Cultural Sites
Chelsea Hotel
For over 100 years the Chelsea Hotel has served some of the world’s greatest poets, musicians, and artists of all time as the city’s counter-cultural landmark. Not your average New York City hotel, notable guest, sci-fi author Arthur C. Miller recalled in his memoir that you could get high from solely the marijuana fumes lingering in the elevator of the hotel.
The hotel has a rich history in the city as the creative site of many famous artists. In fact, Bob Dylan changed his name from Bob Zimmerman in honor of poet Dylan Thomas, a Chelsea Hotel guest. Arthur C. Clarke also revealed he wrote the screenplay for 2001: A Space Odyssey in his room at the hotel in the 1960s.
The hotel was shut down in 2011, but is set to reopen in 2018. Learn more about the Chelsea Hotel in our Top 10 Secrets.
The Limelight
Located on 20th Street and 6th Ave, this church has gone through many incarnations, some not what you would expect. This Gothic Revival brownstone building, built in 1844-50 by Richard M. Upjohn, architect of Wall Street’s Trinity Church, began as the Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion.
In the ’80s and ’90s, it housed one of Peter Gatien’s infamous Limelight Clubs, where it became the locus of torrid criminal behavior, including an incident when a club promoter murdered and dismembered one of Limelight’s resident drug dealers.
After being convicted of tax fraud, Gatien shut down the clubs, and the church has gone through one business after another ever since. It was a mall that opened in 2010 after a $15 million renovation, but it closed after only a year. It was then replaced by a smaller collection of shops. The David Barton gym has occupied one floor for the past several years, but its lower level has constantly been in flux.
The space has even been called cursed, due to its legacy of bad luck. First it housed a gastro-pub, then a French restaurant, then a speakeasy-style bar, all of which failed to last more than a year.
Today, the space is occupied by Jute Lan Club, an upscale Chinese restaurant, and Limelight Fitness.