WEBVTT - For Ian Schrager, Studio 54 Was Just the Start 0:00:03.200 --> 0:00:06.240 This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing, 0:00:06.760 --> 0:00:10.720 My chance to talk with artists, policy makers, and performers, 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:15.440 to hear their stories. What inspires their creations, what decisions 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:21.680 change their careers, what relationships influenced their work. The Vietnam 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:25.040 War had ended, the AIDS epidemic had not yet begun, 0:00:25.600 --> 0:00:30.080 and a nightclub one night club will forever symbolize the 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:34.519 glamor and debauchery of that time. If you managed to 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:37.480 get through the doors of Studio fifty four, you'd find 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:41.879 yourself among the biggest stars of the day, Warhol, Liza Minnelli, 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:47.360 Halston Share, Mick Jagger, the midtown Manhattan hotspot pulsed with 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:54.080 sexual experimentation, drug culture, and yes, disco fever. My guest today. 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:58.280 Ian Schrager opened Studio fifty four nineteen seventy seven with 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:02.680 his then partner, the late Deve Rubel. Before becoming a 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:06.320 club owner. Schraeger, a lawyer with little interest in practicing, 0:01:06.560 --> 0:01:10.200 searched for a business opportunity close to home. You know, 0:01:10.240 --> 0:01:12.560 I didn't realize, you know, what a global capital in 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:15.120 New York City was, you know, to me, it was 0:01:15.200 --> 0:01:17.520 kind of I lived in New York. It was very provincial. 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:20.679 I grew up in Brooklyn. And you know what, I well, well, 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:23.160 what's happened here is New York has kind of followed 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:27.479 the lead that happened in London. It's become a world capital. 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:30.400 It's a safe place. People from all over the world 0:01:30.440 --> 0:01:33.440 want to live here, and and and because of that, 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:35.720 I mean, it's made the real estate prices grow, and 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:39.160 it's also made a hotel dusty change. When I when 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:41.640 I first started in the industry, there was sixty thousand 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:45.479 hotel rooms. Now there's almost a hundred thousand hotel rooms. 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:48.600 And I and I think it's just completely different. And 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:51.760 I think what's so funny, because everything is so cyclical, 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:54.880 is that, you know, I came from Brooklyn. My my 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:58.200 dream was to come and be in Manhattan. Now everybody's 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:01.720 in Manhattan, and everybody's dreams go back to Brooklyn. Did 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:03.840 you did you ever predict that was possible? That I 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:05.560 had no idea? What you had no idea? And did you? 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:07.000 Did you? I mean, I hate to see use this 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:08.960 kind of slang with did you get it on that? 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:10.959 Did you? Did you head out to Brooklyn Queen's in 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:13.600 a timely way to develop, did you develop? I totally 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:15.959 missed it because I thought I left. I had never 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:18.880 gone back, but I I But you know, it's so 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:21.320 funny the way these things happened every generation. That's what 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:24.080 happened to Brooklyn a hundred fifty years ago. And well, 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:26.200 women started to go to go over there. You got 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:28.680 two crowded. Here was too expensive for you. People went 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:31.640 to Brooklyn happening again. And when you grew up with 0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:34.280 your father in real estate, with your father, what your 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:37.280 father coute matter of factoring he's in the clothing business. 0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:39.960 And did your parents live to see you become the 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:42.480 success that you've become. No, they didn't. They didn't act 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:46.080 they That's something you know, I really sanssen to me. 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:49.320 They didn't get to see me successful. They also didn't 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:51.280 get to see me go into Studio fifty four, which 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:54.080 they would not have approved of. They wanted a doctor 0:02:54.120 --> 0:02:57.400 and other things they wouldn't have approved that. They wanted 0:02:57.400 --> 0:02:59.280 a doctor, they wanted a lawyer. But the one thing 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:01.560 is that I you know, because they died so young, 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:04.000 I didn't have an opportunity to give back, like say 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:05.760 with me with my dad. My dad died when I 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:08.520 was twenty five and he was only fifty five. You know, 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:11.440 he was very young when he did. I was nineteen. 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:14.000 My dead was fifty one, and he didn't get to 0:03:14.080 --> 0:03:17.440 see me become successful, which would have given him so 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:19.639 much joy. Which so the same thing with your dad. 