪♪ Yeah, mambo, mambo Italian Go, go, go ♪♪
(imitates music)
- So I see you soon, miss. - Merle: You shall, you shall.
- Man: My beautiful lady. - Merle: Will you come to...
- Okay. - Man: All right.
(tense music playing)
(indistinct chatter)
Guide 1: And on this floor, this is where Andy Warhol
made his immortal classic, The Chelsea Girls.
Okay, now we're going to work our way down
and we'll talk about the people on the floor.
(speaks indistinctly)
(tense music playing)
Guide 2: Now we're gonna go in to see the manager's office.
Now I'm going to walk over here.
Here's Stanley Bard, the manager.
Stanley: My job never ends.
I have an open line connection to the hotel 24 hours,
so I know what's happening.
How are you, Larry?
Larry: I'm all right, Stanley. Are you gonna fill out the form?
Stanley: I'm going to fill out this form
and the reason I asked you down in the office
is because I'm having great difficulty.
You know, I never knew
the actual title of the painting.
The title of the one in the lobby? The title is,
Dutch Masters and Cigars, Shaped, 1.
Right there.
I finally got you to sign this.
- Yeah. - After all these years.
All right, Larry.
You know, now I sign with two names.
At that time, I would have signed it "Rivers."
I don't know what got into me, but somewhere along the line
I think Peter Beard got on me and said...
- Put 1964. - Should I put '64?
- Okay. - Larry: There it is, Stanley.
Now it's official. This proves I really did it.
- Okay. - Here in the Chelsea Hotel.
- You know, I could... - My home away from home.
Why do you think it all took place?
Because of cheap rooms, no?
- Cheap rooms, fun people. - You were a liberal.
- Flexible management. - That's what I meant.
(rock music playing)
♪♪ Here's Room 546 ♪♪
♪♪ It's enough to make you sick ♪♪
♪♪ Bridget's all wrapped up In foil ♪♪
♪♪ You wonder If she'd get uncoiled ♪♪
♪♪ Here they come now See them run now ♪♪
♪♪ Here they come now ♪♪
♪♪ Chelsea girls ♪♪
Rose: My name is Rose Cory,
and I'm living in the Chelsea since 1987.
My nights are days, my days are nights.
I go to bed in the morning, I get up in the evening.
And...
Just, I live a very unusual life here.
I have such a history with the place,
from anorexia, gender transition,
marriage, drugs, careers...
I've had six or eight lives here.
I don't want to say that there was a pressure
to be unique or to express yourself, but...
certainly there was no pressure to not.
The Chelsea right now is a kind of,
I don't know what you would say.
Holdouts.
People who have lived here for many years.
And for whatever reason...
whatever reason, hard to imagine,
want to continue to live here.
There's not necessarily
any strong connection between people,
but each have their reason for wanting to stay.
There are people here who really are
the remnants of another time in New York.
When Manhattan was a bohemian...
and avant-garde center of activity.
When the art world was
really lively and vibrant and juicy,
and art was being made here in Manhattan.
Now I think that time is gone.
The Chelsea is in a moment where...
It's kind of like a grand old tree
that's been chopped down.
But the roots are deep,
and there's life still coming from it.
So we don't really know where it's going yet.
To all appearances,
they will, in time, put us all out.
(thudding)
Man: This is where I lived for sixteen years,
it had four rooms.
Sam and I lived here
and entertained and so forth.
But my first years at the Chelsea were spent here.
- (grunts) Hello. - (chuckles)
But what they've done is,
they made little rooms instead of keeping big spaces.
They calculated that people wouldn't pay a lot
for one big open space.
They wanted a lot of little rooms. (chuckles)
Maybe they think
they can charge more by the room or something.
Oh, a net.
(both chuckle)
Man 1: I don't think it will catch you.
Man 2: Yeah, it wouldn't catch me,
it's not big enough.
Hiroya: A-yooh. A-yooh.
A-yoooh.
(speaks in Japanese)
Man 2: There was a Japanese artist
who painted a mural on that wall.
And then he got stoned
and jumped into the pit and killed himself.
Look at my paintings.
My painting almost everything dead.
This is a casket.
Sometimes I came to the Chelsea Hotel.
