We receive a lot of e-mails around here so I've decided not to keep them all to myself. Some of them are worth sharing. A week ago I ran a post about the French Philosopher Baudrillard and his relationship to the Chelsea. 
Well, that post inspired some critical thinking in one of our readers. Here is his e-mail:
I cannot, despite multiple stabs at google, pin Baudrillard to Hotel Chelsea. From bits that I've dug up we can establish that he has/d a close relationship with a gallery on w22nd. The evidence points to it as a good hypothesis but that's the best that I can get it to yet. It's probably an easy enough reverse research trail via the gallery.
I'm blank at the moment as to whether Andre Breton passed through, if he did add 10 likely points to the hypothesis.
This paper from an Aus university only touches on Hotel Chelsea and he hasn't fact checked to get the Hotel name correct but... The mention of Baudrillard and focus on Michel de Certau indicate the degree to which Hotel Chelsea would be the 'natural' place to stay in NY. The paper's a bit laborious but I highly recommend it. Michel de Certau is one of my favourites of the contemporary French Philosophers, his approach to the world and the way that the paper applies it to Manhattan almost exactly describes the way I experienced it. We even share the co-incidence of having had multiple birthdays *en route* to NY.
The new google books function yields some interesting results. I've made an executive to hand that lead over to you as you have a gmail account already.
It might need a Francophone to get to the bottom of this, Baudrillard seldom does anything in English so a lot is literally lost in [non] translation.
This has got my juices all flowing! Baudrillard, Foucault, de Certau.. all my beloved insane French post-structuralists. De Certau is an immediate hypothesis- I've studied his take on the world quite thoroughly. I can't imagine he'd stay anywhere else.
Something I'm observing about Hotel Chelsea and the French connection.... Spinning back a generation or two to more 'moral' times, Hotel Chelsea would have been more comfortable to these sex'n'drugs intellectual and artists because, not to be to fine about it, the principle that what goes on behind closed doors is private business is core to the place. Frida & Diego wouldn't have had to sign in as 'Mr & Mrs Smith' to avoid snide looks.
Plus- we're talking about intellectuals of the old left, mostly the anarchist factions. Staying at the Ritz isn't entirely consistent with anti-class rhetoric and, if you're really someone intrigued enough by people to have climbed the philosophy Francais tree, you're probably the kind of person who is attracted to HC. More things on which I won't rest until an answer emerges.
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