Hotel Chelsea

The Hotel Chelsea is at 222 West 23rd Street in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It stands on the south side of the street, between Eighth Avenue and Seventh Avenue. The hotel was developed on a site created by combining seven land lots. The store and the land had belonged to James Ingersoll, who was associated with the Tammany Hall political ring in the 1870s. When the Hotel Chelsea was completed in 1884, the lot was flanked by a church on either side. == Architecture ==

The Hotel Chelsea was designed by Philip Hubert of the firm of Hubert, Pirrson & Company. The style has been described variously as Queen Anne Revival, Victorian Gothic, or a mixture of the two. It was one of the first Victorian Gothic buildings to be erected in New York City. At the time of its completion, it was the city's tallest apartment building at approximately tall. According to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, the Chelsea's design was evocative of the demolished Spanish Flats on Central Park South. and is divided vertically into 25 bays. It is grouped into five sections, with projecting pavilions at the western end, center, and eastern end of the facade. These pavilions flank two groups of recessed bays. and another plaque mentioning that the building is on the National Register of Historic Places. On the upper floors, the brick is interspersed with white stone bands. The hotel has flower-ornamented iron balconies on its second through eighth stories, These balconies were intended as "light balconies, after the Paris fashion"; according to author Sherill Tippins, the balconies were meant to "add charm to the lower floors". The center of the roof was interspersed with hip roofs, beneath which were duplex apartments; residents of these duplexes had direct access to the roof. The basement measured up to deep and housed the kitchen, laundry, refrigerators, coal rooms, engines, and machinery for gas-powered and electric light. Public areas When the hotel opened in 1884, the ground floor was divided into an entrance hall, four storefronts, and a restaurant for tenants who did not have their own kitchen. The lobby was originally furnished with a marble floor and mahogany wainscoting. On the left wall of the lobby was an elaborate fireplace mantel, These rooms had decorations such as stained glass, carved gargoyles, and fleurs-de-lis. Next to the lobby was a manager's office, whose ceiling had gold trimmings and a mural with clouds and angels. as well as a restaurant, cafe, laundry room, billiards room, bakery, fish-and-meat shop, and grocery on the ground floor and basement. The lobby contains furniture in various colors, while the front desk is clad with purple marble. In addition, various paintings by residents are hung on the beige-pink walls, and the lobby's ceiling is decorated with frescoes, roses, and garlands. Adjacent to the lobby is the Lobby Bar, which contains mosaic-tile floors, a marble bar, art from former residents, and old chandeliers. This bar, formerly storage space, has several pieces of mid-century modern furniture which has occupied the hotel since 1955. The restaurant is decorated with a marble terrazzo floor, a rough-hewn ceiling, Among the decorations are a series of murals depicting scenes from the book Don Quixote, as well as oil paintings. the Dulcinea and Cervantes rooms at the rear comprised nearly half of the restaurant's seating capacity. located within three rooms. The bistro includes vintage decorations, some taken from the Lord & Taylor Building. Also at ground level is a mom-and-pop store named Chelsea Guitars and a private event space known as the Bard Room. The main staircase, at the center of the hotel, is illuminated by a rooftop skylight The walls of the staircase were once lined with photos created by residents. The staircase originally had iron railings and marble treads. There was also an elevator cage, decorated with rosettes that matched the exterior decorations. Above the ground floor, there were originally either 90, or 100 apartments in total. Each floor had a mixture of small and large apartments, so residents of different socioeconomic classes could reside on the same story. Sources disagree on whether the largest apartments had eight, and many units also had servants' bedrooms. These apartments were arranged as duplexes, with artists' studios on the upper level and bedrooms on the lower level, This was reduced by the 2000s to about 240 or 250 units (some with multiple rooms). Following a renovation that was completed in 2022, some decorative features, such as entry halls and doorknobs, were redesigned with monograms containing the hotel's name. == History ==

