Tippins - Inside the Dream Palace : the life and times of New Yorks legendary Chelsea Hotel

Copyright 2013 by Sherill Tippins

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

www.hmhco.com

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Tippins, Sherill.

Inside the Dream Palace : the life and times of New Yorks legendary Chelsea Hotel / Sherill Tippins.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-618-72634-9 (hardback)

1. Chelsea HotelHistory. 2. Manhattan (New York, N.Y.)Intellectual life. 3. Chelsea HotelBiography. 4. Arts, AmericanNew York (State)New YorkHistory. 5. ArtistsNew York (State)New YorkBiography. 6. Eccentrics and eccentricitiesNew York (State)New YorkBiography. 7. Apartment dwellersNew York (State) New YorkBiography. I. Title.

TX941.C44T57 2013

647.94097471dc23 2013026747

eISBN 978-0-544-00306-4
v1.1213

The author is grateful to the following publishers, individuals, and literary agents for permission to reprint from previously copyright materials:

Selections from the unpublished correspondence of Jane Bowles, Virgil Thomson Papers, Gilmore Music Library, Yale University. Copyright 1940 by Jane Bowles, used by permission of The Wylie Agency LLC. Selections from Risky Behavior: Sex, Gangsters and Deception in the Time of Groovy, by Shaun Costello, Shaun Costello. Printed by permission of the author. An excerpt from the poem Cockchafer, by Isabella Gardner, from The Collected Poems of Isabella Gardner, copyright 1987 by the Estate of Isabella Gardner. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of BOA Editions Ltd., www.boaeditions.org. An excerpt from the poem LikeThis Is What I Meant! by LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), from The Avant-Garde Today: An International Anthology (University of Illinois Press). Reprinted by permission of SLL/Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc. Copyright by Amiri Baraka. Complete lines (3) and fragments (17) from throughout the poem Howl, from Collected Poems, 19471997 by Allen Ginsberg. Copyright 1955 by Allen Ginsberg. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Selections from the unpublished correspondence of Allen Ginsberg, the Allen Ginsberg Collection, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin, copyright by Allen Ginsberg, used by permission of The Wylie Agency LLC. Selections from Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg: The Letters, by Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, edited by Bill Morgan and David Stanford, copyright 2010 by John Sampas, Literary Representative for the Estate of Jack Kerouac. 2010 by The Allen Ginsberg Trust. Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Selections from Edgar Lee Masterss unpublished correspondence, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin. With the permission of Hilary Masters. Selections from Edgar Lee Masterss Spoon River Anthology, Dover Publications, Inc. With the permission of Hilary Masters. Excerpts from the poem The Hotel Chelsea, by Edgar Lee Masters. With the permission of Hilary Masters. Selections from Gertrude Steins Four Saints in Three Acts (Nonesuch), The Mother of Us All (New World Records), and Tender Buttons (NuVision Publications), with permission from the David Higham Agency.

For
the denizens of the Chelsea,
past, present, future

The Chelsea Association Building, 1884. The Chelsea: Home-Club Apartments (brochure), Hubert, Pirsson and Co., Architects, 1884, Philip G. Hubert Archives, Cornelia Frohman Santomenna

Who Is Ingersolls Co? Thomas Nast cartoon, Harpers Weekly, August 19, 1871, Courtesy of HarpWeek, LLC

Philip Gengembre Hubert with his grandson Louis Henry Frohman. Philip G. Hubert Archives, Cornelia Frohman Santomenna

Floor plan, Chelsea Association Building. The Chelsea: Home-Club Apartments (brochure), Hubert, Pirsson and Co., Architects, 1884, Philip G. Hubert Archives, Cornelia Frohman Santomenna

John Francis Murphy, circa 1890. Napoleon Sarony, photographer, Emerson Crosby Kelly research material relating to J. Francis Murphy, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

Adah Clifford Smith Murphy, circa 1890. Photographer unknown. Emerson Crosby Kelly research material relating to J. Francis Murphy, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

Childe Hassam. Member of International Jury of Award, Carnegie Institute, 1904, E. S. Bennett, photographer. Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh. Photograph 2012 Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

William Dean Howells. Print Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations

Sunset, West Twenty-Third Street by John Sloan. Oil on canvas, Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska, 25th Anniversary Purchase, 1957.15. With the permission of Kraushaar Galleries

Arthur B. Davies in his studio, 1907. Photograph by Gertrude Ksebier, courtesy Encore Editions

O. Henry, 1909. Prints and Photographs Collection, CN01058, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin

John Sloan in his Chelsea studio, circa 1948. Photograph by Berenice Abbott (18981991). John Sloan Manuscript Collection, Delaware Art Museum. Gift of Helen Farr Sloan, 1978. Berenice Abbott/Commerce Graphics

Edgar Lee Masters at the Chelsea, circa 1936. Photograph by Alice Davis, Masters-Davis Collection, 19281978, Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations. With the permission of Robert Zahn

Thomas Wolfe. Photographer unknown. The Wilson Special Collections Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Sunbathers on the Roof by John Sloan. Etching, 1941. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC / Art Resource, NY. With the permission of Kraushaar Galleries

Dylan Thomas in New York, circa 1950. Hulton Archive/Staff, Hulton Archive, Getty Images

Jack Kerouac in New York, 1953. Allen Ginsberg/CORBIS

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Photography Collection, Tamiment Library, New York University. Photograph by Mildred Grossman. Courtesy of the Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Katherine Dunham. Photograph by Ron Laytner

Brendan Behan in his Chelsea Hotel room. Photograph by Rae Jeffs

Ray Johnson with python in George Kleinsingers penthouse-jungle. Photograph by Fred W. McDarrah. Copyright Estate of Fred W. McDarrah, all rights reserved

Dinner party in Virgil Thomsons suite. Photograph by Dominique Nabokov, Dominique Nabokov

Arthur Miller and cast read After the Fall. Inge Morath, Inge Morath Foundation, Magnum Photos

The Chelsea Hotel. Photograph by Enrico Ferorelli, Ferorelli 2013

Stanley and David Bard. Photograph by Steve Schapiro, Steve Schapiro, courtesy of Michele Bard Grabell

Christo and Jeanne-Claude in their Chelsea Hotel room, 1964. Photo by Ugo Mulas, Ugo Mulas Estate, all rights reserved

Joseph Gross and Rebecca Miller. Inge Morath, Inge Morath Foundation, Magnum Photos

Larry Rivers paints Moon Man and Moon Lady. Basil Langton, Getty Images

Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke. Rocket Publishing/Contributor, SSPL via Getty Images