Lived there for a year in '93 or '94, I forget. It's a 'dark' building. I remember Stanley, a somewhat unpleasant little man. Had one of my episodic software breakthroughs there -- was obsessively diagramming object graphs in those days -- and did some art there too for which you will have to wait until I'm conveniently and appropriately dead. And no, the ghost of Nancy did not show up. Creepiest bathroom ever.
Rufus Wainwright mentioning Susanne Bartsch, Walt Paper and Limelight evokes the 90s in NYC. People always comment how Haight Ashbury and the hippies in SF influenced Steve Jobs and the PC revolution. But I don't think anyone properly recalls how club kid culture begat Web 1.0 startups like Pseudo TV & Kozmo.com ;)
I still like the concept of a bohemian space for creative young people to flock to in Manhattan. Like Barbizon 63 in the 1950s and Westbeth in the 1970s. Doesn't really exist anymore except in maybe Bushwick?
"Staying up for nights in the Chelsea Hotel writing Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands for you."
Bob Dylan, "Sara" (his wife)
"I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
You were famous, your heart was a legend
You told me again you preferred handsome men
But for me you would make an exception "
Leonard Cohen regarding Janis Joplin - “Chelsea Hotel No. 2,”
Visions of Johanna is my all-time favourite Dylan song. I've listened to it so many times, not least because in the winter of 1972 in a very cold flat in Edinburgh the _only_ album we had to listen to, for reasons, mostly poverty, was Blonde on Blonde. Still, if you are going to be stuck with one album, that's the one to be stuck with.
I had the pleasure of staying there for a couple of nights in 2008. The hallways smelt of burning incense. As I waited for the key to my room, I remember someone coming up to reception, saying that they'd like to film a documentary about the place. The guy just looked at them and said no, fuck off.
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[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 36.4 ms ] threadI still like the concept of a bohemian space for creative young people to flock to in Manhattan. Like Barbizon 63 in the 1950s and Westbeth in the 1970s. Doesn't really exist anymore except in maybe Bushwick?
Bob Dylan, "Sara" (his wife)
"I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel You were famous, your heart was a legend You told me again you preferred handsome men But for me you would make an exception "
Leonard Cohen regarding Janis Joplin - “Chelsea Hotel No. 2,”
Lights flicker from the opposite loft
In this room the heat pipes just cough
The country music station plays soft
But there's nothing, really nothing to turn off