Living with Legends

Writer and filmmaker Miranda July shares an interesting Chelsea Hotel story.  Like us, she thinks the management of this place is nuts.

Do you have a good "only in New York" story you can share? When I was promoting the book, as I mentioned, I often stay at the Chelsea Hotel. So when the publisher was putting me up, I think they probably would have leaned towards somewhere a little nicer than that. But when I insisted on the Chelsea, I think someone just said, "We'll get her the best room there, which is probably still not that much." But you know that place is run by sort of insane people so they have a place that I think no one ever rents which is essentially like a house, that is many bedrooms and bathrooms. So that's where I stayed and I was there for like more than a week and I had a couple of friends stay with me in the other bedrooms. It was a very bizarre New York experience. And actually I think my birthday happened or something and we decorated with balloons and streamers so it got even weirder. The extra funny part was when we were checking out it was actually extremely expensive, like more than the fanciest room anywhere. So that ended up being a humbling moment because it wasn't clear yet that my book was going to sell at all and I was like, "Well, I hope it's just enough to pay for this room."

(Photo: Karinavan's Flickr)