During the early 19th century, apartment developments in the city were generally associated with the working class, but by the late 19th century, apartments were also becoming desirable among the middle and upper classes. Between 1880 and 1885, more than ninety apartment buildings were developed in the city. The architect Philip Hubert and his partner James W. Pirrson had created a "Hubert Home Club" in 1880 for the Rembrandt, a six-story building on 57th Street that had been built as housing for artists. Hubert believed that such clubs could help entice middle- and upper-class New Yorkers to live in apartment buildings. The structure, later known as the Chelsea Hotel, was originally known as the Chelsea Association Building and was to be developed by the Chelsea Association. It is unknown who specifically devised the idea for the building. In August 1883, the Chelsea Association obtained a $200,000 mortgage loan for the building () from the Equitable Life Assurance Society. The same bank placed a $300,000 mortgage loan on the hotel that December (). By March 1884, the Chelsea Association Building was nearly complete. One account in The New York Times described the Chelsea as "the most profitable and popular of [Hubert and Pirsson's] enterprises". Two-thirds of the original apartments were owned by Chelsea Association stockholders, and the other third were rented out. Almost from the outset, the Chelsea was one of the most popular of Hubert's Home Clubs, and there were more prospective tenants than available apartments. The Chelsea was located in what was then the center of New York City's theater district, with venues such as the Booth's Theatre and the Grand Opera House nearby. According to the Real Estate Record and Guide, many construction suppliers and workers moved into the apartments rather than accept monetary compensation. These residents largely moved from other apartment buildings. Other early residents included painter Rufus Fairchild Zogbaum, During the 1890s, many of the Chelsea Association's original stockholders either died, moved away, or had become involved in legal and financial controversies. By the 1900s, the Chelsea was accepting a larger number of short-term visitors. In the first two decades of the 20th century, the hotel hosted events such a merchandise sales; meetings of local groups, like the Chelsea Society of New York and Syracuse University Club of New York; and educational lectures. Following the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912, several guests from the Titanic were also given rooms at the hotel. The managers sometimes removed guests' corpses from the hotel. One of the ground-level stores was leased to the Greater Engineering Company in 1920. Knott operation Knott Hotels, a family-owned firm that operated numerous budget hotels in New York City, leased the hotel in March 1921, establishing the 222 West Twenty-third Street Hotel Corporation to operate the Chelsea. The lease initially ran until 1942. By then, half of the Chelsea Association's original stockholders remained, and many parts of the hotel needed to be repaired or upgraded. Shortly after taking over, the Knotts split up some of the apartments, added a reception desk at the bottom of the Chelsea's grand staircase, closed the dining room, and added kitchenettes to existing apartments. In addition, the hotel's American floor numbering system was changed to a European floor numbering system; for instance, the second story, directly above ground level, was renumbered as floor 1. The Hotel Carteret was erected to the east in 1927, blocking eastward views from the Chelsea. By the end of the 1920s, the Chelsea had been further subdivided into more than 300 rooms. The Knotts had replaced the lobby's paintings with wallpaper, and they had moved the original lobby furniture to make way for a heater on a banquette. Most of the hotel's bellhops and waiters were African-American by this time. Switchboard operators and desk clerks called residents by their nicknames. The Asbury Park Press called the Chelsea one of the "last ornate landmarks of a Little Old New York locality". Batchelder's Restaurant leased the Chelsea's restaurant space in early 1930. During that decade, the Chelsea Hotel remained popular among artists and writers because of the low rents, the friendly atmosphere, and the fact that the residences provided large amounts