Inside the Dream Palace (Tippins) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
Tippins’s doorstop-hefty Inside the Dream Palace...aspires to tell the "definitive story" [of the Chelsea Hotel].... Serious about her mission, Tippins delivers a thoughtful, well-paced chronological account of the New York City landmark’s "shabby caravansary." She synthesizes the many books on the subject into a century-long narrative, no mean feat.... One might expect the book’s vitality to grow as it moves toward the present, given the availability of firsthand sources. But Tippins continues to draw primarily from texts rather than people.... More reporting...would have made Inside the Dream Palace a valuable work of history rather than a timely work of historical synthesis.
Ada Calhoun - New York Times


An inspired investigation into the utopian spirit of the Chelsea Hotel.
Elle


Cool hunters will appreciate Sherill Tippins’s Inside the Dream Palace: The Life and Times of New York’s Legendary Chelsea Hotel, a social history of the city’s sanctuary for postwar artists and It girls.
Vogue


In this wide-ranging history, literary biographer Tippins explores the Chelsea Hotel’s role as a refuge for artists and eccentrics for over a century. Built in 1884...the Chelsea immediately became a center of counter-culture in New York City.... A fascinating account of how a single building in New York City nurtured a community of freaks, dreamers, and outcasts whose rejection of the status quo helped to transform it.
Publishers Weekly


This is an exuberant tale of pop history about a New York landmark. While Tippins may be faulted for providing perhaps too much historical context, her spirited writing effectively illustrates the Chelsea as the unforgettable place it was. Recommended to pop culture enthusiasts, architecture specialists, and fans of celebrityhood. —Richard Drezen, Jersey City
Library Journal


(Starred review.) Zealous, big-picture researcher Tippins not only tells compelling tales, she also weaves them into a strikingly fresh, lucid, and socially anchored history of New York’s world-altering art movements. Though its future is uncertain, Tippins ensures that the Chelsea Hotel, dream palace and microcosm, will live on in our collective memory.
Booklist


A revealing biography of the fabled Manhattan hotel, in which generations of artists and writers found a haven.... Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol, Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohen, Robert Mapplethorpe, Phil Ochs and Sid Vicious are only a few of the figures populating this entertaining book. A zesty, energetic history, not only of a building, but of more than a century of American culture.
Kirkus Reviews