Actually I am staying in a casket too, you know?
Like, you know?
Like I always feel like I'm dead, you know?
So I think Chelsea Hotel, I think a ghost brought me here.
And so, yeah, there used to be a lot of...
drugging and craziness here
in those days. (chuckles) But not me. (chuckles)
And me too, of course. I don't know.
Well, they created that elevator down there.
That's a brand-new creation.
And we slowly... And of course, it's for everybody
and for the workers and everybody.
But we suddenly realized that really
was intended to be for us, old tenants.
That's where we're supposed to...
Because when the hotel opens,
it's going to be very fancy and expensive.
And so they don't really want us going through the lobby.
Like, people like Merle, or me... (chuckles)
...or Bettina.
So they gave us that elevator, the servants' elevator.
(chuckles)
They never said that,
but it became pretty clear what that was for.
And it sucked as well.
They're trying to move all the residents
to the first floor.
They wanted us all to move, but I
was successful in staying here, I preferred that.
- All right, sixth floor. - Mm-hmm.
Merle: So good to see...
Oh, so you're going to be alternating?
Someone else and you and that's it, right?
- That's it. Only two of us. - Merle: Okay.
(elevator bell dings)
Man 1: All right, I'll see you.
Merle: All right. Okay.
- How are you doing, good? - Man 2: Yeah, really good.
Merle: Wow.
(indistinct chatter)
Merle: I see things, I have to...
I have to work with shapes. I have to see shapes. Yeah...
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
(soft music playing)
(birds chirping)
Susan: It's a long time.
Half a lifetime.
Can you see this from where you are, Joe?
- Joe: Huh? - Susan: Can you see this...
transparent yellow there from where you are?
Joe: I love you. I love Susan K.
Susan: You call me Susan K. (chuckling)
- (birds chirping) - (soft music playing)
Susan: We built the garden
and I had mostly wildflowers and animals, plants,
those are all the things that I love.
(birds squawking)
- Joe: Where is Leander? - Susan: Up over there.
(soft music playing)
Susan: It's a fantasy land
where people go to find pleasure,
and get away from reality. Is that right?
Joe: (chuckling) Susan, I have brain damage.
(thunder rumbling, rain pattering)
Susan: We lost the apartment with the garden,
I gave away the trees,
and we had to move down to the first floor.
Joe: The rent now is like 317 dollars.
Susan: So it will go up about 200 dollars more.
Joe: You mean when they finish?
I mean, we both agree
that we hope they never finish...
(chuckles) Because...
...because we couldn't afford...
what the rent would be...
in the heart of Manhattan, in this space.
Which I have... And I've said this to you...
I've turned this whole place over to you.
And so that's why I expect you to work.
Yes.
Joe: This was sold to someone in the building.
They offered me less than what I wanted.
So I asked for another 50 dollars
and they said, "Oh, fine."
I think they might have even paid more,
but they paid a good price.
- Yeah, they would have. - A very good price.
And that was my first sale.
To say your "first sale" is like,
you know, you're a beginner, and everybody...
You, you're... This is the big art hotel, place, and this...
Susan Kleinsinger, aka Susan K
is really one of the few people who do art in this building.
What do you think? I mean, who else does?
- Your neighbor, I won't say... - I'd be a painter.
A couple of people still paint.
What?
A couple of people still paint.
I mean, there are a lot of people going around...
saying they're artists, but they don't do art.
And then comes the question of "What is art?"
(bell tolling)
Man: Mr. Cole, what do you think of modern art?
Yes. Modern art is gone.
No more modern art.
Man: What's wrong with modern art?
What's wrong with modern art?
Everything. (chuckles)
(electronic music playing)
Merle: See now, we're going faster.
That's what happens, you keep going.
Training, training. That's what my work is about.
Keeping at it, going faster. It's the same down here.
(electronic music playing)
Eighteen, nineteen, twenty... Faster it becomes.
It becomes faster, faster, faster. Faster.
(electronic music playing)
Skye: Of the hotel that isn't and is in Chelsea,
the residents say to me on the stairs,
"How long do you think you'll stay?"
I say, I couldn't say.
The old ones rarely look me in the eye, but I am seen.
