Some people visit the Chelsea Hotel because they want to be in the vicinity of the rooms where Bob Dylan wrote “Sara,” Sid Vicious stabbed Nancy Spungen, Arthur Miller recovered from his divorce from Marilyn Monroe and Janis Joplin pleasured Leonard Cohen.
But, Taylor Swift fans are flocking to the counterculture landmark because she sings “You’re not Dylan Thomas, I’m not Patti Smith/ This ain’t the Chelsea Hotel/ We’re modern idiots” on the title track of her chart-topping new album, “The Tortured Poets Department.”
Swift’s latest dropped on April 19 in two parts, at midnight and 2 a.m. Later that morning, a hotel staffer said he began to see groups of people who appeared to be Swifties descend upon his workplace — and they’ve kept coming. (Hotel PR declined to participate in this story or offer any comment on the phenomenon.)
“I knew I had to pay some kind of homage to the Chelsea Hotel,” Amanda Rykoff, a 53-year-old Taylor fanatic who works in non-profits, told The Post.
Rykoff lives in West Hollywood, Calif., but she just happened to have her annual trip to New York planned for a week after the album’s release. There was no question that she would go to the hotel, in addition to heading to Central Park and seeing Billy Joel play at Madison Square Garden.
During her five-night trip, she visited the hotel not once, but three times, wearing the friendship bracelets she’d collected at the “Eras Tour” concert in Los Angeles last summer.
She played the song on her AirPods as she walked along West 23rd Street and made sure to take a picture of the hotel’s street number, 222, on the awning. The numeral 2 has special significance in the Taylor-verse.
“It’s symbolic, because her album mentions the number two throughout,” Rykoff explained. “Taylor flashed two when she announced the album at the Grammys. This was also a double album, which was a surprise. A lot of the album is also 20/20 hindsight.”
She also thrilled at being the first member of the Gen X Swifties Facebook group to post a picture from the hotel.
Not everyone shared her excitement. On her second visit, she had a drink at the Lobby Bar and tried to chat up the woman next to her.
“She said, ‘Oh no, my favorite cocktail spot is going to be overrun by Swifties,'” Rykoff recalled. “I was a little taken aback. I said, ‘I understand that there are a lot of Swifties, and this might happen, but one thing you should know about Swifties is we are a wonderful, warm, welcoming community.’”
Travel agents who focus on NYC are reporting an increased interest in the Chelsea Hotel, which is also known as the Hotel Chelsea and the Chelsea.
Brittany Abeyta, a travel advisor who lives in San Diego, Calif., said she’s had 15 inquiries from Swift fans to stay at the storied lodging.
“Before, destination came first and accommodations were decided later. Now it’s a request to book at the Chelsea Hotel, and nothing else matters,” she told The Post. “I hope the hotel is ready because I’m sure I’m not the only one sending Swifties their way.”
Local Taylor fans are also making the pilgrimage.
Lucy White, a 26-year-old art director and artist, lived a block away from the hotel for a year but never went inside
Just a few days after the new album was released, she finally checked it out, listening to the “The Tortured Poets Department” on repeat.
“I got a delicious cappuccino, did a bit of work, and sketched the inside of the cafe,” said White, who now resides in the West Village.
Gregory Little, a millennial who lives in Manhattan, went to the Chelsea the day the album dropped. He shot and edited a social media video of the exterior and set it to the song, which is currently No. 4 on the Billboard “Hot 100.”
“I tried to do it in very slow motion, like the aesthetic of the album,” he said. The post got over 500,000 views on Instagram.
“There is always this romance with New York that comes through Taylor’s work that, as a New Yorker, I really enjoy,” said Little, who plans to get cocktails at the Lobby Bar soon.
“Any time we can highlight New York and make it the hero and center of anything, it’s always fun.”
