Checking In - This Ain't no Holiday Inn: Down and Out at the Chelsea Hotel 1980-1995 - page 7

A Man's Cave is His Castle
When I saw Room 626, my heart sank. It was dim and shaped like a narrow wedge. No
doubt, the owners had split it offa larger room to double the money collected from the same
square footage. The furniture was period Salvation Army. The view out the enormous win-
dowwasnotof23rdStreet,butofthelittleconcretecourtyardinback,glisteningwet,where
asinglealuminumchaiselonguereclinednexttoafruitcrateonwhichtosetyourdrink.My
room, I realized, was in back.
Almost every long-term resident I had spoken to referred to their room at the Chelsea
not as a room but as a house. They would say, quite unselfconsciously, “Once there was a
party at Marty Matz's house for Herbert Huncke,” or “One of his junkie friends used to go
over to her house and do drugs and get all freaky.” Of course there were no actual houses.
Theywere rooms, usuallytiny,crampedrooms,barelybigenoughforatwin-sizedbed.Was
this misnomer just a Chelsea tradition, a piece of local jargon that residents absorbed by os-
mosis? Was it wish fulfillment? Call it a house long enough and it will become one? Or was
theresomethingsocomfortableabouttheChelsea'satmospherethatturnedalittleroominto
a pleasant, inviting home?
Becausemyroomwasinbackandoffthestreet,itwassurprisinglyquiet.Nostreetnoise
floated up through the window, no shouts from the sidewalk or taxi horns. Sadly, the back
rooms had no balconies. (At the Chelsea, balconies are prized real estate). But if I left my
room and walked downto the end ofthe hallway,Icould step out a big, unscreened window
and get some fresh air on the fire escape's tiny landing.
Left alone in my cramped abode, I found myself rummaging for history. I examined
every piece of furniture for artifacts left behind, a match-book or a little plastic cocktail
sword. Maybe a novelist or rock star had scribbled a message in the closet's dark corner. I
checkedbehindthebigframedmirrorhangingonthewall—nothing.Butsureenough,when
I pulled out an empty drawer of my flimsy old dresser, there was a poem written in bold
black marker on the bottom:
Two dollars
and
another steel car ride
from fresh
sights
and
new sounds