And they will answer me the same,
as if it had been scripted, "You know, you'll never leave."
I do.
- (door knocking) - Merle: Skye?
(pop music playing)
- Skye: It's never locked. - I didn't see the number. Okay.
Skye: Here, let me help you with that.
Merle: Thanks. Okay.
Is it cool in here? A little heavier.
Skye: I can cool you down.
Merle: Oh. Let me see. Can you?
Oh, shit. Can I get through here?
Yeah. Just.
Here, let me help you.
Merle: Oh, damn, it's complicated.
Skye: Have you ever choreographed slapstick?
Merle: No. I don't... I can't deal with the heat.
Skye: Look at me. Perfect, perfect.
Don't worry about the hands. It's going to be from here up.
- Chin down. - Okay. Okay.
- Oh, really, from here up? - Skye: From here up.
Do you want me to sculpt your breasts?
- I can sculpt your breasts. - (chuckles)
Skye: But I was going to do it from here up.
Oh, sorry. I sculpt the breast. That's fine.
Skye: Okay, put your chin down and turn like that.
Skye: I pay the rent with my performances
of making art instead of art itself.
I'm very good at making flourishes
and gestures of the arm.
Unwinding to a flick, a twist, a scissoring of the wrist.
My pliers squeak. I do not oil them on purpose.
- I know you can take direction. - Oh, yeah.
Skye: (chuckles) I mean,
you're a dancer, you should be able to.
I have directed, yes.
Skye: I think there was scientific study
that if you look in someone's eyes
for four minutes,
you'll fall in love like a stranger,
you'll fall in love with a stranger.
Is it still art if no one sees it?
Or just potential art until it's owned?
"It's just junk until it sells," said my father once.
It's a wonder I haven't managed to lose everything.
A few missed payments, and there it goes.
I'm only alive when I pay.
Would New York disappear if we stopped paying rent?
To breathe?
One day, I may stop paying. For just long enough.
So were you lucky enough
to have good dancers in your companies?
- Fantastic. - Skye: Yeah?
I had one man, as I said, Keith Lee,
he was with the American Ballet Theatre.
Skye: Yeah.
- I had my own style, of course. - Skye: Yes.
But I was interested in dancers that had varied backgrounds.
- Skye: That had what? - Varied backgrounds.
- Skye: Okay. - Ballet dance and jazz.
Skye: Yeah.
Because I wanted to be very open in working,
you know, but when I started the dance thing,
there wasn't that much...
- Skye: Yep. - ...connection.
Ballet and modern, it was sort of like division.
- Now, everybody is together. - Skye: Right.
I always felt that the best modern dancers
have a ballet background.
- That's right. Give structure. - Skye: A foundation.
I'm just getting into your hair now.
This is the point in the sculpture
where it's abstraction.
I always like that part
when there's an abstract moment in the figurative.
The known lines and the unknown lines.
I may have shaved a couple of years off.
Wire can only capture so many lines.
- You mean in my face? - Skye: Yes.
- (chuckles) - Skye: But I got your tooth.
Oh.
(mid-tempo music playing)
Gina: Hello?
Merle: Hi, Gina, it's Merle, how are you?
Where are you working these days,
what are you doing?
(Gina speaks indistinctly through phone)
Merle: Anyhow, I may try it out,
because, you know, I'm trying to get some new things going.
Oh, look at this. Wow.
Exciting.
Yeah, I've been looking at some of our old pictures.
You know that? You're still on some photos
- that I have. Yeah. - Gina: Oh, yeah?
Merle: Because you were in my old pieces,
remember?
Yes, I'm coming along,
I'm even thinking of eventually maybe doing some dance thing.
I don't know, I'm working on something. You know?
Get my body good.
You think Givenchy might be interested?
- (fan whirring) - (soft music playing)
Zoe: Stop. Hey.
Oh, you play that you don't hear?
Anyway, I will make you hear.
(scoffs)
Nine to 17, it's eight hours.
They shouldn't be on the hoist, I don't care.
Enough is enough.
I don't think it has anything to do
except with common sense.
And if people don't have common sense,
you cannot give it to them.
It's... you know, it doesn't matter.
You don't need to be a PhD to have common sense.
Stop. Stop. Stop.
