Book Review — Living in the Chelsea Hotel

“I loved this place, its shabby elegance, and the history it held so possessively” ~ Patti Smith

Living in the Chelsea Hotel by Linda Troeller is a pictorial and written history of the Chelsea Hotel featuring the last few decades. Troeller is a renowned photographer and her art appears in several collections including the Smithsonian. She has an MFA from School of Art, and an MS Newhouse, Syracuse University and a BS from Reed School of Media, West Virginia University. Previously, she was an assistant at the Ansel Adams Workshops. Troeller has taught at SVA, Parsons, NY, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Indiana University, and Stockton University.

The Chelsea Hotel is one of those almost mythical places like CBGBs that many of us heard about growing up in the 1970s. It was the darker, seedy, punk rock part of music and art. NY had that rough, tough image and the…