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:22.360 So you come out of Brooklyn. You went to Syracuse 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:25.320 undergraduate or undergrad and law undergrad? And where'd you go 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:27.440 to law school? St? John's? You go to St. John's 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:29.040 Law school and you and you really don't want to 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:30.760 be a lawyer. Didn't want to be a lawyer. You 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:32.400 just were killing time. I didn't know what I wanted 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:34.440 to do. How could you possibly know what you want 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:36.360 to do when you were like nineteen or twenty years old? 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:38.360 I mean, you know, now I went to law school. 0:03:38.400 --> 0:03:40.800 I never worked. And then when the law school was over, 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:43.880 I said, now, what first job I got was a 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:47.760 fourteen tho dollars a year and I was filing papers 0:03:47.920 --> 0:03:50.880 as an associate law firm. How long did that last? 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:53.560 How long were you win? About three and a half years. 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:56.560 You know, Laura's the kind of profession that I required 0:03:56.560 --> 0:03:58.920 to out of discipline. A lot of years. I got 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:01.720 bored by it. So I wanted to a nightclub business. 0:04:02.120 --> 0:04:05.680 I read an interview where you said you were driving 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:07.520 by and you saw people lined up out in front 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:09.320 of a club, and you thought, that looks like a 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:11.600 good business to me. Yeah. I mean, do you remember 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:15.360 what club where it was one? It was on forty 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:20.280 third Street between um sixth Avenue and Broadway. At that time, 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:23.760 the whole social millennium was being set by gay clubs, 0:04:24.400 --> 0:04:26.280 not blacks, the way it is now and the way 0:04:26.279 --> 0:04:28.359 it was before then. But then it was gay because 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:31.480 everything was just emerging sexually, and if you had a 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:33.440 successful gay club, you were trying to keep all the 0:04:33.480 --> 0:04:36.560 straight people out because once the straight people came to 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:38.960 gay people left. And that was one of the first 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:41.679 clubs that I call a fusion club that they're really 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:45.320 It was gay, and it had that kind of sexual 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:48.280 electricity in the air that gay clubs at. But there 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:51.360 was a lot of straight people there and and there 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:53.880 were people waiting in lines, and all these great people 0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:56.359 were being insulted and try to be turned away because 0:04:56.360 --> 0:04:58.520 everybody just wanted to get in there. That was a 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:01.360 business I wanted to get into because he were giving nothing, 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:04.159 offering nothing, and people are paying to get in now 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:08.040 for people my generation. When I say your name, all 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:11.480 you have to do is say uh Ian and Steve 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:13.279 and people will know who the Steve is. But for 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:16.240 those who don't know, in our listening audience to Steve Rebel, 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:18.800 who was your the late Steve Rebel? Who was your partner? 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:21.440 How did you hook up with him? And how did 0:05:21.440 --> 0:05:24.960 you meet him? To birth? We both born in Brooklyn 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:28.599 and different they were Jason neighborhood, but you know, different 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:32.680 school districts. We didn't know each other, middle class Brooklyn. 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:35.360 You know, his his dad was a mailman, his mother 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:37.680 was a teacher. We went up to school. He was 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:40.839 a few years older than I. He was up in Syracuse, 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:44.320 and we just became fast friends from from when we 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:47.400 when we met. You know, I left after four years. 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:49.880 He stayed on because it was the Vietnam War. Everybody 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:52.800 was trying to stay in school. And and when he 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:56.600 ultimately came back to New York, you know, we stayed 0:05:56.640 --> 0:06:00.800 friends obviously, and and and I repre prevented him. He 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:03.960 went into the stake business tachmon like for five dollars, 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:05.599 you could have all the steak and beer you wanted. 