Jessica interviewing Syband Cheng-Wilson, one of the last remaining tenants still living the in Chelsea. "Every Saturday night the drag queens would gather in the lobby."
Director Jessica Robinson chatting with Paul Goldberger about New York in the 70s.
Edmund White being interviewed.
Adam Gopnik being interviewed.
"I met Sam in 1977 in downtown Chicago while I was acting in A Wedding. There was a big gay bar called The Gold Coast. It was kinda like Macy's...had a floor for everything. A floor for S&M, a floor where they danced....."
"I fell madly in love with him." He really created for me a life here in the Chelsea Hotel, a wonderful, domestic life."
Sam and Gerald lived together in the Chelsea Hotel until Sam's death from AIDS in 1993.
"I introduced Sam to Virgil down in the El Quijote here in the Chelsea Hotel. Virgil got to like him enormously. They were big buddies."
"It was the super crazy Janis Joplin time. Whatever was happening in New York you'd find it here in the Chelsea."
" People were committing suicide by jumping down the stairwell."
Patti Smith and singer/composer Eric Anderson on the balcony of the Chelsea, May 1971/Getty Images
"There would be murders. And there would be fires. There would be something like that every year."
"It was part of living in the Chelsea. There were just crazy people. I mean life was fun."
"Gerald said 'look, you provide the money and I'll provide the fun.' And indeed he did." Craig Lucas
"Sam and I both tested positive for HIV in 1984. It was terrifying. It looked then like everybody who was infected was going to die."
"Sam contracted cryptococcal meningitis. He started deteriorating rapidly."
"Sam was taken to St. Vincent's Hospital and stayed there until he died. He died December 14, 1993, and I became a crack addict."