The most storied spot in rock history is now a glamorous luxury hotel. It’s just as fun as you’d hope.
It’s a crisp autumnal day in Manhattan and the sky is the kind of blue that makes the urban island – sweetly quiet in the middle of the working day – look like a film set. I’m listening to a Spotify playlist about being a main character and purposely making my hair swish behind me as I bounce over to West 23rd Street. It’s difficult not to romanticise your life when you’ve got a room reservation at the Chelsea Hotel.
Obviously, the days of Kerouac, Dylan and Hendrix are over. This is no longer the unofficial dorms of rock and roll, where Andy Warhol would make film Chelsea Girls across the corridor from Leonard Cohen writing a song about fucking Janis Joplin. Its decades are as glamorous as they are tragic. This is where Dylan Thomas died; Edie Sedgwick set fire to herself; Sid Vicious murdered Nancy Spungen. And this particular lifetime of the hotel would come to a gradual end, too. As Manhattan got more expensive, and the zeitgeist started to shift, the hotel did too, eventually changing ownership in the new century.
Its decline in liveability has only made way for its legacy. Reintroduced to a new generation partially through the enduring success of Patti Smith’s cult classic Just Kids, in which the Punk Poet Laureate details hers and Robert Mapplethorpe’s time living in the hotel as young and bohemian artists, the Chelsea Hotel is as embedded in history’s storybook of rock and rebellion as it remains a glittering thread in the tapestry of New York City’s history.
So what’s it like today? Unsurprisingly, not the kind of place a freelance poet can afford to call home. Perhaps more music management than musician, after a 2016 change in ownership, the Chelsea reopened once again in 2022 as a luxury hotel. Original features are still abound: the thick velour curtains, the lush mahogany wood, the amber lighting from decadent chandeliers. The corridors are lined with the likes of Basquiat and Warhol – the original owner, Stanley Bard, would allow some residents to pay their rent in art – for a sentiment that feels more testament to history than tribute to what once was. From the lobby to the bar to the rooms themselves, in which animal print upholstery exists in kitschy tandem with Victorian trimmings, it is artful bohemia at its most vibrant. If you turn a successful enough blind eye to the scattering of open MacBooks and luxury gym gear, you could just about imagine Allen Ginsberg strolling through.
But that would be a fruitless activity. The Chelsea is not what it used to be, and it’s not trying. Sure, there are references to the halcyon days gone by, both implicit and explicit. Upon check in, I am asked to sign an agreement stating I will not throw parties in my room; upon examination of the generous collection of complimentary snacks and soft drinks in my suite, I notice the hotel have also thrown in a “lover’s kit”, which includes an erotic vibrating ring, a mini vibrator, lube, and two condoms. Premium, naturally.
But downstairs, young Manhattanites throwback olive martinis and dine on oysters and tartare in the Café Chelsea, the hotel’s French bistro, where a cheeseburger costs over thirty dollars. The food is excellent, but that seems beside the point: packed out on a Wednesday night, people are here to chat and laugh in the candlelight of a November evening in the city. The lobby is similarly bustling, as is the Chelsea’s second restaurant, the sultry El Quijote. After dinner, my friend and I decamp to the balcony of my suite, which overlooks the twinkling streets of New York City below. Only when taking a moment to gaze at the iconic Chelsea Hotel neon signage beside us, is there a glimmer of continuity with the poets and musicians I admire so much.
The Chelsea Hotel has achieved the near impossible: remaining true to its original aesthetic while being unapologetically moneyed for today’s economic and cultural realities. Yes, pretty much every guest staying at the Chelsea today would, assumedly, be utterly aware of its storied legacy. Perhaps for many, it’s the reason why they put down the booking in the first place. But its confidence in commitment to luxury, comfort, and beauty has solidified the ushering in of an opulent new chapter for the hotel.
Words – Bea Isaacson
