The Barbizon: The Hotel That Set Women Free

by Paulina Bren Narrated by Andi Arndt

Overview

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.

Welcome to New York's legendary hotel for women, the Barbizon.

Liberated after WWI from home and hearth, women flocked to New York City during the Roaring Twenties. 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. 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.

But 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. 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. Students of the prestigious Katharine Gibbs Secretarial School had three floors to themselves, Eileen Ford used the hotel as a guest house for her youngest models, and Mademoiselle magazine boarded its summer interns there, including a young designer named Betsey Johnson.

The first ever history of this extraordinary hotel, and of the women who arrived in New York City alone from “elsewhere” with a suitcase and a dream, The Barbizon offers readers a multilayered history of New York City in the 20th century, and of the generations of American women torn between their desire for independence and their looming social expiration date. By providing women a room of their own, the Barbizon was the hotel that set them free.

Editorial Reviews

MARCH 2021 - AudioFile

Listeners will enjoy this nostalgic look at New York City life through the lens of its most famous women's residential hotel, The Barbizon. Narrator Andi Arndt's tone is conversational and her pace assured as she conveys the Barbizon's history, which echoes the city's social legacy. She recounts the chronicles of its well-known residents, who include Joan Didion, Sylvia Plath, Margaret Brown, Grace Kelly, Betsey Johnson, and Phylicia Rashad. Arndt's clear enunciation and engaged tone carry listeners through this institution's evolution—from its inception in 1928 as an establishment for privileged white women who required references to board through the years when many Katharine Gibbs students and staff from MADEMOISELLE magazine resided there and, finally, to its 2005 conversion to condominium units. M.J. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

01/04/2021

Historian Bren (The Greengrocer and His TV) delivers an entertaining and enlightening account of New York’s Barbizon Hotel and the role it played in fostering women’s ambitions in 20th-century America. Bren presents the hotel’s clientele as risk takers who comforted their parents by moving into what was billed as New York’s “most exclusive hotel residence for young women.” Named for a 19th-century French art movement, the Barbizon opened in 1927 and remained in operation until its conversion into luxury condos in 2007. Mademoiselle magazine housed its guest editors there, Bren notes, and the Katharine Gibbs Secretarial School rented two full floors for students and their housemother. Bren profiles noteworthy guests including Molly Brown, who survived the sinking of the Titanic, actors Tippi Hedren and Grace Kelly, singers Shirley Jones and Liza Minnelli (whose mom, Judy Garland, called nearly daily to check on her daughter), and writers Joan Didion and Jean Stafford. Sylvia Plath was one of many future authors and designers (Meg Wolitzer and Betsey Johnson among them) who stayed at the Barbizon after winning a spot in Mademoiselle’s guest editor program; in Plath’s novel The Bell Jar, the hotel was called the Amazon. Carefully researched yet breezily written, this appealing history gives the Barbizon its rightful turn in the spotlight. (Mar.)

The New Yorker

"More than a biography of a building, the book is an absorbing history of labor and women’s rights in one of the country’s largest cities, and also of the places that those women left behind to chase their dreams."

The Wall Street Journal

"Among the handful of iconic hotels closely entwined with New York’s cultural history, the Barbizon is perhaps less widely known than the Plaza, Algonquin or Waldorf Astoria. But as Paulina Bren’s beguiling new book makes clear, its place in the city’s storied past is no less deserving...In this captivating portrait, the hotel comes alive again as an enchanted site of a bygone era."

Yankton Daily Press

"So you say that you love to read biographies. Generals, actors, scientists, politicians, add this to your list. The Barbizon is a biography of a hotel. And yet, a building is nothing but materials, so author Paulina Bren weaves concrete and glass with confidence and glitz, and Carols and Gaels. She opens her tale in a just-right manner, with money and a deliciously outrageous woman, proceeding then through decades of American fads and ideals, stretching from Dust Bowl to disco....Irresistibly readable.

LYNN DUMENIL

"From famous models to Joan Didion, from hopeful stenographers to Sylvia Plath. The Barbizon housed women who eagerly sought independence, adventure, and careers in New York City. Besides the story of the famous women-only hotel, The Barbizon chronicles key aspects of American women's history in the first half of the twentieth century. A compelling read!"

