Winner of the Marfield Prize, National Award for Arts Writing
"Tippins tells riveting stories about the Chelsea's artists, but she
also captures a much grander, and more pressing, narrative: that of the
ongoing battle between art and capitalism in the city." -- The New
Yorker
Since its founding by a utopian-minded French architect in 1884, New
York's Chelsea Hotel has been a hotbed of artistic invention and
inspiration. Cultural luminaries from Bob Dylan to Sid Vicious, Thomas
Wolfe to Andy Warhol, Dylan Thomas to Dee Dee Ramone -- all made the
Chelsea the largest and longest-lived artists' community in the world.
Inside the Dream Palace tells the hotel's story, from its earliest
days as a cooperative community, through its pop art, rock-and-roll, and
punk periods, to its present transformation under new ownership. By
exploring what it takes to maintain a creative community and how artists
have enhanced and informed New York City life, Tippins, author of the
acclaimed February House, delivers a lively and masterly history of
the Chelsea and those who cohabitated there.
"Not only essential to the understanding of this crucial New York City
-- and therefore American -- cultural landmark, but as majestic and
populous as the edifice itself, and completely entertaining." -- Daniel
Menaker, author of My Mistake
"With her lively Inside the Dream Palace, literary biographer Sherill
Tippins succeeds where other historians studying New York landmarks have
failed: She understands that even the most splendid buildings are mere
settings for the personalities that inhabit them, and wisely bypasses
rote chronology for the vigor of cultural excavation . . . The Chelsea
Hotel may face an uncertain future, but Tippins's enchanting book
guarantees its renown for generations to come." -- Time Out New York
