It started with David Bowie in February 1973.<\/p>\n
Too hot for the hip but divvy Chelsea Hotel, not yet hot enough for the Plaza, RCA records booked the\u00a0Gramercy\u00a0Park Hotel for the kimono-clad rocker with the fire-red mullet. He was in New York to play Radio City and promote \u201cAladdin Sane,\u201d his breakthrough followup to \u201cThe Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.\u201d <\/p>\n
During that two week stay, Bowie turned the 18-story,\u00a0330-room \u00a0hotel into the city\u2019s royal residence of rock \u2019n\u2019 roll. The third floor where he stayed \u2014 he wasn\u2019t a fan of elevators \u2014 was packed with his crew, drug-fueled groupies and his famous fiends\u2026er friends. Andy Warhol, Truman Capote, and Salvador Dal\u00ed were among those who attended his Feb 14. show.<\/p>\n
The sensation Bowie caused \u2014 the intoxicating mix of cocaine and glitter he left in his wake \u2014 transformed the respectable, gently decrepit hotel into the \u201cGlamercy\u201d \u2014 an orgy of drugs, sex and power chords.<\/p>\n
David Bowie brought the party to the Gramercy Park Hotel in 1973.<\/p>\n
In the years that followed, The Clash, Debbie Harry, Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Madonna, Jerry Garcia, Steven Tyler,\u00a0Axl\u00a0Rose, Timothy Leary and Hunter S. Thompson, would be just a few of the libertines who enjoyed the hotel\u2019s amenities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe\u00a0Gramercy\u00a0had large, cheap rooms with thicker walls than most Manhattan accommodations. It was one of the only places you could call up room service to order a pick or a guitar string. But its tolerant atmosphere, more than anything, is what made the place what it was,\u201d writes Max Weissberg in his new book, \u201cThe Gramercy\u00a0Park Hotel: an Icon<\/a>\u201d (The History Press, out now).<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t just instrument accoutrements you could get via room service, notes Weissberg, whose grandfather, Herbert R. Weissberg,\u00a0owned the hotel for nearly 40 years.<\/p>\n In the years that followed, Hunter S. Thompons was one of many who enjoyed the hotel\u2019s debauched scene. <\/p>\n \u201cOther than the Glamercy, the hotel had a second nickname: the \u2018Gram.\u2019 Guests could order a \u2018Telegram at the Gram,\u2019 meaning a doorman or a bellhop would deliver cocaine to their room like a pepperoni pizza,\u201d he writes. <\/p>\n \u201cEventually, bellhops were selling drugs, desk clerks were selling drugs, and even maids, aided by their boyfriends, found a way to profit from the drug culture that was so prevalent in New York at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, room service at The Gram wasn\u2019t strictly necessary. Just moving through the halls could give you a contact high. Hunter S. Thompson mashed his cocaine with a dildo, screeching like a banshee. Marley and his entourage moved through the halls in a cloud of ganja smoke. Band manager James Sliman recalls being dragged into the bathroom with Blondie\u2019s Debbie Harry and Chris Stein and being introduced to \u201ca big sandwich bag full of blow.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDebbie said, \u2018We have tons of it back at the hotel. This is nothing\u2026They give this stuff to us just to keep us stoned,’\u201d he says in the book. \u201cIt was like a couple thousand dollars\u2019 worth of cocaine.\u201d<\/p>\n The hotel\u2019s history is recounted in a new book by Max Weissberg, whose grandfather, Herbert R. Weissberg,\u00a0owned the hotel for nearly 40 years.<\/p>\n Still, it wasn\u2019t quite anything goes at The Gram. Sex Pistol Sid Vicious\u2019 feral antics earned him the distinction of being one of the only rockers to be outright banned \u2014 for throwing a TV from his room\u2019s\u00a012th floor\u00a0window. <\/p>\n He was banished back to the Chelsea Hotel \u2014 where he later apparently murdered his girlfriend Nancy Spungen, although he was too whacked out to remember it.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a lot of drugs. A lot of illicit sex. Copious coke. But it really was handled in a more discreet fashion,\u201d said photographer Lee Black Childers, who managed Bowie\u2019s \u201973 tour. <\/p>\n \u201cIn one place [the Chelsea], you threw the TV out the window. In the other place, [the\u00a0Gramercy], you still destroyed your TV, but you left it in your room so no one knew.\u201d<\/p>\n When U2 singer Bono arrived at the hotel in 1980, he found the party scene all too much.<\/p>\n Joni Mitchell (center) and friends hung at the hotel in 1979. <\/p>\n \u201cWe saw the Clash in the lobby,\u201d Bono said in an interview, \u201cthey were just so cool, and we knew we weren\u2019t. I had a fur coat \u2026 [and a] crap haircut.\u201d<\/p>\n