Inside New York's Chelsea Hotel: The Bohemian Haven of Artists and Musicians

Home to artists, musicians and writers, the Chelsea’s creative spirit is still alive.

The hotel’s quirky decor, historical charm and artistic energy make it feel like you’re stepping into a time capsule but with way more style.

Built between 1883 and 1884 the hotel was designed by Philip Hubert in a Victorian Gothic and Queen Anne Revival style, with twelve stories with 125 hotel rooms and 30 suites.

Although early tenants were wealthier, the Chelsea attracted less well-off tenants by the mid 20th century and many writers, musicians and artists lived there when they were short of money.

Reputed to be the last Bohemian place on earth,  one reporter described the hotel as a “Tower of Babel of creativity and bad behavior”.

Over the years the Chelsea has housed many notable painters: Diego Rivera, David Hockney,  Jasper Johns, Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock.

Other entertainment personalities who have stayed or lived there include Bette Davis, Milos Foreman, Edgar and Johnny Winter, Tom Waits, Dennis Hopper, Lily Langtry, John Houseman, Al Pacino, Isabella Rossellini, Donald Sutherland, Chet Baker, Alice Cooper, Chick Corea, Donovan, Marianne Faithful,  Jimi Hendrix, Stanley Kubrick, Lillian Russell, Joan Baez The Allman Brothers, the Band, The Byrds, Jefferson Airplane, Lovin Spoonful,  Sly and the Family Stone, the Grateful Dead, Madonna, Bette Midler, Buddy Miles, Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, Iggy Pop, and Robbie Robertson.

The hotel was featured in many songs, Joni Mitchell wrote “Chelsea Morning” about her room in the hotel.   Leonard Cohen and Janis Joplin had an affair there and Cohen later wrote the song “Chelsea Hotel”.

“I loved this place,  it’s shabby elegance, and the history it held so possessively… so many written, conversed, and convulsed in these Victorian dollhouse rooms.   So many skirts had swished these worn marble stairs.   So many transient souls had espoused,  made a mark, and succumbed here.”  Patti Smith

The hotel underwent numerous minor changes in the late 20th century after falling into disrepair.   In the 1970s a brothel operated in the hotel and  assorted suicides and fires were frequent, as were robberies.

Journalist Pete Hamill characterized the hotel’s clientele as “radicals in the 1930’s, British Sailors in the 40s, Beats in the ’50s,  hippies in the 60s and decadent poseurs in the 70’s”.

During the 1960s the hotel began attracting artists who frequented Andy Warhol’s Factory Studio, as well as rock musicians who were not allowed in many other hotels.

Release of Warhol’s film “Chelsea Girls” drew attention to the hotel and the release of the album “Blonde On Blonde” by Chelsea resident Bob Dylan attracted many aspiring artists and actors to the hotel in the 1960s.

The hotel housed numerous literary figures, Arthur C. Clarke who wrote 2001 A Space Odyssey while staying in the hotel, called it his spiritual home. Thomas Wolfe lived in the hotel before his death in 1938 writing several books such as You Can’t Go Home Again, as he often walked around the halls to gain inspiration for his writings.

Other authors, writers and journalists who stayed and lived at the hotel where Allen Ginsberg,  O’Henry,  Clifford Irving, Jack Kerouac, Suzanne LaFollette, Arthur Miller, Eugene O’Neill, Sam Shepard, Mark Twain, Gore Vidal, Tennessee Williams and Ernest Hemingway.

Nothing rattled the Chelsea’s walls more than the fatal stabbing in October of 1978 of 20-year-old Nancy Spurgeon in room 100 on the first floor.

The 1986 film “Sid and Nancy” chronicled the lives of residents Sid Vicious and Nancy Spurgeon and the circumstances leading up to her murder in the hotel.

Sid was charged with murder but died at a friend’s Greenwich Village apartment a few months later while out on bail, having shot heroin and taking 4 Quaaludes.

While the hotel’s unique rich past has made it iconic and a decadent palace of peculiarity, the New York Times once described the hotel as a “roof for creative heads”.

Today’s famous residents include actors Nicole Kidman, Kevin Bacon, Edward Norton and fashion designer Diane Von Furstenberg and her husband Barry Diller.

The building is a New York City designated landmark and on the National Register of Historic Places.