Living with Legends

Julia Calfee has lived and photographed in the Chelsea Hotel for four years.  "When I photographed at the Chelsea Hotel, I would be staying in a space or situation for hours.  Time would pass and my presence would become less and less visible.  Sometimes I would even disappear."

"People are always asking me what it’s like to live in the Chelsea Hotel.  Not always easy.  There are times I felt like a fly caught in a spider’s web, at risk of being eaten alive if I made the wrong move.  This goes with living and working in the same place with a large extended, temperamental family full of artistic sensitivities and colossal egos, with long, exposed nerve ends — but there were also many moments of friendship, generosity, and complicity."

In an intimate style, INSIDE: The Chelsea Hoteldocuments not only the archetypes and atmosphere in, but also echoes from the spirits and ghosts of, the inimitable Chelsea Hotel.

Here’s a photo Julia took of us playing foosball many months ago.  No spoiler here, it’s not in the book!