After spending nearly an entire day and night traveling from San Francisco to New York City, my wife and I arrived at the Chelsea Hotel feeling like two pieces of stale Cajun beef jerky.  Stepping from the sidewalk at 222 West 23rd Street into the hotel, we were immediately awakened by the décor of the lobby.  It dawned on us: the voyage to NYC for the single purpose of leisurely enjoying its fine art was wholly worthwhile.  The first thing we noticed was the work “Dutch Masters,” by Larry Rivers, who was once a resident of the famed hotel.  This was just what we had imagined, feeling the “juice” of artistic energy once shared by great artists like Claus Oldenberg and Jim Dine, and it was impressive.

As a practicing artist for over thirty years, and recently retired college art instructor, staying at the Chelsea Hotel was a dream.  My wife, an avid reader, and I were elated as we checked-in at the truly historical registration desk.  This was the sometimes home of many world class artists, musicians, dancers, and writers, some of which--Mark Twain, Dylan Thomas, Henry Miller, Thomas Wolfe, Brendan Behan--are celebrated by individual large brass plaques mounted near the entrance of the hotel.  Though not recognized through plated metal, past residents such as Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, and Sid Vicious are remembered for their “brassy” personalities and notoriety.

The first room we were shown had some problems, namely that the doorknob came off in my hand.  I immediately thought of Bob Dylan’s song “Desolation Row:” “about the time the door knob broke…”  Despite the problems my wife and I faced, I somehow felt chosen.  This feeling proved providential as we were led to the next accommodation possibility.

The second room we were shown was it.  I referred to this room, and still do, as the Kafka suite.  Most of the walls had been painted an ultra-gloss bile green color, which would normally repulse me.  But atop this weird slime-like background, were large six-to-fourteen-inch stencil-painted cockroaches, beetles, flies, mosquitoes, spiders, dragonflies, moths, and water bugs.  Each figure was painted a different fluorescent color.  Needless to say, we were definitely awake amidst the bright colors and thoughts about Franz Kafka's “Metamorphosis.”

After a late night meal of onion strings and beer, we waddled back to the Kafka Suite in eager anticipation of encountering Kafka’s character Gregor Samsa during the night.  However, neither one of us ran into him during the next ten hours of completely undisturbed sleep. I point out undisturbed sleep, because when the Chelsea was built, it catered to visual and performing artists, so to make sure residents could live and work in their rooms the hotel was constructed with walls a foot thick.

The long, turbulent and finally visually stimulating start to our trip set us up for a week of truly memorable “arting” in New York City.  We peppered requisite stops at the Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Whitney Museum of American Art with walks in Central Park and stops at local bistros, grills, farmer’s markets, pizzerias, and hot dog vendors.

While the large museums may seem daunting, their combined size was not as overwhelming as the over 300 galleries in Chelsea alone.  In a whirlwind, we managed to pop in to about a third of them.  Of the smaller locations, we did manage to focus on the work of a particular gallery, that of our very own Chelsea Hotel.  The amazing collection of paintings, photos, drawings, sculptures, and prints in the lobby and staircases was watched over by the building’s resident curator: a sleepy calico kitten.  Of the mishmash of works, we wondered, how many of these were accepted by Stanley Bard, the legendary hotel manager, in lieu of rent?  Though we recently learned that management is changing hands at the Chelsea, we are sure that both our memories, and the memories that are permanent residents at the hotel, will stay legendary.