We here at Dangerous Minds have written about a LOT of peculiar and astonishing auctions. Just from memory: Elvis’ pill bottles (twice), Marilyn Monroe’s hair and her pelvic x-rays (separately), John Lennon’s school detention records, a motorcycle from Easy Rider, a guitar destroyed by a member of the Misfits, claymation figures from a Zappa video, Alice Cooper’s prop guillotine, the actual Maltese Falcon… The list goes on for quite a while, but we may have reached the apotheosis or nadir of weird specificity today: coming up for exhibit and auction next month are celebrity apartment doors.

The Hotel Chelsea on West 23rd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues is one of the great landmarks of New York City’s rapidly disappearing Bohemian culture. Built and opened as a co-op in 1884, and re-opened as a hotel in 1905, it has served both short and long-term residents, and its register of long-timers is basically an absurdly long list of incredibly accomplished people in the worlds of letters (Mark Twain, Arthur C. Clarke, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, basically all of the beats), music (Iggy Pop, Cher, Patti Smith, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Janis Joplin, and the Chelsea Girl herself, Nico), and visual art (Robert Mapplethorpe, Diego Rivera, Robert Crumb). Madonna photographed her infamous Sex book there. Sid (maybe) killed Nancy there. Andy Warhol famously made a really long, formally experimental film about its residents, and if you get a chance to see it screened as was intended do not pass it up.

There’s a Jon Bon Jovi song about it too. Can’t win ‘em all.

Even if seemingly everyone who’d ever been awesome in the 20th Century hadn’t lived there, it’d be an architectural treasure, and it’s been closed (except to long-term residents, obviously) for several years for long-needed renovations; it’s supposed to re-open later this year. Those years of renovation are where we come around to the forthcoming auction: specific doors known to have belonged on the rooms of various notables are going on exhibit on April 5th at the Ricco/Maresca Gallery (529 W. 20th, so basically a stone’s throw away from their original home), and they’ll be auctioned off by Guernsey’s on April 12th. Doors verified to specific individuals so far include those of Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Janis Joplin, Jack Kerouac, Thomas Wolfe,  Jackson Pollock, and Andy Warhol. More may be identified as research into the doors’ provenance continues, according to Guernsey’s:

Through exhaustive research, roughly half of these large wooden doors can be traced to the iconic individuals who lived behind them. And although the research is continuing, it is expected that some doors can only be confirmed to be from the Hotel without a more precise personal connection. But even in those cases, owning a piece of Chelsea history is significant. Indeed, behind these doors lived the talented and famous (and infamous like Sid Vicious), where the Hotel served as home, workplace, artist’s retreat, hideaway, and love nest for the hippest, most talented, and most outrageous.

The doors are being consigned by one Mr. Jim Georgiou, a one-time Chelsea resident who took it upon himself to rescue the artifacts. Per his instruction, a portion of the proceeds from the auction will benefit City Harvest, a pioneering food-rescue non-profit (Mr. Georgiou himself once suffered a period of homelessness and hunger). If the prospect of owning a hero’s apartment door appeals to you but you can’t be in New York on April 12th, absentee bidding will be conducted on liveauctioneers.com and invaluable.com. Good luck to all who plan to bid.
 

Andy Warhol
 

Humphrey Bogart
 

Bob Marley
 

Jim Morrison. Just go ahead and make that doors joke, it’s OK.
 

Jimi Hendrix. Lore has it that while he lived at the Chelsea, a clueless older woman took him for a bellhop and solicited him to carry her bags. Evidently being a better sport than I might have been in his shoes, Mr. Hendrix helped her with her bags.
 

Thomas Wolfe
 

Jack Kerouac
 

Jackson Pollack
 

Leonard Cohen, from a room which he, at various times, shared with Janis Joplin and Joni Mitchell.
 
I can imagine no better endcap to this post: Nico singing “Chelsea Girls,” in a room at the Chelsea.
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
You can own Frank Zappa’s Thing-Fish mask
Treat yourself to that real working guillotine you’ve always wanted!
You can own Marilyn Monroe’s pelvic x-ray because nothing is too creepy for a true fan