Legends of the Chelsea Hotel

Description:

"Hamilton skillfully interweaves his memories of residents with a history of the 23rd Street hotel, longtime proprietor Stanley Bard (who stepped down reluctantly this year) and the neighboring restaurant, El Quijote. Built in 1883, the Chelsea became a residential hotel for theater luminaries in 1905. Tenants since then have run the gamut from O. Henry and Dylan Thomas to Kerouac and Madonna. Famed books have been written at the Chelsea, including William Burroughs's Naked Lunch, but the establishment has also attracted a great many eccentrics, hustlers and crazies. Recent management changes and the Chelsea's uncertain future make this nostalgic portrait of the hotel's fabled madness all the more poignant"--Publisher's Weekly.

subjects: Artists,  Authors,  Biography,  Chelsea Hotel,  Dissenters,  Eccentrics and eccentricities,  Intellectual life,  Musicians,  Social life and customs,  Manners and customs,  New York Times reviewed,  New york (n.y.), intellectual life,  New york (n.y.), social life and customs,  Artists, biography,  Authors, biography,  Musicians, biography,  New york (n.y.), biography

People: Ed Hamilton (1968-)

Places: New York,  New York (N.Y.),  New York (State)