Tag Archive for: Hotel Chelsea

The New York Hotel You’ve Never Heard Of That Inspired Georgia O’Keeffe’s Skyscraper Paintings

On a recent visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I chanced upon Georgia O’Keeffe’s panoramic painting from 1928 of the East River. A muted geometry of belching factory smokestacks and brackish water, it’s the elegant, if downbeat, work of an artist becoming visibly disillusioned with urban life, a good-bye-to-all-that rendering of the city she’d soon abandon.

But what really caught my attention was the title “East River from the Shelton Hotel.” Read more

$125,000 for a Second-Hand Door? Bidders Pay Dearly for 52 Original Doors from the Hotel Chelsea

And to think they were destined for the dumpster.

On Thursday night, an auction was held for 52 original doors from the Hotel Chelsea that were discarded when renovation began in 2012 and harvested by a resourceful former homeless man. And prices shot through the proverbial roof.

To wild applause from bidders and onlookers in a packed Ricco/Maresca art gallery, a battered, whitewashed door to a room once occupied by singer/songwriter Bob Dylan sold for $125,000, eye-popping even for an item associated with a Nobel laureate. Read more

Up for Auction, 52 Hotel Chelsea Doors Opened by the Likes of Bob Dylan, Mark Twain and Janis Joplin

At the stroke of midnight on July 31, 2011, the Hotel Chelsea, the outrageous, art-filled property that checked in legendary guests like Tennessee Williams, Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol and Madonna, closed its doors for a renovation that was supposed to last one year, an estimate that proved wildly optimistic. Nearly seven years on, the 1885 Queen Anne brick pile remains closed and under construction for its latest transformation — into a luxury hotel with condos, the default for fabled landmarks from the Plaza to the Waldorf Astoria. Read more

A Last Look at the Hotel Chelsea – And a Chat with the Photographer Who Captured its Final Days

On an impulse, I stopped by the Hotel Chelsea the week before it closed two years ago for what was supposed to be a one-year renovation. As it turned out, this was the Chelsea’s last hurrah as the much-loved, occasionally reviled free spirit of the New York hotel scene. Read more

Where do Rock Stars Crash When They Play New York, Paris or Louisville, Kentucky? ‘Rock & Roll Hotels,’ a New Guide Book, Tells All

Sex, drugs and fluffy pillows. Think about it, dude. Rock musicians spend a lot of time on the road. The lucky ones score suites in some of the world’s best hotels. Those that don’t often crash in intriguingly oddball places. And things happen. Rooms get trashed. TVs get tossed into the pool. Harleys get driven into the lobby. Read more

The Algonquin Gets Set to Close for Refurbishment in Early 2012

Historic hotels have their charms – the evocative architecture, the whiff of time travel, the (often) dazzling out-of-the-past guests lists. But there’s nothing charming about historic plumbing, which could be one reason the Algonquin, New York’s oldest operating hotel, is closing for four months of renovations beginning on January 1, 2012. Read more

Is This The End? The Fabled, Troubled, Irreplaceable Hotel Chelsea Closes For Renovations

Today we say good-bye to the fabled Hotel Chelsea, or at least the high-profile bohemian flophouse we knew. On July 31st, at the stroke of midnight, the hotel that housed Virgil Thomson, Sid Vicious and Viva closed its doors to overnight guests, and its future as a hotel is unclear. Read more