Inside The Dream Palace: The Life and Times of New York's Legendary Chelsea Hotel

One can only be entranced by a building whose form was inspired by the Utopian dreams of Fourier. Fourier had written of the 810 personality types that should live in a society that supports and utilizes each person's strength's while supporting the whole. While communities like the Oneida Society had attempted this vision, the Chelsea was to be a living association heralding a new age of mankind.Clearly falling short of the dream, the Dream Palace still acted as the backdrop of many of the new movements in American arts and philosophy. Lovingly compiled by Tippins, this book serves as a directory of the visionaries passing through and living in New York from its birth. The roster of inhabitants and visitors reminds us of the evasive vision of an America not divided by class or money and not built on the backs of the many. The narrative coaxes the reader into the minds of the dreamers which is a trip well worth the reading. The Chelsea remains as a landmark to the struggle of its founder to establish a new America.

This book is astonishingly well researched and written. I have dreamed of a book that had this level of detail about the iconic Hotel Chelsea, and this is it. The story will never be told better. The entire time I was reading it, I marveled at the years of research it must have taken to put this story together. All of the context you could ever want is in the book, and the history is presented with such flair. If you have ever wanted to dig deeply into the inner workings of the HC, start right here.

Caveat emptor! The book is well-written, but the copious illustrations (drawings, paintings, photos) in its hardcover version are absent in the paperback. Worse still, instead of a candid warning to that effect, the paperback includes (at pages ix-xii) a now-misleading list of illustrations "following page 138". But there are no illustrations following page 138 -- or, for that matter, anywhere else in the book. Not a single one.

Sherill Tippins has done the world a great favor with this important book about what I would call America's most interesting building. The Chelsea Hotel has surely housed more talented, innovative and fascinating people than any other residence on earth. I read Ed Hamilton's wonderful book "Legends of the Chelsea Hotel" a few years ago and came to appreciate the incredible quirkiness of the Chelsea, but Tippins' new book expands on Hamilton's entertaining book to give us a fuller view of the historical importance of the Chelsea.Tippins' research is obviously exhaustive and her integrity as a writer is at the top of the heap. I'm a librarian and I can't recall the last time I have been this impressed with the scholarly research that went into creating this work. There are many tall tales about the Chelsea that are not completely true, and Tippins does not include any of the unproven tales. She sticks to the facts. If you see it here, it is so.As big as this book is, I can't help but hope for a second volume. There are so many interesting tales to tell about the Chelsea that I bet Tippins could fill up another huge book or two. I selfishly hope she will go for Volume 2 of "Inside the Dream Palace" one day!

I bought this book as a holiday gift for my husband. I knew he would love this book as he lived in Chelsea for 45 years and it was a place he frequented and attended many functions there. IF I HAD KNOWN they were no pix in the paperback I would have gotten him the hard cover‼️‼️ I feel it was VERY bad form on the publisher’s part to not disclose this information ‼️

Totally riveting! I recommend reading this with your browser nearby, as so many cultural icons and moments were housed in the Chelsea - it's useful to see and hear their work while reading this. Painters, musicians, writers, and other artists all hung out together and their genius benefitted from the associations formed. If you'd like to have been a fly on the wall while the greats were at their creative best, this is the next best thing!

In the front of the book are three pages listing the illustrations and the pages where they are but I found absolutely none in the whole book! Did I miss something in the Amazon listing stating this paperback has no illustrations? Disappointing when the book is about a place and the people connected to it.

I ordered this accidentally with the one click feature, and I really regret it. This book started out strong with some really interesting history, but fairly quickly devolved into some of the most verbose tangents I've ever read. I can somewhat see what the author was (maybe) trying to do, connecting societal events to the happenings at the Chelsea, but it's not done well. There were times when I really had to remind myself that this was even a book about the Chelsea, which given the title, is obviously a disappointment.

Tale of the evolution of a Fourier community of visionary artists and individualists living together in the Chelsea and always supported by saintly hotel owner Stanley Bard a supporter of self expression. Told with insight and alacrity

Interesting and well researched and written. However the book does tend to lapse into long ( sometimes too long ) potted histories of some of the residents. Enjoyed the earlier part of the book on the creation and philosophy of the " hotel"

For readers who, like me, find the artistic movement of new York in the 50s, 60s and 70s interesting and relevant. It also treats of teh longer New York history.

A must, very informative.

This is an interesting, well written history of the Chelsea Hotel in New York City. It covers the building from its initial construction as a cooperative residential building through its conversion into a hotel with both residents and transient visitors. Having lived in NYC during the 80s, I was familiar with the Chealsea and its more well known characters. And suffice to say, I only ate at El Quiote once. Still, reading this book opened up an entire world of people and events I never knew about or never knew of their connection to the Chelsea. The book is written in a casual, easy to read style while containing dates, facts and solid information. It‘s fun to read with a lot of Wow! moments that made me smile. Anyone with any interest in New York City and the mad parade of characters that have and continue to walk it mean streets will enjoy this book. Even if the streets aren’t as mean as they used to be...