Chelsea Hotel Part II

 

BD Hotels takeover

BD Hotels took over the hotel's operation that July and began working to renovate 120 of the hotel rooms, as well as restoring or preserving the apartments of 51 existing tenants. At the time, the renovation was planned to be completed in 2018. SIR Chelsea LLC, led by Sean MacPherson, Ira Drukier, and Richard Born, bought the Chelsea Hotel in October 2016 for $250 million. MacPherson led additional renovations at the hotel, including restoration of artwork and design features, as well as new public areas like a bar and spa on the roof. To convince Mayor Bill de Blasio to approve further changes, Drukier and Born sent tens of thousands of dollars to various funds for de Blasio. Bard's collection of paintings was sold off in 2017 after he died, and work was again halted that year when the city found high concentrations of lead in the dust. By then, two single room occupancy apartments remained in the Chelsea, and many tenants had temporarily relocated. Some of the hotel's original doors were removed and sold at auction in 2018.

El Quijote was closed temporarily in March 2018 for renovations. The next year, several holdout tenants filed a lawsuit to retain control of their apartments. The renovation project was halted, and the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development mandated that the hotel's owners obtain a certificate of no harassment. Work on the renovation had mostly stalled by early 2020 due to a harassment lawsuit against the owners, though a state judge dismissed that suit. The city government also contended that the owners had harassed the tenants, and further lawsuits were filed throughout that year. Other residents, who wanted the hotel's renovation to be completed quickly, sided with the owners. Work resumed in early 2021, after the city government said that January that it would not pursue a tenant-harassment investigation against the owners. The hotel's owners sued the city in May 2021, claiming that the construction delays had cost them $100 million.

El Quijote reopened in February 2022 and the Hotel Chelsea soft-reopened to transient guests the next month. Initially, the rooms were rented at a discount while work continued. The Bard Room opened at ground level in June 2022, and the hotel fully reopened in mid-2022. At the time, there were still 40 permanent residents, and the cheapest suite cost $700 per night. Disputes continued over the preservation of Dylan Thomas's apartment, and the hotel's owners still had an open lawsuit against the city. Café Chelsea, a French bistro, opened within the hotel in July 2023.

Notable residents

Over the years, the Chelsea has become particularly well-known for its residents, who have come from all social classes. The New York Times described the hotel in 2001 as a "roof for creative heads", given the large number of such personalities who have stayed at the Chelsea; the previous year, the same newspaper had characterized the list of tenants as "living history". The journalist Pete Hamill characterized the hotel's clientele as "radicals in the 1930s, British sailors in the 40s, Beats in the 50s, hippies in the 60s, decadent poseurs in the 70s". Although early tenants were wealthy, the Chelsea attracted less well-off tenants by the mid-20th century, and many writers, musicians, and artists lived at the Hotel Chelsea when they were short on money. Accordingly, the Chelsea's guest list had almost zero overlap with that of the more fashionable Plaza Hotel crosstown.

New York magazine wrote that "people who lived in the hotel slept together as often as they celebrated holidays together", particularly under Stanley Bard's tenure. Despite the high number of notable people associated with the Chelsea, its residents typically desired privacy and frowned upon those who used their relationships with their neighbors to further their own careers.

Literature

The Hotel Chelsea has housed numerous literary figures, some of whom wrote their books there. Arthur C. Clarke wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey while staying at the Chelsea, calling the hotel his "spiritual home" despite its condition. Thomas Wolfe lived in the hotel before his death in 1938, writing several books such as You Can't Go Home Again; he often walked around the halls to gain inspiration for his writing. William S. Burroughs also lived at the Chelsea. While living at the Chelsea, Edgar Lee Masters wrote 18 poetry books, often wandering the hotel for hours.

Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (who lived with his wife Caitlin Thomas) was staying in room 205 when he became ill and died in 1953, while American poet Delmore Schwartz spent the last few years of his life in seclusion at the Chelsea before he died in 1966. Irish poet Brendan Behan, a severe alcoholic who had been ejected from the Algonquin Hotel, lived at the hotel for several months before his death in 1964. Many poets of the Beat poetry movement also lived at the Chelsea before the Beat Hotel in Paris became popular.

