Chelsea Hotel

The Hotel Chelsea (also known as the Chelsea Hotel and the Chelsea) is a hotel at 222 West 23rd Street in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Built between 1883 and 1884, the hotel was designed by Philip Hubert in a style described variously as Queen Anne Revival and Victorian Gothic. The 12-story Chelsea, originally a housing cooperative, has been the home of numerous writers, musicians, artists, and entertainers, some of whom still lived there in the 21st century. As of 2022, most of the Chelsea is a luxury hotel. The building is a New York City designated landmark and on the National Register of Historic Places.

The front facade of the Hotel Chelsea is 11 stories high, while the rear of the hotel rises 12 stories. The facade is divided vertically into five sections and is made of brick, with some flower-ornamented iron balconies; the hotel is capped by a high mansard roof. The Hotel Chelsea has thick load-bearing walls made of masonry, as well as wrought iron floor beams and large, column-free spaces. When the hotel opened, the ground floor was divided into an entrance hall, four storefronts, and a restaurant; this has been rearranged over the years, with a bar and the El Quijote restaurant occupying part of the ground floor. The Chelsea was among the first buildings in the city with duplex and penthouse apartments, and there is also a rooftop terrace. The hotel originally had no more than 100 apartments; it was subdivided into 400 units during the 20th century and has 155 units as of 2022.

The idea for the Chelsea arose after Hubert & Pirsson had developed several housing cooperatives in New York City. Developed by the Chelsea Association, the structure quickly attracted authors and artists after opening. Several factors, including financial hardships and tenant relocations, prompted the Chelsea’s conversion into an apartment hotel in 1905. Knott Hotels took over the hotel in 1921 and managed it until about 1942, when David Bard bought it out of bankruptcy. Julius Krauss and Joseph Gross joined Bard as owners in 1947. After David Bard died in 1964, his son Stanley operated it for 43 years, forming close relationships with many tenants. The hotel underwent numerous minor changes in the late 20th century after falling into a state of disrepair. The Krauss and Gross families took over the hotel in 2007 and were involved in numerous tenant disputes before the Chelsea closed for a major renovation in 2011. The hotel changed ownership twice in the 2010s before BD Hotels took over in 2016, and the Chelsea reopened in 2022.

Over the years, the Chelsea has housed many notables such as Arthur Miller, Bob Dylan, Arthur C. Clarke, Patti Smith, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Virgil Thomson. The Chelsea received much commentary for the creative culture that Bard helped create within the hotel. Critics also appraised the hotel’s interior—which was reputed for its uncleanliness in the mid- and late 20th century—and the quality of the hotel rooms themselves. The Chelsea has been the setting or inspiration for many works of popular media, and it has been used as an event venue and filming location.

Over the years, the Chelsea has become particularly well-known for its residents, who have come from all social classes. The New York Times described the hotel in 2001 as a „roof for creative heads“, given the large number of such personalities who have stayed at the Chelsea; the previous year, the same newspaper had characterized the list of tenants as „living history“. The journalist Pete Hamill characterized the hotel’s clientele as „radicals in the 1930s, British sailors in the 40s, Beats in the 50s, hippies in the 60s, decadent poseurs in the 70s“. Although early tenants were wealthy, the Chelsea attracted less well-off tenants by the mid-20th century, and many writers, musicians, and artists lived at the Hotel Chelsea when they were short on money. Accordingly, the Chelsea’s guest list had almost zero overlap with that of the more fashionable Plaza Hotel crosstown. New York magazine wrote that „people who lived in the hotel slept together as often as they celebrated holidays together“, particularly under Stanley Bard’s tenure. Despite the high number of notable people associated with the Chelsea, its residents typically desired privacy and frowned upon those who used their relationships with their neighbors to further their own careers.

The Hotel Chelsea has housed numerous literary figures, some of whom wrote their books there. Arthur C. Clarke wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey while staying at the Chelsea, calling the hotel his „spiritual home“ despite its condition. Thomas Wolfe lived in the hotel before his death in 1938, writing several books such as You Can’t Go Home Again; he often walked around the halls to gain inspiration for his writing. William S. Burroughs also lived at the Chelsea. While living at the Chelsea, Edgar Lee Masters wrote 18 poetry books, often wandering the hotel for hours. 

Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (who lived with his wife Caitlin Thomas) was staying in room 205 when he became ill and died in 1953, while American poet Delmore Schwartz spent the last few years of his life in seclusion at the Chelsea before he died in 1966. Irish poet Brendan Behan, a severe alcoholic who had been ejected from the Algonquin Hotel, lived at the hotel for several months before his death in 1964. Many poets of the Beat poetry movement also lived at the Chelsea before the Beat Hotel in Paris became popular.

Other authors, writers, and journalists who stayed or lived at the hotel have included:

Henry Abbey, poet – Nelson Algren, writer – Léonie Adams, poet; lived with husband William Troy – Sherwood Anderson, writer – Ben Lucien Burman, writer – Henri Chopin, poet and musician – Ira Cohen, poet and filmmaker – Gregory Corso, poet – Hart Crane, poet – Quentin Crisp, writer and actor – Jane Cunningham Croly, journalist – Katherine Dunn, novelist and journalist – Edward Eggleston, writer – James T. Farrell, novelist – Allen Ginsberg, poet – John Giorno, poet – Maurice Girodias, publisher – Pete Hamill, journalist – Bernard Heidsieck, poet – O. Henry, writer – Herbert Huncke, poet – Clifford Irving, novelist and reporter – Charles R. Jackson, author – Theodora Keogh, novelist – Jack Kerouac, writer – Suzanne La Follette, journalist – John La Touche, lyricist – Jakov Lind, novelist – Mary McCarthy, novelist and political activist – Arthur Miller, playwright – Jessica Mitford, author – Vladimir Nabokov, novelist – Eugene O’Neill, playwright – Joseph O’Neill, novelist – Claude Pélieu, poet and artist – Rene Ricard, poet – James Schuyler, poet – Sam Shepard, playwright and actor – Valerie Solanas, writer – Benjamin Stolberg, publicist and author – Richard Suskind, children’s writer – William Troy, critic; lived with wife Léonie Adams – Mark Twain, writer – Gore Vidal, writer – Arnold Weinstein, librettist – Tennessee Williams, playwright – Yevgeny Yevtushenko, poet.

The Chelsea was particularly popular among rock musicians and rock and roll musicians in the 1970s. These included Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols, who allegedly stabbed his girlfriend Nancy Spungen to death at the hotel in 1978; after Vicious’s death, their room was split into two units to prevent the room from being turned into a shrine. Numerous rock bands frequented the Chelsea as well, including the Allman Brothers, the Band, Big Brother and the Holding Company, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, the Byrds, Country Joe and the Fish, Jefferson Airplane, Lovin‘ Spoonful, Moby Grape, the Mothers of Invention, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Sly and the Family Stone, and the Stooges. The Kills wrote much of their album No Wow at the Chelsea prior to its release in 2005. The Grateful Dead once performed on the roof.