Synopses & Reviews
The next best thing to having a room key to the Chelsea Hotel during each of its famousand#8212;and infamousand#8212;decades The Chelsea Hotel, since its founding by a visionary French architect in 1884, has been an icon of American invention: a cultural dynamo and haven for the counterculture, all in one astonishing building. Sherill Tippins, author of the acclaimed February House, delivers a masterful and endlessly entertaining history of the Chelsea and of the successive generations of artists who have cohabited and created there, among them John Sloan, Edgar Lee Masters, Thomas Wolfe, Dylan Thomas, Arthur Miller, Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith, Robert Mapplethorpe, Andy Warhol, Sam Shepard, Sid Vicious, and Dee Dee Ramone. Now as legendary as the artists it has housed and the countless creative collaborations it has sparked, the Chelsea has always stood as a mystery as well: Why and how did this hotel become the largest and longest-lived artistsand#8217; community in the known world? Inside the Dream Palace is the intimate and definitive story.
Today the Chelsea stands poised in limbo between two futures: Will this symbol of New York's artistic invention be converted to a profit-driven business catering to the top one percent? Or will the Chelsea be given a rebirth through painstaking effort by the community that loves it? Set against these two competing possibilities, Inside the Dream Palace could not be more fascinating or timely.
Review
"[A] lively literary history with some surprising depth....A brief, madcap moment in literary chronicles." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"[A] fascinating literary history about a group of artists living together at a turbulent time." Library Journal
Review
"Tippins masterfully blends fact, drama, and dish in this tale of young artists who pursued the truth 'before the events of history blew out the illuminating candle.'" Booklist (Starred Review)
Synopsis
February House is the uncovered story of an extraordinary experiment in communal living, one involving young but already iconic writers and the country's best-known burlesque performer in a house at 7 Middagh Street in Brooklyn during 1940 and 1941. It was a fevered yearlong party fueled by the appetites of youth and by the shared sense of urgency to take action as artists in the months before America entered the war.
In spite of the sheer intensity of life at 7 Middagh, the house was for its residents a creative crucible. Carson McCullers's two masterpieces, The Member of the Wedding and The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, were born, bibulously, in Brooklyn. Gypsy Rose Lee, workmanlike by day, party girl by night, wrote her book The G-String Murders in her Middagh Street bedroom. Auden who along with Britten was being excoriated at home in England for absenting himself from the war presided over the house like a peevish auntie, collecting rent money and dispensing romantic advice. And yet all the while he was composing some of the most important work of his career.
Sherill Tippins's February House, enlivened by primary sources and an unforgettable story, masterfully recreates daily life at the most fertile and improbable live-in salon of the twentieth century.
Synopsis
Tippins reveals the story of an extraordinary experiment in communal living involving the young but already iconic writer Carson McCullers and burlesque queen Gypsy Rose Lee in a house at 7 Middagh Street in Brooklyn during 1940 and 1941.
Synopsis
In this captivating book, Sherill Tippins brings to life the story of what was possibly the most fertile and improbable live-in salon of the twentieth century. Known as February House, its residents included, among others, Carson McCullers, W. H. Auden, Paul Bowles, and the famed burlesque performer Gypsy Rose Lee. This ramshackle Brooklyn brownstone was host to an explosion of creativity, an extraordinary experiment in communal living, and a nonstop yearlong party fueled by the appetites of youth. Here these burgeoning talents composed many of their most famous, iconic literary works while experiencing together a crucial historical moment--America on the threshold of World War II.
Synopsis
The history of New York's legendary Chelsea Hotel,and#160;whereand#160;artists of all stripes, legends themselves,and#160;have lived and loved and workedand#160;for more thanand#160;a century.
About the Author
SHERILLandnbsp;TIPPINSandnbsp;is the author of February House: The Story of W. H. Auden, Carson McCullers, Jane and Paul Bowles, Benjamin Britten and Gypsy Rose Lee Under One Roof in Wartime America. She lives in New York City.
Table of Contents
Illustrationsand#8195;ix Introductionand#8195;xiii
chapter one
The Chelsea Associationand#8195;1
chatper two
The Coast of Bohemiaand#8195;33
chatper three
Four Saints in Three Actsand#8195;57
chatper four
Howland#8195;97
chatper five
After the Falland#8195;136
chatper six
A Strange Dreamand#8195;171
chatper seven
The Priceand#8195;215
chatper eight
Naked Lunchand#8195;258
chatper nine
Mahagonnyand#8195;301
Epilogue: Second Lifeand#8195;341
Appendix: Cost Equivalenciesand#8195;349
Authorand#8217;s Note and Acknowledgmentsand#8195;353
Notesand#8195;356
Selected Bibliographyand#8195;421
Indexand#8195;435