Chelsea Hotel
Description
This 12-story building was built in 1883 as a private apartment cooperative; until 1899, it was the tallest building in New York. After the co-op association went bankrupt, the property was sold, and the building reopened as the Hotel Chelsea in 1905. Its reputation as a center of artistic activity and bohemian life dates back to the early 20th century. Arthur C. Clarke wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey while living at the Chelsea; Dylan Thomas died there of alcohol poisoning. Bob Dylan noted in a 1985 interview: "Me and my wife lived in the Chelsea Hotel on the third floor in 1965 or '66, when our first baby was born." Leonard Cohen wrote his song "Chelsea Hotel #2" about a brief assignation with another resident, Janis Joplin. Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead and Patti Smith all put in time at the Chelsea; former Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious may or may not have stabbed his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, to death in Room 100 in 1978. Folklorist and experimental filmmaker Harry Smith, who compiled the hugely influential Anthology of American Folk Music in 1952, lived at the Chelsea intermittently and died there in 1991. Dee Dee Ramone resided at the Chelsea in the late 1990s and published a novel entitled Chelsea Horror Hotel in 2001.