Inside the Dream Palace

Winner of the National Award for Arts Writing: "e;If there were a course in Chelsea Hotel-iana, this would be the textbook"e; (The New York Times). It's where Dylan Thomas lived his last days, Bob Dylan wrote Blonde on Blonde, and Arthur C. Clarke wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey. It is memorialized by many of its famous inhabitants: Andy Warhol filmed Chelsea Girls there, and Leonard Cohen wrote Chelsea Hotel #2 about his tryst with Janis Joplin. Since its founding by a utopian-minded French architect in 1884, New York's Chelsea Hotel has been a hotbed of artistic invention and inspiration. Cultural luminaries from Sid Vicious to Thomas Wolfe, Edith Piaf to Patti Smith, Jean-Paul Sartre to Dee Dee Ramone all made the Chelsea the largest and longest-lived artist community in the world. Inside the Dream Palace tells the hotel's story, from its earliest days as a cooperative community, through its pop art, rock-and-roll, and punk periods, to its later transformations under new ownership. With this lively and fascinating history, "e;Tippins tells riveting stories about the Chelsea's artists, but she also captures a much grander, and more pressing, narrative: that of the ongoing battle between art and capitalism in the city"e; (The New Yorker). "e;An inspired investigation into the utopian spirit of the Chelsea Hotel."e; Elle "e;An impossible order for any writer: Get the Chelsea's romance down on paper and try to keep up with Patti Smith and Joni Mitchell and Arthur Miller. But Sherill Tippins's history does a vivid job of taking you up into those seedy, splendid hallways, now gone forever."e; New York magazine "e;Tippins succeeds where other historians studying New York landmarks have failed: She understands that even the most splendid buildings are mere settings for the personalities that inhabit them, and wisely bypasses rote chronology for the vigor of cultural excavation."e; Time Out New York "e;Not only essential to the understanding of this crucial New York City and therefore American cultural landmark, but as majestic and populous as the edifice itself, and completely entertaining."e; Daniel Menaker, author of My Mistake