The famed Hotel Chelsea has been undergoing a massive overhaul for the last five years. And while it is closed to the public, dozens of people, many of them artists, are still living inside, much like they have for decades.
From the outside, it appears the Hotel Chelsea is just a massive renovation project.
But inside, composer Gerald Busby is continuing to live in the apartment he has called home for 20 years, as work goes on all around him.
"Instead of getting angry and reacting to it, I would use that energy to write a string quartet," Busby said.
Busby lives in one of the 58 apartment units still occupied by residents.
His studio was renovated earlier this year as part of an agreement with the building's new owners that allows tenants to remain in their rent-stabilized apartments.
Zoe Pappas helped secure the deal. She created the hotel's tenants' association after the building had been sold in 2011 to a developer who residents feared would kick them out.
"That person who bought the hotel came with the idea that we the Chelsea Hotel are second-hand citizens and that we have to be squashed, like a cockroach," Pappas said.
The dispute ended in 2013, when another owner took over the place.
For decades, the hotel was a drug-filled bohemian paradise — once home to icons like Bob Dylan and scandals like the murder of Nancy Spungen.
"It was an anything goes kind of atmosphere," Busby said.
That atmosphere has been wiped away by renovations that will convert the building into a high-end boutique hotel.
But artist George Chemeche, whose apartment is about to be fixed up, hopes construction doesn't also destroy the Chelsea's architectural charms.
As for what the building once stood for — residents know it is just a memory.
"It's like a fraternity you belonged to in college," Busby said. "It's over, it's gone."
Construction is expected to wrap up by 2017. And it's at that point that hotel guests will once again mingle alongside tenants who have called the place home for decades.