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导读
What do we talk about when we talk about 'Chelsea'?
显然，我们今天要谈论的不是切尔西足球俱乐部（Chelsea Football Club），而是纽约一家有着上百年历史和文艺传奇的酒店——切尔西酒店（Hotel Chelsea）。
你可能想不到，全世界最出名的文艺青年几乎都曾下榻于此，这其中就包括2016年诺贝尔文学奖得主、美国摇滚诗人鲍勃·迪伦（Bob Dylan）。那么，这家百年老店吸引众多文化名流至此的魅力何在？这里又上演了哪些传奇呢？
欢迎阅读《经济学人》讣告：Stanley Bard: Up in the old hotel [1]。
Up in the old hotel
Obituary: Stanley Bard died on February 14th
The long-time manager of New York’s Hotel Chelsea was 82
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酒店之上——切尔西传奇
作为这家纽约老店的老掌柜，斯坦利·巴德 (Stanley Bard) 于2017年2月14日逝世，享年82岁。
① IT IS a fair bet that no hotelier in New York was prouder of his trade than Stanley Bard. For him, it was a strange and wonderful calling, and what he made of his red-brick empire was something beautiful.
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可以肯定的是，就他的生意而言，纽约没有比斯坦利更得意的酒店老板了。他认为这个行当不同凡响、妙不可言，他的红砖帝国是美的存在。
② His Hotel Chelsea—the inverted name conferring a certain elegance—sits on West 23rd Street in Manhattan, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. Mr Bard believed firmly that the area was named after his building, which was once the tallest around, and is on several historic registers. Its style is Victorian Gothic, with floreate cast-iron balconies, and it rises to 12 storeys of somewhat gloomy aspect. It contains, according to most city guides, 250 rooms, though Stanley—as everyone knew him—averred there were around 400. He liked to say that if it were divided up today, without the same regard for high ceilings, outsize rooms and marble fireplaces common in 1883, you could fit in at least 1,000.
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他的切尔西酒店 (Hotel Chelsea) 坐落在曼哈顿第七大道和第八大道之间的西23街，名字反着写，倒为酒店平添了几分雅致。斯坦利先生坚信当地是以其建筑命名，因为酒店曾是附近第一高楼，还上了多个历史花名册。酒店是维多利亚哥特式建筑，有镂花铸铁围成的阳台，最高可达12层且外表颇为阴暗。据多数城市指南称，酒店有250间房，但斯坦利——众人皆知——却极力宣称有近400间客房。他喜欢说，酒店现在要是分割房间，不再考虑高房顶、特大房和大理石壁炉这些1883年的标配，至少能容纳1000间房。
③ The lobby of the Chelsea, which rises to a wide dank staircase, housed his art collection, including several fleshy nudes, flying papier-mâché figures, a portrait of a horse and a plaster-of-Paris pink girl on a swing. Below these, most days, milled a crowd of exotic, addled or entranced human beings. Stanley liked to preside on the reception desk. He was a short, smooth-skinned man, who combined energetic exaggeration with a mysterious vagueness. When he answered the telephone, his native Bronx would give way to the tones of an English butler. Callers were made to realise that this was a special hotel.
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酒店的大堂通向宽广阴湿的楼梯，收藏的有斯坦利的艺术品，包括几幅香艳的裸画、悬空的纸胶雕像、一幅马画以及一尊荡着秋千的粉红女孩石膏像。很多时候，艺术品之下都有一群异国他乡、迷迷糊糊或欣喜若狂的人转来转去。斯坦利喜欢掌管服务台。他个子不高，但皮肤光滑；他既会夸夸其谈，也会含糊其辞。接听电话时，他会把天生的布朗克斯口音换成英国管家的腔调，这让呼叫者觉得这家酒店不同寻常。
④ Apart from tourists, whom Stanley admitted on sufferance and charged more, most guests were struggling artists or writers, and two-thirds were long-term residents. The arrangement was highly unusual for New York. In the 1970s the monthly rate was $60: very reasonable, Stanley thought, for the city. Nonetheless he sometimes let tenants off their rent, or lent them money for food. The average stay was nine years. Virgil Thomson, the composer, stayed for 50. Artists came to paint and sculpt, writers to write, deadbeats to die, and a large share to drink and misbehave.