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:08.440 And he went into the restaurant owned Yeah, what was 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:13.760 it called steakloft stick. It's like unsuccessful undercap for people 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:16.159 who want to go have steak and soho stake loft 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:20.760 and so uh. And I represented him, keeping the credits 0:06:20.800 --> 0:06:24.000 off his back because he was under capitalized. And then 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:26.560 it was during that time that I saw like the 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:31.800 nightclub thing was just emerging. When it was kind of 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:35.200 shifting away from you know, going into a nightclub and 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:38.680 trying to meet people and meet girls and it was 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:41.680 pick up places and things like that. It was kind 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:44.960 of evolving into like a gay club kind of scene 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:48.920 where it was serious, sweaty dancing, you know, and and 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:52.120 and that's the kind of club that I liked. But 0:06:52.400 --> 0:06:55.000 do you do you ever? I mean, you're married, you've 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:58.359 got a young kid, you're super successful businessman. Do you 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:00.640 ever stick your finger in the night club business? Now, 0:07:00.640 --> 0:07:05.159 we'll see what it's like, you know, different. Well, you know, 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:11.040 there are certain things that never change. Fashion change, but 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:13.800 there are kind of certain things that never change. You know, 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:16.520 people always ask me to do nightclubs. I'm not interested. 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:18.280 I have nothing new to offer. I mean, it's a 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:21.120 young person's business. You know. When I went into it, it 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:23.280 it was like a like a garage business. It was 0:07:23.320 --> 0:07:26.640 like making music in a garage or inventing a technology 0:07:26.680 --> 0:07:29.040 company in the garage. Now it's become big business. You 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:31.680 need a lot of money to do a nightclub. But 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:35.000 I do them. I still do them when I think 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:37.600 it'll have a positive impact on a hotel. You do 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:41.000 I'm doing. I'm doing a couple for the additions, but 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:44.920 but not big ones, like with studio to two thousand, 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:48.280 three thousand square feet, but still with dancing at the 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:54.080 hot sweaty serious dancing where I'm one in Miami, which 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:57.400 is like probably the nightclub capital in this country, and 0:07:57.440 --> 0:07:59.800 a couple of other places where I have the facility 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:04.800 sectacular lighting effect I Vegas. It's nothing my competition, you know, 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:10.760 with spectacular lighting effects, and it still works. Like I 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:12.920 remember Steve asking me when we did a Platium a 0:08:13.000 --> 0:08:15.040 second nightclub, but people still like to dance, And I 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:17.320 would say, of course, I like the dancing and dancing 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:19.320 some sodom and gomor. You just have to kind of 0:08:19.360 --> 0:08:23.120 find what it is that kind of activate you know, 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:26.280 people and let them, you know, get loose and let 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:28.360 the head down. What were the other places that were 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:31.160 the top clubs? Then you guys opened Palladium a couple 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:34.959 of years later on fourteen Street. When we opened up um, 0:08:35.960 --> 0:08:38.440 when we when we had Studio fifty four, there was 0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:41.320 a kind of Uh, there was a place called Zeno 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:45.319 with a knockoff. Knockoff was where you went because you 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:50.120 couldn't get into studio exactly great, you said it, Yeah, 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:52.520 but but there was some some great, great, great great 0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:58.240 gay place. There's a flamingo, very creative twelve West. Uh. 0:08:58.880 --> 0:09:01.000 This is a cliche office. But when the early eighties 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:04.680 roll around, did aids kill that culture? Today it's uh, 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:08.040 it didn't kill it, but a change things because all 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:14.360 of a sudden, before age, there wasn't anything you couldn't 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:17.040 do at night, and it went up to their frauning 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:19.840 and walk away. Sure, it was carefree, it was different 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:22.679 things things, things were different. But but I think the 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:26.959 nightclub business got killed not because of age, but but 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:31.880 but because I think government when they started to regulate it, 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:35.520 it became so expensive to do a nightclub to comply 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:37.240 with all that read what you said that we're a 0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:39.520 nightclub to open it, of course to you tens of 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:43.040 thousands of dollars, now somebody a million. Well because of 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:46.120 why because if it was because directs and things like that, 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:48.840 So all of a sudden, young people didn't franchise. I 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:51.360 did my first nightclub with twenty seven thousand dollars. You know, 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:52.920 you didn't have to know anything, You didn't have to 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:54.760 have a lot of money. It was like you roll 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:56.719 up the carpet, you put on a record player when 0:09:56.720 --> 0:09:59.520 you have a nightclub. And did that stopped? That kind 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:03.320 of roll all energy stopped. That happened in rock and roll, 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:06.160 and it happened with technology do when appleca invented in 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:09.480 the garage and so it changed. The business evolved, and 0:10:09.559 --> 0:10:12.560 