A Preview of 'The Night Punk Rock Died'

New York City's Chelsea Hotel is known for having attracted names like Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith, and Dylan Thomas. Sadly, this also was the scene of a murder in 1978, now the subject of a new book.

Room 100: Sid, Nancy, and the Night Punk Rock Died is to be published in mid-April. While the writer, Jesse Pollack, conducted extensive research, questions still remain about the night Nancy Spungen was murdered . . . and if this was at the hands of her boyfriend, Sid Vicious. Or perhaps the crime was committed by one of their visitors that evening. 

It's problematic that so much time has passed, and that quite a few interviewees have contradicted themselves or each other. Michael Baden is one of the more reliable people Pollack spoke with, as he was New York's chief medical examiner in the late seventies. 

There are still questions, too, about Sid's fatal overdose, less than four months after Nancy's passing.

Pollack delved into both the couple's troubled past and the history of the Sex Pistols. So the reader learns about how Nancy and Sid first got together (after she was rejected by the band's lead vocalist, Johnny Rotten), and about colleagues like the New York Dolls and the Ramones. 

As for the Pistols themselves, three of the fellows reunited for a series of gigs just last year. 

And the Chelsea is now a luxury hotel--a far cry from when it was a refuge for struggling artists.