Come on.
"Please show respect."
At five o'clock, I want to be sure
that nobody is bothering me.
Yeah, well, there's not much you can do about it.
Zoe: Enough is enough, right? For eight hours.
Unless you make a big noise,
there's nothing you can do about it.
Zoe: The truth is that I like when the hoist is moving
because we need to finish this building. Don't we?
What do you think, my darling?
Nick: We need to finish the building.
(chuckles) And what is your prognosis?
- Nick: Two more years. - No.
I hope not.
That's good. That's a nice amount.
- All right, here it is. - All right. Thanks.
Oh, the people who own it now, they took on a big project.
(piano music playing)
Not only did they take on a big project,
but they took on project with a personality
that's like... (clears throat) ...a dragon sometimes.
Really, just dealing with lawsuits
and nasty people...
I know that I told a tenant who insulted me in the lobby
and who lives somewhere up there,
when he told us that our settlement is garbage,
and I don't want to say the other word.
- Nick: Right. - And our lawyer is, I mean,
this type of people, how dare they?
Nick: I have to say that some of these very cruel tenants,
they may be winning their individual battles,
but in the long run,
they're going to lose their wars.
Zoe: I don't know what they are winning really.
Well, they extend the misery.
Zoe: The harassment? I never thought...
They don't care, they don't care
that they walk through a gruesome lobby
with plywood floors and dust
and corridors that look like hell
because their apartment was renovated.
So they just put it behind them.
They don't care, and they have an abatement.
And the longer it takes,
the longer they have an abatement.
Zoe: I was thinking about something else, it's about...
This thing of living in your own mind
and being important.
I think that some people like to say,
"Oh, I live in the famous Chelsea."
"But you know, the building is still... Oh, it's terrible!"
"But we, the artists, we still live there."
"And you can see, but look how it looks."
And this becomes live theatre and important.
And instead of talking about something important,
we are talking about what we shouldn't be talking
because the building should be done.
(chuckles) Oh, God.
When it opens, it remains to be seen
what the reality will be of the Association, but...
Zoe: I think that in reality,
I should receive a generic little diploma
in which to say, "Thank you very much
for all your work of eight years or nine years."
Of course, it won't happen.
When everything is done and the building is open
and the restaurants are open,
you are going to invite me downstairs
- for a glass of wine. - Nick: Oh, yeah.
Man: I don't wanna think about it.
Woman: (laughs) You're not the first to say that.
- Cheers. Yay. - Skye: To art.
- To art. - To art.
Skye: There is a myth
I'm at once conscious of perpetuating,
perhaps as the son of an ad man
as well as being hell-bent on dispelling it.
This is the gap between the artist and the viewer,
the audience, the collector.
They want the artist to be serious,
to have a reason or to assign one.
They want intent, intent to have a future.
(mid-tempo music playing)
Skye: I loved Yaelle, because in spite
of all my contrary arguments to this point,
she forces me to live the myth.
If only for a few short hours that I'm with her,
I almost never want to sculpt before we start.
And with Yaelle, l have often wondered
if it's just the spool that lay between us.
But the spool is there, and so I work, that's the play.
And she's an actress, but moreover knows
that I'm a sucker for a good story.
She understands I'd rather write than sculpt,
and so she feeds me what I want the most.
Intention is irrelevant, passion comes and goes.
Portrait of Christine.
We made our first portrait in a cheap hotel room.
She arrived and I was too exhausted
to pick up my pliers.
She was already undressed and she didn't have the strength
to put her clothes back on.
There was massage, my hands, her body...
I asked about her bruises on her knees.
"It's a booty club," she repeated.
"All we do is twerk."
I knew she was a dancer, but I assumed a stage,
a pole and a bar like all the others I knew
and liked and sculpted from time to time.
I only have the scene
that they describe to me to go by...
and the pose we choose becomes an answer.
(soft music playing)
(thudding)
(whirring)
(Zoe playing piano)
Merle: I'm coming through. Can they move, please?
Can he move? I have to go to the elevator.
- Okay. - Merle: Thank you very much.
There is something on the floor, be careful.
I don't know if I can get through. Okay.
Push that over here. Thanks very much.