Other authors, writers, and journalists who stayed or lived at the hotel have included:

Henry Abbey, poet

Nelson Algren, writer

Léonie Adams, poet; lived with husband William Troy

Sherwood Anderson, writer

Ben Lucien Burman, writer

Henri Chopin, poet and musician

Ira Cohen, poet and filmmaker

Gregory Corso, poet

Hart Crane, poet

Quentin Crisp, writer and actor

Jane Cunningham Croly, journalist

Katherine Dunn, novelist and journalist

Edward Eggleston, writer

James T. Farrell, novelist

Allen Ginsberg, poet

John Giorno, poet

Maurice Girodias, publisher

Pete Hamill, journalist

Bernard Heidsieck, poet

O. Henry, writer

Herbert Huncke, poet

Clifford Irving, novelist and reporter

Charles R. Jackson, author

Theodora Keogh, novelist

Jack Kerouac, writer

Suzanne La Follette, journalist

John La Touche, lyricist

Jakov Lind, novelist

Mary McCarthy, novelist and political activist

Arthur Miller, playwright

Jessica Mitford, author

Vladimir Nabokov, novelist

Eugene O'Neill, playwright

Joseph O'Neill, novelist

Claude Pélieu, poet and artist

Rene Ricard, poet

James Schuyler, poet

Sam Shepard, playwright and actor

Valerie Solanas, writer

Benjamin Stolberg, publicist and author

Richard Suskind, children's writer

William Troy, critic; lived with wife Léonie Adams

Mark Twain, writer

Gore Vidal, writer

Arnold Weinstein, librettist

Tennessee Williams, playwright

Yevgeny Yevtushenko, poet

Entertainers

The hotel has been home to actors, film directors, producers, and comedians. The actress Sara Lowndes moved to a room adjoining that of musician Bob Dylan before the two married in 1965. Edie Sedgwick, an actress and Warhol superstar, set her room on fire by accident in 1967, while Viva, another Warhol superstar, lived at the Chelsea with her daughter Gaby Hoffmann. Members of the Squat Theatre Company also stayed in the hotel in the 1970s while performing nearby.

Other entertainment personalities who lived or stayed at the Chelsea include:

Martine Barrat, filmmaker

Sarah Bernhardt, actress, slept in a custom coffin

Russell Brand, actor and comedian

Peter Brook, director

Shirley Clarke, filmmaker

Laura Sedgwick Collins, actress

Bette Davis, actress

Abel Ferrara, filmmaker

Jane Fonda, actress

Miloš Forman, filmmaker

Ethan Hawke, actor and film director

Mitch Hedberg, comedian

Dave Hill, comedian

Dennis Hopper, filmmaker

John Houseman, actor, lived in a penthouse

Michael Imperioli, actor

Eddie Izzard, comedian

Stanley Kubrick, director

Lillie Langtry, actress

Carl Lee, actor

Gerard Malanga, actor, filmmaker, poet, and musician

Jonas Mekas, filmmaker

Ondine, actor

Al Pacino, actor

Isabella Rossellini, actress

Annie Russell, actress

Lillian Russell, actress

Elaine Stritch, actress

Donald Sutherland, actor

Eva Tanguay, actress

Aurélia Thierrée, actress

Rosa von Praunheim, filmmaker

Mary Woronov, actress

Musicians

Composer and critic Virgil Thomson, once described by The New York Times as the hotel's "most illustrious tenant", lived at the hotel for nearly five decades before his death in 1989. The composer George Kleinsinger lived with his pet animals on the tenth floor. The activist Stormé DeLarverie was also a long-term resident, as was the drag queen Candy Darling.

