A Tour Inside the Chelsea Hotel: Once Home to Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, Leonard Cohen & More

We’ve all stayed at the Chelsea Hotel, though most of us have done so only in our minds, through such cul­tur­al arti­facts as Leonard Cohen’s “Chelsea Hotel No. 2,” Bob Dylan’s “Sara,” Nico’s “Chelsea Girls,” Andy Warhol’s epony­mous film that includes the Nico song, or Pat­ti Smith’s Just Kids, which tells of the time she spent there with Robert Map­plethor­pe. Enthu­si­asts of the work of every­one from Janis Joplin to Arthur C. Clarke to Miloš For­man to Dylan Thomas to Mark Twain may not know that they, too, there­by enjoy an indi­rect con­nec­tion to that New York insti­tu­tion, which has stood on West 23rd Street since its con­struc­tion in 1884.

At that time, it also stood quite tall, loom­ing over every oth­er apart­ment build­ing in the city, and indeed over most of the rest of Man­hat­tan. Nowa­days, how­ev­er, the cul­tur­al pro­file of the Chelsea Hotel (offi­cial­ly, and less cool­ly, the Hotel Chelsea) is high­er than its phys­i­cal one ever was.

Its rep­u­ta­tion as a refuge for artists dates to the man­age­ment of Stan­ley Bard, who inher­it­ed the busi­ness from his father in 1964. Already, a degree of dilap­i­da­tion in the build­ing itself, as well as the sur­round­ing neigh­bor­hood, kept rents low enough to attract impe­cu­nious cre­ative types. Bard dis­played enough gen­eros­i­ty to artists that, before long, Andy Warhol’s fac­to­ry had more or less moved in.

The Chelsea’s lat­est trans­for­ma­tion began in the mid-two-thou­sands with a series of takeovers and ren­o­va­tions not nec­es­sar­i­ly wel­comed by the exist­ing long-term res­i­dents, who appre­ci­at­ed the hotel pre­cise­ly for its seem­ing imper­vi­ous­ness to gen­tri­fi­ca­tion. In the new Archi­tec­tur­al Digest video above, cur­rent own­er Sean MacPher­son gives a tour of the lux­u­ri­ous Chelsea of the twen­ty-twen­ties, all of whose spaces have been metic­u­lous­ly curat­ed to evoke its sto­ried past. In its bar (with cig­a­rette burns care­ful­ly pre­served) guests can order a cock­tail called the Two Dylans, named in homage to both Bob and Thomas; in the base­ment, they can choose from the largest selec­tion of Japan­ese whiskey at a new restau­rant named after for­mer res­i­dent Teruko Yokoi. The expe­ri­ence of a nine­teen-six­ties New York bohemi­an is now avail­able to all of us — or at least those of us who can come up with $500 per night.

If you want to revis­it the hotel dur­ing its pre-restora­tion hey­day, you can watch the 1981 doc­u­men­tary below. It will let you get glimpses of Andy Warhol, William S. Bur­roughs, Nico, and more.

Relat­ed con­tent:

New York’s Famous Chelsea Hotel and Its Cre­ative Res­i­dents Revis­it­ed in a 1981 Doc­u­men­tary

Vin­tage Footage Shows a Young, Unknown Pat­ti Smith & Robert Map­plethor­pe Liv­ing at the Famed Chelsea Hotel (1970)

Nico Sings “Chelsea Girls” in the Famous Chelsea Hotel

Thanks­giv­ing Menu at the Plaza Hotel in New York City (1899)

Watch Iggy Pop Per­form Dylan Thomas’ “Do Not Go Gen­tle Into That Good Night”

Archi­tect Breaks Down Five of the Most Icon­ic New York City Apart­ments

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. He’s the author of the newslet­ter Books on Cities as well as the books 한국 요약 금지 (No Sum­ma­riz­ing Korea) and Kore­an Newtro. Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.