(man talking indistinctly)
(elevator bell dings)
- Stanley: Good morning, John. - Hello, Stanley.
- What is it again? The rollers? - The rollers went out.
I'm going to take over your job.
I already know it's the rollers when that happens.
- My pleasure, go right ahead. - All right.
The story about these elevators,
when I first came here as a baby,
we had manual lifts.
They were old with gates, the old elevators.
And we had a bell captain
that worked for my father for 30 years
that used to do the elevators,
and he told me I was such a pain when I was a kid.
My greatest pleasure was to have him ride me
up and down, up and down all day.
Otherwise, I wouldn't stay still. (chuckles)
Photographers love this view, you know. And we had Madonna,
Mariah Carey also on these stairs doing video.
(indistinct clamoring)
- (horn blaring in distance) - (metals clanking)
(tires screeching)
(indistinct chatter)
(dog barking)
- Okay, come in. - (barking)
Steve: I'm Steve Willis. I've lived in the Hotel Chelsea
since 1994.
You know, Stanley always had stars in his eyes
when it came to celebrities in the building.
And because I was associated
with bringing Mariah Carey in here,
I think he attached a little stardust to me,
and asked if I wanted to have an apartment.
We landed on this apartment.
At the time, it was a one bedroom,
currently it's a studio apartment.
That happened recently.
I don't know what you want to call it,
but since all the changes started,
and Stanley was, you know, taken from his position,
ousted. We've had lawyers, it has been a court battle.
But for a long time, I felt like I was witnessing
a slow-motion rape of this building.
Like something brutal like a rape that is upsetting.
And now I'm like, yeah, you raped her.
I'm not watching it anymore, I'm not participating.
I'll show up in court and say I saw it happen, but that's it.
The last straw was giving up a big chunk
of my apartment here, Janis Joplin's suite, 411.
I gave up the bedroom, the bathroom,
and the kitchen and entry hall.
This is what makes me saddest,
is to see the blue color that I painted in my old bedroom.
That's the last, that's the last of it.
This door led into the living room.
This door led into the bathroom.
This is where the stove was.
You can see I did not bother to move
the stove to paint this color,
but you can still see the grease.
This is the burner I used the most.
So I was able to save these.
Toothbrush, soap dish, they were up next to the sink,
the bathroom was right here.
Janis Joplin may have put a toothbrush in here,
used the soap.
No, she probably didn't use the soap,
from what I know about Janis Joplin.
One of the things that really kept me
fighting for the apartment
was sort of the fight that I have for the whole building
which is to preserve original features.
You know, I wanted this apartment to be
an island of, you know, something that
stayed true to the history of the Chelsea, as I knew it.
There's one apartment
that is in the building that is original from the 1890s.
And I've seen it, and it's so gorgeous.
And it really, like, makes you think,
what happened? Why? Why? When was this ever not okay?
When did we think there was something we needed to do
to change this beautiful work some architect did, you know?
(classical music playing)
We are now on the ninth floor of the Chelsea Hotel.
If I were to choose one floor...
which represents probably the longest residing tenants
in the hotel, I would probably choose the ninth floor.
On the other side of the hallway, the corridor,
we have Virgil Thomson.
Virgil: A hotel is not a club.
You see people in the elevator, and you bow,
you have no idea who they are.
And later, somebody tells you that this was Miss Janis Joplin,
or the authors of Hair,
or somebody very famous like that.
I have no way of knowing who they are
- and I can't ask them. - Interviewer: Do you like
- the idea of living in a hotel? - What?
Interviewer: Do you like the idea of living in a hotel?
What do you mean "The idea of living in a hotel"?
- Interviewer: Well, I mean... - Is living in a hotel an idea?
Good afternoon and welcome.
My name is Bernard Lias. Room 822, Chelsea Hotel.
- (indistinct chatter) - (guitar music playing)
♪♪ I'm caught by Your golden chains ♪♪
♪♪ They've taken my world away ♪♪
♪♪ I'm living in a castle But I can't breathe ♪♪
♪♪ Surrounded by pearls And a watch I don't need ♪♪
♪♪ Oh, my honey Oh, my honey ♪♪
♪♪ Love me as hard as you can Buy me with your money ♪♪
♪♪ You're such a fool ♪♪
♪♪ A perfect tool A fool, a fool! ♪♪
- (crowd cheer) - (indistinct chatter)
I will still be a sec.
