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What do you get when you take the snobbish manufactured exclusivity of the downtown NYC faux-celebrity modeltrash circuit and combine it with the barren urban nightmare that is Atlantic City? I don't know, but idly rich hipsters across the tristate area will soon be paying big money to find out, if cultural connoisseur Paul Sevigny has anything to say about it!

Allen Salkin, the New York Times reporter who always manages to snag the great stories about the city's most annoying people, takes a look at the plans by Sevigny and friends—who currently run the Beatrice Inn—to whip up buzz for an instantly cool replica of an exclusive hotel and nightspot in Atlantic City, a town whose economy now rests on the arthritic shoulders of grandmothers feeding quarters into slot machines. And petty drug dealers.

The "Chelsea Hotel," described by the developer as "Soho House-y" is a bid to transport downtown chic wholesale into AC, simply by hiring the "right" people like celebrity family member Sevigny. No longer is it necessary to actually create something worthy of being deemed cool; such a designation is now for sale by HIP young tastemakers.


Will the doormen turn away people deemed unhip based on their clothes, haircuts or demeanor, just as Angelo, the doorman at the Beatrice in Greenwich Village, does nightly?

"We hope so," Mr. Bashaw [the developer] said

A spokeswoman goes on to describe Paul Sevigny's role in this whole thing:

"They are going to be in charge of celebrity wrangling, including bringing Paul's sister's friends down," Ms. Odegard said. "At the Beatrice, it was Heath Ledger before he died, Adrian Grenier, Mary-Kate and Ashley and everyone who walks in from the Waverly Inn."

Well, we look forward to many entertaining calls to the EMT's in the near future! Salkin's disdain for this shitty idea comes through pretty clearly in the article, and at the end, it's revealed why:

Some authentic Manhattan experiences might best be shipped free of charge to Atlantic City. Like the experience of being rejected by a dead-eyed doorman muttering, "Sorry, private party tonight," which is what happened to this reporter as he approached the Beatrice Inn on Wednesday evening wearing a bulky orange parka appropriate to the freezing weather.

Moments later, a shivering couple in sheer but stylish clothes was ushered inside without a question.

Don't worry, man. At least you didn't catch a chill.