The Chelsea was particularly popular among rock musicians and rock and roll musicians in the 1970s. These included Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols, who allegedly stabbed his girlfriend Nancy Spungen to death at the hotel in 1978; after Vicious's death, their room was split into two units to prevent the room from being turned into a shrine. Numerous rock bands frequented the Chelsea as well, including the Allman Brothers, the Band, Big Brother and the Holding Company, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, the Byrds, Country Joe and the Fish, Jefferson Airplane, Lovin' Spoonful, Moby Grape, the Mothers of Invention, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Sly and the Family Stone, and the Stooges. The Kills wrote much of their album No Wow at the Chelsea prior to its release in 2005. The Grateful Dead once performed on the roof.

Other prominent musical acts that stayed in the Chelsea include:

Ryan Adams, singer-songwriter

Joan Baez, folk musician

Chet Baker, jazz trumpeter and vocalist

John Cale, musician, composer, and record producer

Leonard Cohen, singer-songwriter

Alice Cooper, rock singer

Chick Corea, composer, pianist, keyboardist, bandleader, and percussionist

Julie Delpy, actress and songwriter

Donovan, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter

Bob Dylan, singer-songwriter

Marianne Faithfull, rock singer

Jimi Hendrix, guitarist

Robert Hunter, lyricist

Abdullah Ibrahim, pianist and composer

Janis Joplin, singer

Jobriath, singer

Madonna, singer and actress; shot photographs for her 1992 book Sex in room 822

Bette Midler, actress

Buddy Miles, drummer and singer

Joni Mitchell, singer-songwriter

Jim Morrison, singer-songwriter

Nico, singer

Phil Ochs, songwriter

Édith Piaf, singer

Iggy Pop, rock musician

Dee Dee Ramone, punk rock musician

Robbie Robertson, singer-songwriter and guitarist

Ravi Shankar, musician

Patti Smith, singer

Johnny Thunders, guitarist and singer-songwriter

Rufus Wainwright, singer-songwriter and composer

Tom Waits, jazz musician, composer, songwriter

Edgar Winter, multi-instrumentalist

Johnny Winter, guitarist and singer

Frank Zappa, guitarist, composer, and bandleader

Visual artists

Many visual artists, including painters, sculptors, and photographers, have resided at the Chelsea. The painter John Sloan lived in one of the top-floor duplexes until his death in 1951, painting portraits of both the Chelsea and nearby buildings. Joseph Glasco lived at the Chelsea in 1949 and then lived there on recurring visits and painted Chelsea Hotel (1992) there. During the 1960s, acolytes of the polymath Harry Everett Smith frequently gathered around his apartment. The painter Alphaeus Philemon Cole lived there for 35 years until his death in 1988 when, at the age of 112, he was the oldest verified man alive. The artist Vali Myers lived at the hotel from 1971 to 2014, while conceptual artist Bettina Grossman lived in the Chelsea from 1970 to her death in 2021. Although Andy Warhol never lived in the hotel, many of his associates did.

Other artists who have lived at the Chelsea include:

