The Hotel Chelsea and its most famous celebrity residents -

The Hotel Chelsea—also called the Chelsea Hotel, or simply the Chelsea—once served as a 400-room bohemian enclave for literary luminaries, visionary artists, soul-searching singers, and starry-eyed wannabes. Indeed, in its heyday, the legendary New York City landmark property became a hostelry for a host of creative long-term residents, many of them the celebrities of their day. But notoriety also lodged here, occasions when reputations alone ended up overstaying their welcome. 

Click through this gallery to check in and check out the registry of some of the Chelsea's most famous—and infamous

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Check in -

Built between 1883 and 1885, the Hotel Chelsea is located at 222 West 23rd Street, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, in the New York City neighborhood of Chelsea.

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Philip Gengembre Hubert (1830–1911) -

The building was designed by Paris-born Philip Gengembre Hubert, and stood originally as one of the city's first cooperative apartment buildings, and one of New York's tallest buildings until 1902. The residential complex was turned into a hotel in 1905.

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Sid Vicious (1957–1979) and Nancy Spungen (1958 –1978) -

Sid Vicious was the bassist for English punk rock band the Sex Pistols. After the Pistols disbanded, Vicious (real name Simon John Ritchie) moved to New York City with his girlfriend Nancy Spungen, where they both checked into the Hotel Chelsea.

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Death at the Chelsea -

On October 12, 1978, Nancy Spungen was found lifeless on the floor of the bathroom in room 100 of the Hotel Chelsea, the result of a single stab wound. Sid Vicious claimed he had no memory of what had happened to cause her death. Nonetheless, he was arrested on suspicion of her murder. He's pictured outside the hotel being led away by detectives.

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Overdose -

The musician was charged with second-degree murder, and immediately released on US$50,000 bail. On February 1, 1979, he died too, overdosing on heroin supplied to him by his mother.

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Madonna -

In 1978, Madonna Louise Ciccone moved to New York to pursue a career in modern dance. She lived at the Chelsea in the early 1980s, returning in 1992 to shoot photographs for her book, 'Sex,' in room 822.

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Andy Warhol (1928–1987) -

Arguably one of the best-known celebrity names associated with the Hotel Chelsea is Andy Warhol. A leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art, Warhol stayed at the hotel on and off during the 1960s. It's where he achieved his first major success as a filmmaker, with 'Chelsea Girls' (1966). He's pictured on May 4, 1966, filming a scene.

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'Chelsea Girls' (1966) -

'Chelsea Girls,' co-directed by Paul Morrissey, follows the lives of several of the young women who live at the hotel, a cast that includes many of Warhol's so-called superstars, among them Mario Montez.

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Janis Joplin (1943–1970) -

Janis Joplin, whose wild and often chaotic lifestyle made her a model Chelsea resident, lived in room 411.

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Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) -

Across the hall lived Leonard Cohen, in room 424. Late one night in the spring of 1968, Cohen returned to the hotel and jumped in an elevator to reach his floor. Before the doors closed he was joined by "a woman with wild hair and even wilder clothes." It was the resident of room 411. Thus began the affair between the Canadian singer-songwriter and poet and the girl from Port Arthur, Texas, who was on her way to becoming one of the most iconic female rock stars of her era.  Cohen later wrote about the relationship in 'Chelsea Hotel #2.'

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Jimi Hendrix 1942–1970) -

Jimi Hendrix used to chill out at the hotel in 1968, around the time he was gigging at Cafe Wha? in Greenwich Village.

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Thomas Wolfe (1900–1938) -

Novelist Thomas Wolfe was a frequent visitor to New York in the 1920s. He worked in Brooklyn, but often checked in to the Chelsea. An important figure in modern American literature, as one of the first masters of autobiographical fiction, Wolfe's influence extends to the writings of Beat Generation writer Jack Kerouac, among others.

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William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) -

Burroughs is especially known for 'Naked Lunch,' published in 1959. Plagued by substance abuse all his adult life, Burroughs notoriously shot and killed his wife in 1951. He was eventually convicted of manslaughter and received a two-year suspended sentence. While living at the Chelsea, Burroughs befriended the likes of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. Their mutual influence and that of Thomas Wolfe became the foundation of the Beat Generation.

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Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) -

Jack Kerouac wrote up copious notes while staying at the Chelsea in the mid-1950s that eventually became 'On the Road,' considered a defining work of the postwar Beat and Counterculture generations.

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Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) -

Another influential poet and writer, Allen Ginsberg is best known for his 1955 poem 'Howl,' in which he denounced what he saw as the destructive forces of capitalism and conformity in the United States. Confrontational by nature, he took part in decades of political protest against everything from the Vietnam War to the plight of Bengali refugees. A resident of the Chelsea when he met Burroughs and Kerouac, Ginsberg also befriended Gregory Corso.