of privacy. Because many of the old apartments had been subdivided, each floor had various winding corridors leading to the different rooms. The low rents in particular attracted artists like John Sloan and Edgar Lee Masters. There was controversy in late 1934 when then-manager Jerry Gagin commissioned a series of satirical paintings from John McKiernan, depicting three politicians. Knott Hotels president William Knott ordered Gagin to remove the murals, but Gagin refused, and the murals were instead covered up. The New York Bank for Savings repossessed the building at an auction in approximately July 1942. That October, the Bank for Savings sold the hotel, along with the adjacent brownstone house at 229 West 22nd Street, to the Chelsea Hotel Company at an assessed value of $561,500 (). The buyers took over a $220,000 mortgage () that had been placed on the hotel. At the time, the hotel had seven stores, 319 guestrooms, and 176 bathrooms. and members of the United States Maritime Service used the space as the U.S. Maritime Service Graduate Station. In 1944, architect Morris Whinston filed plans for $5,000 () worth of alterations to the hotel. The Chelsea started to become associated with bohemianism during the 1940s and 1950s, The structure also hosted office tenants such as the World Congress of the Partisans of Peace on the ground floor. Bard had grown exasperated of the tenants' complaints by 1947, when he sold most of his shares to desk clerk Julius Krauss and plumber Joseph Gross, retaining five percent of his shares in the building. During this era, the hotel often served as a gathering place for left-wing and socialist activists; for instance, one of the ground-floor spaces was occupied by left-wing organizers who supported the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. Bard again became involved in the hotel's operations by the early 1950s. Bard, Gross, and Krauss jointly operated the hotel through the rest of this decade. The El Quijote restaurant, operated by a group of Spanish immigrants, moved to the Hotel Chelsea in 1955. By the late 1950s, the Chelsea had begun to accept black residents, starting with the printmaker Robert Blackburn, and European artists were increasingly moving in. By the beginning of the 1960s, the Chelsea Hotel was known as the "Dowager of 23rd Street", due to the low rental rates. Nouveaux Realistes artists also began to frequent the hotel in the 1960s, and pop artists often collaborated there by 1962. The New York Community Trust installed a plaque outside the building in 1962, detailing the hotel's history. and the playwright and poet Brendan Behan. Stanley Bard operation Stanley Bard became manager in 1964 after his father died. Stanley, who had been a plumber's assistant at the hotel since 1957 Bard did not run advertisements, instead attracting new residents via word of mouth. Bard generally had a lax attitude toward unpaid rent; Another resident who could not afford rent was hired as a bellhop. he helped curate the artistic community there, and residents were free to walk into his office and talk with him. 1960s and 1970s By the mid-1960s, the hotel began to attract artists who frequented Andy Warhol's Factory studio, as well as rock musicians (who were not allowed in many other hotels). The Austin American described the hotel as having "400 rooms, 150 kitchens, and 150 fireplaces". The hotel was physically decaying during that time, a decision ratified by the New York City Board of Estimate that June, despite opposition from a local planning board, which called the Chelsea a "shabby institution". The hotel, which was recognized for both architectural and historical significance, The staircase was also cleaned in phases from top to bottom. The popularity of Chelsea Girls—along with that of the album Blonde on Blonde, written by Chelsea Hotel resident Bob Dylan—attracted many aspiring artists and actors to the hotel during the late 1960s, in spite of its rundown condition. About half of the rooms were occupied by permanent residents by the early 1970s; although new residents had to pay at least $400 () per month, older residents were protected by rent regulation and paid as little as $155 a month (). The hotel's residents included many stage and film stars, artists, and "less conventional celebrities", who stayed despite the lack of modern amenities and the presence of pests. For many residents, however, there was "no life outside the Hotel", so they did not feel compelled to move. By the early 1970s, residents were increasingly unable