Joe Andoe, painter

Karel Appel, painter and sculptor

Arman, painter

Brigid Berlin, artist and Warhol superstar

Robert Blackburn, printmaker

Arthur Bowen Davies, painter

Frank Bowling, painter

Henri Cartier-Bresson, photographer

Doris Chase, video artist

Ching Ho Cheng, painter

Bernard Childs, painter

Christo and Jeanne-Claude, installation artists

Francesco Clemente, artist

Robert Crumb, cartoonist

Charles Melville Dewey, painter

Jim Dine, artist

Claudio Edinger, photographer

William Eggleston, photographer

Jorge Fick, mixed-media artist

André François, cartoonist

Herbert Gentry, artist

Alberto Giacometti, painter

Joseph Glasco, abstract artist

Brion Gysin, multimedia artist

Childe Hassam, painter

David Hockney, artist

Alain Jacquet, artist

Jasper Johns, painter, sculptor, draftsman, and printmaker

Leo Katz, muralist

Yves Klein, artist

Willem de Kooning, painter

Nicola L, multidisciplinary artist

Ryah Ludins, painter

Robert Mapplethorpe. photographer; lived with Patti Smith

Inge Morath, photographer

Charles R. Macauley, cartoonist

Maryan S. Maryan, post-expressionist painter; died in his hotel room in 1977

Kenneth Noland, abstract painter

Claes Oldenburg, sculptor

Elizabeth Peyton, contemporary artist

Jackson Pollock, abstract painter

Martial Raysse, artist

David Remfry, painter

Diego Rivera, artist

Larry Rivers, artist

Mark Rothko, abstract painter

Niki de Saint Phalle, sculptor, painter, and filmmaker

Julian Schnabel, artist

Moses Soyer, painter; died in his studio in 1974

Philip Taaffe, artist; lived in Virgil Thompson's old apartment

Jean Tinguely, sculptor

Nahum Tschacbasov, expressionist artist

Stella Waitzkin, artist

Tom Wesselmann, artist

Brett Whiteley, artist

Rufus Fairchild Zogbaum, painter

Other figures

One early resident of the Chelsea, U.S. congressman-elect Andrew J. Campbell, died at his apartment in 1894 before he could be sworn in. The choreographer Katherine Dunham, who rehearsed at the hotel in the 1960s, was one of the few dance–associated figures to stay in the Chelsea. Communist Party USA leader Elizabeth Gurley Flynn lived at the hotel, as did event producer Susanne Bartsch.

Several fashion designers have lived at the Chelsea. Charles James, credited with being America's first couturier that influenced fashion in the 1940s and 1950s, moved into the Chelsea in 1964. The designer Elizabeth Hawes lived in the Chelsea until her death in 1971. Billy Reid used one of the Chelsea's rooms as an office, studio, and showroom starting in 1998. After returning to New York City in 2001, Natalie "Alabama" Chanin briefly lived in the Chelsea Hotel.

Impact

Critical reception

Cultural commentary

Life magazine characterized the hotel in 1964 as "New York's most illustrious third-rate hotel"; the same year, The New York Times described the Chelsea Hotel as having "long represented the cultural mood that is now spreading through the West 20s". Another journalist called the hotel in 1965 an "Ellis Island of the avant-garde". A Boston Globe reporter said that, while the hotel was internally known as an artists' residence, "those on the outside are confused by the names and the rococo facade of stories that have dragged the Chelsea down like an old roue to the bottom of history". Donna Hilts of The Washington Post wrote in 1975 that "the beatnik '50s, the hip '60s, the freaky '70s—each found a way of appreciating the freedom, the tradition and the old rug coziness of the Chelsea". Paul Goldberger of The New York Times wrote in 1981 that the Chelsea "has had a history that is something of a cross between the Algonquin Hotel and a crash pad", and British reporter Peter Ackroyd wrote in 1983 that the Chelsea was reputed as "one of the least stuffy hotels in New York". A Chicago Tribune reporter said in 1983 that the Chelsea "has certainly set standards of its own".

In 1993, The New York Times wrote: "Stubbornly resistant to change, the Chelsea is—still—hip." The same reporter described the hotel as a "Tower of Babel of creativity and bad behavior" that nonetheless remained successful. In 1995, The Philadelphia Inquirer contrasted the hotel with the more upscale Algonquin Hotel in Midtown Manhattan, which was also known for its literary scene. The Washington Post described the hotel's lax management in 1999 as "a factor that attracted a stellar crop of artists in its century of operation", while a GQ writer said the same year that "there are two Statues of Liberty on New York—the one for immigrants out by Ellis Island and the one for weirdos at 222 West 23rd Street". In the 2000s, the Irish Times said that the Chelsea was "reputed to be the last Bohemian place on earth". Variety described the hotel as having "long been synonymous with the bohemian scene", and The Advertiser of Adelaide wrote that "The Chelsea exists as a microcosm of New York."

