The New York of yesteryear is never coming back. Luckily, a little zap of electricity from those halcyon days lives on, unexpectedly, in the photos that Albert Scopin captured while living at the legendary Chelsea Hotel from 1969 to 1971. The group of more than 100 images by the German photographer, which were long thought lost until they were recently rediscovered, are surfacing in a new book Chelsea Hotel, accompanied by his frank recollections of his time at the avant-garde residence.

Scorpin sent these photos off to Berlin’s then-new ZEITmagazin right after taking them in the 1970s. He tried retrieving them in 1982, and learned they’d gone missing. In 2016, long after he’d given up hope, the photos cropped up—courtesy of Göttinger-based gallerist Oliver Ahlers. No one knows exactly what happened. Scopin presumes they were stolen.

Patti Smith in her room at the Chelsea Hotel. Photo by Albert Scopin Schöpflin.

Scopin grew up in sleepy southern Germany, where France and Switzerland meet. He tried studying in Munich, but felt stifled. After daydreaming about New York during an illness, he moved to the city, where he worked for the notoriously temperamental fashion photographer Bill King.

His decision to room at the Hotel Chelsea—colloquially known as the Chelsea Hotel—was a matter of frugality. A serious class system existed, Scopin recalled in an interview in the book’s opening, coinciding with floors in the ornate 12-story building, which started off as a residency co-op in the 1880s. There were lovely suites up top, and then Scopin’s “darkroom with a tap” down below.

Fortunately, Scopin hardly had time to mind. He was busy getting his brain rewired. “I met so many fascinating people who kept confronting me with new ideas and lifestyles, so my entire value system collapsed and had to be rebuilt,” he said.

Prinz Roderick Ghyka in his room. “As he talked he would slowly undress as if it were the most natural thing in the world,” Scopin says. Photo by Albert Scopin Schöpflin.

At night, King’s team conducted nude shoots of celebrities, mostly for fun. That’s how Scopin met poet Patti Smith and photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, who also lived at the Chelsea Hotel. Scopin soon got his own side hustle, documenting the hotel’s characters—often through the lens of their rooms.

About three dozen people feature throughout his book’s 176 pages. Some, like Warhol Superstar Holly Woodlawn, are famous. Others, like the hotel’s runaway children, are nameless. One guy simply named Mike “came from the drug scene and had beaten his addiction,” Scopin said. Mike’s seen raising money for rehab.

Chancy Dévaureaux and a friend at the Hotel Chelsea. “Most of the time she was very unhappy,” Scopin writes. Photo by Albert Scopin Schöpflin.

Several specific events appear, too, like Jackie Curtis’s production of Vain Victory: The Vicissitudes of the Damned (1970) and Christopher Street Liberation Day that same year. Scopin’s blurbs throughout are refreshingly honest. He calls The Female Eunuch author Germaine Greer “one of the most unpleasant people I met there,” and claims installation artist Stella Waitzkin’s place was “quite dusty.”

Chelsea Hotel is engrossing—rare for this overstimulated era. At its start, the photographer recalls an exhibition of his work at the 2022 Venice Biennale. “There were lots of people there and a lot of talking and writing went on, but there wasn’t a spark of interest,” he said, “It was just about being there, not about the substance.” His new release offers kindling to reignite a lost era.

Chelsea Hotel is out now on Kerber Verlag.