to pay rent because of a general economic downturn, and Bard was forced to evict some residents to reduce expenses. The hotel was in decline by the mid-1970s, with graffitied walls and a cockroach infestation. Resident suicides and fires were frequent, and the Chelsea was damaged in a 1978 fire that killed one resident. and the death of her boyfriend—Sid Vicious, who had been charged with her murder—the next year, brought further negative attention to the hotel. many residents remained in spite of the decline in both the hotel and the surrounding neighborhood. Bard dispelled concerns by saying that any major crime at the hotel was covered by the media due to the Chelsea's bohemian nature. The hotel was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. 1980s to 2000s Bard and the Chelsea's residents had planned a centennial celebration in November 1983, though the celebration was delayed by a year. Bard said at the time that he wanted "to keep the atmosphere kooky but nice, eccentric but beautiful", The Chelsea was still cheap; nightly room rates were about one-third that of more upscale hotels uptown, and studios there were less expensive than others in the neighborhood. The balcony's collapse prompted a subsequent renovation of the building. David Bard upgraded the lobby's equipment, The Chelsea's reputation for "wildness" receded in the 1990s, though the hotel continued to attract artistic tenants under Bard's management. Short-term guests also traveled to the hotel for a variety of reasons. Some wished to stay in rooms occupied by particular residents, while others traveled there because of their cheap rates. The guestrooms lacked modern amenities such as minibars, room service, and cable TV. The Bards continued to renovate selected rooms as part of a wide-ranging rehabilitation, By the end of the 20th century, three-fourths of the hotel was occupied by long-term residents, There was also an art gallery and a basement bar named Serena. Unfounded rumors of a potential sale were circulating by the end of the 20th century. Marlene Krauss, the daughter of Julius Krauss, told Bard to stop renewing long-term residents' leases in 2005. At the time, three-fifths of the hotel's 240–250 rooms were occupied by permanent residents. A nightclub called the Star Lounge opened in the Chelsea's basement in early 2007. Conversion to luxury hotel Krauss–Elder operation In 2007, an arbitrator ruled that Bard's family owned 58 percent of the hotel's value but that his partners had a majority stake in the operation. The hotel's board of directors ousted Bard in June 2007, after Krauss and Elder claimed that Bard had allowed tenants to stay even if they had fallen far behind on their rent. BD Hotels attempted to correct several violations of city building codes and obtain documentation on tenants who were not registered with the city government. The new operators also opened a basement lounge and restored the ballroom. Krauss wished to increase the number of short-term guests Many hotel residents feared that the plans would change the character of the hotel, one of the few remaining non-gentrified places in Chelsea, At the time, Krauss and Elder were evicting tenants and were planning a renovation of the hotel. Elder denied that tenants were being targeted, saying that all of the evicted tenants had failed to pay rent; and subsequently filed a wrongful dismissal lawsuit against the hotel's operators. Andrew Tilley was hired to manage the hotel in June 2008 and continued to serve eviction notices to tenants. Tilley resigned after seven months, citing tenant harassment. Elder took over direct management of the hotel in 2009. after the former Star Lounge's space had been gutted. The Chelsea's 15 shareholders put the hotel up for sale in October 2010, when there were 125 short-term guestrooms and 100 apartments. Stanley Bard's son David made a bid to buy the Chelsea, A Doughnut Plant shop opened at the hotel in early 2011. Chetrit and Scheetz operation Real estate developer Joseph Chetrit announced in May 2011 that he had bought the hotel for $80 million. Chetrit stopped taking reservations for new guests that July and officially took title to the hotel the next month. Gene Kaufman was hired to design a renovation of the Chelsea, which was funded by an $85 million loan from Natixis. Kaufman intended to change the room layouts and renovate vacant retail space in the basement and ground floor. but the staff were fired. and some of the non-rent-regulated residents. That September, resident Zoe Pappas formed