Living with Legends: Hotel Chelsea Blog

To Do List

Tuesday, May 24 at 7:00 p.m.
Pultizer Prize winner and New York Times icon Joseph Lelyveld will be in discussion with Chelsea author Michael Rips.  Rips recently published his second novel,  The Face of a Naked Lady, An Omaha Family Mystery.

Housing Works Cafe

126 Crosby Street, NY NY

Wednesday, May 25 at 7:00 p.m.
Michael Mejias has relaunched his reading series at the Kettle of Fish.  The Kettle is similar to the Chelsea in literary spirit.  The original location on MacDougal, was the watering hole preferred by the likes of Jack Kerouac and the Beats.  And 59 Christopher was once the home of the legendary Lion's Head; the literary hang out where scribes including Jimmy Bresin and Ed Albee practiced drinking.  Crystal Mandler, Cleyvis Natera, and Scott Snyder will be reading. 
59 Christopher Street, NY NY

Saturday, May 28 - June 14, 2005
One-time Artnet Magazine "Celebrity Art" columnist Baird Jones unveils an exhibition of "Star Art" in the project room at the Chelsea Art Museum. Among the celebrity art-makers in the show are Herb Alpert, David Bowie, David Byrne, Richard Chamberlain, Miles Davis, James Dean, Grace Kelly, Jack Lemmon, Kim Novak, Dee Dee Ramone, Red Skelton and Donna Summer

Saturday, May 28, Lawrence, Kansas
Big garage sale featuring William Burrough's memorabilia.

May 27 - 29
Lower East Side Festival of the Arts.

They're Back!

Sally Singer and Joe O'Neill moved from the hotel to Brooklyn, but that didn't last long.  Within a year they were back in the Chelsea with their three kids in tow. 

"Some people leave because of the mice, some people leave because of the roaches, and some people leave because of the people in the elebator," Mr. O'Neill said.  I guess there aren't any mice or roaches in Brooklyn.

Sally in her Narciso Rodriguez gown, and Joe with his back to the camera. (style.com)

Daniel Smith Loves New York

Writer Daniel Green Smith answers 5 questions.  The hotel is where Smith started work on his second book, "I was hoping to get divine inspiration, instead I got a huge bill for motorcycle parking, but I love New York..."

What do you do?
I am a writer.

When did you stay at the Chelsea?
I stayed at the Chelsea hotel for about 2 months in 1998 and 1999.

Why did you choose the Chelsea?
I went there because I was on a figure 8 motorcycle tour around the country in honor of my father who died in July of 1998.  My father had been a writer in New York early on in the 30's and had fell in love with the book "Homeward Angel" by Thomas Wolfe.  It seemed like there could be no better place to stay than in the place one of his favorite authors lived and wrote one of my father's favorite books.

Would you stay at the Chelsea again?
I would covet the chance to stay at the Chelsea again and finish the novel, but alas, I can't afford to stay there, and must work writing in between jobs...

What are you currently working on?
The figure 8 motorcycle tour is the topic of my second book, and I'm still working on it, but the nature of the book and the tour was and is, the resolution of the war between father and son, an unfortunate resolution in death, where neither son nor father is redeemed.  The theme of the book is how we as the son's of the greatest generation live in the legacy of the wounding of our father's.  The wounding of the depression, of WWII, of the misunderstanding that the generation had to live with as we moved into this modern age, and the misunderstanding that we as their children often felt.

You can check out Daniel's work at www.carpentersongs.com

Nabokov was a Thief?

Maud Newton has an interesting post about the controversy surrounding the authenticity of former Chelsea author Nabokov's Lolita.  Maurice Girodias, the publisher of Lolita, and many other important books, also lived at the Chelsea.  An article published in The Nation in 2004 suggests that Girodias may have been Valerie Solanas' original target, afterall he was her publisher and a lot of people want to shoot their publisher, but since he wasn't at home, she decided to go to the Factory and shoot Andy Warhol instead.

"...Solanas was thrilled by her status as a soon-to-be-published writer, but it wasn't long before she began obsessing about the seemingly restrictive legal boilerplate of Girodias's contract.

On June 3, 1968, Solanas stopped by Girodias's office or his room at the Chelsea Hotel, depending on the source. She carried a gun in a paper bag. Girodias was out that day, so she proceeded to the Factory. There she shot Warhol in the chest three times. (And the art critic Mario Amayo as well--no one ever seems to remember the poor guy.) She aimed the gun next at Warhol's manager, Fred Hughes, who uttered a line that could have been lifted from one of Warhol's deadpan films: "Oh, there's the elevator. Why don't you get on, Valerie?" She did. That evening, she turned herself in..."

