“Do you think any of them still live here?” I pondered.

Some of the Chelsea’s old-timers are still there, and many aren’t happy about the makeover. Various fights over zoning and tenant laws tied up the project for a decade, pushing renovation costs to over $30 million.

Weirdly but unavoidably, the 60 or so remaining permanent residents’ homes are randomly interspersed with what are now hotel rooms, only differentiated by letters on the doors instead of numbers.

Tourists are now part of the mish-mashed Chelsea party guest list that has also included many notable authors, poets, artists, actors and scientists — including Mark Twain, Dylan Thomas, Jackson Pollack, Jack Kerouac, Arthur Miller, Andy Warhol and even pre-fame Madonna.

The Hotel Chelsea’s rooftop patio features a skyline view of Midtown Manhattan. (Chris Riemenschneider/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

With simple Google searches, you can do what the hotel staff won’t offer and pick out the rooms where all of these famous (and infamous) people and incidents intermingled.

So we did our own walking tour. We started on the 10th floor, where Smith and Mapplethorpe lived in one of the building’s smallest rooms — the crowdedness of the spaces up there seemingly a reflection of New York itself.