Hotel Chelsea Boasts Bohemian History, From Andy Warhol to Leonard Cohen

If you walk down West 23rd Street, between Seventh and Eighth avenues, you could be forgiven for ignoring a piece of history. The Hotel Chelsea, built in the late 1800s, looks like any number of city structures surrounded by scaffolding as it undergoes renovations.

However, the list of famous people, especially artists, who have called the hotel home, and the works that were written or inspired there, is staggering.

At one point, playwright Arthur Miller was writing "After The Fall" while his friend, novelist, Arthur C. Clarke, was living on the top floor and penning "2001: A Space Odyssey," according to a New York Daily News piece on Sherill Tippins' 2014 book “Inside the Dream Palace: The Life and Times of New York’s Legendary Chelsea Hotel."

Bob Dylan wrote songs for his 1966 album "Blonde on Blonde" there. Andy Warhol and his hangers-on became regulars; his film "Chelsea Girls" was inspired by the hotel, and, according to the Daily News, some of its scenes were filmed there.

Also from the Daily News:

Dee Dee Ramone detoxed from heroin at the Hotel Chelsea and later wrote the novel “Chelsea Horror Hotel.” But indisputably, the most famous punks to bunk at the Chelsea were Nancy Spungen and Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols. At that point in time, the first floor was known as the “junkies’ floor,” and after Vicious collapsed in the lobby from a drug overdose, that’s where the hotel manager moved the couple.

A bellman, responding to an anonymous call, entered room 100 on Oct. 12, 1978, and found Spungen’s blood-smeared body, in a black bra and panties, on the floor. She was lying faceup, her head under the sink. There was a knife wound in her abdomen. Spungen and Vicious had been holed up, awash in drugs and money from a rumored royalty check.

If that's not enough bohemian debauchery for you, hotel resident Leonard Cohen wrote "Chelsea Hotel No. 2" about hooking up with Janis Joplin there. Watch Cohen tell the story behind the classic song and play a live rendition of it here.

In 2011, the Hotel Chelsea stopped taking new residents in order to begin renovations. It plans to reopen next year. Or, as the hotel says on its website: "You are invited to stay or play in 2017."

Photos by Michael Lello, Patch Staff