When I worked in New York, my publishing house hosted a book launch party at the Chelsea Hotel to celebrate a biography of one of the hotel’s musical inhabitants.
Certainly I had read all about the Hotel Chelsea (its official name) in my Edie biography and was thrilled to visit it. New to big cities outside of Canada, though, I was a little wary when I approached the hotel; the neighborhood seemed rather seedy to this innocent’s eyes.
Our party set up shop in the charmingly dilapidated reception area, and I took in my surroundings: the Spanish restaurant next door, the tremendous wall of cubbyholes behind the front desk, the strong paintings throughout.
I left the book launch and walked up the stairs and down some of the corridors, anticipating ghosts, finding only colored walls. And I called my husband several states away from the inside phone booth, for a touch of familiarity.
As the party got underway, I found myself talking to a lovely woman who was very interested in my graduate school experiences and impressions of New York. As our chat was winding down, I asked her whether she were connected to the subject of the book or its author.
“Neither,” she said. “I’m the owner’s wife.”
And with that, the kind gentleman who must have been Stanley Bard came over to collect her. He’d been managing the Chelsea for some 35 years at that time and indulged this star-struck visitor with answers to my questions about Edie Sedgwick, who famously burned the interior of her Chelsea room in the 1960s.
There’s a new book of photographs out about this hotel, one that looks like a complement to this collection. I plan to read them both, to conjure up some of that storied vibe again.
Do you have any Chelsea memories?
Certainly I had read all about the Hotel Chelsea (its official name) in my Edie biography and was thrilled to visit it. New to big cities outside of Canada, though, I was a little wary when I approached the hotel; the neighborhood seemed rather seedy to this innocent’s eyes.
Our party set up shop in the charmingly dilapidated reception area, and I took in my surroundings: the Spanish restaurant next door, the tremendous wall of cubbyholes behind the front desk, the strong paintings throughout.
I left the book launch and walked up the stairs and down some of the corridors, anticipating ghosts, finding only colored walls. And I called my husband several states away from the inside phone booth, for a touch of familiarity.
As the party got underway, I found myself talking to a lovely woman who was very interested in my graduate school experiences and impressions of New York. As our chat was winding down, I asked her whether she were connected to the subject of the book or its author.
“Neither,” she said. “I’m the owner’s wife.”
And with that, the kind gentleman who must have been Stanley Bard came over to collect her. He’d been managing the Chelsea for some 35 years at that time and indulged this star-struck visitor with answers to my questions about Edie Sedgwick, who famously burned the interior of her Chelsea room in the 1960s.
There’s a new book of photographs out about this hotel, one that looks like a complement to this collection. I plan to read them both, to conjure up some of that storied vibe again.
Do you have any Chelsea memories?
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