so young people can't do it anymore. And that's why 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:16.560 now in the nightclub business, nobody owns anything anymore. They 0:10:16.600 --> 0:10:19.120 have promoters going around from clubs to clubs because it's 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:22.440 just too expensive. When you and Reubel decided to go 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:24.560 into business, what did you think he brought to the 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:26.120 table and what did he think you broke to the 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:27.679 Was it kind of a front of the house back 0:10:27.720 --> 0:10:29.760 of the house battery? Oh, it wasn't that simple. It's 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:31.800 just like with a husband and a wife, nobody really 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:34.640 knows what goes on except the husband and a wife. 0:10:34.640 --> 0:10:36.640 With a fifty fifty partners. You're not going to share 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:39.440 a fifty percent with someone that's not making a fifty 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:45.079 percent contribution. You know. They weren't mutual exclusive fears of influence. 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:47.319 I mean, he was more of the people person and 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:50.120 I was more of the creative person, you know. But 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:52.079 but like, for instance, I might be in the nightclub 0:10:52.080 --> 0:10:54.319 and I would see Steve go get friendly with Austin 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:57.360 over there, you know, And if I was wanting to 0:10:57.400 --> 0:10:59.600 do something, I would go to Steve and he'd be like, 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:03.560 my did one man sample survey that he had had 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:07.280 good instincts and and and it's just so funny that 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:11.680 the vision of responsibility happened naturally. You know. We we 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:14.280 had a we had a first night club was in Queens, 0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:17.840 which was about six months before studio. It got killed 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:20.760 by Son of Sam. I remember the first night we opened, 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:22.800 Steve went to hang out with the kids at the 0:11:22.840 --> 0:11:24.439 bar and Queen's and I went up into the d 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:27.200 J boot the play with the Lights. It just kind 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:30.120 of happened. And that club was called what Enchant of 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:32.559 Garden and then that died after the Son of Sam shoots. 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:33.880 It was hord to get people to come in to 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:36.040 a nightclub and someone was out there killing me on 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:40.000 the streets and parked cars. Yeah. Now, when you open 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:43.560 up the studio and you uh were you married at 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:45.720 the time, when you come to your first wife, how 0:11:45.800 --> 0:11:48.920 soon after your studio for quite a while, so you 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:50.600 could live that life and out a different boy. But 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:53.600 you were letting somebody down, crawling in the door at 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:56.360 eight o'clock in the morning, So it was long night's view. 0:11:56.400 --> 0:11:59.520 You were in it. You weren't somebody who was turned 0:11:59.520 --> 0:12:01.480 into somebody blowing them a kiss and I'm going home 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:04.000 and you were in bed by one o'clock. No, but 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:06.680 Steve used to say he stayed too long and I 0:12:06.800 --> 0:12:09.160 left too early. You know what would really happen is 0:12:09.320 --> 0:12:13.800 I stayed two one, two o'clock till the night to thirty, 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:16.240 sometimes until the night turned the corner and I knew 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:19.440 it was stable, and then I would grab somebody and 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:23.560 go home. Now back stairs, Now back then, is it 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:27.120 safe to say? Another risk of businesses back then with 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:29.280 the credit cards were not that big back in the Lake. 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:32.760 It's a cash business. And ultimately that was part of 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:34.480 the problem, was that it was a cash We didn't 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:37.480 have any money, you know, There was a movie once 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:40.360 was to Go the Brings Robbery And after they robbed 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:42.120 the truck and they were in the room, they're throwing 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:43.559 the money up in the air. Was one of the 0:12:43.679 --> 0:12:45.560 scenes in the movie touched the way it was with 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:48.280 Steve and I. We didn't have any money. All of 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:50.240 a sudden, we were the toast of the town and 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:53.680 all this money was coming in and it was it was, 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:57.040 you know, like you couldn't believe it. It wasn't we 0:12:57.080 --> 0:13:00.960 went in it. We weren't motivated by the money. It 0:13:01.080 --> 0:13:03.520 was just the kind of byproduct that kind And I'm trying, 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:06.760 I'm trying to be generous here insofar as that when 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:09.440 you get yourself into trouble with taxes and so forth, 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:12.559 and eventually led to some tough consequences. Was it Did 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:14.240 you find that it was more difficult back in the 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:17.520 day when things weren't computerized and things weren't credit cards 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:20.320 