Some places are just buildings. Chelsea Hotel? It’s mythology. The stories, the legends, the punk-infused apocrypha - I devoured them all. Inspired by Just Kids, Patti and Robert’s NYC gospel, it was obvious: I had to go.

Of course, it’s not the same. The once-lawless bohemian free-for-all is now... civilized. Gentrified. But I wasn’t looking for a room. I was looking for ghosts.

So, on a chilly NYC morning, coffee in hand, Because the Night in my ears, I climbed to the top floor - where Patti and Robert Mapplethorpe once lived. 12 floors of red brick and history, its grand staircase wrapped in safety nets (oh, the irony), its corridors lined with a glorious mix of bad art, weird art, and the occasional masterpiece. And yet… something lingers.

The ghosts? They never checked out. Maybe they’re still whispering in the air - Dylan’s songs, Ginsberg’s rants, Warhol’s Chelsea Girls playing on an eternal loop. Maybe Sid and Nancy’s fight never really ended.

Chelsea Hotel doesn’t try to be legendary - it just is.

And me? No scandal, no grand exit, not even a stolen hotel pen (amateur move!). Wandering its too-quiet, too-empty, too-gloomy corridors, feeling… something big, probably. Patti once wrote: “We lived as we wished, experiencing joyous misadventures.” I just showed up late - an uninvited guest at a ghost afterparty.

Bisou bisou, Jo

Photos: Joanna Gniady