Wild Times at The Chelsea Hotel

Currently I'm reading the Inside the Dream Palace: The Life and Times of New York's Legendary Chelsea Hotel by Sherill Tippins.

Published in 2013, the book is an absorbing saga about how this one building, this distinctive residential hotel on West 23rd Street, became a mecca for some of the most brilliant and important artists (American and otherwise) who ever lived. Founded in 1884, and for more than a century afterwards, it has provided a communal haven for those who pursue a life of the mind, a life in the arts and culture, a life at odds with mainstream society. Inspired by the 19th-century socialist Fourierism movement that emphaized self-sufficient communinal living, the Chelsea Hotel was a place that embraced and accepted anyone -- all for a very cheap rent. 

The list of people who lived and worked at the Chelsea over the generations is mind-boggling. To name just a very few: Mark Twain, O. Henry, Dylan Thomas, Tennessee Williams, Alan Ginsburg, Arthur C. Clarke (who wrote 2001 there) as well as his collaborator Stanley Kubrick, Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, Sid Vicious (who infamously killed his girlfriend Nancy there in 1978), Leonard Cohen and Janis Joplin (who hooked up there), Willem de Kooning, the notorious Robert Mapplethorpe, Diego Rivera, even the Divine Miss M (Bette Midler for you ignoramouses). And that's barely scratching the surface of the great talents that resided there many different times in the last 130+ year. 

The Chelsea Hotel has also been the subject of art itself: the groundbreaking Portrait of Jason was shot there in 1966 as well as part of the first-ever reality show, An American Family. Andy Warhol probably made it famous for the rest of the world with the movie he made there, Chelsea Girls. 

The cultural impact and legacy of the Chelsea Hotel cannot be overstated.

But, at the end of the day, it's a piece of NYC real estate, which means its had lots of different owners and been subject to various legal battles over the decades. And there still are to this day with the current owners and developers fighting the tenants who wish to maintain its Bohemian glory. It's a classic case of money vs. culture, the future vs. the past, crass taste vs. good taste, people who want to live in the past vs. people who could care less. Reading about it, you don't know whether to laugh or cry. 

Sounds like a drama that could have written at the Chelsea Hotel back in its hayday!

You can read the previous posts about the Chelsea Hotel here.