The Guardian

With enough smoldering glamour to make Mad Men look dreary...Bren’s captivating book tells the story of this women’s residential hotel, from its construction in 1927 on Manhattan’s 140 East 63rd Street, to its eventual conversion into multimillion-dollar condominiums in 2007. But it is also a brilliant many-layered social history of women’s ambition and a rapidly changing New York throughout the 20th century.

Marie Claire

"Fascinating...If you love the glimpses of the long-ago New York City of Midge Maisel and Peggy "Mad Men" Olson, you will want to read this true tale of a bygone New York City."

The Observer

"Captivating...a brilliant many-layered social history of women's ambition and a rapidly changing New York."

The New York Times Book Review

"A captivating history... Bren’s book is really about the changing cultural perceptions of women’s ambition throughout the last century, set against the backdrop of that most famous theater of aspiration, New York City....Bren draws on an impressive amount of archival research, and pays tender attention to each of the women she profiles."

Bust

"While Bren’s book is packed with juicy midcentury gossip, it’s also full of lesser-known characters who light up the pages...It all serves as a potent reminder of how important a little space can be in the quest for freedom."

KEITH O'BRIEN

"Residents of the Barbizon Hotel were once described as 'young women alone.' Thanks to Paulina Bren, they are alone no longer. The Barbizon is a fascinating social history of a forgotten place and time and an intimate portrait of women, trying to find their way in a pre-feminist world. I'll never look at a hotel and think the same way again."

MEGHAN DAUM

"This is the history I’ve been wanting to read all my life. I just didn’t know where to look. How delightful to find it in the legacy of this magical hotel, captured in brilliant detail by the masterful Paulina Bren. Even if you can’t move into the Barbizon, reading this book will make you feel like you’ve lived there for years. You’ll never want to move out."

Stacy Schiff

"Before Sex and the Single Girl, before “Sex and the City,” there was the Barbizon. It was a romantic building with a romantic purpose: It fixed a woman up with her dreams. Paulina Bren has written a stylish, charming history of a unique institution, brimming with aspiration and idiosyncrasy, and one that allowed a woman to survive without either marrying someone or cooking him dinner – even when she was barred from so much as taking a seat at the bar."

Sunday Times (UK)

"A fascinating look at a piece of forgotten female history."

Daily Express

"Illuminating . . . this vivid, well-researched account is testament to its vibrant history and the women who made it such a powerhouse."

The Washington Post

A lively history...The Barbizon is a story as much about 20th-century women seizing agency, in fits and starts, as it is about a hotel, and Bren tells it skillfully.

All About Romance

"Bren catches the breathless tone of the times and of these women, who would succeed, flame out into indifferent, ordinary lives, or – as a chosen few, such as Grace Kelly, did – reach greatness....A stunning and surprisingly affecting piece of history."

BOOKLIST (Starred)

"Varying delectably in cadence, from high-heel tapping and typewriter clacking to sinuous and reflective passages analyzing the complex forms of adversity Barbizon women faced over the decades, Bren’s engrossing and illuminating inquiry portrays the original Barbizon as a vital microcosm of the long quest for women's equality."

The New Republic

"The first history of the hotel and the ambitious women who stayed there...poignant and intriguing."

Fortune

"Bren elegantly weaves interviews with former residents and archival research with context on the social and political conditions that limited midcentury women."

Wall Street Journal

"Among the handful of iconic hotels closely entwined with New York’s cultural history, the Barbizon is perhaps less widely known than the Plaza, Algonquin or Waldorf Astoria. But as Paulina Bren’s beguiling new book makes clear, its place in the city’s storied past is no less deserving."

From the Publisher

"Residents of the Barbizon Hotel were once described as 'young women alone.' Thanks to Paulina Bren, they are alone no longer. The Barbizon is a fascinating social history of a forgotten place and time and an intimate portrait of women, trying to find their way in a pre-feminist world. I'll never look at a hotel and think the same way again." —KEITH O'BRIEN, New York Times bestselling author of Fly Girls

"This is the history I’ve been wanting to read all my life. I just didn’t know where to look. How delightful to find it in the legacy of this magical hotel, captured in brilliant detail by the masterful Paulina Bren. Even if you can’t move into the Barbizon, reading this book will make you feel like you’ve lived there for years. You’ll never want to move out. —MEGHAN DAUM, author of The Problem With Everything: My Journey Through The New Culture Wars

