(from Wikipedia)
The Hotel Chelsea, also known as the Chelsea Hotel, or simply, the Chelsea, is a historic New York City hotel and landmark, known primarily for its history of notable residents. Located at 222 West 23rd Street, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, in the Manhattan neighborhood of Chelsea, the 250-unit[2] hotel has been the home of numerous writers, musicians, artists, and actors, including Bob Dylan, Virgil Thomson, Charles Bukowski, Janis Joplin, Patti Smith, Leonard Cohen, Iggy Pop,Jobriath, Robert Mapplethorpe and Larry Rivers. Though the Hotel Chelsea no longer accepts new long-term residencies, the building is still home to many residents who lived there before the change of policy. Presently, transient guests are limited to a maximum stay of 24 nights.
Sir Arthur C. Clarke wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey while staying at the Chelsea, and poets Allen Ginsberg, and Gregory Corso chose it as a place for philosophical and intellectual exchange. It is also known as the place where the writer Dylan Thomas was staying when he died of alcohol poisoning on November 9, 1953, and where Nancy Spungen, girlfriend of Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols, was found stabbed to death on October 12, 1978.
The building has been a designated New York City landmark since 1966,[3] and on the National Register of Historic Places since 1977.[1][4]
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[edit]History
Built between 1883 and 1885,[3][5] the twelve-story red-brick building that is now the Hotel Chelsea was one of the city's first private apartment cooperatives, which opened in 1884.[2] It was designed by the firm of Hubert, Pirsson & Company in a style that has been described variously as Queen Anne Revival and Victorian Gothic.[5] Among its distinctive features are the delicate, flower-ornamented iron balconies on the facade, which were constructed by J.B. and J.M Cornell.[3][5] and its grand staircase, which reaches up twelve floors. The staircase is not accessible to tourists, only to registered guests, though the hotel does offer monthly tours.
At the time of its construction, the building was the tallest in New York, and its surrounding neighborhood constituted the center of New York's theater district.[6] However, within a few years the combination of economic worries and the relocation of the theaters bankrupted the Chelsea cooperative. In 1905, the building reopened as a hotel, which was later managed by Knott Hotels and resident manager A. R. Walty. After the hotel went bankrupt, it was purchased in 1939 by Joseph Gross, Julius Krauss, and David Bard,[2] and these partners managed the hotel together until the early 1970s. With the passing of Joseph Gross and Julius Krauss, the management fell to Stanley Bard, David Bard's son.
On June 18, 2007, the hotel's board of directors ousted Bard as the hotel's manager. Dr. Marlene Krauss, the daughter of Julius Krauss, and David Elder, the grandson of Joseph Gross and the son of playwright and screenwriter Lonne Elder III, replaced Stanley Bard with the management company BD Hotels NY; that firm has since been terminated as well.
[edit]Notable residents
[edit]Literary artists
During its lifetime Hotel Chelsea has provided a home to many great writers and thinkers includingMark Twain,[7] O. Henry,[7] Herbert Huncke,[8] Dylan Thomas,[7] Arthur C. Clarke, William S. Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Arnold Weinstein, Leonard Cohen, Sharmagne Leland-St. John, Arthur Miller, Quentin Crisp, Gore Vidal, Tennessee Williams,[7] Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac (who wrote On the Road there),[8] Robert Hunter, Jack Gantos, Brendan Behan, Richard Collins[disambiguation needed], Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Thomas Wolfe, Charles Bukowski, Raymond Kennedy, Matthew Richardson, René Ricard, Michael Rips, author of "Face of a Naked lady" and "Pasquale's Nose", Charles R. Jackson, author of The Lost Weekend, committed suicide in his room at the Chelsea on September 21, 1968. Dylan Thomas collapsed in Room 205 at the Chelsea on Nov 9th 1953 and died a few days later in hospital.[9]
[edit]Actors and film directors
The hotel has been a home to actors and film directors such as Stanley Kubrick, Shirley Clarke,Mitch Hedberg, Dave Hill, Miloš Forman, Lillie Langtry, Ethan Hawke, Dennis Hopper, Vincent Gallo, Eddie Izzard, Hal Miller, Kevin O'Connor[disambiguation needed], Uma Thurman, Elliot Gould,Elaine Stritch, Michael Imperioli, Jane Fonda, Gaby Hoffmann and her mother, the Warhol film star Viva, and Edie Sedgwick.
[edit]Musicians
Much of Hotel Chelsea's history has been colored by the musicians who have resided or visited there. Some of the most prominent names include The Grateful Dead, Tom Waits, Patti Smith, Iggy Pop, Virgil Thomson, Jeff Beck, Chick Corea,Dee Dee Ramone, Phil Lynott, Henri Chopin, John Cale, Édith Piaf, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Alice Cooper, Alejandro Escovedo, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Peter Walker, Canned Heat, Sid Vicious, Vivian Stanshall, Richard Hell, Jobriath Boone, Little Annie, Rufus Wainwright, Abdullah Ibrahim/Sathima Bea Benjamin, Vasant Rai, and Leonard Cohen. Madonna lived at the Chelsea in the early eighties, returning in 1992 to shoot photographs for her book, Sex, in room 822.[10] Falco, Ryan Adams, The Libertines, The Fuse (UK), Michael McDermott, Melissa Auf der Maur, Tim Freedman, and Anthony Kiedis have spent time at The Chelsea[citation needed]. Taylor Momsen's Band, the Pretty Reckless, did a photo shoot in room 822 of the Chelsea. British pop band La Roux shot at the second version of the music video for their song "In for the Kill" at the Chelsea.
[edit]Visual artists
The hotel has featured and collected the work of the many visual artists who have passed through. Joe Andoe, Larry Rivers, Brett Whiteley, Christo,Arman, Sheila Berger, Richard Bernstein, Francesco Clemente, Julian Schnabel,Ana de Portela] Ching Ho Cheng, David Remfry, Philip Taaffe, Ralph Gibson, Robert Mapplethorpe, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Robert Crumb, Jasper Johns, Edie Sedgwick, Claes Oldenburg, Vali Myers, Donald Baechler, Herbert Gentry, Willem De Kooning, Lynne Drexler and Henri Cartier-Bresson have all spent time at Hotel Chelsea. Painter & ethnomusicologist Harry Everett Smith lived and died at the Chelsea in Room 328. The painter Alphaeus Philemon Cole lived there for 35 years until his death in 1988 at age 112, when he was the oldest living man.[11] Bohemian abstract and Pop art painter Susan Olmetti creates paintings outside on the sidewalk during her frequent summer residencies at the hotel.
[edit]Fashion designers
Charles James: Amongst the ranks of the legendary couturiers of the 20th Century who influenced fashion in the 1940s and 50s—a man also credited with being America's first couturier. In 1964 he moved into the Chelsea Hotel in New York. James died of pneumonia at the Chelsea Hotel in 1978.
New York nightlife regular, fashion designer extraordinaire, and Chelsea resident Zaldy designed the shroud for Michael Jackson's coffin. The designer, also known for his work with the Scissor Sisters, was Jackson’s chief costume designer for the London "This Is It" show.
[edit]Warhol superstars
Hotel Chelsea is often associated with the Andy Warhol Superstars, as he and Paul Morrisey directedChelsea Girls (1966), a film about his Factory regulars and their lives at the hotel. Chelsea residents from the Warhol scene included Edie Sedgwick, Viva, Ultra Violet, Mary Woronov, Holly Woodlawn,Andrea Feldman, Nico, Paul America, and Brigid Berlin.
