No punches were thrown, but the incident clearly spooked Mr. Elder. In recent days, a new security detail has been patrolling the hotel’s lobby and hallways. The hulking guys in suits have been particularly attentive to Mr. Nash.

The initial standoff happened during the second night of a photography exhibit entitled “Chelsea Hotel Through the Eyes of The Photographers,” scheduled to coincide with the historic hotel's 125th anniversary. But it also came at a time of lingering tensions inside the iconic lodge.

Mr. Elder is at the center of the controversy. It was his 2005 lawsuit that ultimately resulted in the highly-publicized ouster of longtime manger and majority owner Stanley Bard. Thus, he has taken the brunt of some residents’ anger. “Greed” has been scrawled on his door; excrement left on his doormat—someone even sent him a dead fish in the mail. And, the hotel blog, Living With Legends, has fervently chronicled Mr. Elder’s long-standing California court battle with his elderly step-father, the writer Piri Thomas, over more than $1 million in dividends reaped from hotel profits.

“I’m not doing an interview,” Mr. Elder said on Saturday, mingling with guests just one night after he was chased from the exhibit hall by a masked doppelgänger dressed in a hotel bathrobe. (A stink bomb had earlier disrupted the show.)

Mr. Nash, meanwhile, is perhaps the hotel's most fervent activist opposing the new regime. Banners reading "Bring Back The Bards," among other messages, hang from his balcony over 23rd Street. If he was feeling particularly cocksure on that evening, perhaps that’s because he had just beaten the landlord in housing court only a week earlier.

Mr. Nash, a curator by trade whose own exhibit of artifacts from the nation’s execution chambers goes on display in Washington, D.C., this month, later explained his intentions to the The Observer: “I never got physical with him at all or threatened to get physical. I only wanted to know where he'd put Piri's money and make the point publicly that the residents don't feel he belongs here.”

Mr. Elder soon fled out the front door to Star Lounge, downstairs from the hotel, as Mr. Nash followed. A bouncer stepped between them, allowing Mr. Elder to escape into the bar while Mr. Nash exchanged harsh words with the bouncer.

“David’s a good guy,” Star Lounge owner Charles Ferri said, as Mr. Elder commiserated over a Shirley Temple. “I think people just misunderstand him. Once you get to know him, he’s a good-hearted person who wants to do the right thing for the hotel, cleaning it up and making it nice but still keeping that old-school mentality.”

But Mr. Elder’s bizarre night was not quite over. After stepping outside briefly, he returned with a security guard. Someone had dumped some sort of liquid from a balcony above, the bouncer said, as Mr. Elder wiped off his head.

The security staff immediately suspected Mr. Nash, of course, although his apartment is located on the opposite side of the hotel. They called the cops.

When police arrived, stun-guns drawn, firefighters were already there. Someone had called to complain about overcrowding inside the exhibit hall.

Police were unable to immediately locate Mr. Nash, after roughly interrogating his girlfriend in the hallway. Unable to locate a key to his apartment, they quit knocking.

Still, Mr. Elder didn’t feel safe staying in his own hotel that night. He crashed with Star Lounge owner Mr. Ferri.

The next day, some big security guards appeared in the lobby and, days later, still haven't stopped hounding Mr. Nash.

“I feel like I've been through a meat press,” the rebellious tenant said in his room after a particularly bruising encounter on Monday night.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article has been changed to reflect an error. The original item stated that Mr. Thomas was Mr. Elder's father-in-law. In fact, he is his step-father. The author regrets the error. 

The controversial management team, which installed a rookie, 26-year-old Glennon Travis in the place of the veteran manager, Mr. Bard, has claimed in court papers that it has "fully performed its obligations" under a three-year contract, signed last June, and further asserted that the hotel was more profitable on its watch than when Mr. Bard ran the place.

Over the first six months of its oversight, BD NY claims, the hotel's income increased by 225 percent and occupancy increased from 73 to 88 percent.

Moreover, BD NY claims that the hotel's owners owe the ousted managers a whopping $2.7 million in "incentive" fees, which have not been paid.

A hearing is scheduled for May 5.

But, two weeks ago, the hotel's infamously ousted manager made a rare appearance, joining the director Milos Forman (himself a former hotel resident) for an on-camera interview smack-dab in the middle of the lobby.

"The new management comes running out of the back and is like, 'You can’t shoot that here!'" said the writer Ed Hamilton, a 13-year resident of the iconic lodge on West 23rd Street. "He tried to charge Stanley $600 to film in the lobby. Of course, Stanley wouldn't pay that."

Mr. Hamilton relayed the recent lobby incident during a panel discussion about the historic and embattled hotel last night at the Museum of the City of New York.

Mr. Hamilton, author of Legends of the Chelsea Hotel: Living With the Artists and Outlaws of New York’s Rebel Mecca, interviewed Mr. Bard himself recently for a short video by fellow hotel resident and filmmaker Sam Bassett.

In the interview, played during the panel discussion, Mr. Bard took a few jabs at the hotel's controversial new managers.

