Stanley Bard, whose family has run the Chelsea since 1938, is busy on the phone (Stanley is always busy on the phone). "Stanley, the ceiling is falling in my room." "Stanley, I can't take it, there's mildew on the walls, I want to leave!" In fact, the first room my wife and I were assigned could be described as being more Crackhaus than Bauhaus.  When I complained and asked to leave, Stanley showed us another room, a lovely remodeled suite. But $650 bucks? Naw. Our original room was $250, Then he showed us the Jackson Pollock room, clean, spacious, decorated as if the artist who once lived there awakened some sleepless night and streaked and splotched the walls himself. Taking a chance on what our mental state might be after living for four days inside of Jackson Pollock head, we made a deal, threw open the windows to let some air in and headed off to breakfast. When we got back, the room was covered with a fine layer of powder from workers sandblasting the building, sucked through the windows and the air conditioner.

"Hey Stanley!"  Exasperated, he gave us the suite, no extra charge.

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The Chelsea Hotel was built as a luxury coop apartment building in 1884. Until 1902, it was the tallest building in New York City. It became a hotel in 1905 and since then it has been the home of a galaxy of stars and flamed-out out asteroids in the universe of artists and eccentrics: Mark Twain, O'Henry, Thomas Wolfe, Dylan Thomas and Bob Dylan, Arthur C. Clarke, William S. Burroughs, Sartre & de Beauvoir, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Stanley Kubrick, Uma Thurman, Jane Fonda, Robert Mapplethorpe, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Robert Crumb, Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, Janis Joplin, Edith Piaf, Jimi Hendrix, the Warhol tribe including Viva and Ultra Violet, plus miscellaeneous Trotzyites, Stalinists, "ashcan" artists and others who enjoyed 15 minutes of fame, or thought they did. And, oh yes, there was Sid Vicious. Everyone I tell about my stay at the Chelsea immediately mentions Sid Vicious, the punk rocker who allegedly killed his lover Nancy in Room 100 after a late-night romp through the world of pharmaceuticals. Stanley says Vicious was actually quite a decent guy who wanted to move back to the Chelsea. But he died awaiting trial. Room 100 has been nicely remodeled, said Stanley, "want to see it?"  Maybe next time.

Stanley says his kids are getting him to remodel the place. Some rooms are quite nice. (Many are not, so inspect before you check in). The walls and stairwells are covered with art from current and past tenants. Some of the hallways have the charm of a Soviet era mental ward but the art, the ornate ironwork and inlaid marble floors more than make up for the tattiness.

Staying here a few days, you get to know who the lifers are: a publisher up to his nose in books and manuscripts, a friendly aging sculptress who walks the halls, a Sandra Bernhardt lookalike who cracks one-liners on the elevator, a prim interior designer, the lady with the two dachshunds.  And painter David Combs who labors all night in the lobby rendering his impression of the Chelsea as a back-to-Kansas tornado of flying chairs and dogs, referring to photos of the hotel's doggie residents stored on his iPod.  "The place is a bit disfunctional," says Combs. "That is what makes it great". 

There's no service here, no bars, no restaurants, but its in Chelsea (which was named after the hotel not the other way around), with plenty of good restaurants in every price range, lots of life on the street and if you should you get bored, which is not too lilikely, The Rocky Horror Picture Show still plays every weekend at the cinema a few doors down.  That says it, doesn't it?