The Hotel Chelsea â€" also called the Chelsea Hotel, or simply the Chelsea â€" is a historic New York City hotel and landmark built between 1883 and 1885, known primarily for the notability of its residents over the years. The 250-unit hotel is located at 222 West 23rd Street, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, in the neighborhood of Chelsea, Manhattan. The building has been a designated New York City landmark since 1966, and on the National Register of Historic Places since 1977.
It has been the home of numerous writers, musicians, artists and actors. Though the Chelsea no longer accepts new long-term residencies, the building is still home to many who lived there before the change in policy. As of August 1, 2011, the hotel is closed for renovations. 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 artistic exchange. It is also known as the place where the writer Dylan Thomas was staying in room 205 when he died of pneumonia 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. Arthur Miller has written a short piece, "The Chelsea Affect", describing life at Hotel Chelsea in the early 1960s.
History
Built between 1884 and 1885 and opened for initial occupation in 1884, the twelve-story red-brick building that is now the Hotel Chelsea was one of the city's first private apartment cooperatives. It was designed by Philip Hubert of the firm of Hubert, Pirrson & Company in a style that has been described variously as Queen Anne Revival and Victorian Gothic. Among its distinctive features are the delicate, flower-ornamented iron balconies on its facade, which were constructed by J.B. and J.M. Cornell and its grand staircase, which extends upward twelve floors. Generally, this staircase is only accessible to registered guests, although the hotel does offer monthly tours to others. At the time of its construction, the building was the tallest in New York.
Hubert and Pirsson had created a "Hubert Home Club" in 1880 for "The Rembrandt", a six-story building on West 57th Street intended as housing for artists. This early cooperative building had rental units to help defray costs, and also provided servants as part of the building staff. The success of this model led to other "Hubert Home Clubs", and the Chelsea was one of them. Initially successful, its surrounding neighborhood constituted the center of New York's theater district. However within a few years the combination of economic stresses, the suspicions of New York's middle class about apartment living, the opening up of Upper Manhattan and the plentiful supply of houses there, and the relocation of the city's theater district bankrupted the Chelsea.
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, 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 (1934â€"2017), 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.
In May 2011, the hotel was sold to real estate developer Joseph Chetrit for US $80 million.
As of August 1, 2011, the hotel stopped taking reservations for guests in order to begin renovations, but long-time residents remain in the building, some of them protected by state rent regulations. The renovations prompted complaints by the remaining tenants of health hazards caused by the construction. These were investigated by the city's Building Department, which found no major violations. In November 2011, the management ordered all of the hotel's many artworks taken off the walls, supposedly for their protection and cataloging, a move which some tenants interpreted as a step towards forcing them out as well. In 2013, Ed Scheetz became the Chelsea Hotel's new owner after buying back five properties from Joseph Chetrit, his partner in King & Grove Hotels, and David Bistricer. Hotel Chelsea plans to reopen in 2018.
Notable residents
Literary artists
During its lifetime Hotel Chelsea has provided a home to many famous writers and thinkers including Mark Twain, O. Henry, Herbert Huncke, Dylan Thomas, Arthur C. Clarke, Sam Shepard, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Jack Kerouac (who wrote On the Road there), Brendan Behan, Thomas Wolfe, Valerie Solanas, William S. Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Arnold Weinstein, Sharmagne Leland-St. John, Quentin Crisp, Gore Vidal, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Hunter, Jack Gantos, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Charles Bukowski, Jan Cremer, Henk Hofland, Raymond Kennedy, Matthew Richardson, James T. Farrell, Mary Cantwell, Rene Ricard, Brad Gooch and R. K. Narayan.
Charles R. Jackson, author of The Lost Weekend, committed suicide in his room on September 21, 1968.
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, Eddie Izzard, Uma Thurman, Elliott Gould, Elaine Stritch, Michael Imperioli, Jane Fonda, Russell Brand, the Warhol film star Viva, and Edie Sedgwick.
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, Nico, Tom Waits, Patti Smith, Jim Morrison, Iggy Pop, Virgil Thomson, Chick Corea, Jeff Beck, Dee Dee Ramone, Johnny Thunders, Mink DeVille, Marianne Faithfull, Cher, John Cale, Édith Piaf, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Alice Cooper, Bette Midler, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, Canned Heat, Sid Vicious, and Rufus Wainwright. Madonna lived at the Chelsea in the early 1980s, returning in 1992 to shoot photographs for her book, Sex, in room 822. Leonard Cohen, who lived in room 424, and Janis Joplin, in room 411, had an affair there in 1968, and Cohen later wrote two songs about it, "Chelsea Hotel" and "Chelsea Hotel #2".
Visual artists
The hotel has featured and collected the work of the many visual artists who have passed through. Doris Chase, Bernard Childs, Brett Whiteley, Arman, Martial Raysse, Jean Tinguely, Niki de Saint-Phalle, Christo, Francesco Clemente, Julian Schnabel, David Remfry, Diego Rivera, Robert Crumb, Ellen Cantor, Jasper Johns, Tom Wesselmann, Claes Oldenburg, Herbert Gentry, Willem de Kooning, Robert Mapplethorpe, Moses Soyer (who died there in 1974), Nora Sumberg, and Henri Cartier-Bresson have all spent time at the hotel. Experimental filmmaker and ethnomusicologist Harry Everett Smith lived and died in Room 328. The painter Alphaeus Philemon Cole lived there for 35 years until his death in 1988 at age 112, at which point he was the oldest verified man alive.
Fashion designers
Charles James, credited with being America's first couturier who influenced fashion in the 1940s and 1950s, moved into the Chelsea in 1964. He died there of pneumonia in 1978.
Warhol
Hotel Chelsea is often associated with the Warhol superstars, as Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey directed Chelsea Girls (1966), a film about his Factory regulars and their lives at the hotel.
Others
Several survivors of the Titanic stayed for some time in this hotel as it is a short distance from Pier 54, the White Star Line dock where the Titanic was supposed to dock. The Chelsea was also home to many sailors returning from their duties in World War I.
In popular culture
Films and television
The hotel has been featured in:
Music
The hotel is featured in many songs, including:
Books
- Hamilton, Ed. Legends of the Chelsea Hotel: Living with the Artists and Outlaws at New York's Rebel Mecca. ISBNÂ 978-1-56858-379-2.Â
- Lough, James. This Ain't No Holiday Inn: Down and Out at the Chelsea Hotel 1980â€"1995. ISBN 1936182521.Â
- Ramone, Dee Dee. Chelsea Horror Hotel: A Novel. ISBNÂ 1-56025-304-5.Â
- Tippins, Sherill (2013). Inside the Dream Palace: the Life and Times of New York's Legendary Chelsea Hotel. Simon & Schuster. ISBNÂ 0743295617.Â
- Turner, Florence. At The Chelsea. ISBNÂ 978-0151097807.Â
- Wielaert, Jeroen. Chelsea Hotel, een Biografie van een Hotel (in Dutch). ISBNÂ 90-76927-02-2.Â
References
External links
- Chelsea Hotel â€" New York Architecture images
- 360° Panoramas of Chelsea Hotel before 2011â€"2012 renovations
- "Ed Hamilton: One of the last Chelsea Hotel Bohemians". The Somerville News. January 30, 2013.Â