Tell Michael I'll be up in a few minutes.
Woman: I found them in the waiting rooms.
Man 1: They're waiting for you.
We gonna get beer and food.
- See you on up there. - (Woman speaks indistinctly)
(band vocalizing)
♪♪ I'm just a little bit Tired of it, baby ♪♪
Hello? Hi. You're downstairs? Okay. Come on up.
- (soft music playing) - (indistinct chatter)
- (girls talking indistinctly) - (chuckles)
Woman: Once there was a little bunny.
He was all alone.
One day, he found an egg.
He could hear something moving inside the egg.
What was it?
Maybe a little boy?
Maybe another bunny?
Maybe an elephant.
Who could tell what he would find?
And how would a little bunny know?
But there was something inside that egg.
Open your eyes.
Then the bunny pushed the egg with his foot.
He jumped on top of the egg
and he climbed a tree and threw nuts at it.
But still, it didn't break, and whatever was in the egg
didn't come out.
(sighs)
The egg was very quiet.
Inside the egg, said the duck,
I thought I was all alone in a small, dark world.
And now I find myself alone with a bunny
in a big, bright world.
Such beautiful illustrations.
(man inhales deeply)
(exhales)
Woman: I don't want to be alone.
Love you.
Love you, love you.
Leave you, love you, leave you, love you, leave you, love you.
Merle: You know, I hate this monster.
I'm going to put this over here.
I don't wanna see it, I hate it. What do you remember?
Go up and show me what you remember.
Okay. Yeah. Now come back down.
You see, when people walk and you'll see ghosts,
when they walk, they're sort of being mesmerized.
They're being pulled.
Moving just like you're in space, you know?
That's nice. That's great.
Just take your time, you're just like...
(exhales) You know. Ah, take me back.
Just do what you have to, okay?
Float more, don't step so much. I mean, step, but kinda...
Okay, I can show you. Here we go. Here, I can walk up.
I've spent all those physiotherapy, I...
Watch, just a minute, I'll show you what I did.
Okay, it was beautiful.
Okay, you sort of went like this.
You kind of moved like this, right?
And then you sort of...
You could... Oh, I know what,
you were coming down with your hand.
- Uh-huh. - Do you remember that?
(dramatic music playing)
(indistinct chatter)
- (child squealing) - (indistinct chatter)
Hi, there. Who are you?
Man: We're in the middle of a dance performance here, so...
(indistinct chatter)
- (eerie music playing) - (woman shushing)
(dramatic music playing)
We're not people, we are ghosts.
As if you were in a dream or something.
(dramatic music intensifies)
(dramatic music continues)
Rose: Come back. Come back.
My dear, my only friend, come back.
We'll forget the whole thing.
Be brave. Nothing is lost.
Come back. Come back.
Aren't we ever going to live together again?
Yours for the rest of my life, Rimbaud.
For me, the question of why to make art
is a big and challenging question.
Because it comes from a desire to share,
and to give something that's free.
If you want to make art, you make art.
If you want to create, you create.
You find your way. It doesn't depend on how much
or how little money you have.
And also, you know, I've spent years doing this,
finding my way to be free within my restrictions.
So now, many years later, having a way to talk about this
and having lived through it, I wanted to re-engage with it
and to share it with a new generation.
So I must stay and fight for a while.
- (indistinct chatter) - (swords clanking)
- There. - Man: Try again.
What did you have for breakfast?
- Woman: A bagel with butter... - Man: I had the egg.
- Woman: ...and jam. - Man: You didn't have the egg.
Okay.
This is your great grandmother's recipe.
- Really? - Mm-hmm.
- Mm. Sappho? - Woman: Yes, Sappho.
Man: Oh, yeah. Oh, that's from the Met.
Woman: Yes.
- I know that sculpture. - I don't know,
that's... Rodin did it.
Well, you did that. But who did that,
that was Rodin's piece?
That's pretty.
- That's not... - Is that all from the MET?
That's Rodin.
Man: Okay.
Also, create movement.
Woman: Mama is returning late tomorrow.
