Text Stanislava Kopáčková, Model, Czech Republic

New York City is packed with legends and legendary landmarks. Hotel Chelsea is one of these landmarks. During her visit to the Big Apple, Stanislava Kopackova stayed at this hotel and was able to put together a very intriguing report about an unusual experience, supported by photographs from Adolf Zika. (WoL)

‚Here, life and death walk hand in hand to an unknown destination.‘

Imagine a place where all the significant celebrities from the world of movies, music, art, theater, literature, and any other form of fine arts I forgot to mention, spent at least one night. These are the exact same celebrities whose names (and their respective work) are considered to be crucial and epochal of today’s age. Celebrities, whose fates have become legendary. I am speaking of a place called Hotel Chelsea.

Try to visualize the moment you are at the hotel to spend the night. Imagine walking into the lobby, signing in at the reception and trying to perceive the commotion around you detail by detail. How does one enter such a place clear of all the prejudice and previously formed expectations, when the place itself has become a legend? Consciously, you can’t prepare yourself for it. You have to live through the experience personally, since when you arrive at the place and realize where you are, you are in shock. You get the overwhelming feeling you will not have enough time to see it all and that time is your enemy. I have spent the night at Hotel Chelsea thanks to something others may call fate.

It’s sort of a psychotic asylum from the dark novels, the Ushers’ house from Edgar Allan Poe, a gallery full of paintings with ghosts in the hallways or a funhouse with tenants. It’s one of hundreds of hotels in New York, one of hundred thousand others around the whole world. And the first impression is always the strongest. There is only one Hotel Chelsea. The ‘vampire-like’ atmosphere stays imprinted in your mind just like your experience with LSD. A rest stop for rare individuals.

You can find Hotel Chelsea in New York City, in the heart of the Chelsea district, at 222 West 23rd street right between 7th and 8th Avenues. It’s walking distance from the famous Flatiron building. Don’t expect any kind of luxury, breakfast on silver plates, modern equipment or bell-boys who would go as far as to wipe your butt. No, you will certainly not find that here.

‚It’s hard to tell which art’s a decoration and which is a relic.‘

At the entrance, you are greeted with a red and white striped canopy with the number 222 at the top. You are a step away through the glass door from the entrance hall. When you enter the lobby, you feel as if you were in a different century. It is not your typical hotel lobby. It rather resembles a large living room filled with sofas and divan beds, a large fireplace decorated with several woodcuttings, and paintings all the way up to the ceiling. Altogether, it feels cozy. Each piece of furniture is different and that’s exciting, since it looks like a movie set. A dark wooden surfaced reception desk seems extremely sturdy and the guest book on top of it surely holds many interesting stories. If it weren’t for the computer, you would really believe as if you’ve traveled in time. On the left of the lobby, guests have two telephone booths at their disposal (this place has its atmosphere!) however, your eyes are immediately drawn to the door covered with the police line yellow tape. It’s hard to tell which art’s a decoration and which is a relic.

The iron railing around the staircase forms the actual heart of the building. You can use it to get from the basement all the way to the roof. Every room is unique, every floor and hallway is different and each door is painted based on which artist lived behind it. There are all sorts of different door handles and massive knockers, old locks and the room numbers are attached in many different ways on individual doors.The iron railing around the staircase forms the actual heart of the building. You can use it to get from the basement all the way to the roof. Every room is unique, every floor and hallway is different and each door is painted based on which artist lived behind it. There are all sorts of different door handles and massive knockers, old locks and the room numbers are attached in many different ways on individual doors.

The old floor and flapping doors, the humid smell of lightly rendered walls with original paint, long hallways ending with black bars on the window. Simply a hotel with its ghosts and tenants, chessboard bathrooms, authentic bathtubs on little legs, round porcelain faucets labeled hot and cold, porcelain sinks and antique toilet bowls. Warhol-like radiators painted in silver in the rooms. And most importantly, the hotel is a Gallery with a big G. Welcome to your personal exhibition.

‚Every room is unique, every floor and hallway is different
and each door is painted based on which artist lived behind it.‘

The project of the original apartment building, which later became a hotel, was created by Hubert, Pirsson & Company in the so-called Queen Anna style and Victorian gothic architecture. This style used can be interpreted as the American version of the British architecture in the early 18th century. It is characterized by red bricks, black iron a white ledges. When you look a little closer, you will see several things – the railings decorated with flower motives, Tudor roses, wooden panel doors and marble floor.

