…Eyeing the traffic circulating the lobby hung with bad art. Big invasive stuff unloaded on Stanley Bard in exchange for rent. The hotel is an energetic, desperate haven for scores of gifted hustling children from every rung of the ladder. Guitar bums and stoned-out beauties in Victorian dresses. Junkie poets, playwrights, broke-down filmmakers, and French actors. Everybody passing through here is somebody, if nobody in the outside world…I place my hand on the doorknob, sensing nothing but silence. The yellow walls have an institutional feel like a middle school prison. I use the stairs and return to our room. I take a piss in the hall bathroom we share with unknown inmates…(43).

 

Hotel Chelsea is an essential location in the development of Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe into the renowned artists we know them as today. In chapter three of Just Kids, Patti Smith delves into the absurdity and uniqueness of their stay at Hotel Chelsea. Besides being a haven for artists and newly forming performers, Hotel Chelsea provided a collaborative atmosphere, encouraging expression in new ways never created before.

Smith relates the Hotel to more of a dormitory or prison: “The yellow walls…unknown inmates” (43). While the Hotel is home to numerous new artisans, the sheer number of individuals in once place can be isolating. It is a perfect place for an artist to cultivate their talent, however surrounded by many other artists, the creative process can feel mundane and detaching, as it can be a long haul before reaching fame. They must first subscribe to a lifestyle of poverty and squalor before achieving any sort of celebrity. They all are enslaved to the grueling progression of having their work recognized, and almost feel as if they have no other option than to try and finish the process, even if it consumes their entire life. The ‘inmates’ must muster enough energy to eventually get out of the jail that is the stage of being unrecognized, and pursue further to they can eventually check out of the Hotel.

                  There are also the omnipresent and spiritual aspects of the Hotel, lending to its ghostly nature and its attractiveness to up and coming artists: “The Chelsea was like a doll’s house in the Twilight Zone, with a hundred rooms, each a small universe. I wandered the halls seeking its spirits, dead or alive…loitering before the name plate of Arthur C. Clarke hoping he might suddenly emerge” (112). The hotel is a spiritual haven, allowing current and past artists to lend a creative arm to each artist’s process.

                  Celebrity is also integral to the hotel’s prestige. If an artist wanted to make it, they had to have stayed in Hotel Chelsea. Smith notes poets Allen Ginsberg and Dylan Thomas, novelist Thomas Wolfe, model Edie Sedgwick, and music artist Bob Dylan as notable residents. They all do not necessarily share a common medium of artistic expression, but even just living in close quarters to other artistic minds can spur the artistic process. It is this collaboration that ultimately drove artists to live in the famed building. While not necessarily famous yet, all the artists assumed the role of a celebrity just because they were living in the building. They respected each occupant’s artistic talent and their commitment to the ever changing downtown artistic scene.

                  The real significance of this location in Smith and Mapplethorpe’s journey is that it started off as a mystical haven for artists and resulted in the artistic notion of success by proximity. Before getting to Hotel Chelsea, there was little hope for the artists both in the celebrity and artistic realm. By combining both the supernatural elements and the live tenants, the best artwork was achieved. It did not matter that both of the artists were poor or could not afford their rent. They traded artwork for their place in the society of artists in order to further their careers and engage in productive dialogue. It did not matter to them that the building was equivalent to a penitentiary: they had the divine, they had each other, and they had the numerous famous and up and coming artists to push them further and explore new ways of expressing themselves that no one had even dared to try before. Including Hotel Chelsea in Patti Smith’s life is including her best working self: enslaved to the art process but creating her best pieces.

                  Today, Hotel Chelsea has undergone renovations, rarely allowing tenants to stay long term. There are several aspects of the hotel that still live on: various tenants when they moved in in the 1980’s, were determined to keep the apartments the way they were passed on to them. The lobby no longer ha artwork which tenets used to trade for rent, but there is still a lasting sculpture of a child on a swing, made by 1960’s resident Eugenie Gershoy. While it is no longer a safe haven for artists, the current occupants still insist there is the spiritual element of the building. In an interview with Vanity Fair, several residents noted that the spirits of the hotel still haunt the landmark, but the motives for living there are quite different: “People do their best work here…But the spirit of the place, what inspired people to live here, has been drained.” The tenants of an apartment in which composer Virgil Thomson used to live noted: “Virgil is still present in this place. Like a benign, gentle ghost.” Even though the Hotel is no longer the same Hotel Chelsea when Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe camped out there, upon visiting you can still feel the same energy and mystical components of the Hotel, forever living in the walls.