The Hotel Chelsea’s Iconic Neon Sign Will Be Divided Into Pieces and Sold One Letter at a Time

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 was restored a few years ago. Now, pieces from the old sign have been divided up, and each five-foot-tall-letter from the word “hotel” will be sold separately, as auctioneer Arlan Ettinger, owner of the auction house Guernsey’s, tells the New York Times’ James Barron. 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.”

Indeed, playwright Miller and musician Dylan both lived at the Chelsea during the 1960s, and Andy Warhol shot parts of his film Chelsea Girls in the hotel in 1966. Other creatives who once resided there include painter ​​Jackson Pollock, poet Dylan Thomas, punk rock icon Patti Smith, writer Mark Twain, guitarist Jimi Hendrix and writer Jack Kerouac.

Built in the 1880s, the Hotel Chelsea is also historically significant for its Victorian Gothic architectural style. Some pieces from inside the building have been sold in recent years, such as the doors to rooms once occupied by Warhol, Kerouac, Pollock, Dylan and singer Janis Joplin. Along with the sign, Guernsey’s upcoming sale will feature several other objects from the hotel, including stained-glass windows, more doors and an old sign for the Chelsea’s El Quijote Restaurant.

Interested New Yorkers can attend a preview exhibition of the items at the Hotel Chelsea on September 22 and 23. An online auction will take place on September 25.

The collection also features pieces of Manhattan memorabilia that aren’t directly tied to the hotel. These items include Madonna’s drum set and guitars, portraits of Warhol and Keith Haring made by artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, and original tape recordings from Dylan’s first album.

The Basquiat portraits are expected to fetch $1.5 million to $2 million each, while the Dylan tapes could sell for up to $500,000, reports Artnet’s Vittoria Benzine. As for the sign, each neon “hotel” letter could bring in $5,000 to $10,000, and the “Chelsea” segment could sell for $50,000 to $100,000. (Two copies of each piece are available, as the sign is double-sided.)

The Chelsea’s neon sign was installed in 1949. At that time, neon was “intensely popular with business owners,” Thomas Rinaldi, author of the book New York Neon, told CNN’s Chris Kokenes in 2012. However, in the following decades, “many small business owners have opted for less expensive forms of outdoor advertising.”

According to New York Neon, the Chelsea once featured other neon signs directing customers to its ground-floor stores and restaurants. Those disappeared years ago—but the hotel’s main sign remained, Rinaldi writes, “its neon tubes as much interwoven with the fabric of the city’s identity as any landmark of brick and mortar.”

Editor’s note, September 24, 2024: This article has been updated to include more information about the Chelsea’s restored neon sign.

Sonja Anderson | READ MORE

Sonja Anderson is a writer and reporter based in New York City.