While Sylvia Plath most famously fictionalized her time there in The Bell Jar, the Barbizon was also where Titanic survivor Molly Brown sang her last aria where Grace Kelly danced topless in the hallways where Joan Didion got her first taste of Manhattan and where both Ali MacGraw and Jaclyn Smith found their calling as actresses. More importantly still, with no men allowed beyond the lobby, the Barbizon signaled respectability, a place where a young woman of a certain class could feel at home.īut as the stock market crashed and the Great Depression set in, the clientele changed, though women’s ambitions did not the Barbizon Hotel became the go-to destination for any young American woman with a dream to be something more. But even as women’s residential hotels became the fashion, the Barbizon stood out it was designed for young women with artistic aspirations, and included soaring art studios and soundproofed practice rooms. Liberated after WWI from home and hearth, women flocked to New York City during the Roaring Twenties. Welcome to New York’s legendary hotel for women, the Barbizon. A “captivating portrait” ( The Wall Street Journal), both “poignant and intriguing” ( The New Republic): from award-winning author Paulina Bren comes the remarkable history of New York’s most famous residential hotel and the women who stayed there, including Grace Kelly, Sylvia Plath, and Joan Didion.
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