Oh, really? Okay.
Woman: Yeah, she's returning at...
- What time? - Woman: Nine or ten.
Man: That's fine. More time with you then.
- What? - Man: We have more time
to spend together.
Woman: Mm-hmm.
Man: Okay. All right.
The fields...
Woman: I would like to go to Normandy.
Man: It's really beautiful, near Honfleur.
Who lived there? Baudelaire lived there,
Satie, Erik Satie lived there. Um...
- Woman: Did Rimbaud live there? - I don't know about Rimbaud.
It's a backscratcher.
Not to me, it ain't. (chuckles)
Yeah.
'52 was when this was edited.
He died in '53.
These are all the poems that they wrote?
This is many of the poems, but these...
These are all the poems, this is the table of contents.
"Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night."
- What page? - One-twenty-nine.
Let's find that. It'd be nice to read it here.
I wonder what room he lived in.
"Do not go gentle into that good night,
old age should burn and rave at close of day."
- "Rage, rage against..." -Man: "Rage, rage against..."
-the dying of the light." -...the dying of the light."
Man: ♪♪ ...Though wise men at Their end know dark is right ♪♪
♪♪ Because their words Had forked no lightning they ♪♪
♪♪ Do not go gentle Into that good night ♪♪
♪♪ Good men, the last wave by Crying how bright ♪♪
♪♪ Their frail deeds might Have danced in a green bay ♪♪
♪♪ Rage, rage against The dying of the light ♪♪
♪♪ Wild men who caught And sang the sun in flight ♪♪
♪♪ And learn, too late They grieved it on its way ♪♪
♪♪ Do not go gentle Into that good night ♪♪
- Woman: What is the password? - Merle: Hello.
Woman: "Oh, hello" could be anybody.
- (opera song plays in distance) - Woman: Okay.
Madame, you took a long time to arrive.
Merle: I wanna ask you something.
Woman: Okay, ask me something.
Merle: Gorgeous. You're so gorgeous.
- Woman: Well, I dress for... - I wanted to bring a plant.
Would you tell me what you like and I'll get a plant for you.
- You'll get a plant for me. - For New Year's.
- All right? - Woman: Okay.
- I wanted to do that. - Woman: Okay.
- You want to do that. Okay. - I want to do that, yes.
- All right, come on. - Come on.
- Come on. I'll greet you. - Let's go. Let's go.
- Woman: Hello. Welcome. - Hello.
- Okay. Welcome, my dear. - Woman: Welcome.
- Okay, keep on going. - Keep on going.
- Just a moment. I guess... - Man: Do I hear Merle?
I guess you got a...
Man: Come on in, Merle.
- Roll over. - You got a gift.
- Oh, okay. - Man: I'm loving that jacket.
You like it? It's pretty cool, right?
Woman: And you were angry and you were screaming and...
Yes. Well, not quite, almost. But I did, you know, a drama.
Drama, yes, you are a drama queen. Yes, and?
They realized that.
We have a lot of drama queens in the Chelsea.
(chuckles)
- Well, the whole building... - Welcome...
- ...is a drama. - ...to the club. Oh, I like it.
Oh, I love it.
- May I give you this? - Merle: Yes, you may.
Thank you, madame.
Woman: I will give you some more and...
- Beautiful. - Woman: You see there is more,
you can have more, but I want to be sure
- that you eat everything, okay? - Merle: Yes. That's right.
I think Chelsea is the product of New York City
and the culture. That's why it is what it is.
Woman: For this reason you like it so much
that you never decided to leave it.
Man: It's a stand-alone example of...
Woman: You fitted perfectly. Obviously.
Man: It's a stand-alone example of bohemianism.
Yeah.
So, you want to know why you're having the issues you're having?
- Woman: No, I don't. - No, you don't?
Woman: No, I don't, because I know everybody.
Man: I think we know why.
We have people who were offered a new bathroom
because they have to go to the bathroom
down the hall, and the person said "No."
Suddenly, the landlord said, "What are you talking about?"
"Don't you want a bathroom in your apartment?"
And the person said,
"Well, you can put a bathroom in my new apartment
that I'm not paying for, as long as you clean it."
(scoffs) The audacity, the audacity
of some of these people.
