“I remember her well from the Chelsea Hotel” sang Leonard Cohen, about his brief sexual encounter (blow job) with Janis Joplin. Somehow that’s that type of song you’d expect to be written about an encounter between the melodramatic poet, and the saddest woman in rock history - especially when the Chelsea Hotel was involved.
It’s not often that a building is as famous as the people who have live there, and you have to wonder, who made who famous? Was it the grand old lady whose doors opened 1883 as a luxury co-op residence who made her inhabitants famous - or was it the inhabitants’ fame (and infamy) that gave the Chelsea her status? However it came about, there’s no doubt that even though her time as tallest building in New York City was brief, she will always have her place in history.
It was as early as 1905 that she was converted into a hotel and she catered to the elite of New York’s literary and theatre communities. The forties and fifties saw her still home to her beloved artists, but the body was showing wear and tear and gradually she began the long slow descent into flophouse. Large suites were carved up into small rooms to better serve the down and outs with little money and she would have probably not survived if not for her long term tenants fighting to hold on their own rooms.
For those of you, who like me, have always held romantic notions about certain geographical locations; the Left Bank in Paris for instance, The Chelsea Hotel has probably made herself known to you already. My generation at least knows her as the place where Sid Vicious finally brought his ignoble existence to a finale.
However, if you really want to get to know something about anything these days, you need an insider’s input. Legends Of The Chelsea Hotel by Ed Hamilton is your pass key into the past, present, and some very unfortunate sounding potential futures.
For those of you wondering about Mr. Hamilton’s credentials, well he’s been living in the Chelsea for the past nearly dozen years, which gives him access to the ongoing antics of her inhabitants of course. More importantly, he has been writing about the Chelsea on a regular basis for the majority of that time and is host of Living With Legends: Hotel Chelsea Blog.
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