The tenants slash artists were allowed to stay at the hotel even if they had money trouble. The owner, in a way a benefactor as well, wanted only one thing in return, and that was their art. Hence, he was able to put together such a magnificent collection of paintings and other artistic works. In the hotel, art is always in motion: A mix of the old and new spreads around, the display changes from one day to another and the best thing about it is that the guests are ones who make all this possible, leaving behind not only their work, but also messages and their wishes for the future, sticking notes and comments on things like fire extinguishers and other places. Here, people live with art, unlike in your typical gallery where people go intentionally to see ‘isolated’ and ‘impersonal’ art.

What I can definitely recommend is a nice walk around the hotel at night. No one will disturb you except an occasional ghost here and there and the only sounds you’ll here will be the creaky doors, the breeze coming from all sides and perhaps your own heartbeat or the sound of your loud breathing.

The photographs and paintings next to the drawings and random graphics all create a maze for the eyes, desperately trying to find a way through all the surrealistic scenery. It almost has a meditative character and you start to act as if you were visiting a cemetery: you speak quietly and walk slowly. And maybe it’s only because people are sleeping behind the closed doors leading to the rooms. You can find the works of international artists all around the staircase, across all the hallways on each floor, next to all the rooms.

Another game of fate led to the fact that I visited a part of the hotel completely sober and with rational thinking, whereas the other part I saw completely wasted and relaxed. In this state, let’s say of serene artificial character, I come up with things I would otherwise never even think of. Perhaps a person under influence uses his or her brain in a different way or a different part of it, or simply lets loose and shuts down altogether. It’s hard to tell and at the same time unimportant. I don’t regret being drunk, it was interesting anyway. When I am under the influence of alcohol and this in no way is a promotion of alcoholism, you tend to apprehend things differently and notice things you’d otherwise miss. You experience the moments at the hotel as if you were a schizophrenic, but based on the fact that artists are usually on the ‘alternative’ side, it helps you perceive their artwork in a better fashion.

The building itself was established in 1883 and opened for the public in 1884 as one of the first private apartment buildings. In its time, this 12-floor building from red bricks was the tallest building in New York up until 1899. At the time, Chelsea, and especially 23rd street, was the center of the theatre district. However, thanks to the economic difficulties and change of location of several theaters, it was a matter of years before the apartment building went bankrupt and in 1905, the building changed its owner and was reopened as a hotel. The building of the hotel also holds an interesting award: the city of New York declared it as the first cultural landmark.

Hotel Chelsea plays a role in many movies, books and songs, and even the former president’s daughter was named after it. There are large numbers of texts written about Hotel Chelsea and as a cherry on top, most of them mention the various celebrities that have lived in the building over the years. And if I forgot to mention them here myself, I would feel guilty about not giving you the most exciting details about the place. Behind its red brick walls, the building has accommodated an unbelievable number of celebrities, who have now become legends: Actors, directors, literary experts, photographers, musicians, painters, thinkers, scientists and bohemians. The hotel became a sanctuary for artists such as Iggy Pop, Miloš Forman, Sir Arthur C. Clark (guess where he created his masterpiece 2001: A space odyssey (1968)!), Virgil Thomson, Robert Mapplethorp, Bob Dylan, Charles Bukowski, Janis Joplin, Parri Smith, Leonardo Cohen, Arthur Miller, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouack (who wrote his novel On the Road here), Mark Twain, Jean-Paul Sartre, Stanley Kubrick, Dennis Hopper, Uma Thurman, Jane Fonda, Edith Piaf, Frida Kahlo, Willem De Kooning, Claese Oldenburg, Henri Cartier-Bresson and many and many others.

‚The ‘vampire-like’ atmosphere stays imprinted in your mind just like your experience with LSD.‘

Hotel Chelsea is also ready as it ever will be for all sorts of movie or photography productions. It has been used for this purpose many times in the past. On the website, you can find the price list and the offer of qualified personnel who can assist during such productions. One of the last persons to use these services was for example Dave Gahan from Depeche Mode to film his video clip for the song ‘Saw Something’, which belongs to his solo project ‘Hourglass’. You can find the video clip on youtube.com, where you’ll see the rooms and hallways of the hotel and in the end of the video, you’re able to see the amazing wooden reception. In the late 80s, Madonna was also one of the residents, and in 1992, she returned to make a few photographs for her book called ‘Sex’ in the room 822. The hotel also offers regular excursions for outside guests.