the Chelsea Tenants Association, which about half of the remaining residents joined. From 2011 to 2013, residents filed a large number of lawsuits against Chetrit. although the city's Building Department found no major violations of building codes. Following a lawsuit in December 2011, a state court ordered Chetrit to clean the air in the hotel. King & Grove Hotels was hired in January 2012 to operate the hotel, and Chetrit proposed a rooftop addition shortly afterward, which the LPC approved despite concerns from residents. Chetrit was ordered to fix additional building violations in May 2012 after tenants alleged that the renovation created toxic dust and allowed mold and rust to spread. Other tenant lawsuits included a dispute over a deceased tenant's artwork and a complaint over disrupted gas, heat, and hot water service. In addition, Chetrit sued Bard in early 2013, claiming that Bard had overrepresented the hotel's value. Chetrit, David Bistricer and King & Grove Hotels CEO, Ed Scheetz co-owned the hotel until August 2013, when Scheetz took over the Chelsea Hotel. King & Grove and existing residents agreed on a rent settlement the next month, in which residents could stay in upgraded apartments. Scheetz continued to evict other tenants who had fallen behind on rent. At the time, there were 65 remaining apartments and 170 guestrooms. Scheetz also hired Marvel Architects to modify Kaufman's designs, prompting a lawsuit from Kaufman. After rebranding King & Grove as Chelsea Hotels in 2014, Scheetz bought the El Quijote restaurant that year. The Chelsea Hotel Storefront Gallery also opened at ground level in 2014. Following a campaign led by residents, Scheetz agreed to preserve a first-floor suite once occupied by the poet Dylan Thomas. Scheetz also wished to renovate 52 remaining apartments, which were occupied by 83 tenants. Accordingly, he offered to buy out their apartments, move them to the lower stories, or move them temporarily to the Martha Washington Hotel. By mid-2015, Scheetz and his partners Bill Ackman, Joseph Steinberg, and Wheelock Street Capital had spent $185 million on renovations, which were not expected to be completed for two years. Scheetz had withdrawn from the Chelsea Hotel project entirely by March 2016, after a series of budget overruns and delays, although his partners retained a stake in the project. BD Hotels takeover BD Hotels took over the hotel's operation that July and began working to renovate 120 of the hotel rooms, as well as restoring or preserving the apartments of 51 existing tenants. At the time, the renovation was planned to be completed in 2018. SIR Chelsea LLC, led by Sean MacPherson, Ira Drukier, and Richard Born, bought the Chelsea Hotel in October 2016 for $250 million. MacPherson led additional renovations at the hotel, including restoration of artwork and design features, as well as new public areas like a bar and spa on the roof. To convince mayor Bill de Blasio to approve further changes, Drukier and Born sent tens of thousands of dollars to various funds for de Blasio. Bard's collection of paintings was sold off in 2017 after he died, and work was again halted that year when the city found high concentrations of lead in the dust. By then, two single room occupancy apartments remained in the Chelsea, and many tenants had temporarily relocated. Some of the hotel's original doors were removed and sold at auction in 2018. The next year, several holdout tenants filed a lawsuit to retain control of their apartments. Work on the renovation had mostly stalled by early 2020 due to a harassment lawsuit against the owners, though a state judge dismissed that suit. The city government also contended that the owners had harassed the tenants, and further lawsuits were filed throughout that year. Other residents, who wanted the hotel's renovation to be completed quickly, sided with the owners. The hotel's owners sued the city in May 2021, claiming that the construction delays had cost them $100 million. El Quijote reopened in February 2022, Initially, the rooms were rented at a discount while work continued. and the hotel fully reopened in mid-2022. and the hotel's owners still had an open lawsuit against the city. Café Chelsea, a French bistro, opened within the hotel in July 2023. A Japanese restaurant, Teruko, opened at the hotel in March 2025. == Notable residents ==

