The art in the Chelsea Hotel is going walkabout

It appears that the mountains of art left by former occupants of New York's famous Chelsea Hotel are slowly disappearing prior to a major remodelling:

The hotel, designated a landmark in 1966, put up for sale in 2010, has walls "caked with art" by former and current hotel residents, like Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Willem De Kooning. That art has been vanishing, piece by piece, either taken away with evicted owners, thrown away, or just "going missing." Ed Hamilton, who writes Living with Legends: Hotel Chelsea Blog, was tipped off that several of Brett Whiteley's paintings, which sell for millions, "were observed being carted out of the hotel last Wednesday and taken away in a van."

Scource: The Village Voice