The Rumpus just published my review of Abel Ferrara’s documentary about the Hotel Chelsea in decline, Chelsea on the Rocks:
The Hotel Chelsea is legendary, with its century and more of history as New York City’s shelter for artists, actors, musicians, writers, filmmakers, dancers, and other eccentrics who have trouble paying their bills on time. More than legendary — the Chelsea is mythic. So much so, it’s almost hard to believe the place is not some novelist’s invention, some kind of exemplary fable about living the artist’s life in America: residents arrive too late and leave too soon (or the other way around), they fail, or maybe succeed, and they drink too much, and have sex with all the wrong people, and get addicted to drugs, and romances start and fizzle out and hearts are broken, and death, murder, and suicide haunt the corridors; but every day, they work on their art, whatever it be, and though most are destined for obscurity, the list of famous residents is long and awe-inspiring.
JEREMYHATCH.COM