Over the years, the Chelsea has become particularly well-known for its residents, the previous year, the same newspaper had characterized the list of tenants as "living history". 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''; While living at the Chelsea, Edgar Lee Masters wrote 18 poetry books, Irish playwright and 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. • Sherwood Anderson, writer • Gregory Corso, poet • Hart Crane, poet • Jane Cunningham Croly, journalist • Allen Ginsberg, poet • O. Henry, writer • Charles R. Jackson, author • Theodora Keogh, novelist • Suzanne La Follette, journalist • Valerie Solanas, writer • Benjamin Stolberg, publicist and author • Richard Suskind, children's writer • Tennessee Williams, playwright Members of the Squat Theatre Company also stayed in the hotel in the 1970s while performing nearby. Other entertainment personalities who lived or stayed at the Chelsea include: • Martine Barrat, filmmaker • Peter Brook, director • Ethan Hawke, actor and film director • Dave Hill, comedian • Dennis Hopper, filmmaker • Eddie Izzard, comedian • Stanley Kubrick, director • Aurélia Thierrée, actress • Rosa von Praunheim, filmmaker • Mary Woronov, actress lived at the hotel for nearly five decades before his death in 1989; Thompson persuaded Stanley Bard in 1977 to let composer Gerald Busby stay at the hotel where Busby still lived in 2015. The composer George Kleinsinger lived with his pet animals on the tenth floor. 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. • John Cale, musician, composer, and record producer • Alice Cooper, rock singer • Chick Corea, composer, pianist, keyboardist, bandleader, and percussionist • Julie Delpy, actress and songwriter • Donovan, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter • Marianne Faithfull, rock singer • Jimi Hendrix, guitarist • Abdullah Ibrahim, pianist and composer • Iggy Pop, rock musician • Ravi Shankar, musician • Edgar Winter, multi-instrumentalist painting portraits of both the Chelsea and nearby buildings. Joseph Glasco lived at the Chelsea in 1949 and then lived there on recurring visits and painted Chelsea Hotel (1992) there. During the 1960s, acolytes of the polymath Harry Everett Smith frequently gathered around his apartment. The painter Alphaeus Philemon Cole lived there for 35 years until his death in 1988 when, at the age of 112, he was the oldest verified man alive. The artist Vali Myers lived at the hotel from 1971 to 2014, while conceptual artist Bettina Grossman lived in the Chelsea from 1970 to her death in 2021. Although Andy Warhol never lived in the hotel, many of his associates did. Other artists who have lived at the Chelsea include: • Hawk Alfredson, painter • Joe Andoe, painter • Karel Appel, painter and sculptor • Brigid Berlin, artist and Warhol superstar • Henri Cartier-Bresson, photographer • Bernard Childs, painter • Jim Dine, artist • Brion Gysin, multimedia artist • Ryah Ludins, painter • Robert Mapplethorpe, photographer; lived with Patti Smith • Maryan S. Maryan, post-expressionist painter; died in his hotel room in 1977 • Kenneth Noland, abstract painter • Jackson Pollock, abstract painter • Diego Rivera, artist • Larry Rivers, artist • Julian Schnabel, artist • Philip Taaffe, artist; lived in Virgil Thompson's old apartment • Tom Wesselmann, artist • Rufus Fairchild Zogbaum, painter The choreographer Katherine Dunham, who rehearsed at the hotel in the 1960s, The designer Elizabeth Hawes lived in the Chelsea until her death in 1971. Billy Reid used one of the Chelsea's rooms as an office, studio, and showroom starting in 1998. After returning to New York City in 2001, Natalie "Alabama" Chanin briefly lived in the Chelsea Hotel. == Impact ==

Critical reception Cultural commentary Life magazine characterized the hotel in 1964 as "New York's most illustrious third-rate hotel"; Another journalist called the hotel in 1965 an "Ellis Island of the avant-garde". and British reporter Peter Ackroyd wrote in 1983 that the Chelsea was reputed as "one of the least stuffy hotels in New York". In 1993, The New York Times wrote: "Stubbornly resistant to change, the Chelsea is—still—hip." In 1995, The Philadelphia Inquirer contrasted the hotel with the more upscale Algonquin Hotel in Midtown Manhattan, which was also known for its literary scene. The Washington Post described the hotel's lax management in 1999 as "a factor that attracted a stellar crop of artists in its century of operation", Variety described the hotel as having "long been synonymous with the bohemian scene", and The Advertiser of Adelaide wrote that "The Chelsea exists as a microcosm of New York." and Town and Country described the hotel as "a symbol of New York City's