READING: Hotel Chelsea (Advanced Group)

Hotel Chelsea

To say the Hotel Chelsea has an interesting history would be an understatement. Since the early twentieth century, the hotel has been home to dozens of celebrties. the fame of the building itself pre-dates its fame as a hotel; when it was constructed in 1883 as a block of flats. It was New York's tallest building. It became a hotel in 1095. Although prosperous at first, during a period of maladministration the hotel began to degenerate. It went baknrupt and changed hands in 1939. Its proactive new managers soon got it up and running again hard in the post - war era, its fame grew. 

As a part of the New York astistic scene, the hotel is irreplaceable. Its famous residents have included actors, artists, singers, writers and numerous anti-establishements figures. Frida Kahlo, Jean Paul Sartre, Jackson Pullock, Marilyn Monroe, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Madonna and Una Thurman all lived there for a while, and the hotel has been immortalised (and some would say overexposed) in dozens of songs, books and films (The Interpreter). Always a place of non- conformity, the hotel's management sometimes allowed penniless residents to pay for their rooms with artworks, some of which still hand in its lobby today. Its famous residents have found the hotel conductive to creativity, Arthur C Clarke and Jack Kerouac wrote, respectively, 2001: A Space Odyssey and On the Road while living in the hotel, and Madonna used it for a photo shoot for one of her books. Unfortunately, the hotel is also associated with artistic misbehaviour and tragedy. One of numerous examples of wild adventures behind its closed doors, the poet Dylan Thomas collapsed in room 205 of the hotel after partying too hard. He died four days later. 

Text taken from: Speakout. Advanced Student's book. Pearson