The Ghostly Residents of the Famed Literary Hotel Chelsea

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From BookRiot:

The Chelsea Hotel, currently closed for renovations, sits at 222 West 23rd Street between Seventh and Eight Avenues. It is a beautiful red-brick building, built with a mixture of Victorian gothic and Queen Anne style. There are wrought iron balconies and a grand staircase located in the middle of the hotel.

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This is the Chelsea Hotel, a “cauldron of creativity,” a place that every artist around the world knew about and set out for. The Chelsea Hotel roster of residents and transients (transient being the Chelsea Hotel reference for repeat visitors) includes, but is not limited to, Mark Twain and actress Sarah Bernhardt, political radical Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Thomas Wolfe and Dylan Thomas, Bob Dylan, Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe, the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Leonard Cohen (Cohen immortalized his meeting with Janis Joplin in his song, Chelsea Hotel #2), composer Virgil Thomson and Lou Reed. Andy Warhol filmed here and Madonna photographed her book Sex at the Chelsea.

And that is just part of the list of the Chelsea Hotel luminaries, the “last outpost of Bohemia.” Even the Chelsea Hotel’s somewhat shabby appearance was artistic. I loved the building and I loved the Chelsea Hotel history and everything Hotel Chelsea.

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The most repeated question regarding the Chelsea Hotel is a variation of “What drew so many artists and radicals to the Chelsea Hotel?”

That question blends in quite easily with the next very frequently asked question “Why does the Chelsea Hotel have so many ghosts?”

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According to reports from several mediums and paranormal sleuths, the Chelsea Hotel housed survivors from the 1912 sinking of the Titanic. Mary was one of the survivors. She had lost her husband when he sank with the Titanic.

Mary became distraught, depressed and was never able to adjust to life after the Titanic. She hung herself in her room on the fifth floor. Mary is most often found at the west end of the building where the archway is in that hallway, where the original large apartment’s entryway would have been. Mary is checking herself in the mirror – she is referred to as the vain ghost.

One thing to remember, Mary does not like to be bothered by the living, so if you do see her, do not expect any welcoming words or gestures. Mary perceives the living as an annoyance – little wonder that she gave Michael Imperioli a sign that he was not wanted in her ghostly space.

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A more recent ghost, with no timeline available regarding his admission to the Chelsea Hotel ghostly crew, is Larry the Hipster ghost.

According to verified reports from a medium who relayed her findings in the Living with Legends: Chelsea Hotel blog, Larry the Hipster Ghost is distinctive because he never stops talking. Larry is so anxious to tell his story, that much to the annoyance of his fellow ghosts, Larry invariably pushes himself to the front of every ghostly gathering at the Chelsea Hotel to share his wisdom.

When spirits are aware that an alive person can hear and/or see them, it is then that the ghosts become storytellers. Larry the Hipster Ghost never gives any other ghost a chance to share their story – but Larry the Hipster Ghost has a critical message to relay.

According to Larry the Hipster Ghost, everything INSIDE the Chelsea Hotel is real, walk outside the hotel’s doors and you enter into an illusion. Also, Larry the Hipster Ghost tells us that there is indeed something underground at the hotel, long, long before the Chelsea Hotel was built, there is some power that is the genesis of the Chelsea Hotel’s creative power.  And, lastly, Larry the Hipster Ghost has an important message: How one conducts themselves at the Chelsea Hotel is what important, not just the art, but how one lives their life at The Chelsea Hotel.

Link to the rest at BookRiot

PG notes that Welsh poet Dylan Thomas died in the Chelsea Hotel.