"There are a lot of things, naturally, that I'm not very happy with," he said, citing specifically the recent evictions of some longtime hotel residents. "I don't like putting nice people out. I don’t like putting people that love the hotel out—I’m not happy with them even trying to do that. I could understand that they want to enhance the value or the so-called value. But my philosophy is you can enhance value by a lot of things, not just monetarily. …

"We’re not always going to be in this bubble. We’re not always going to be in this economic boom, hotel-wise, etc. And when you satisfy people and make them happy in your hotel then they will want to return. …

"Under my management, we had the highest repeat business of probably any hotel in the world. I think that enhances value more so than just the bottom line. So my philosophy is a little different than theirs."

Asked whether he hopes to someday return as manager, Mr. Bard replied, "I'm not getting any younger, but my son is," referring to David Bard, his heir apparent. "I think that over the years he's learned to appreciate more this hotel than he did as a young person. He may have felt I forced him into it. ... That wasn't my intent. I wanted him to respect the hotel and appreciate it. I felt that someday he would want to be here on his own.

"Unfortunately, I think that has happened. And they don't want him here. They want outside management, which blows my mind. I don't understand why. This outside management has no idea about the Chelsea Hotel or what the Chelsea Hotel is about. David, you understand, has every knowledge of the hotel—every inch of knowledge of the hotel. And that is exactly what is necessary in this hotel. He would be the best person for that job—not an outside manager that is here once a week or twice a week for a few hours. ..."

Since his highly publicized ouster last summer, Mr. Bard has been "writing ... thinking ... reminiscing," basically working on his long-awaited memoirs after nearly 50 years as the hotel's manager, he said.

"Keep loving the hotel, keep spreading its good name," he urged the hotel's remaining residents. "Keep creating."

Also during last night's panel discussion, the writer Mr. Hamilton discussed Mr. Bard's "congenial inability to admit that anything bad has ever taken place in the hotel"—reading aloud perhaps this reporter's favorite passage from Legends, a tale in which Mr. Bard gracefully glosses over the apparent drug overdose of a longtime resident; instead, suggesting that the deceased was merely traveling in Europe.

Sherill Tippins, author of the forthcoming Dream Palace: The Extraordinary Life of the Chelsea Hotel, discussed hotel architect Philip Huber's original utopian vision for the building, Manhattan's first co-op, constructed during a particularly greedy era in the city's history.

Former Chelsea Now editor Lawrence Lerner, meanwhile, discussed how the changes at the Chelsea mirrored a larger trend of developers converting former artist flophouses, also including the Gramercy Park Hotel and the Hotel Breslin, into hip boutique hotels.

Hear what the charismatic former manager of the embattled Chelsea Hotel has been up to since his controversial ouster last summer, what he thinks about the new management and ongoing eviction proceedings, as well as his vision for the future of the iconic 125-year-old lodge, of which he remains the majority owner.

Mr. Bard's remarks will follow a panel discussion with preservationist Edward Kirkland and writers Ed Hamilton, author of the 2007 book Legends of the Chelsea Hotel: Living with the Artists and Outlaws of New York’s Rebel Mecca, and Sherill Tippins, author of the forthcoming Dream Palace: The Extraordinary Life of the Chelsea Hotel.

The event starts at 6:30.

The "History" section drops the usual references to famous hotel inhabitants Dylan Thomas and Sid Vicious but makes no mention of the old manager, Stanley Bard, whose ouster after nearly 50 years stirred up so much controversy this year.

"It’s hard to deny that, besides being one of the chief celebrities of the hotel, he had a little bit to do with making this place the unique artistic attraction that it is today," writer and hotel watchdog Ed Hamilton said on his blog, Living With Legends.

Mr. Bard used to say that getting into the Chelsea was harder than getting into an Ivy League school. Now you can check-in with the simple click of a mouse.

Quoteth hotel frequenter Bob Dylan: "The times they are a-changin.'"

"It's good he decided to dress up," one attendee joked as Mr. Hamilton took the podium dressed in jeans, a button-up shirt, and a blue baseball cap bearing the logo of a recent New York blogger summit. (Mr. Hamilton also operates a hotel-centric blog called Living With Legends.)

Painter Hawk Alfredson and photographer Mia Hanson (who's also pictured in the book) were among those present.

Before delving into the text, Mr. Hamilton waxed nostaglic for the hotel's old junky-friendly vibe and bemoaned its becoming "more and more of a fancy boutique hotel."

He described the book as part fact, part fiction. During the reading, Mr. Hamilton pulled from two chapters—"scary stories for Halloween," he said—one involving a druggie Dead-head zombie reanimated on the hotel's rooftop and another describing a seemingly personal encounter with the purported ghost of writer (and former Room 829 resident) Thomas Wolfe during the 2003 blackout:

"[A] large, hulking man," Mr. Hamilton described the phantom. "His broad back curved over a drafting table where an array of papers was spread out before him. He seemed to be working on some sort of outline... The man was wearing a starched white shirt, and the papers were white, which added to the brilliance of the scene."

Later, as the author autographed copies, this reporter asked him how much of the Wolfe ghost story was true.

"Well, it didn't happen during the blackout," Mr. Hamilton said. And, he added, "I don't know if it was him."