So this is why we're getting back together
because those people have held us up.
- They've probably held us up... - Woman: Four years.
- And I wanna tell you... - Man: We'll leave it at that.
No. The people that came here, all the druggies
and the whores and the drug people...
- Man: What about them? - No. They created this joint.
- Man: Exactly. - No, and that's why...
Man: And Stanley invited them in.
And this is how he based his success.
- Merle: What? - Woman: They are still the...
The energy will not change even when they fix this up.
I know directly from the ownership
that what happened during Stanley time here
is not going to happen again.
These people have other buildings.
And I've never heard, I've never read in any newspaper
that their buildings are full of drugs
and whores, okay?
- No, I don't think... - Man: This is the only way
to do it. You might as well do it right.
I don't think changing the hotel...
I mean, it's going to be lovely...
But you're going to attract the same kind of people.
No, no, no. I think that we talk different languages.
Someone told me, a friend of mine, he said,
"The reason the building isn't being finished..."
He felt the spirits or the energy that is here.
He's not talking about people living here.
He talked about the whole gestalt of it.
They don't want it finished. There's energy in the building.
- Woman: (chuckles) Really? - Merle: No?
- You don't think so? - Woman: No, not at all.
That's Alice in Wonderland, okay?
That's really Alice in Wonderland, my dear.
(eerie music playing)
(chuckles)
Woman: ♪♪ Can you hear me? ♪♪
♪♪ Can you see me? ♪♪
♪♪ Are you near me? Are you near me? ♪♪
♪♪ Please come be near me now ♪♪
Doli: Hey, kid. It's your little Doli.
I have no idea where you are. I miss you already.
Love you, love you, love you and let's talk.
Voice assist: To respond, press 2. Message saved.
Woman: The day that you died,
you brought over these three stuffed animals.
And you put them down beside me and didn't say anything.
I didn't know why or what. But I just accepted them.
(whispering) They can't hear what I'm saying, but you can.
Leave you, love you, leave you, love you, leave you, love you.
My bunny boy.
(chirping)
Woman: (whispering) And no one was ever alone again.
Thank you, kid. You are all I got.
I am you, I hope you are me.
Man: I love you.
Always...
Woman: Always and forever.
(somber music playing)
Woman: We're born originals and die copies.
This is for you, Doli.
This is who you are.
Man: And the survivor, bound in filial obligation
for some time to do obsequious sorrow.
To obseq... But to pres... But to...
These are the wrong glasses, that's why you can't read this.
These are those distance glasses.
You need the other glasses. I just realized.
- Yes. Reading glasses. - Oh, yeah.
You're such a vital spirit.
(somber music continues)
Can you see it now? Can you see this work?
My name is Bettina.
I'm the oldest person in the building.
Everybody else was paid to leave.
And they did not offer me any money to go.
So I'm thinking they prefer maybe to kill me, because...
because they didn't offer me anything to please go,
therefore...
They do things to frighten me out.
Capito?
(upbeat music playing in distance)
Are you coming?
- (distant horn blaring) - (indistinct clamor)
- (indistinct chatter) - (dramatic music playing)
Bettina: I walked all over the city.
With my camera, and...
tripod and tracks,
and that's why I'm so strong, by the way. I'm pretty strong.
Because I'm working every second...
therefore I cannot have children.
But children were never important.
Because I need one hundred percent concentration.
If you saw a building doing this,
would you rather sleep or shoot it?
I have to prepare for the next exhibition,
which will be in Hamburg, Germany.
And after that, I will be in Paris.
It's better than a man, I can tell you that.
"Its spirit goes with me wherever I go."
(elevator bell dings)
Bettina: "To nourish the heart, replenish the soul."
"It wants to live forever."
"Deep in my mind."
(horn blaring)
Bettina: "...So I may show the world that which is divine."
(melancholic music playing)
(melancholic music intensifies)
(soft music playing)
♪♪ Do you know How long did I plan ♪♪
♪♪ To stay in this room ♪♪
♪♪ I thought I knew ♪♪
♪♪ Chelsea ♪♪
♪♪ Chelsea Hotel ♪♪
♪♪ Chelsea ♪♪
♪♪ Chelsea Hotel ♪♪