It's always nice to meet a kindred spirit who appreciates the literary history of the hotel. In "A Literary Father's Day at the Chelsea Hotel," Susan Swan celebrates her father, Thomas Wolfe, and the Chelsea.
Thomas Wolfe, not Tom, I say to young friends who haven’t read his magnificent and uneven novels that closely follow his own life. Wolfe was only one year older than my own father. Like my father, he was too young to enlist in the First World War. And like my father, Wolfe was a physical giant at six foot eight. After his death, the staff at the Chelsea found a pair of his size 13 shoes in the hotel basement. A member of the Thomas Wolfe Society quickly came and took them away. Wolfe’s writing still tends to invite such touching acts of homage. The essay is online at the National Post.
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