Chelsea Hotel

Chelsea Hotel

Longtime bohemian hangout and stomping ground, the Chelsea Hotel hangs in a magical state of romantic disrepair, both glamorous and decadent--just like its residents. Built in 1884 as an apartment complex, the Hotel is now one of the premier literary landmarks in all New York and has been carefully (that is, minimally) restored with an eye towards maintaining its alluring literary and artistic mystique. Cantankerous Mark Twain and the hermetic O. Henry lived and worked here in the early twentieth century, when the building was a glamorous long-term residence hotel, and modernist giant Thomas Wolfe set up shop here while working on his masterpiece You Can't Go Home Again in the thirties. In mid-century, James Farrell, Dylan Thomas, and Arthur Miller all settled in to channel the Chelsea muse--which also drew Andy Warhol here, for the making of his movie The Chelsea Girls. The building itself is a schizophrenic assemblage of various European architectural styles, a twelve-story brick block fitted with ornate iron balconies equal parts Bourbon Street, Bloomsbury, and le Marais. Inside, the walls are dingy, the furniture aging, and the light low--but that's all the better to settle in with a sophisticated cocktail.