his classic song Sara, immortalising the hotel
with the line: “staying up for days in the
Chelsea Hotel, writing Sad-Eyed Lady of the
Lowlands for you.”
Leonard Cohen stayed in Room 222 and
his liaison with Janis Joplin, who he ran into
in the lift, will never be forgotten thanks to
his song, Chelsea Hotel #2: “I remember you
well in the Chelsea Hotel, you were famous,
your heart was a legend. You told me again
you preferred handsome men/but for me you
would make an exception.”
The hotel was a magnet for creative
types with a bohemian spirit and sometimes
those who just wanted a license to do what
they wanted. Madonna lived in the hotel
in her youth and returned in 1992 to shoot
photographs for her book, Sex. And when
Ethan Hawke split up with Uma Thurman,
he checked into a two-room apartment at
the hotel and made the movie Chelsea Walls.
And perhaps the most violent story,
certainly the most notorious, is that of what
happened in Room 100 on the night of
October 12, 1978. Nancy Spungen was
found stabbed to death in the bathroom of
the apartment she shared with her boyfriend
Sid Vicious from the Sex Pistols. The hotel
closed in 2011.designed by Jean Patou (who some assumed
she would marry and who died tragically
seven years later) and the couple settled
into the palace beside the canal. They lived
in absolute luxury and were attended by 85
waiters – one of the attendants was solely in
charge of looking after the palace’s clocks.
http://www.aman.com
CHELSEA HOTEL, NEW YORK
The reputation of this iconic New York hotel
was built not on its luxurious accommodation
and impressive service, but on the people
who stayed there – the artists, writers, actors,
musicians and filmmakers. If walls could talk
you would hear some very colourful stories.
Fortunately, artists are compelled to tell their
stories through film and song, so we’ve got
a good idea about some of the debauched
behaviour that took place in this 12-storey
building on 23rd Street in Chelsea.
Many of the Beat Generation writers lived
and worked in the Chelsea Hotel – think Alan
Ginsburg, William S. Boroughs and Herbert
Huncke. In 1953, poet Dylan Thomas
famously downed 18 straight whiskeys at
a nearby bar, collapsed in a coma back at
the Chelsea and was pronounced dead in
hospital. Another poet, Bob Dylan, wrote
July/August 2017 AsiaSpa 101THIS PAGE: George and Amal Clooney stayed in the Alcova Tiepolo Suite at Aman Venice. OPPOSITE PAGE: The Ritz
Pa r i s ’ e x t rava g a n t s u i t e s a r e fi t f o r r oya l t y