Late July 2011, would-be guests of the
historic and storied Chelsea Hotel (also known as
Hotel Chelsea or simply The Chelsea)
were informed on their reservations were suddenly canceled, in preparation for a year-long renovation project, which some people
speculate is a union-busting strategy. Given the concerns for the future of The Chelsea,
some came to throw last-minute parties, while long-term tenants held more somber gatherings. On August 1st,
current guests were abruptly escorted out, increasing anxieties about the plans of
the new owner, elusive real estate investor Joseph Chetrit. Even if this is the end of the era, the hotel's
long and varied legacy lives on ...
Built in 1883-1885, The Chelsea was one of the first co-op apartments (Google books preview) in New York City,
possibly designed to be a creative community from the original design, as architect
Philip Gengembre Hubert, "inventer of the co-op," had
direct and familial ties to French philosopher
Charles Fourier.
The Chelsea was the tallest building in New York until 1902, when
the Fuller Building (later known as the Flatiron Building) claimed that title. In 1903, the co-op went bankrupt, and in 1905 or 1906, the building became a hotel. The hotel was not spared in the Great Depression, and in 1939,
the Chelsea Hotel was bought by Joseph Gross, David Bard, and Julius Krauss. In 1957, David passed the management to his son, Stanley Bard, who
is remembered fondly for being supportive of the numerous artists and visionaries. Stanley remained as manager until 2007,
when the Bard family was ousted by Chelsea Board of Directors. The subsequent management mis-steps are
numerous and varied, as accounted in the
Chelsea Hotel Blog, titled Living with Legends. At least
the donuts are delicious.
But what of the
occupants of note? In the early 1900s, French stage and early screen actress
Sarah Bernhardt supposedly
slept in a coffin during her stay at the Chelsea Hotel, and
O. Henry counted the hotel amongst his New York homes, where he
registered under a different name on each visit, to hide from law enforcement, if you believe the stories. Other early notables include
Mark Twain, American actress and singer
Lillian Russell, and a few decades later,
Thomas Wolfe called Room 829 home (and you can stay there -- well, you could have a few weeks ago).
After the depression,
the Chelsea Hotel went from catering to the elite of New York’s literary and theatre communities, down to a long slow descent into flophouse, and the once grand suites turned into smaller rooms. American author, critic and political activist
Mary McCarthy stayed
the Chelsea Hotel a number of times, and Welsh poet
Dylan Thomas was a noted resident in the early 1950s. While some stories say that
he drank himself to death in the Chelsea Hotel,
Thomas died of pneumonia, while in a coma, in a near-by hospital. He was 39 years old.
In 1961, around a year before he died at age 34,
Yves Klein wrote what came to be known as
The Chelsea Hotel Manifesto. Klein might have bumped into Arthur Miller, who moved that same year when Miller divorced Marilyn Monroe.
Miller called the hotel "the high spot of the surreal." By 1964, the "madcap" Chelsea Hotel was "New York's most illustrious third-rate hotel," as described in the Life Magazine article
A Room with Ghost, $4 and Up (Google books). But this dive was
what Arthur C. Clarke called his "spiritual home" for some while. Stanley Kubrick sought out Clarke for a movie about extra-terrestrial life, and the two wrote the script for 2001: A Space Odyssey in The Chelsea, around the same time that Andy Warhol filmed
Chelsea Girls. The film included
specific play-back instructions for playing
two reels side-by-side (YT, 10:00). The film featured a cast of notable names, including
Nico (YT, 7:26), who would go on to
record an album entitled Chelsea Girl, including
a track about some of the inhabitants of the hotel.
Edie Sedgwick (YT, 7:59)
set fire to her room, 105. Her room was just above the lobby so staff could keep close watch on her.
Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell also stayed at the hotel, and were brief lovers in 1967; Mitchell wrote and recorded
Chelsea Morning (TV appearance, on YouTube, 2:54), and
Cohen wrote Chelsea Hotel #2 (live in 1988, YT, 4:14), but about Janis Joplin and not Mitchell.
Robert Mapplethorpe was a resident of Room 1017 in 1969,
with Patti Smith. It was there that
Mapplethorpe was filmed having his nipple pierced, with Smith providing an improvised monologue (description, not video).
The seventies were a time for punk-rockers. Iggy Smith is often mentioned, but overshadowed by
Sid and Nancy's trouble in Room 100, in which
Nancy Spungen was found dead (but don't worry,
the Daily Mail has cleared up the case). Madonna came through in the 1980s (and
again in 1992 for a photo shoot).
Then the Bard family legacy ended, taking with it the support of the arts and artists of all stripes. While it's true that art has been traded for rent, the story of a
Canadian artist trading two pieces for a month's rent
was probably done for positive PR, to cover the ailing image of the hotel as bohemian-friendly. The mystique and history hasn't completely faded --
the hotel was used in a May 2011 Vogue Italia editorial shoot.
Now, the hotel is more notable for it's past than it's present. It's
a key location to visit for the death of famous people, complete with
ghost stories and
hauntings. It's not clear if the
tours of the hotel are still available, but you can find
video tours of rooms and
video re-creations of The Chelsea's history.
Bonus:
1981 BBC Arena documentary on the Chelsea Hotel, in 6 parts:
part 1,
part 2,
part 3,
part 4,
part 5, and
part 6.
Hey, you´d give us something we'd go slip into our coffee
And we'd start reading lines from poems that didn´t matter
You covered me with blankets in the Chelsea Hotel lobby
And I'd start reachin' for the scar along your belly
They'd start takin' us 'cause winning is their hobby
But Crow, when you throw yourself under
The streets are hard when you cannot lose control
They don´t know, to them the dark don´t whisper nothin'
And they're all gonna try and rip the wind from your soul Crow
-- Jim Carroll Band, "Crow"
posted by BitterOldPunk at 9:56 PM on August 6, 2011 [4 favorites]