Living with Legends
Hotel Chelsea Blog
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Category: Dead Authors
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The great singer/songwriter and poet Patti Smith sent along her reflections on the month of August. Patti lived in the Chelsea with the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in the early 70s. She returned to the Chelsea and lived her for a time in the late 90s as well. August 9 full moon. This is the day…
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Sherill Tippins, the author of a forthcoming book on the history of the Hotel Chelsea, has been spending her time visiting the archives of famous former residents. Among other interesting artifacts, she has been known to find old Hotel Chelsea rent receipts. Recently she sent us a list of what apartments rented for at the…
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Earlier this week I noticed that a photograph taken at the Chelsea Hotel in 1971 had been posted to Flickr. So I sent an e-mail to the photographer, Mark Goldstein, and inquired about the photo. Below is his reply. These photos were taken in 1971 when I brought director Nicholas Ray to visit my friend…
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If you pay for TimesSelect, you can read Steven Kurutz’s article "Literary New York," in which he gives a nod to the Hotel Chelsea’s storied guest list of writers. However, we cringed when we read that "Chelsea Hotel Horror" is the definitive literary work about the hotel. If you have a better suggestion, bring it…
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If you’re in Wales any time soon you can drop by the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea and view their newest acquisition: a suit supposedly worn by Dylan while he was living at the Chelsea. Not his suit, mind you, but a suit that he borrowed from the artist Jorge Fick and wore around for…
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On Friday, April 21, we saw Tsimtsum, by Cynthia Hopkins, as part of the Sourcing Stravinsky program at the Dance Theatre Workshop. We didn’t know in advance, but Tsimtsum turned out to have a connection to the Hotel Chelsea. Hopkins came out on a dimly lighted stage, walking backwards dressed in a space suit, and…
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If you can’t get a permanent room at the Chelsea, don’t kill yourself yet. William Burroughs’ old cabin in Kansas is for sale on E-Bay. Its been surrounded with wooden decks and in every other possible way yuppified, and would no doubt be unrecognizable to Burroughs today. But at least it still has the basement…
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Lipstick academic Camille Paglia has come out with a new “book” in which she critiques the forty-three greatest poems in English literature. Excuse me, but didn’t her fellow blowhard Harold Bloom come out with something similar a few years back? Something about the hundred works of literature that all literate humans must read? Then, as…
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Just like we said last week, everybody remembers the snakes! Peter Sanford interviews Rebecca Miller about her film, The Ballad of Jack and Rose, which is opening in the UK this week. The article briefly mentions the Chelsea. Rebecca’s childhood was, in her recollection, ‘very normal’ – loving parents, growing up on a farm, going…
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The Chelsea blog’s sparkling Paris correspondent takes us behind the scenes to the Resurrection Blues opening night after party. She apologizes for the lack of photos, but she was too busy partying. Seeing how that’s the case, all is forgiven. Transatlantic glitterati came out in strength to see and support former Hotel Chelsea resident Arthur…
Living with Legends 