The three-story-tall sign of Manhattan’s Hotel Chelsea - the infamous gathering spot for writers, artists and musicians - is going under the hammer.
The Chelsea’s neon beacon has been divided into pieces, and each five-foot-tall letter from the word “hotel” will be offered separately. The word “Chelsea,” which is nearly eight feet wide and four feet tall, is also for sale. They are being sold - in an online auction on 25 September - alongside many other cultural artifacts and artworks from New York City in the 1970s and 1980s.
“That sign beckoned to the world that this was a place of free thought, creative goings-on, a raucous lifestyle,” auctioneer Arlan Ettinger, owner of the auction house Guernsey’s, told the New York Times. “When you said ‘the Chelsea,’ you had these visions of Warhol and Arthur Miller and Bob Dylan, all hanging out.”
Built in the 1880s, the Hotel Chelsea is also historically significant for its Victorian Gothic architectural style. Some pieces from inside the building have been sold in recent years, such as the doors to rooms once occupied by Warhol, Kerouac, Pollock, Dylan and singer Janis Joplin. Along with the sign, the upcoming sale will feature several other objects from the hotel, including stained-glass windows, more doors and an old sign for the Chelsea’s El Quijote Restaurant.
According to Thomas Rinaldi, author of the book New York Neon, the Chelsea's “neon tubes as much interwoven with the fabric of the city’s identity as any landmark of brick and mortar.”