vibrant culture". Architectural and hotel commentary When the hotel was completed, a writer for the New-York Tribune regarded the hotel's "finish and appointments" as a "very close second" to that of the Navarro Flats on Central Park South, while the Courier Journal described the Chelsea as "the latest triumph of civilization". a writer for The Boston Globe said the same year that the corridors felt like "an institution in long decline". The New York Times wrote in 1998 that the hotel's hallways resembled a street in Venice or Rome and that the apartments were "furnished in an artistic collision of styles". The same year, Suitcase magazine wrote that "the spirit of Philip Hubert's socialist-leaning vision [was] very much alive", with many of the original architectural decorations being retained. and the 2022 documentary Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel, executive-produced by Martin Scorsese. An episode of the TV series An American Family, aired on PBS in 1973, was mostly filmed at the Chelsea, as was an episode of the documentary series Arena. The 1986 film Sid and Nancy, by Alex Cox, chronicled the lives of residents Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen and the circumstances leading up to Spungen's murder in the hotel. The Chelsea has also been used as a setting for other films. Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey directed Chelsea Girls (1966), a film about Warhol's Factory regulars and their lives at the hotel, and Shirley Clarke's 1967 film Portrait of Jason also used the hotel as a setting. Parts of Sandy Daley's 1971 short film Robert Having His Nipple Pierced were filmed at the Chelsea on a budget of less than $2,000. Ethan Hawke directed the 2001 film Chelsea Walls about a new generation of artists living at the hotel. Other films with scenes shot at the Chelsea include Tally Brown, New York (1979); 9½ Weeks (1986); Anna (1987); Léon: The Professional (1994); and the horror film Hotel Chelsea (2009). Music The hotel was featured in many songs. Joni Mitchell is sometimes cited as having written the song "Chelsea Morning" about her room in the hotel. Leonard Cohen and Janis Joplin had an affair there in 1968 (as memorialized in a plaque installed there in 2009), and Cohen later wrote the song "Chelsea Hotel", as well as another version titled "Chelsea Hotel No. 2", about it. Bob Dylan wrote the songs "Visions of Johanna" and "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" there, mentioning this in "Sara". Jorma Kaukonen wrote the song "Third Week in the Chelsea" for Jefferson Airplane's 1971 album Bark after spending three weeks living in the Chelsea. "Hotel Chelsea Nights" by Ryan Adams, "Chelsea Hotel '78" by Alejandro Escovedo, and "Bruce Wayne Campbell Interviewed on the Roof of the Chelsea Hotel, 1979" by Okkervil River, and "The Tortured Poets Department" by Taylor Swift. Print media Stillman Foster Kneeland wrote a poem in 1914, "Roofland", which commemorated the nights that he spent on the Chelsea's roof garden. Arthur Miller wrote a short piece, "The Chelsea Affect", describing life at the Chelsea Hotel in the early 1960s. Nicolaia Rips wrote the memoir Trying to Float: Coming of Age in the Chelsea Hotel in 2016. The hotel has been the subject of several nonfiction accounts and photographical books. Robert Baral's 1965 book Turn West on 23rd devoted a chapter to the hotel, Florence Turner's 1987 book At the Chelsea doubled as a memoir and a description of the hotel's occupants. Ed Hamilton, who moved into the Chelsea in 1995, launched the Living with Legends blog about the hotel in 2005; information from that blog was collated in the 2007 book Legends of the Chelsea Hotel. The hotel was also described in Sherill Tippins's 2013 book Inside the Dream Palace, as well as Victoria Cohen's 2013 coffee table book Hotel Chelsea. Photographs of the building were shown in the photographer Colin Miller's 2019 book Hotel Chelsea: Living in the Last Bohemian Haven and the artist Albert Scopin's 2026 book Chelsea Hotel. Several pieces of fiction have been set at the hotel, such as Stuart Cloete's 1947 short story The Blast, describing New York City after a nuclear holocaust. Dee Dee Ramone wrote the book Chelsea Horror Hotel in 2001, and Fiona Davis used it as a setting in her 2019 novel Chelsea Girls. Joseph O'Neill wrote the novel Netherland partly based on his experience living at the hotel. Nicole Burdette's play Chelsea Walls, first performed in 1990, was the basis for the similarly named 2001 film. ==See also==