One of the five readers of this blog has a question

How can you confirm that someone actually lived in the Chelsea? 
Collected oral histories and archival sources are a good starting point.  You Must Remember This: An Oral History of Manhattan from the 1890s to World War II is both a fascinating book to read and a well documented resource.

You Must Remember This is part of Amazon’s “Search inside the book” program, which results in the ability to find interesting details about authors Edgar Lee Masters and Thomas Wolfe. 

on Page 462:

"... Only at the Hotel Chelsea did it seem that life continued as it had. The proper ladies enjoyed their afternoon teas, while the literary ..."

Bad Writing

Everybody is a critic. Passages from Ethan Hawke's two novels were featured during a recent literary series highlighting bad writing. Maybe they all have a point.

On the Nod

Coming back from the deli, a bag of muffins in one hand and a tray of coffees in the other, I rounded the corner to the elevator just as it was opening. There was a man in a black leather jacket in the back corner of the elevator, head down, slumping forward, on the nod.  Without thinking, I stepped into the elevator, and as soon as I was fully on, he fell right into me.  “Shit!” he yelled, loudly.  Luckily, he caught himself just as he hit me; I couldn’t have caught him because my arms were full.  “Oh, sorry,” he mumbled.

The desk clerk had seen what had happened and he called out, “Hey, what’s going on in there?!  Everything all right in there?!”

“Yeah, it’s OK,” I said.  I hit the button for my floor and up we went.  The guy in the leather jacket had apparently slept through his floor the first time he went up, and had ridden back down to the lobby.  Now he remembered what he was doing and hit his button: 4.

“Sorry, man,” he apologized again, seeing the coffee slopped out on my jacket.  “I just forgot what I was doing.  I’m really forgetful sometimes.  I just woke up and I haven’t had my coffee yet.”

“Yeah, I hear ya,” I said.  “I know what you mean.”

“It was one of those senior moments,” he said, laughing.  He was probably in his mid-thirties.  “It could happen to anybody,” he said as he got off.

Yeah, anybody who shoots heroin.
Copyright 2006 Ed Hamilton

Mapping the Chelsea

Any lit blogger worth his or her salt should be able to come up with a fictional character that resides at the Chelsea.  This proved to be more difficult than I thought.  I wanted to identify a character from a big literary work and submit it to Randy Cohen for his mapping Manhattan project.  After spending an afternoon searching through Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward Angel, which I thought would be my best bet, I consulted a person who knows more about the Chelsea than anybody – a high placed knowledgeable individual (HPKI). 

After I explained the project to HPKI he exclaimed, "In Ethan Hawke's "Chelsea Walls" all of the characters live in the Chelsea."  I didn't like that suggestion.  After I saw the movie, I wanted to move out of the Chelsea.  The movie is very loosely based on Dylan Thomas play "Under Milkwood."  The characters in "Under Milkwood" do not reside in the Chelsea. 

We need a big literary work to get the hotel on the map, I explained.  "Well, what about Sparkle Hayter's book The Chelsea Girl Murders. The female detective lives in the Hotel."  At least that's a better suggestion than Chelsea Walls.  However, that was my obvious fallback plan.  Finally, after giving it a bit of thought, HPKI said "In Saul Bellow's Herzog the main character's father-in-law lives in the Chelsea."  That gave me something to work with at least.

I went and bought a copy of Herzog and spent several evenings scouring the book. Here is what I found.  A description of Madeline's apartment.  "...The fixtures were old-fashion in this place. These had been luxury apartments in the 1890s... The tiles were a faded cherry color, and the toothbrush rack, the fixtures, were ornate, old nickel."

I went back to HPKI and explained that I didn't find squat about the Chelsea in Herzog  beyond the previously mentioned reference to an old, elegant apartment building.  "That's it," the HPKI screamed, "Madeline, Herzog's lover, lived in the Chelsea."

Blogger Rodney Welch has considered the same question and taken a different approach to the answer.  He suggests "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowland,"  a character in a song written by Bob Dylan while he was living at the Chelsea.  I don't think Sad Eyed Lady qualifies since she is clearly based on Dylan's wife Sara.   Two other songs written by Dylan, "Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat" and "Just Like A Woman," were reputedly inspired by Chelsea resident Edie Sedgwick.