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酒店的房客，除了斯坦利勉强获准、要价更高的游客外，大多是处境艰难的艺术家或作家，而且长租客人占了三分之二。这种安排在纽约十分罕见。在20世纪70年代，酒店月租为60美元——斯坦利觉得这价钱在纽约非常公道。不过，他有时会免收住户租金，或借钱给他们吃饭。平均每个客人在这里一呆就是九年，而作曲家维吉尔·汤姆森 (Virgil Thomson) 甚至住了五十年。于是，艺术家们前来绘画雕塑，作家们过来写作，穷困潦倒之人混吃等死，大部分人都到这里花天酒地，胡作非为。
⑤ From 1964 all were vetted first by Stanley, who considered whether they and the hotel could get along. He let in, among others, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Jackson Pollock, Leonard Cohen, Janis Joplin, Stanley Kubrick, Jimi Hendrix, Tom Wolfe, Jean-Paul Sartre, the Grateful Dead and all the women associated with Andy Warhol’s Factory. Bob Dylan wrote songs in Suite 211, Madonna filmed her sex book in Room 822, and Woody Allen shot three films on the murky marble stairs. Short-stays were sometimes billetted with the famous, separated by a bead curtain and on sagging camp beds.
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从1964年起，所有房客都得先由斯坦利过目，并由他考虑那些客人是否能在酒店留宿。他放行的租户有：杰克·凯鲁亚克 (Jack Kerouac) 、艾伦·金斯堡 (Allen Ginsberg) 、威廉·伯勒斯 (William Burroughs) 、杰克逊·波洛克 (Jackson Pollock) 、伦纳德·科恩 (Leonard Cohen) 、贾尼斯·乔普林 (Janis Joplin) 、斯坦利·库布里克 (Stanley Kubrick) 、吉米·亨德里克斯 (Jimi Hendrix) 、汤姆·沃尔夫 (Tom Wolfe) 、让·保罗·萨特 (Jean-Paul Sartre) 、感恩而死乐队 (The Grateful Dead) 、安迪·沃霍尔 (Andy Warhol) 的艺术工作室（Factory，曾是一间废弃的帽厂）的所有女性等。鲍勃·迪伦 (Bob Dylan) 曾在211号套房写过歌，麦当娜 (Madonna) 在822房间拍摄了性感写真集，而伍迪·艾伦 (Woody Allen) 在昏暗的大理石楼梯上拍了三部电影。短租客则被临时安排与名流同住在错开的折叠床上，并由一幅珠帘隔开。
⑥ Stanley’s theory of management was that all tenants, whom he viewed as friends, should be largely left alone. They could change the furniture, put up antique wallpaper, plant palms, sleep in their coffins and keep any sort of child or pet. Privacy was paramount. Housekeeping happened once a week, if that. Arthur Miller, recuperating here from his marriage to Marilyn Monroe, objected to the lack of vacuuming and the disintegration of his carpets, at which Stanley expressed great surprise. He thought the suite “perfect”.
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斯坦利的酒店管理之道就是视客为友，任其所为。他们可以更换家具，贴复古壁纸，种棕榈树，睡棺材里以及养各种小孩或宠物。总之，隐私至上。保洁最多一周一次。阿瑟·米勒 (Arthur Miller) 曾在这里熬过与玛丽莲·梦露 (Marilyn Monroe) 的离婚之伤。他对套房没有用吸尘器清洁和地毯开裂表示反感，这些都让斯坦利大为吃惊，因为他原本觉得房间“十全十美”。
⑦ He also believed that guests could do what they liked, as long as they did not destroy his hotel. The very thick soundproofing in the walls, and decent insulation, meant that although some rooms were set on fire, it never took hold. When anyone mentioned the deaths in the hotel, he put these to one side. Dylan Thomas was ill at the Chelsea, he admitted, having drunk 18 straight whiskies; but he drank them elsewhere, and died in the hospital. Sid Vicious’s girlfriend Nancy Spungen died of stab wounds in their room, but Stanley saw this as a suicide pact that went wrong, which was the sort of thing creative people did. Some guests threw themselves, stoned, down the stairwell, on the same artistic principle. Any police seen in the hotel were, in fact, more guests. Unexplained disappearances were probably vacations. His hotel was so serene, bathed with perfect northern light, that people either returned again and again, or never left.
