The Hotel Chelsea is a condominium and former residential hotel in Manhattan, New York City at 222 West 23rd Street in the Chelsea neighborhood bordering SoHo. Built between 1883 and 1885, the twelve-story, 250-unit building was the tallest in the city at that time. A haven for bohemians, numerous writers, musicians, artists and actors have lived here, dating back to Mark Twain. The Chelsea no longer accepts new long-term residents but remains home to many who lived there before the change in policy.
Philip Hubert[9] of the firm of Hubert, Pirrson & Company designed it in a style that has been described as either Queen Anne Revival or Victorian Gothic. Among its distinctive features are the delicate ornamental floral iron balconies on its facade, constructed by J.B. and J.M. Cornell, and its grand staircase, which extends up all twelve floors. The building has been a designated New York City landmark since 1966, the first such designation in the city, and on the National Register of Historic Places since 1977.
Hubert and Pirsson had created “Hubert Home Clubs” so-called cooperative buildings but with some rental units to help defray costs, and servants as part of the building staff. Originally, the Chelsea was one of these. Initially successful when the neighborhood constituted New York’s theater district, within a few years the Chelsea went bankrupt due to the suspicions of New Yorkers about apartment living, the expansion of Upper Manhattan providing a plentiful supply of new houses, and the migration of the city’s theater district to Times Square.
The building reopened as a residential hotel in 1905. It was purchased in 1939 by Joseph Gross, Julius Krauss, and David Bard. These partners managed the hotel together until the early 1970s. Stanley Bard, David Bard’s son, became manager after Gross and Krauss’ deaths.
On June 18, 2007, the hotel’s board of directors, including Dr. Marlene Krauss, the daughter of Julius Krauss, and David Elder, the grandson of Joseph Gross and the son of playwright and screenwriter Lonne Elder III, replaced Stanley Bard with the management company BD Hotels NY. The hotel was sold to real estate developer Joseph Chetrit for $80 million in 2011 and stopped taking reservations for new guests in to underake renovations. Long term residents remain in the building, some of them protected by state rent regulations. In 2013, Ed Scheetz became the Chelsea Hotel’s new owner after buying back five properties from Chetrit and David Bistricer. Renovations remain incomplete, and it remains closed to both new tenants and visitors.
Located within the Chelsea since 1930 is the restaurant and performance space El Quijote, which was owned by the same family until 2017 when it was sold to the new owner of the hotel. In late March 2018 the eatery also closed for renovations.
The Chelsea’s reputation and continued attraction derives from the lives and events of the many gifted and fascinating writers, artists and personalities who have resided there for more than a century. Arthur C. Clarke wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey while staying at the Chelsea. Poets Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso chose it as a place for philosophical and artistic exchange. While living at Chelsea, Dylan Thomas succumbed to pneumonia in a local hospital on November 9, 1953. Here, Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols stabbed to death his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, on October 12, 1978. Arthur Miller wrote a short piece, “The Chelsea Affect”, describing life at the Chelsea Hotel in the early 1960s, and it has been referenced and memorialized in many other writings, songs and art works.
Still others were ordinary people who became legendary through their time at the hotel. For example, several survivors of the Titanic and their relatives stayed at the Chelsea. One such, Mary, waited patiently at the hotel for her new husband to arrive. He had been traveling on the Titanic but sadly did not survive. Stuck in a hotel in a strange city with no money and no idea of what was going to happen to her, Mary couldn’t even afford to go back home. In utter despair, she hung herself in the 8th floor stair well. To this day, you may see her ghost prowling the hall.
Comprehensive coverage of the many notable Chelsea residents and related stories can be found in “Legends of the Chelsea Hotel: Living with Artists and Outlaws in New York’s Rebel Mecca” by Ed Hamilton.