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Gregory Corso (1930–2001) -

The youngest of the inner circle of Beat Generation writers, poet Gregory Corso became Ginsberg's lifelong friend and collaborator.

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Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) -

English science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke wrote a good part of '2001: A Space Odyssey' while staying in room 1008 at the Chelsea.

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Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999) -

After having formed a business partnership with Clarke, filmmaker Stanley Kubrick would visit the writer at the hotel on occasion to check on progress (Kubrick was simultaneously drafting his own screenplay based on Clarke's notes). Clarke eventually returned home to Ceylon (today Sri Lanka) to complete the novel. The final scene in the film (pictured) is set in a room decorated with Louis XVI period furniture perhaps, it's said, a production design decision made as a result of all those trips Kubrick made up and down the hallways of the Chelsea Hotel.

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Sam Shepard (1943–2017) -

During his time at the Chelsea, actor and playwright Sam Shepard hooked up with Patti Smith, who wrote two sets of lyrics for songs that Shepard used in his play 'Mad Dog Blues' (1971). They also began to collaborate on a one-act play, 'Cowboy Mouth,' staged the same year.

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Patti Smith -

An influential component of the New York City punk rock movement in the 1970s, Smith shared a room at the Chelsea with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe (1946–1989), whom she considers one of the most important people in her life. Mapplethorpe's most controversial works documented and examined the homosexual male bondage, discipline, dominance, and submission subculture of New York City in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

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Quentin Crisp (1908–1999) -

English writer, raconteur, and actor Quentin Crisp was a gay icon and author of the autobiographical 'The Naked Civil Servant.' Published in 1968, the book was adapted into a 1975 film of the same name starring John Hurt. Crisp's first stay in the Hotel Chelsea coincided with a fire, a robbery, and the death of Nancy Spungen.

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Dylan Thomas (1914–1953) -

Welsh writer Dylan Thomas was staying in room 205 at the Chelsea when he became ill after drinking 18 glasses of whiskey and died several days later, in a local hospital, of pneumonia.

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Bob Dylan -

Bob Dylan's song 'Sara' contains the line "Staying up for days in the Chelsea hotel / Writing 'Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands' for you." It's a noted reference to the Hotel Chelsea, where Dylan had resided in the 1960s.

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Mark Twain (1835–1910) -

The author of 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer' (1876) and its sequel, the 'Adventures of Huckleberry Fin' (1884), Mark Twain lived in his later years in Manhattan, including stays at the Hotel Chelsea.

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Arthur Miller (1915–2005) -

While ensconced at the Chelsea, playwright Arthur Miller wrote a short piece, 'The Chelsea Affect,' describing life at the Hotel in the early 1960s. In one famous line he quipped, "This hotel does not belong to America... There are no vacuum cleaners, no rules, and shame."

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Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) -

Responsible for penning a string of classic works, including 'A Streetcar Named Desire' (1947), 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' (1955), 'Sweet Bird of Youth' (1959), and 'The Night of the Iguana' (1961), playwright Tennessee Williams used the Chelsea as a convenient New York base, given its proximity to Broadway.

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Jobriath (1946–1983) -

Bruce Wayne Campbell, known by his stage name Jobriath, was the first openly gay rock musician to be signed to a major record label. He spent his last years in the pyramid-topped apartment on the Chelsea's rooftop where he died of complications due to AIDS in August 1983, one of the first internationally famous musicians to succumb to the disease.

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Iggy Pop -

Often dubbed the "Godfather of Punk," Iggy Pop was the vocalist and lyricist of influential proto-punk band The Stooges, whose first album was produced by John Cale in New York in 1969. Both men were residing in the Chelsea at the time. Iggy Pop later embarked on a series of successful collaborative projects, notably with David Bowie.

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Joni Mitchell -

The Canadian singer-songwriter wrote 'Chelsea Morning' for her second album 'Clouds,' released in 1969. The track was inspired by her Hotel Chelsea room. Incidentally, Chelsea Clinton, daughter of President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, was named after the song!

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Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908–2004) -

Famed French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson (pictured) stayed at the Chelsea in 1946 while on assignment in Brooklyn, the results of which were later chronicled in a photographic essay for Harper's Bazaar magazine. Cartier-Bresson is considered one of world's greatest photojournalists.

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Alphaeus Philemon Cole (1876–1988) -

American artist, engraver, and etcher Alphaeus Philemon Cole lived at the Hotel Chelsea for 35 years until his death in 1988, aged 112, at which point he was the world's oldest verified man alive.

Sources: (The Daily Telegraph) (The Guardian) (Notable Abodes)

See also: Studio 54–What really happened at the iconic club

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