Did you ever stop to think that everything around us is actually an artifact from the past? That everything we see is the consequence of the past? A product from previous generations? It’s a little terrifying to view the world this way, but at this hotel, you have no other choice than to let it get to you eventually.

The ironic thing about death however is that it is the most direct symptom of life, it’s most precise witness. When we are dying, we are still alive and that is a fact. Let’s say that life is an active process of change, whereas death (in its most extreme meaning a metaphor can have) in this case looks as a one-time only matter, the last moment of life – the transformation into relics.

This hotel lives with its dead. They are part of its legend. Sid Vicious’ life partner died here, his beloved Nancy. Artist Alphaeus Philemon Cole, who lived here for 35 years till his death in 1988 when he was 112 years old, was actually the oldest living man alive at the time. Dylan Thomas died here in 1953 from alcohol poisoning. And for a period of time, the Titanic survivors lived at the hotel, since it is close to Pier 54, a port where the Titanic was supposed to have landed. The hotel was also a home to many of the sailors that returned from their duty in the First World War. It has 125 hotel rooms and around a hundred apartments for rent. Here, life and death walk hand in hand to an unknown destination.

At night, you tuck yourself in and listen to the sounds around you, and no matter what happens next or what state you are in at the moment, the first thing you do is listen. Then you close your eyes and see the paintings.

Photographs by Adolf Zika, Photographer, Czech Republic

Jan Povýšil, Swimmer, Czech Republic

In his adolescent years, Jan Povýšil suffered an accident, binding him to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. This unfortunate matter turned his life around, but it did not take long for him to discover new things in life and he quickly acquainted himself with sports for the disabled. As an athlete by nature, he immediately started swimming and luckily for WoL, also succumbed to the phenomenon of photography. As a result, we are now able to see the world of the disabled and their sports activities in form of basketball tournaments, ice-hockey games etc. Disabled sports have become quite a popular occurrence lately and the society has been made well aware of it, especially thanks to the increasing number of disabled athletes and the Paralympic Games that first took place in Rome in 1960. (WoL)

How do you write about something that affects us on a daily basis? How do you write about life with a handicap and avoid pathos. And worst of all, how do you write about disabled sports and any kind of sports achievement without having Pavel as a surname.

A much simpler choice would be if an unbiased outsider wrote about it. As a result, you would get a heart-breaking story full of overcoming internal barriers and obstacles in life, caused by the loss of a hand or a leg or both at the same time; or the additional tool for life in form of a wheelchair. In the end, it’s life like any other and everyone has to face the consequences in their own way. I’m not Ota Pavel or Jaromír Bosák, so don’t expect a wide mixture of unrelated topics here and there from a person who has spent half of his life running around the field with a hockey stick and the other half soaked in chlorine at the Podolí and Strahov swimming pools.

I’m not sure if I should be writing about myself, since I am not your typical example of a hard working athlete. I’ve always been the lazy one and trained only when I wanted and when I enjoyed it. Training ten times a week and choosing hard work as the meaning of life just doesn’t do it for me. Unlucky for you, I have the most experience with myself, so you’ll have to bear with me for a moment.
Becoming a professional athlete is usually a matter of an early childhood. Your parents (in my case my father) decide that you will play hockey (soccer, cycling, canoeing – fill in the blank based on your parents and your own experience). My dad decided I will play ice hockey. And my life has had a single focus point ever since – sports. Even my best photos come from a sports environment.
Up until 5th grade I had tried several sports when in 92/93 I finally ended up playing field hockey (please do not mistake it for or affiliate with any kind of obscure offshoot of hockey including floorball). Despite my father being a Sparta Prague fan, I have been involved with Slavia Prague my entire life. But only to the year ’97, because that’s when I returned from a trip to Italy and an Aqua Park with a cervical fracture and ended up on a wheel chair. I spent several months in hospital and then in rehab in the city of Kladruby.

„Training ten times a week and choosing hard work as the meaning of life just doesn’t do it for me.”

When you’re 15, life doesn’t change too drastically. You still have to finish school and listen to your parents. And luckily, I listened. Thanks to my parents, a whole new world opened up for me. The world of disabled sports. From previous years, I had heard some stories about Stefan Danek, the gold medalist in javelin and thanks to spending most of my time at Slavia Prague premises, I found out about Kateřina Coufalová, a swimming member at Slavia then, who became the youngest winner of the Paralympics in Atlanta. Before that, all I cared about was how well they made that new hockey stick or if the national team U’18 invitation came already (and it did).

