Randall Beach, The New Haven Register, 01/09/2005

Did you ever hear the one about "the Elton John Room" at the New Haven Coliseum?

There are a million stories associated with the once star-studded, now abandoned Coliseum, and the people who worked there can provide plenty of those inside scoops

Sometimes these guys are so mad at Mayor John DeStefano Jr., who closed the Coliseum in 2002, that they are in no mood to reminisce about the glory days.

But when I assembled three of them around the dining room table at Tony Arancio’s house off of Wooster Square Friday, Joe Chieppo agreed to tell the Elton John story.

"The ‘Elton John Room’ was built specifically for him when he came here in the early ’90s," said Chieppo, who was the Coliseum’s inventory controller for food and beverages.

"We spent over $60,000 on it," Chieppo said. "We put in a bathtub, rugs, mirrors, lighting; he had to have it in such-and-such a way.

"But then he didn’t want to get out of his limo that night," Chieppo recalled. "His manager had to coax him out. He finally came up the ramp, went directly on stage and did a short show, about 65 minutes. He kept looking at his watch during the show."

Chieppo said the singer then bolted back down the ramp, got back into his limousine and departed.

"He never went into ‘the Elton John Room,’ " Chieppo said.

But Gary DeLeone, who was the Coliseum’s food and beverage director, joined our conversation to offer a happy ending.

"He came back a few years later," DeLeone said. "That time he was very nice. And he used his room."

DeLeone added, "As far as I know, it’s still sitting there. I’ll bet that bathtub is still in there."

These three are part of the determined movement to preserve and re-open the Coliseum, which was used for 30 years but is now slated for demolition.

Arancio, who thinks Yale should consider using the Coliseum for hockey and basketball, will speak at a public hearing Wednesday at 7 p.m. at City Hall, when the Board of Aldermen will take public comment on the take-down plan. The board soon will vote on whether to approve the $6 million demolition bill.

DeStefano maintains the Coliseum has long been an economic albatross as well as an eyesore. He wants to replace it with a new Long Wharf Theatre and a hotel/conference center.

The Coliseum’s supporters have their own figures and economic analysis. They say the issue should be decided by a public referendum.

But regardless of the economics of the building itself, its proponents note that a lot of life went out of this city when those doors were closed.

They also point out that an annual Coliseum event such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses convention drew many thousands of people downtown for the weekend to stay in hotels, shop and eat in local restaurants.

"It wasn’t used just for concerts," DeLeone said. "You had conventions, the circus, hockey, wrestling, trade shows, ‘Stars on Ice.’ You’ll never see Olympic skaters here again."

Then Chieppo remembered the time busloads of kids and thousands of other people came to the Coliseum to see the Bill of Rights on display.

The Coliseum guys also noted it made little sense to close a 1,400-space parking garage (the one above the Coliseum) in a city ever-hungrier for parking spaces. The garage at nearby Union Station is virtually always overloaded.

The conversation was getting depressing, so I asked them to tell me another backstage story. Arancio, who promoted many Coliseum shows, had a good one.

"James Taylor was in the building, getting ready to do a show. I was in an office with the Coliseum’s operations manager, Jerry Punzo, when Taylor walks in and says, ‘Excuse me, can I get a towel?’

"Jerry starts screaming at him: ‘You can’t wait ’til I bring you the damn towels?!’ Taylor just said, ‘Sorry,’ and left the room. I said to Jerry, "Do you know who that was? That was James Taylor!’ So Punzo grabs a stack of towels and runs down the hallway."

DeLeone also told the story about the time the rodeo was in town and on a Sunday morning the bulls got out of their corral.

"I heard ‘Moo!’ Bulls were running all over the halls and I was stuck in my office."

Elvis Presley played at the Coliseum too, twice. Shortly after that second show, he went to rock ‘n’ roll heaven.

Is that where the Coliseum is bound?