Living in the Chelsea Hotel

Built in 1883, the Hotel Chelsea, on 23rd Street in New York City, quickly became the most famous and notorious hotel in the world. From day one, it has been a center of artistic and bohemian activity, with notable residents like actor Ethan Hawke, painter Phillip Taaffe, magazine editor Sally Singer, filmmaker Milos Forman, poet and painter Rene Ricard, beat poet Herbert Huncke, and novelist Joseph O’Neill. This photographic collage of 76 images and vignettes was gathered by a longtime hotel resident prior to the hotel’s restoration under new ownership. It unpacks suitcases of memories with atmospheric photographs of residents and guests from the past 20 years. As the author notes, “Life at the Chelsea Hotel arrived in fragments, signs, things heard, and things felt, rather than chronologically charted.”