The Hotel Chelsea’s Iconic Neon Sign Will Be Divided Into Pieces and Sold One Letter at a Time
The vertical sign stretched across three stories of the Manhattan hotel, which once welcomed the likes of Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, Andy Warhol and Janis Joplin.
The three-story-tall sign of Manhattan’s hallowed Hotel Chelsea—the infamous gathering spot for writers, artists and musicians—is going under the hammer. Later this month, it will be sold alongside many other cultural artifacts and artworks from New York City in the 1970s and 1980s.
The Chelsea’s neon beacon has been divided into pieces, as auctioneer Arlan Ettinger, owner of the auction house Guernsey’s, tells the New York Times’ James Barron. 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.
“That sign beckoned to the world that this was a place of free thought, creative goings-on, a raucous lifestyle,” Ettinger tells the Times. “When you said ‘the Chelsea,’ you had these visions of Warhol and Arthur Miller and Bob Dylan, all hanging out.”