The New York Observer wrote in 2010 that the Chelsea's "hulking physicality" distinguished the hotel from neighboring structures, though "it's the litany of cultural touchstones in (or formerly in) residence that makes it the Chelsea". According to The Telegraph, the hotel "had something that no amount of money or interior decoration could buy: a singular style and a unique legend". Sherill Tippins said in 2022, "It's hard to imagine what American culture would be like if we hadn't had the Chelsea. It's an enormous factory of creative thought and ideas." The New York Times compared the Christodora House in the East Village to the Hotel Chelsea.

Architectural and hotel commentary

When the hotel was completed, a writer for the New-York Tribune regarded the hotel's "finish and appointments" as a "very close second" to that of the Navarro Flats on Central Park South, while the Courier Journal described the Chelsea as "the latest triumph of civilization". According to David Goodman Croly, the building's design signified the fact that New Yorkers had become "more capable of organization, more sociable, more gregarious than before". The Sun wrote that the Chelsea was one of numerous "living temples of humanity" that could be used as a model for urban apartment living.

In the mid-20th century, the hotel's decor was the subject of negative commentary. Yevgeny Yevtushenko likened the smell of his room to the Dachau concentration camp, and Arthur Miller said the decor was more akin to "Guatemalan maybe, or outer Queens" than a "grand hotel". Donna Hilts said in 1975 that the hotel's brick facade "reminds a visitor of a Victorian dowager, down on her luck, cracked and faded, but still trying to keep up appearances". The Associated Press wrote in 1978 that the hotel's lobby was "singularly unprepossessing", with tenants' art juxtaposed with the original fireplace, while a Newsday reporter described the space as "a museum of the anarchic monstrosities of the 1960s". Paul Goldberger praised the architecture but disliked its neon sign, saying that "the building is as strong as a work of architecture that the sign compromises it not a bit". Ackroyd said in 1983 that his room was "not particularly comfortable [but] has a grim splendor of its own".

Terry Trucco wrote for The New York Times in 1991 that her room "got plenty of light and was oddly cheerful", though she described the furniture as old and the bathroom as "ghastly"; a writer for The Boston Globe said the same year that the corridors felt like "an institution in long decline". A writer for The Palm Beach Post, reviewing the hotel in 1996, said that the rooms were large but "not especially clean". The New York Times wrote in 1998 that the hotel's hallways resembled a street in Venice or Rome and that the apartments were "furnished in an artistic collision of styles". The Observer of London called the Chelsea's lobby "an overgrown taxidermist's Valhalla" in 2000. The Poughkeepsie Journal wrote in 2002 that the Chelsea stood "in the middle of the block with an air of quiet dignity"; with its balconies being it’s most prominent feature. A New York Times reviewer wrote in 2005 that, despite the hotel's worn-down condition, its "grungy elegance" was preferable to chain hotels' "soulless architecture".

After the hotel reopened in 2022, the Financial Times wrote, "Depending on one's nostalgist leanings, the new Hotel Chelsea is either a travesty of history, or instantly on the must-do list." A critic for Condé Nast Traveler wrote, "The design isn't too flashy, isn't too rock-and-roll, isn't too homey, yet it has a lick of each of these elements."

Popular culture

The Chelsea has been the setting or inspiration for many works of popular media. In addition, many art events and photography shoots have taken place at the hotel, and several films have been shot there as well.

Films and television

The hotel has been featured in several documentaries. Its history was chronicled in the 2008 documentary Chelsea on the Rocks, directed by Abel Ferrara, and the 2022 documentary Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel, executive-produced by Martin Scorsese. An episode of the TV series An American Family, aired on PBS in 1973, was mostly filmed at the Chelsea, as was an episode of the documentary series Arena. The 1986 film Sid and Nancy, by Alex Cox, chronicled the lives of residents Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen and the circumstances leading up to Spungen's murder in the hotel.