and you have to handle that much cash. We were 0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:23.199 the gang that couldn't shoot straight, you know, we were 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:28.520 just it was kind of very spontaneous and impulsive. It 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:31.240 was like a kind of silly, stupid thing. Everybody in 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:35.400 the whole world knew what was going on and you 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:38.199 weren't the only ones to say, well, I mean, I 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:40.600 know this has been brought up to you added infinitum 0:13:40.600 --> 0:13:43.400 about going to prison. You're you're there for thirteen months, 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:47.920 and where did you go? We were in the mcc 0:13:48.160 --> 0:13:51.079 here for six months, and then we were in Montgomery, 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:53.360 Alabama for six months. So you say, we who's weed? 0:13:53.440 --> 0:13:55.560 Steve and I so you got to see him pretty regularly. 0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:59.080 What was that like? Oh, it's the worst. I mean, 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:00.600 you know, we were the only and that were guilty. 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:03.760 Nobody else in jail was guilty. Uh, it was. It 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:06.320 was terrible. I mean, you know, like even I mean 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:09.600 if I would take you and put you in the 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:13.000 grandest suite in the grandest hotel for a year and 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:16.640 let you have room service, it's still gonna hate it. Yeah, 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:21.160 maybe it's just you. You arrived, You are robbed of 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:24.640 your discretion as a human being a terrible What got 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:26.640 you through that? I mean you're young, so you're still 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:29.080 pretty tough. But what did you keep telling yourself to 0:14:29.160 --> 0:14:32.880 keep yourself together? You know? Uh, we would read a 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:35.120 lot and dream a lot. It was a very very 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:38.760 tough thing. Being with Steve made it a little bit easier, 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:42.280 you know, someone who could understand, Yeah, I mean, and 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:44.920 someone I mean when you're in there with a lot 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:48.520 of psychopaths, and and and it's just it's just kind 0:14:48.520 --> 0:14:52.240 of difficult. Life is cheap, and you know, and and 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:54.640 and it was just a very difficult thing. And you know, 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:58.360 you you try and not let them rob you of 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:01.680 your enthusiasm for life, from your verb for life. You know, 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:04.080 you know when you succeeded at that. So by the 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:05.760 time you're ready to get out of there, by the 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:09.640 time were you both released at the same time, And 0:15:09.720 --> 0:15:11.640 when at the same time we released the same time, 0:15:11.640 --> 0:15:13.400 we went to a halfway house here and I think 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:16.120 it was in on seventy nine or something, and on 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:18.800 the website, and you were there for how long? Three months? 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:22.000 And then you're free, right And when you were even 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:26.720 then very tentative and very you know, very tentative, couldn't 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:29.680 even open a bank account. It was kind of re 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:34.360 entry and it's tough. So three months you're done with 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:37.640 the halfway house. So what does the team of Schraeger 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:42.680 and Rebel, what's the first thing that comes to hotel Hotel? Why, 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:45.160 you know, when we were in jail, first of all, 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:48.200 I was reading all these great books, you know, you 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:51.400 know David Apperstram, you know, the best and the brightest, 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:54.280 and you know, and and which was a kind of 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:57.200 study of the rise of the media empire, and and 0:15:57.200 --> 0:16:00.560 and in there a lot of those guys had interludes 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:04.320 in their life the war, and and and after those 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:08.360 interlude they all did gain changing switches in their lives, 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:10.840 and one open to different directions. Well, you know, the 0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:13.840 Bill Pilly decided to CBS after the war, and the 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:17.160 New York Times up to the anti and so are 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:22.200 intlude force. But but that's when when Harry Helmsley and 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:25.800 and and Donald Trump, the newspapers were playing up this 0:16:25.920 --> 0:16:30.000 big rivalry. Uh. Harry Helmsley was doing a hotel and 0:16:30.040 --> 0:16:33.200 fifty one to Madison that was called the Palace, and 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:37.680 Donald was doing one on on Fort Street, and they 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:40.720 were playing up the rivalry and that kind of rivalry, 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:43.080 and the papers sucked me in, boy, and I said, well, 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:46.440 we can do a better hotel than than both of them. 0:16:46.520 --> 0:16:49.560 And when you say better hotel, weren't you're actually doing 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:52.280 just a completely different outtel. They're doing big, are they? 0:16:52.680 --> 