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The Chelsea Hotel: A New York Icon

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New York is home to many iconic hotels, but one that stands out for its role in the worlds of art and music is the Hotel Chelsea. This historic landmark opened in 1884 as an apartment building, but when that business venture failed, it was reopened as a hotel. At the time when it was built, it was the tallest building in new York City, standing at twelve stories tall.

The hotel is a red brick structure with elaborate wrought-iron balconies, an homage to Gothic architecture. Most famously, the Chelsea Hotel was home to many culture icons. Writers who lived there were Mark Twain, O. Henry, Dylan Thomas, William S. Burroughs, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, Jack Kerouac, and Simone de Beauvoir. Actors and directors who lived there include Stanley Kubrick, Ethan Hawke, Eddie Izzard, Uma Thurman, Dennis Hopper, Elliot Gould, Michael Imperioli, Jane Fonda, and Edie Sedgwick. The hotel is most remembered for its place in music history. Musicians such as Patti Smith (who lived in the hotel with her soulmate, photographer Robert Mapplethorpe), Virgil Thomson, DeeDee Ramone, Edith Piaf, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Alice Cooper, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and Sid Vicious (who infamously stabbed girlfriend Nancy Spungen to death in the hotel in 1978) called the hotel home at some point in their careers. The Hotel Chelsea’s staircase is lined with the work of artists who have lived there, including Frida Kahlo, Edie Sedgwick, and Robert Mapplethorpe.

  
The exterior and interior of the Hotel Chelsea

The Chelsea Hotel very much reflects the new artistic movements occurring in New York City at the time. It had an independent, fresh, bohemian air to it. It was a place of change, reform, and revolution.

Fun facts: Apparently the ghosts of Nancy Spungen, Dylan Thomas, and Eugene O’Neill haunt the Hotel Chelsea…

-Sarah Allam

Fire of Unknown Origin

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Her voice is a funny old thing, holding a slight rasp to it yet still sounding smooth and calm like a beach pebble.  That is Patti Smith, punk artist and poet extraordinaire.  Her presence in the radio interview was that of a free-spirit. Her ideas were a work of art.

The interview pertained to her career and her relationship with her soul mate Robert Mapplethorpe. Both had a love for art, but it was Smith who touched fame first with the help of a photo taken by him.  Proof of their natural affinity was abundant – Smith’s first words of the man were of his rescue of her.  This particular rescue dated back to the first months of their relationship, where Mapplethorpe pretended to be Smith’s boyfriend to help her ward off the advances from her then-boss.

Smith wrote a song about death with a reference to Hotel Chelsea.  In the song, there is a plea from an individual for something of value back, for a rescue, almost. The title is called “Fire of Unknown Origin”, and it is unknown in that it is unpredictable because the prose of the lyrics are not typical and do not fit in the verse-verse-chorus-repeat model.

Interestingly, the Hotel Chelsea experienced cycles of death and life. Its first purpose was as a co-opt building. Then the H.C went bankrupt because the theatres around it relocated. In 1905 it reopened as a hotel, but quickly went back into bankruptcy. The Hotel Chelsea was finally repurchased by a group of wealthy men and managed as a hotel until the 1970s.

Hotel Chelsea

While listening to “Fire of Unknown Origin” I found it difficult to understand what Smith was saying during her songs, if only for the incoherence in her pronunciation of consonants. Nevertheless, it was stimulating to hear a hybrid of poetry and music. After all, it was her mission to “merge poetry and rock and roll, and to reach out to other disenfranchised people.”

-Megan P. Low

Reflections on “The Arrival”

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It is often said that a picture is worth a thousand words. This is certainly the case with Shaun Tan’s The Arrival, which contains scores of pictures but not a single word.

Looking at the images, I can’t help thinking of the immortal words emblazoned on the Statue of Liberty:

”

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles.  From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame,
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips.  "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

When I think of immigrants, I think of all that they left behind in order to come to a better place.

Even though a person may not speak English or know the intricacies of American history, his soul yearns for freedom, and it is that freedom which makes the agony of change worthwhile. It is truly an amazing experience to see a person abandon his roots and choose to come to the United States. Some people are Americans by birth; others are American by choice.

Theodore Roosevelt once said that a person who claims that he is American and something else is not American at all, because we have room for only one flag on our soil. There is no such thing as “dual loyalty,” which is why I – along with many others – am so bothered when people refuse to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, claiming that they are really from a different country. This is nonsense bordering on treason, but I can see that the families depicted in the picture book are proud to be Americans. Their story is the story of millions, the story of learning a new language and adapting to the ways of a new land. It is a story of acculturation and assimilation, reconciling the ways of their home country with those of the United States, hanging on to the past while yearning for a brighter future. It is a story of growth, as is symbolized by the flowers in one part of the book. And it is, above all, a story of finding one’s way in the world – as we see on the last page of the bok, with the map and the suitcase. The immigrants have finally found their way home, and it is America. “This land is my land; this land is your land.” Welcome!

The Royal Dream

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Like a quilt that is patched together by squares of different life experiences and cultures, America often stands as a beacon of hope for the hopeless. Because of this, America’s collective quilt of experiences often has dark patches of pain. It is certain however, that all these painful stories reflect the sanctuary that America is. Perhaps the “free man” idealism that is central to this community is what makes it so bizarre. There is no other place, but America, where you can critique the authority’s policies. Shaun Tan, in “The Arrival” coyly alludes to the strangeness of a world that, to many, is salvation. Tan contrasts the embellished, artistic environment of the “new world” to the mundane, constructions of his previous home. This contrast emphasizes the grandeur that people see in America and reflects the “American Dream”.

