He has made it part of his life’s work, as he is a writer by trade as well, to become the official collector, repository, and reporter on all things Chelsea. Trolling through the memories of older inhabitants he learns the history of events from the past (The Zombie in the cupboard for instance) that an outsider might not have discovered. It also seems that Ed is willing to give even those with the frailest grips on sanity a listen, meaning even some of the less likely legends are revealed.

But some of the genuine denizens have stories that are even more exciting than any fiction writer could have dreamed up. For instance, Storme DeLarverie is probably not a household name to most of us, but if it weren’t for this brave woman, gay and lesbian rights may have taken years longer to entrench. She through the first punch in what has become known as the Stonewall Rebellion.

The police of New York City were coming down hard on the gay clubs - rounding people up and arresting them for no reason except harassment and figuring no one would ever fight back. That was until Storme threw the first punch and cold conked a cop. That’s when the gays and lesbians threw up their infamous “Stonewall” and fought the cops to a stand still. All it had taken was one person to show they weren’t going to take it and everybody else found the backbone. That one person was Storme DeLarverie.

It’s Ed Hamilton’s introduction of people like this that makes Legends Of The Chelsea Hotel truly invaluable I think. He says at the beginning of the book that it hadn’t been his intent to write about the celebrities of the hotel, but that some of them were just too strong of character to be denied. That doesn’t mean you can expect a typical, “So and so did this” while staying at the Chelsea - Ed is far to human a writer for the important people to be turned into gossip fodder.

Two of my favorite episodes concern two survivors of the chaotic punk years of New York, Dee Dee Ramone and Patti Smith. Dee Dee was an on-again off-again resident of the Hotel for most of his adult life, it seems. He would use her rooms to hole up when he was trying to go clean, or even when he was just looking for somewhere to get away from the world. Ed’s recounting of his conversations with Dee Dee make him sound so human, lost, and sad, that his eventual death by overdose becomes unavoidable.