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斯坦利还认为，客人只要不毁了酒店，就能为所欲为。墙体中极厚的隔音材质和良好的隔热材料意味着，即便某些房间着了火，火势也不会失控。倘若有人提到在酒店发生的死亡案件，他便把它们抛到一边。斯坦利承认，迪伦·托马斯 (Dylan Thomas) 住店时病了，他确实是连喝了18杯威士忌。不过，他是在其他地方喝的酒，并死在了医院。锡德·维舍斯 (Sid Vicious) 的女友南希 (Nancy Spungen) 在两人房间里死于刀伤，但斯坦利却将事故看作是违约的集体自杀协定，是创意人士所为。也正是基于同样的艺术性理由，一些房客精神恍惚地坠下楼梯。凡是出没在酒店的警察，反倒成了新的客人。房客们离奇失踪，也便成了外出度假。他的酒店沐浴在从北部照过来的完美光线下，显得平静之极，人们要么一次次返回酒店，要么就从不离开。
Heart and soul
⑧ He did not live in the hotel himself. From the mid-1990s he owned an apartment on tonier Park Avenue. Nonetheless the hotel was also a family home. His father had bought it, with two other Hungarian Jews, after the war, with a loan from the Emigrant Bank next door. It was then a flop-house, having fallen from its pinnacle at the centre of the then-Theatre District; the area has since come up again. Stanley’s boyish adventures involved exploring behind the walls with the hotel plumber, and riding up and down all day with a tolerant bell-captain in the ancient gated elevators.
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一心一意
斯坦利自己并不住在酒店。从20世纪90年代中期起，他就有一间公寓，住所位于更豪华的派克大街。尽管如此，酒店也是他的一个家。二战发生后（1939年），他父亲与另外两个匈牙利犹太人合伙买下了酒店，隔壁的美国移民银行 (Emigrant Bank) 向三人提供了贷款。这家酒店鼎盛时期位于当时剧院区中心，随后沦为一家廉价酒店。该地后又再度崛起。斯塔利的童年冒险经历包括与管道工一起在酒店墙后摸索，以及整天陪同宽容的服务员领班在老式围栏电梯里上上下下。
⑨ Since his hotel had heart and soul, it had no business plan—beyond fostering a community of unfettered, energised, even wild artists in the heart of New York City. In this he succeeded wonderfully, but not commercially. In 2007 he was shoved aside by the board. His beloved hotel is being redeveloped; a few nervous tenants remain in their dusty rooms. At his last tenants’ association meeting at El Quijote, his favourite restaurant, it seemed that the light had gone out of his eyes. He was mourning the loss of beauty that he had spent his life creating.
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他的酒店由于一心一意为客人着想，所以没有开展商业规划，但在纽约市中心扶植了一个由无拘无束，精力充沛，甚至无法无天的艺术家们所构成的社区除外。斯坦利虽在这方面获得了极大成功，但在商业上却鲜有建树。2007年，他被董事会罢免，他心爱的酒店后来重建，几个焦虑的房客还留在布满尘埃的房间里。在他最爱的*El Quijote餐厅举办的最后一次房客社区会议上，他两眼看起来暗淡无光，因为他正为失去这一辈子所创造的美而感到悲伤。
*El Quijote：西班牙语。与小说《堂吉诃德》（Don Quijote de la Mancha）的外文名称相似，谷歌翻译翻成“堂吉诃德”，但笔者不懂西语，遂不译。
版权声明：参考译文为作者@梁洋Ernest原创，仅作学习交流之用，如若侵权，马上删除。
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