Magic was afoot at the Chelsea, people said. For about ten dollars a
week, you could rent a room next to Edie Sedgwick or hang out on the roof with
Allen Ginsberg. You and your neighbors could share ideas, music, money,
clothes, hot-plate meals, and maybe beds, if you were lucky, under the
protection of a manager not much older than you. The more outside mainstream
society you were, the more inside you would be here, drinking beer at El
Quijote with Bobby Neuwirth, exchanging nods on the stairs with Betsey Johnson
and her new lover John Cale, and squeezing to the back of the elevator with the
German anarchists and artists’ widows to make space for the tourists, music
producers, miniskirted models, and globetrotters in from Goa who also wished to
join the scene.
great site, great post, great work ! ... any chance for "the Mayor of McDougal Street"...?
ReplyDeleteLike every book & article you post, this is something I want to read IMMEDIATELY...may have to interrupt my reading of the Andy Milligan bio you posted awhile back (which was already interrupted once by my being unable to resist reading "We Never Learn" cover to cover, despite my petty issues with the overwritten, way-too-hyped, Crypt-lite prose).
ReplyDeleteBut I'm sure you don't care about my ADD reading habits, so let me just say thanks as always for posting this and for running one of my favorite sites on the whole wide web.
Me & Chelsea!
ReplyDeletegetting high in Harry Smith's apt.
his rorschach blots...tap water our wine
& top drawer smoke our link.
Meeting VT the composer of Chap. 3 title [4 Saints w/ G. Stein] for dinner there
[but i kinda blew the scene by being non-gay partypooper, not a 'date'
for the young man Virgil also invited] We shared hometown, VT & me: KC, Mo.
Groovee to see this book