"From famous models to Joan Didion, from hopeful stenographers to Sylvia Plath. The Barbizon housed women who eagerly sought independence, adventure, and careers in New York City. Besides the story of the famous women-only hotel, The Barbizon chronicles key aspects of American women's history in the first half of the twentieth century. A compelling read!" —LYNN DUMENIL, author The Second Line of Defense: American Women and World War I

"Before Sex and the Single Girl, before “Sex and the City,” there was the Barbizon. It was a romantic building with a romantic purpose: It fixed a woman up with her dreams. Paulina Bren has written a stylish, charming history of a unique institution, brimming with aspiration and idiosyncrasy, and one that allowed a woman to survive without either marrying someone or cooking him dinner – even when she was barred from so much as taking a seat at the bar." —STACY SCHIFF, author of The Witches and Pulitzer Prize Winner

Library Journal

★ 01/01/2021

Several authors have written about the Barbizon Hotel, the most famous hotel for women in New York, but Bren (Vassar Coll., The Greengrocer and His TV) excels with this insightful, well-written account. From its founding in 1927, the hotel established itself as a safe haven for beautiful elite and middle-class white women trying to make it in the world of publishing, fashion, and business. Bren chronicles the hotel's ups and downs through the Great Depression and World War II, its famous design, and the social rules enforced by the staff. She also details the lives of some of the Barbizon's most well-known residents, including Molly Brown, Grace Kelly, Sylvia Plath, and Joan Didion, and provides historical context about midcentury single women, careers, and sex. Because of the difficulties of finding specific material about the hotel itself, the book often veers into a history of the magazine Mademoiselle and several modeling agencies, where many residents worked. However, these anecdotes provide additional context into the lives of the women who inhabited the hotel and their lasting influence. VERDICT A must read for anyone interested in the history of 20th-century women's lives, fashion, publishing, and New York.—Kate Stewart, Tucson

MARCH 2021 - AudioFile

Listeners will enjoy this nostalgic look at New York City life through the lens of its most famous women's residential hotel, The Barbizon. Narrator Andi Arndt's tone is conversational and her pace assured as she conveys the Barbizon's history, which echoes the city's social legacy. She recounts the chronicles of its well-known residents, who include Joan Didion, Sylvia Plath, Margaret Brown, Grace Kelly, Betsey Johnson, and Phylicia Rashad. Arndt's clear enunciation and engaged tone carry listeners through this institution's evolution—from its inception in 1928 as an establishment for privileged white women who required references to board through the years when many Katharine Gibbs students and staff from MADEMOISELLE magazine resided there and, finally, to its 2005 conversion to condominium units. M.J. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2020-12-08
A rare glimpse behind the doors of New York’s famous women-only residential hotel.

During the 1920s, young women began to flock to Manhattan, unbound by the restrictions of previous generations. After the Barbizon Hotel for Women opened in 1928, writes Vassar professor Bren, many women showed up “with a suitcase, reference letters, and hope.” Among them were aspiring writers, actors, and models who believed the Barbizon would provide a safe haven from which to launch their careers. Two floors were occupied by the Katharine Gibbs Secretarial School, which sought to provide “a pathway for young women to find work.” Betsy Talbot Blackwell, editor-in-chief of Mademoiselle, encouraged those who participated in the magazine’s guest editor program to reside at the Barbizon, making its hallways a “shelter as well as a testing ground for generations of ambitious women.” As the reputation of the Barbizon grew, so did its demand. “It would become the landing pad,” writes the author, “the go-to destination for young women from all over the country determined to give their New York dreams a shot.” Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar was “entirely based on her time at the Barbizon,” and other now-famous residents included Rita Hayworth, Joan Crawford, Liza Minnelli, Grace Kelly, Joan Didion, and Meg Wolitzer. In the 1950s, women oscillated “between acting on their own dreams and following society’s expectations for them,” and the next decade spelled the end for the institution. “Ironically,” writes Bren, it was “the onset of the 1960s women’s movement that would sound the death knell for the Barbizon. The residential hotel built in the 1920s on the premise of women’s independence and the nurturing of their artistic talents and all-around ambition would become a casualty of that very same goal.” Drawing on extensive research, extant letters, and numerous interviews, Bren beautifully weaves together the political climate of the times and the illuminating personal stories of the Barbizon residents. Although some parts of the narrative are repetitive, particularly regarding Plath and Kelly, the book remains captivating.

Elegant prose brings a rich cultural history alive.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940177322735
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	03/02/2021
Edition description:	Unabridged

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