Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Architecture is Frozen Music
You can't talk about Chelsea culture or people without talking about the building itself. A
building's character, after all, shapes the characters inside.
DIMITRI MUGIANIS
The Chelsea is almost like a beautiful fortress. Architecturally, it was gorgeous!
There were balconies I liked to sit outside on. In addition, inside, the staircase is
beautiful, and there were working fireplaces in the rooms. I know they've fixed
the hotel up now, but the state of disrepair it was in when we lived there, was so
charming, like a beautiful old whore whose beauty was fading.
JULIE EAKIN
Thebuildingwasalittlemacabre—itwasmuchdisheveledwhenIlivedtherewith
Dimitri.Itwasnotkeptwell,nothinglikeitisnow.Itwasmuchdingier—itwasn't
cleanedasoften.Almostanybodycouldeasilysneakupthebackstairwayintothe
hallways.
It cost five hundred dollars a month for a big, square room with a beautiful
fireplace that didn't work. There were the two bays with the front doors and the
balcony, and it had beautiful parquet floors and tall ceilings that must have been
twelvefeethigh.Thebathroomwasoutsideinthehallandwassharedbytwooth-
er apartments, one on either side.
The Hotel Chelsea has an ugly-duckling sort of stateliness. Built during the transition
between Victorian and Edwardian periods, it shows the influence of both. Call it Awkward-
ian. If you were to show an innocent bystander a picture of the building, they might guess
it was an old insane asylum, back when straitjackets were in vogue. With its high gables,
skinny chimneys, its homely-ornate brick façade, and florid wrought-iron balconies, the
Hotel Chelsea is gothic, at least in the literary sense of the word.
The hotel's fortress-like construction had its advantages, especially when it housed a
bunch of hard-living libertines. Its builders made the interior walls extra-thick for two reas-
ons, the first being so residents wouldn't be bothered by their neighbors' noise; the second
was to prevent fires from spreading from room to room. In fact, the builders poured sand, a
dependablefireretardant,betweenthebuilding'ssteelgirderstopreventthisfromoccurring
and risk engulfing the whole hotel. When Chelsea rooms have caught fire, they may have
burnedthemselvesbare,smokeandflamessurgingoutsidethroughthewindows,butthead-
joining rooms were not affected.
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