Some of you may have received notices lately advising you not to use your fireplaces. Additionally, some people were reportedly told that the reason was that the fireplaces were initially gas burning and that they are going to be reoutfitted for gas. (Is that what happened to the fireplace in Bob Dyaln's room? Reoutfitted for gas!) Well, that sounded absurd to us, so we asked Chelsea Hotel historian Sherill Tippins, author of the upcoming Dream Palace, to look into the matter for us:
In Hubert & Pirsson's "The Chelsea: Home-Club Apartments," the cooperative's prospectus written by the architect Philip Hubert and dated 1884, the building is described as having steam heating powered by boilers in the basement, with radiators in the apartments. Steam is also used for cooking, though "provisions have been made for those who desire to use gas for cooking, thus giving tenants the advantage of all known improvements." Otherwise, it seems, gas is used only for lighting.
The fireplace in the lobby is described as "an open fire-place for wood fire, with a handsome mantel beautifully carved and inlaid with tiles."
The brochure includes an illustration of a fireplace with a wood-burning fire, though there's no indication whether this is supposed to be the fireplace in the lobby or in an apartment.
There are several paragraphs about the purchase of coal for the apartments. "The Company will buy their coal by the cargo at the lowest price, and will serve it to tenants in cans by a system of tickets, each ticket entitling the holder to one can containing one hundred pounds of coal....All kinds of fuel will be served after the same manner, so that you pay for what you receive and no more..."
So, it looks like they used coal for the private fireplaces, and for their kitchen ranges in most cases, I guess, and wood for the lobby fireplace. But there's absolutely no reference to gas logs or gas-fed fireplaces--which in any case don't seem to have been introduced to New York City until around 1893.
"Thus was the Hotel Chelsea, New York's first co-operative apartment complex, introduced into the city's fierce rental food chain. An excerpt from the March 29th, 1884 Record and Guide betrays the optimism of the experiment's earliest participants: "The owners of the various apartments do not think that running expenses will cost them anything, as the stores on the ground floor & the two upper stories are retained for tenants, so as to bring in an income." In addition to the points enumerated in the Real Estate Record and Guide, the building included wrought-iron balconies, apartments of one to seven rooms (built to the purchaser's specifications), high ceilings, fire and sound-proof walls, wood-burning fireplaces, and private penthouses. A unique iron staircase, constructed with a wrought-iron balustrade and mahogany banister, ran (and still runs) from the lobby to the twelfth floor."
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