City Chronicles

For the past couple of years I have published a fortnightly interview with a different New York blogger in the free newspaper Metro.

During that time I have often marveled at how easily blogs are dismissed, often by clueless reporters and editors, as rabid, ill-informed, poorly written twaddle. True, you don’t have to look hard to find evidence. But often blogs provide much better reporting, especially on single issues, than large media companies.

Take Brownstoner for example, which provides encyclopedic information about Brooklyn real estate. Or Newyorkology, which keeps track of city events. Stuck for somewhere to eat near work? Try Midtown Lunch. Want to know how the city’s bird population is doing, particularly its red tailed hawks? Try City Birder.

And New York’s quality blogs are not just utilitarian. For pure entertainment, there is the ingenious Ironic Sans or one of the city’s many photoblogs like Bluejake, plus quirky sites like Passive Aggressive Notes or The Sartorialist.

All of which is a precursor to Living With Legends: The Hotel Chelsea blog, which made the transition from the screen to dead tree media earlier this year.

When I visited the Chelsea to interview blog authors Ed Harris and Debbie Martin in October 2006, all seemed well. Less than two years later, new management is in charge, residents are being forced out and a New York icon is in serious danger of falling prey to the condominiumization that has swept the island.

It’s possible that they are now documenting the end of the Chelsea.

If you are interested in the hotel, Ed will be taking part in a panel discussion about the history of the Chelsea at the Museum of the City of New York tomorrow, Thursday, at 6.30pm.

Related:
Living With Legends: The Hotel Chelsea (Hotel Chelsea Blog)
Legends of the Chelsea Hotel: Living with the Artists and Outlaws of New York’s Rebel Mecca (Amazon)
Condominiumization (Google Search for ‘condominiumization’ returns only 1,590 results)