The Chelsea Hotel Becomes a New York Battleground

The Chelsea is a very special place. I was lucky enough to be born and live there for the first chunk of my life. The long term tenants are incredibly interesting people. Though it's known for its artist population, there are all sorts of folks that live there, writers (like my mom), musicians, painters, sculptors, but also psychologists, dentists, designers, architects (like my dad) and entrepreneurs.

My next door neighbor was an excellent painter named Herbert Gentry [1] and his wife Mary Anne Rose. To this day a small globe encased in an epoxy resin cube that I used to play with as a child while visiting him and he subsequently left for me in his will sits on my work desk underneath my monitors. Across the hall were a pair of sisters that lived together and ran their own business designing and selling, quite successfully, bizarre and gaudi sunglasses! I think the HN crowd might really have enjoyed them actually.

Halloween as a kid in the Chelsea was amazing, people would go to incredible lengths when opening the door for the horde of child sized monsters roving the beautiful wide hallways (The same hallways where I learned to roller skate!). I remember one resident that opened the door hanging upside down as Dracula. He was using one of those door frame mounted sit up devices, but the interesting part was he had somehow rigged his cape to fight gravity as well. Fishing line maybe? Stanley was quite the character. He's one of the first people, outside of my family, that I can remember meeting. He was one of the reasons the Chelsea is still so interesting to this day. It was a very different time. The artists could negotiate their rent payments with him and he was used to it. Now I doubt you could get away with that anywhere in Manhattan. It really was kind of like his own little menagerie.

Anyways, really cool place. If you're ever walking by, I'd encourage you to step into the lobby. I'm not sure what it looks like now, but there used to be some pretty visceral sculptures and other pieces of art in there.

(1): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Gentry

This is largely irrelevant, but Leonard Cohen’s song “Chelsea Hotel #2” is the primary reason I find the hotel special. Every time I walk past the song pops in my head. I’d be excited to see the hotel returned to some glory, bohemian or not. It’s been under scaffolding for most of a decade it seems.

Two words: rent control. The long term tenants have leases that will be very valuable if the hotel recovers. Owners can't kick them out, but have no real desire to appease them, as they pay almost nothing.

Patti Smith's memoir "Just Kids" has terrific detail about daily life in the Chelsea Hotel in the 1960s-70s.

I'm confused. The article talks about "tenants". Does this mean the Chelsea Hotel is not actually a hotel, as it has long term tenants?

I'm honored to have been exposed to some of the hotel's history and its famous tenants through a relative who was part of the scene in the 90s. Truly an iconic place!

Lou Reed's Chelsea girls (Nico)

Less famous but similar is Breton Hall on 85th Street and Broadway