“You’re not Dylan Thomas, I’m not Patti Smith / This isn’t the Chelsea Hotel, we’re modern idiots”ironise Taylor Swift in his piece “The Tortured Poets Department” released in April 2024. Half a century after its glory days, the world’s most famous hotel continues to inspire many fantasies and pop culture. Or at least, what it was and will never be again. Because while many dream of being bohemian artists, it is clear that the legendary era to which Taylor Swift refers is now over.
The Chelsea Hotel, a legendary New York hotel, has hosted the poets mentioned above, as well as Janis Joplin, Nico, Jack Kerouac, Mark Twain, Bob Dylan, Frida Kahlo and Niki de Saint Phalle. The establishment was immortalized by Andy Warhol in the 1966 film Chelsea Girlsas well as by Leonard Cohen in his superb piece «Chelsea Hotel #2» (1974).
And today? Since 2022, this emblematic place of underground culture, a refuge for creators or aspiring New York artists, has been converted… in luxury hotel. Filmed during construction between 2018 and 2020, a few years before the reopening, the documentary Dreaming Wallswhich hits theaters this Wednesday, August 28, captures this pivotal moment.
The Chelsea Hotel, New York’s legendary hotel. | Clin d’Œil Films / The Alchemists
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Drowned by the noise of the work, swallowed up by scaffolding and electrical cables, the Chelsea Hotel observed by filmmakers Maya Duverdier and Joe Rohanne is far from the image we have of it. This is the originality of this documentary which chooses to take a step back, moving away from the extraordinary destiny of its most illustrious tenants to tell the daily life of others. If you want to know more about the history of the icons who stayed there, move on: Dreaming Walls certainly contains archives, but its message is resolutely anchored in the present.
A place out of time
Patti Smith hasn’t lived there for a while. Yet even under the tarps and dust, behind the doors of a few still-occupied apartments, the building shelters little pockets of time. In Dreaming Wallswe thus come across a collection of eccentric characters, artists and intellectuals who resist the invader despite attempts at eviction and forced moves within the building.
With tears in their eyes, they proudly tell the story of the walls to anyone who will listen, but the myth surrounding the place is not the only reason they stay. With absurdly low rents ($317 for some of them, or less than 290 euros), these residents also have the immense privilege of being disconnected from the overpriced reality of contemporary New York.
In this timeless place, one almost has the feeling that the hotel, like a sacred place, protects its inhabitants from the real and violent world outside. Tired and dejected by the transformation of the building, these sometimes sensitive tenants fight to stay in their homes and to be treated with dignity by the new owners. They have made their place of residence a real identity, even a claim.
Among them are Skye Ferrante, who specializes in wire sculptures, composer Gerald Busby, painter Susan Kleinsinger, artist Steve Willis, and Merle Lister, a renowned choreographer who once again seeks inspiration in the hotel’s haunted staircases. In each shot, we can see the friction between the bohemian residence of the past and the future luxury hotel. Gerald Busby, for example, states that the best elevators will be reserved for new residents, while the old ones will be relegated to the service elevator: “They don’t want people like me walking through the lobby.”
New York choreographer Merle Lister in the film Dreaming Walls by Maya Duverdier and Joe Rohanne. | Clin d’Œil Films / The Alchemists
The end of an era
It will come as no surprise to learn that the documentary was produced by Martin Scorsese, himself who has become over the decades an emblem of New York City and, for several years, one of its most famous archivists. Moreover, we already saw him praising the “Big Apple” and its past in the excellent documentary series Fran Lebowitz: If This Were a Cityreleased in 2021 on Netflix.
As after the most beautiful stays, we leave Dreaming Walls with a deep sense of melancholy. It is impossible not to notice the same air of fatigue and resignation that seems to run through its inhabitants, aware of living in a world that no longer exists. “We are not people, we are ghosts”observes one of the tenants.
The documentary captures a page of New York history that is turning and the hotel found there is no longer so much a symbol as a fantasy. That of a place and an era that persist only in the collective imagination and the memory of its oldest inhabitants, most of whom are very old – one of them, Joe Corey, died during filming. The Chelsea Hotel is them. And we can’t help but think that it is only when the last of them have passed away that the place will have truly completed its transformation.
The film ends with a beautiful shot of legendary artist and resident Bettina Grossman (who passed away in November 2021) who ventures out one evening, armed with her walker, into the noisy street, surrounded by passers-by who walk faster than her. The intersection of two increasingly incompatible worlds.
American artist Bettina Grossman, who died on November 2, 2021, was based at the Chelsea Hotel from the 1970s until her death. | Clin d’Œil Films / The Alchemists
Dreaming Walls
By Maya Duverdier and Joe Rohanne
Duration: 1h20
Released on August 28, 2024