I’ve always had a positive attitude towards water due to our weekend house near the river Sazava. I even spent some time playing water polo, just like my older brother. That is why I wanted to get back to water as soon as possible. I wanted to learn how to swim again to feel the freedom you only get when moving in water.

Were it not for my parents meeting Jan Nevrkla, I would have probably learnt how to swim on my own and would have ended up with a completely different sport. It was a fateful meeting. Actually, this was the fourth Jan who fundamentally influenced my life. First was Jan Lucemburský, my mom’s hero. Second was Jan Werich, my dad’s favorite. The third was Jan Saudek, even though at the time I first glanced at his photos, I had no idea who their author was. The fourth Jan made it possible for me to return to swimming and start competing again. He was in my life for 10 whole years.
It isn’t all that easy for a disabled person to start with sports. Luckily, there was a group of professional swimmers already formed around Jan with Martin Kovář standing out. Everything was easier that way. It was all tried out before me – how to dress, how to get into the water etc. I’ve met so many people that I still adore today. For example Jiří Kadeřávek, in my opinion the most incredible person ever to win a Paralympics medal. A person who used to get up at 5 am just to make it in time for the morning practice at Strahov on the opposite side of the city (putting on clothes consumed most of the time). Despite ending his swimming career, his is still active; he rides the hand bike and plays wheelchair rugby for the Prague Robots.

Try and meet people in such an environment and start talking about how rough life is and that the wheelchair limits you in so many ways…

„I wanted to learn how to swim again to feel the freedom you only get when moving in water.”

And that’s how I got into professional Paralympics sports. Well, you can’t really compare the trainings then to how I practice now. The amount of kms in the pool has increased. The training load is much higher and I am now much faster. Nowadays, when I don’t have one of my lazy moments, I’ve got 9 trainings in water and 4 in the gym per week. Of course providing that I get up in the morning and don’t snooze off in the afternoon. And that’s actually the way it goes for most of the professional athletes.

Today, when I put together the amount of trainings, my knowledge of the athletes and the sports I am involved in, I realize that I don’t really know all that much. I barely have the time to read the most interesting news on specialized internet servers. Paralympic sports are experiencing a boom like never before despite some problems and negative media attention. Many disabled people are starting to enjoy all kinds of sports and new types of sport are emerging. When a disabled person decides to do sports, he or she usually tests several of them. It is often the case that after winning a Basketball match in Brno one day, he or she plays a sledge hockey game in Karlovy Vary the day after and a month from that becomes the National Champion in disc throwing. It reminds me of the ‘wooden days’ 60 years or more ago. Tennis in the summer, rowing during fall, and ice hockey in the winter. That is however the past, since being a professional athlete in two sports is almost impossible nowadays. And that is my problem, since swimming, photography, rehab, regeneration and starting family responsibilities don’t really leave time for a second sport and I would really like to try out wheelchair rugby or golf.

„It was a fateful meeting.”

All types of sports are becoming increasingly professionalized and attract the attention of the media; and this applies to our paralympic sports as well. Names such as Natalie du Toit or Oscar Pistorius are known around the whole world. And Jiří Ježek, Martin Kovář, Běla Hlaváčková – Třebínová and Anna Kulíšková are becoming somewhat known at least in the Czech Republic. The best example of a Paralympics athlete in the country is Jirka Ježek – a Paralympics gold medalist, World Champion and currently member of a professional cycling team. His attitude towards training is exemplary and so is his ability to put together such a great team of people. He is one of the few disabled athletes who were able to gain the maximum from his sports achievements and his life situation, even on the financial level.

I was never good at composition writing and during lessons of Czech; I always got away with it because I knew a great deal about literature and history. I dimly remember that each composition should have a beginning, a body, and an end. The beginning is readable, the body is extensive and confusing. And the end is virtually non-existent. Well, it’s actually pretty hard to put an end to something, when I have to get up for my training tomorrow morning and all I can think about at the moment if whether Mrs. Passer will be in a good mood or not. So, anyone who wants an end to the story – meet me at Podolí in the gym at 7am, or at 8am at the swimming pool, lane number 1.

Weeks of Jan Povýšil