Where the Dead Don’t Check Out: The Ghosts of the Hotel Chelsea
Planning a trip to NYC soon and looking for something to do that isn’t staring like a moth at the gratuitous lights of Times Square? Then might I suggest staying at a haunted hotel?
People like ghosts, right? They find pleasure in walking dark streets, peering through the dim windows of random apartments or into empty alleyways on an overpriced ghost tour filled with the same worn-out stories. Others take it a step further and purchase fancy equipment, hoping to hear into the great unknown—a confirmation that there is something after death. And then there are those who desire to feel the cold shiver of being awoken in the night by a specter. They long to cross paths with a phantom on their witching-hour bathroom journey, to gaze upon the wispy remains of a long-forgotten life.
Those who do come to The Hotel Chelsea.
The Hotel Chelsea is iconic. It has a reputation as one of the most haunted hotels in New York City. But so do a lot of other places. It’s a popular moniker, and dead people can’t complain about being exploited for monetization. And if they do? Well, more people come. So, let’s roll with it.
The Hotel Chelsea has everything you want in a haunted stay. Its curious mix of Victorian Gothic and Queen Anne Revival architecture—deep blood-red bricks, intricate wrought-iron balconies, and a sordid past—makes it the kind of place one would expect to find vampires. Visit their website, and they’ll tell you that the hotel is not defined by its “historical significance, but instead by its ever-evolving, unmistakable otherness. Solid and sumptuous, eccentric yet beautiful, the Chelsea is a world unto itself: a decadent palace of peculiarity.”
Philip Hubert designed and built the hotel between 1883 and 1884 as a housing cooperative, attracting artists and authors as residents. The hotel soon met with financial troubles and became regular apartments, then a hotel in the 1920s. It was shut down completely for a time before undergoing renovations and reopening in 2022.
During its life, the hotel has been characterized as the “Ellis Island of the avant-garde.” Life Magazine described it as “New York’s most illustrious third-rate hotel,” and The Boston Globe commented on its confusing identity as an artist residence, writing, “Those on the outside are confused by the names and the rococo façade of stories that have dragged the Chelsea down like an old roué to the bottom of history.”
Many famous folks have been guests and residents, including Mark Twain, Dylan Thomas, Arthur Miller, Bob Dylan, Edie Sedgwick, Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohen, Arthur C. Clarke, Patti Smith, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Virgil Thomson.
But it’s not just the lingering energy of the sensational that makes The Hotel Chelsea special—it’s the long-departed who never checked out.
Mary was one of the lucky few who survived the Titanic wreck in 1912, securing a coveted spot on a lifeboat. It was not enough, though, to save her from heartbreak. Her husband perished in the icy sea. According to legend, the Chelsea Hotel housed survivors of the wreck, including Mary. But soon after arriving, devastated, she hung herself in a room on the fifth floor. The most common place to catch a glimpse of her wandering soul is at the end of the western hallway, in the mirror, where you can see her under the arch. This frequent appearance has given her the moniker of the “Vain Ghost,” but perhaps she is only observing each guest to see if somehow, miraculously, her husband survived after all.
The second ghost is Nadia, the woman who, ten years after Mary, leapt to her death from one of the windows after severing her hand. Nadia was the spoiled daughter of a wealthy silk merchant and grew up with her family in a fancy suite on the top floor. An artist, Nadia made the mistake of trusting a handsome songwriter. In a tale as old as time, they eloped. But “happily ever after” did not arrive. Her husband was consumed by alcoholism and abandoned her and their children. Nadia was forced to return to the hotel with her two young children and beg her father to take them in.
Her father let her stay under the condition that she do all the household chores and bring in an income through sewing. Nadia agreed, but the weight of life became too much, and she no longer had time to make art. The story goes that Nadia cut off her hand—the one that could no longer make art—then jumped from the hotel. Her ghost is often seen outside the windows of the upper levels, her white gown and hair trailing behind her. She can no longer enter the hotel, even after trying for decades.
Then, lest we forget, there are the murders, deaths, and dark past that can be documented beyond mere lore. Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, while staying in Room 205, collapsed in an alcohol-induced coma and died at a nearby hospital. It’s said he consumed 18 straight whiskeys. Sex Pistol Sid Vicious is said to have stabbed his girlfriend Nancy Spungen to death in Room 100. He overdosed on heroin before his case went to trial, leaving her murder unresolved. Writer Charles Jackson lived in the hotel until his death due to a barbiturate overdose, which was ruled a suicide.
Now, I have to admit, I’ve never stayed at the hotel—and likely never will. But many have, and many more posh, famous, and dead than me. The Hotel Chelsea has everything you need for a spooky stay during spooky season. And who knows—maybe you’ll catch a glimpse of one of the phantom guests.
