The Chelsea Hotel Rises Again

Conducting a life-long love affair with New York City means having many of one’s favorite places vanish over time. The losses mount. 

Youth-defining nightclubs (Peppermint Lounge, Roxy, Palladium), posh stores (Barneys), hidden bars (Chumley’s), estimable hotels (Plaza Athénée, The Roosevelt), landmark theaters (Sullivan Street Playhouse, the Waverly), gourmet food emporiums (Dean & DeLuca), and iconic restaurants (Horn & Hardart Automat, 21 Club, Le Cirque) are either long gone or repurposed as condos, banks, and drug stores. (And yes, I am old enough to have been to the Automat -- both as a child and in my 20s. It was a wonder.) Constant change keeps the city great even while it induces nostalgists to weep. 

Of these losses, none stung more than observing the legendary Chelsea Hotel's long slide into decrepitude. A gritty wonder, it was never polished on the level of other famous hotels like the Carlyle or even the Algonquin. Being a dump was part of its charm.

Patti Smith on the balcony of
The Chelsea Hotel, May 4, 1971 (Getty)

In its heyday, its residents, like Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe, or Mark Twain and Dylan Thomas before them, made the Chelsea a mecca for both established and emerging artists, writers, and musicians. Smith captured the romantic spirit of the hotel as an artistic haven for "transient souls" in her indelible 2010 memoir, Just Kids. Home to a who’s who of originals, what the Chelsea lacked in luxe it made up for in creative magnetism.

Janis Joplin in front of The Chelsea Hotel
March, 1969 (Getty)

Having once worked on West 23^rd Street, I used to drop by The Chelsea's lobby to catch a vibe and breathe the same air as Andy Warhol and Janis Joplin -- and given how stale things became, it probably was the very same air. The hotel's adjacent, seedy, and surreal Spanish restaurant, El Quijote, always tempted me because of its unlikely connection both to the hero of Spanish literature and Woodstock -- but not enough to risk paella-induced botulism.

The Chelsea Hotel was so lax in the early 2000s that Joe and I once wandered its halls without any pushback from security. 

The indifferent staff even pointed us to the infamous room 100, the site of the fatal stabbing of Nancy Spungeon by her boyfriend Sid Vicious. 

Nancy Spungeon's body is carried out of 
The Chelsea Hotel, October 12, 1978 (Getty)

By 2010, the hotel itself was crossing a threshold from blissfully bohemian to utterly neglected. Maybe this was the end.

When the hotel closed to the public in 2011 for a glacial 11-year renovation, I was certain that malign developers would forever ruin the place. I heard a rumor it was being converted to condos -- nobody knew for sure. Bitter and sentimental, I rescued a piece of the former interior’s rubble out of a sidewalk dumpster to save as a keepsake. 

Then last fall, out of the blue, The Chelsea Hotel quietly and miraculously reopened its doors as Hotel Chelsea. 

In the fall of 2022, Hotel Chelsea
started accepting guests once again

The venue has been dotingly brought back to life, beginning with its singular, quirky lobby. It feels the same but upgraded. There is still art everywhere -- some of it original and by residents, none of particularly high quality.

Hotel Chelsea's new lobby

The hotel retains its bohemian character throughout, but now with lots of plush upholstery, luxe amenities, and a trendy, sprawling lobby bar. Room 100 has been expunged. While some may call all this a bougie swap, painstaking, sensitive renovations have saved a cherished landmark from obsolescence. I know all this because Joe and I were just lucky enough to spend three dreamy nights there last week. 

A section of the new lobby bar

With its original DNA intact, the hotel now caters to eccentrics and executives alike. The price point makes it inaccessible to today’s struggling artists, but the same can be said of all of Manhattan from Soho to the Bowery. It is no longer 1972, except, perhaps, for five holdouts who remain ensconced despite efforts to oust them.

The central staircase is filled with art old and new

The best thing I can say about the redo is that it’s hard to tell where the original hotel ends and the renovations begin. It’s seamless and feels like it has always been so. 

The idiosyncratic restaurant El Quijote has reemerged as an enchanting hotspot. It is bustling but still cozy. I’ve had better paella, but no matter.

El Quijote on a Thursday night

In the great tally of New York wins and losses, the new Chelsea stands up as an impossible dream realized for quixotic sentimentalists like me.