Zoe Hansen is a London-born writer, artist, and former Manhattan madam who spent more than three decades in New York City’s underground cultural and nightlife scenes. Living at the Chelsea Hotel and running five brothels by the late 1990s, she moved among downtown artists, musicians, and writers while producing literary events. Now based in Los Angeles, Hansen is the author of the memoir Going Down in Gotham (April 2026), a portrait of a young woman’s incredible life and survival, and desire to find herself in a vanished New York.