The Chelsea has also been used as a setting for other films. Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey directed Chelsea Girls (1966), a film about Warhol's Factory regulars and their lives at the hotel, and Shirley Clarke's 1967 film Portrait of Jason also used the hotel as a setting. Parts of Sandy Daley's 1971 short film Robert Having His Nipple Pierced were filmed at the Chelsea on a budget of less than $2,000. Ethan Hawke directed the 2001 film Chelsea Walls about a new generation of artists living at the hotel. Other films with scenes shot at the Chelsea include Tally Brown, New York (1979); 9½ Weeks (1986); Anna (1987); Léon: The Professional (1994); and the horror film Hotel Chelsea (2009).

Music

The hotel was featured in many songs. Joni Mitchell is sometimes cited as having written the song "Chelsea Morning" about her room in the hotel. Leonard Cohen and Janis Joplin had an affair there in 1968 (as memorialized in a plaque installed there in 2009), and Cohen later wrote the song "Chelsea Hotel", as well as another version titled "Chelsea Hotel No. 2", about it. Bob Dylan wrote the songs "Visions of Johanna" and "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" there, mentioning this in "Sara". Additionally, Nico's "Chelsea Girls" is about the hotel and its inhabitants. Jorma Kaukonen wrote the song "Third Week in the Chelsea" for Jefferson Airplane's 1971 album Bark after spending three weeks living in the Chelsea. Other songs featuring the hotel include "Midnight in Chelsea" by Bon Jovi, "Hotel Chelsea Nights" by Ryan Adams, "Chelsea Hotel '78" by Alejandro Escovedo, "Bruce Wayne Campbell Interviewed on the Roof of the Chelsea Hotel, 1979" by Okkervil River, and "Chelsea" by Phoebe Bridgers. The hotel has been mentioned in other songs as well, such as Taylor Swift's 2024 song The Tortured Poets Department.

Print media

Stillman Foster Kneeland wrote a poem in 1914, "Roofland", which commemorated the nights that he spent on the Chelsea's roof garden. Similarly, Edgar Lee Masters wrote an ode to the hotel while living there. Arthur Miller wrote a short piece, "The Chelsea Affect", describing life at the Chelsea Hotel in the early 1960s. Nicolaia Rips wrote the memoir Trying to Float: Coming of Age in the Chelsea Hotel in 2016.

The hotel has been the subject of several nonfiction accounts and photographical books. Robert Baral's 1965 book Turn West on 23rd devoted a chapter to the hotel, while Claudio Edinger's 1983 book Chelsea Hotel consisted of photographs of the hotel and its residents. Florence Turner's 1987 book At the Chelsea doubled as a memoir and a description of the hotel's occupants. Ed Hamilton, who moved into the Chelsea in 1995, launched the Living with Legends blog about the hotel in 2005; information from that blog was collated in the 2007 book Legends of the Chelsea Hotel. The hotel was also described in Sherill Tippins's 2013 book Inside the Dream Palace, as well as Victoria Cohen's 2013 coffee table book Hotel Chelsea. In 2019, the photographer Colin Miller published the book Hotel Chelsea: Living in the Last Bohemian Haven, which included pictures of the remaining apartments' interiors.

Several pieces of fiction have been set at the hotel, such as Stuart Cloete's 1947 short story The Blast, describing New York City after a nuclear holocaust. Henry Van Dyke's 1969 book Blood of Strawberries, a black comedy, revolved around a group of fictional bohemians who lived at the hotel. Dee Dee Ramone wrote the book Chelsea Horror Hotel in 2001, and Fiona Davis used it as a setting in her 2019 novel Chelsea Girls. Joseph O'Neill wrote the novel Netherland partly based on his experience living at the hotel.

Other works

The Chelsea hosted a multimedia festival in 1989, At the Chelsea, which celebrated the hotel's history with theatrical shows, music, and performance art. Nicole Burdette's play Chelsea Walls, first performed in 1990, was the basis for the similarly-named 2001 film. In 2013, Welsh choreographers Jessica Cohen and Jim Ennis choreographed a dance piece inspired by the Chelsea Hotel; the piece depicts four fictional couples, who are loosely based on real-life hotel residents. The multimedia performance "Young Artists at the Chelsea", dramatizing the lives of some of the residents, was presented in a gallery in the hotel in 2015.