Our versions of the “American Dream” are different, and are at the same time the same. We long to achieve with this newfound freedom what we couldn’t achieve without it. Tan uses dark tentacles to personify the persecutions that haunt many of the immigrants who seek a new haven, which for many becomes “the land of the free.”

However, Tan also shows the dark side of the American dream, where the streets aren’t paved gold but are dirty and disease-riddled. Essentially, the author shows us the world of the ordinary immigrant. We soon see that the “New world” was not so lustrous, and underlying the hardships that many of its citizens face come to light.Tan’s use of bizarre symbols and his attention to the intricate details of this world forces us to become the protagonist. We are led to the same line of thought that the protagonist probably had. “Where are we? What is this? How does this work? Cool!”

The lack of words, or better said, the presence of constant silence exemplifies the silent martyr; the protagonist is forced to painfully adapt to an atmosphere that is the mirrored reflection of his previous home for the sake of his family. By doing this, we also see the “silent struggle” — the struggles that many immigrants face in America while trying to make a living.

Although his dream was not completely fulfilled, the protagonist achieves happiness when he reunites with his family. This warm picture speaks voluminously about the heart of America: the family. It is within this community that we are able to forge ourselves to become the individuals that we aspire to be. It is also the place where we take a step back and appreciate our environment and take pride in our accomplishments. Tan forces us to question our version of the “American Dream, Will our aspirations give us a feeling of “wholesome” if achieved? After all, how can we achieve if we have no one to work for? How can we be participants of any community if we do not have a family, our identity?

The Arrival: Reflections

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Wow….

What can I say? this work of art was beautiful in many ways. It was beautifully drawn, “written” (if you can even say that), and thought out. In my eyes, there was even more beauty in the interpretation. The book can be interpreted so many different ways that even plot points are left up to the reader. The Story is so ‘open” that one must search for explanations themselves.

Tan, who has history writing children’s books, was able to create something much more powerful than words. But i was left with one major question: is this a children’s book? I asked one of my music professors that question and he had to think for a second… but then i realized that it could be. Imagine the level of imagination that a 5 or 10 year old would put into the graphic novel. Their innocence and general inability to synthesis what is being given to them in the form of pictures will make for a completely alien interpretation to us.

I read this book as soon as i got it (about 3 weeks ago) and the first thing that popped into my head was a melody. Now, i plan to compose a Cello duet based on this book for my end of the semester composition project. The piece will consist of 6 movements, for each chapter, and the texture and style of the playing will emulate the tones and events in the work. I am very excited to begin to work on the piece and, with Professor Rutkoski’s permission, would love to have it performed for the class.

-John W. Cleary

The Arrival: A Story Of Immigration

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Shaun Tan’s “The Arrival” tells a story that is familiar to all Americans: that of immigration and coming into a new world, not knowing what to expect. However, it is the way that the story is told that makes this graphic novel so compelling.

The story revolves around a man who tearfully leaves his behind his wife and young daughter in order to look for a better life in a faraway land. Once he gets there, he is thrust into this strange, foreign world with a different alphabet, odd creatures, and fantastic, whimsical architecture and technology. Of course, our hero is quite lost and confused at first, but throughout his stay he meets other people who describe their immigration stories to him, and he also befriends a strange white tadpole-like critter who helps him out along the way. In the end, his wife and daughter come to live with him, and the story ends with his daughter helping out another immigrant get their start in the strange land, just like her own father got help from those around him.

Of course, the most striking aspect of this book is that it contains absolutely no words. The story is told entirely through pictures. I believe that this is Tan’s way of showing that the story of immigration is everyone’s story (especially immigration to New York, since the strange land in his story seems to symbolize Ellis Island) . It was experienced by at least one person in our families, and shapes our culture and personalities. The main character is an Everyman figure, representing all immigrants. It doesn’t matter what language we speak; we are all bound by this common thread of a history of immigration and starting a new life in a new land. The pictures also help the reader to immerse themselves more in the book and relate to the main character on a deeper level. Since we have to decipher the meaning of the pictures, we are more attuned to the moods and feelings of the main character as we follow him on his adventure. Didn’t you feel lost and frightened with him when he encountered the spiky fruits and couldn’t read the picture language of that land?

The story also seems to have no sense of a time period. The style and dress of the characters hearken back to the late nineteenth/early twentieth century, and the artwork in the book is either black and white or sepia-toned. However, the technology and machinery that are central to life in the strange land are so advanced they seem straight from a fantasy. This shows how the central idea of immigration will always remain the same, regardless of the passage of time.

“The Arrival” is a unique read that presents an old story in an entirely different, more meaningful way.

9/11

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In class, we discussed how the terrorist attacks of September 11 will be remembered in generations to come. It seems that Pearl Harbor has been mostly forgotten: how many Americans can even identify the day on which the attack took place?

Will the same be the case for 9/11? I would answer, NO. The attack was witnessed by millions of people due to technology, television, and the like. It’s interesting how technology can be used for such nefarious purposes, as seen with terrorism and the Holocaust, and at the same time it can be used to witness the horror – and thereby engrain it in our collective memories. After all, who can forget the image of airplanes flying into the World Trade Center?

9/11 shows, above all things, that nothing in life is permanent or guaranteed. Who would have believed that such an attack could take place, that the Twin Towers could be toppled by a mere nineteen men? If a mere 19 people have the capacity for such evil with such great consequences, imagine how much good can be done by a different group of 19 people – or even by a single person.

Reiff takes issue with President Bush about the cause of the terrorist attacks – namely, the hatred of American freedom. But Bush is absolutely right on this: Freedom is not free.

 

To be continued….

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