0:16:54.560 This is safe to say they're still doing the old style, 0:16:56.520 --> 0:16:59.240 and you wanted to do what we liked. We went 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:01.960 to to a hotel that was that that that it 0:17:02.080 --> 0:17:04.439 wasn't rocket science, was just what kind of hold We 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:07.760 did a club we liked, and and and and we 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:10.840 went to do a hotel that manifested who we were 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:14.560 all popular culture and not my parents, but but but 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:19.160 but what we liked. No rules, start from scratch. And 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:21.119 then Morgan was the first hotel and that was on 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:24.000 one Street A thirty eight and Madison. And so when 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:28.000 and why that property good story. When we sold Studio 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:32.680 fifty four, we took back promisory notes. You know, it 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:35.960 took a very meaga down payment and promisory notes, and 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:38.840 we were helping the person run the clubs. We get 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:41.560 a promisory notes paid well, he couldn't pay the promisory notes. 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:43.760 So when he couldn't pay the promisory notes, we traded 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:46.720 his promisory note for his interest in the hotel, which 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:50.879 happened to be Morgan's. And so there was a hotel before. 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:54.439 It wasn't like a private mansion or something before what 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:56.080 had it been before? It was a hotel. It was 0:17:56.080 --> 0:17:58.879 a dump was called executive hotel, and it was a 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:02.440 dumpy hotel, looming house, you know, you know in a 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:06.399 kind of very how many floors, uh fourteen and you 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:08.040 took it over and you just hand gratted the whole thing. 0:18:08.080 --> 0:18:11.280 And we did the whole thing. We we we we 0:18:11.359 --> 0:18:15.680 didn't bang on the walls because once you start doing 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:18.160 that in an old building, you can't have a definitive budget. 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:21.600 So you know, the rooms are very small. So we 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:23.960 took the rooms the way we found them, and we 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:26.199 try to have good design, come up with solutions, and 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:27.840 we did a lot a lot of tricks. You know, 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:30.120 we made the furniture, always scaled the furniture down ten 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:34.080 percent to make the room feel bigger, and etcetera, etcetera. 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:37.439 And it was a natural hit. Light to Way studio 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:41.000 was a natural hit. It just it resonated with people 0:18:41.000 --> 0:18:45.040 to day one. And were now before you access the crowd? 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:50.720 I mean you and rebel owning a nightclub in Queens 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:53.240 did not give you access to the crowd that came 0:18:53.280 --> 0:18:55.960 to the studio. So how did you access that crowd? 0:18:56.119 --> 0:19:00.720 Who got who to come? You know, it's kind of 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:05.199 a two pronged approach. We hired a couple of party 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:09.240 promoters and then Steve went out to conquer the town. 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:14.720 He was a kind of very people oriented person. When 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:16.879 you talk to him, you thought you were the only 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:20.280 person in the world, and etcetera, and etcetera. And so 0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:24.800 a few months before, you know, Steve would do that. 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:27.600 He'd go to this restaurant that red, president this and 0:19:27.600 --> 0:19:29.840 and meet these people and he was kind of entertaining 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:31.879 and fund and so on and so forth, and that 0:19:31.960 --> 0:19:35.040 gave us a platform. Then the next thing was is 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:37.280 that you do a great place and a great product, 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:40.120 and if it's really really cool, people come. Don't tell 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:42.080 me how they come the time time from beat out there. 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:44.359 They know and they beat the door to get to it. 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:48.679 And then we had a bunch of parties um with 0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:52.200 the right people, you know, Like I remember one time, 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:54.800 you know, somebody had called we had opened up the 0:19:54.880 --> 0:19:56.960 place and it was nothing like it in New York 0:19:56.960 --> 0:20:00.280 at the time, and and and and somebody called up 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:02.880 and and Houlston wanted to have a party for Bianca. 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:05.720 It was on Monday night when we were ordinarily dark, 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:08.520 and we we we opened up for that night and 0:20:08.560 --> 0:20:13.119 there were more celebrities are about people like we were like, 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:16.080 you know, the Oa you look right from Mick Jagger 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:19.560 and Jack on Beset, all the movie people, I mean, 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:23.800 and and and we had a naked woman. We painted 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:25.680 a like Lady Gouldive and put her on a white 0:20:25.760 --> 0:20:29.080 horse to come out and give Bianco a birthday cake. 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:32.240 That picked you went all over the world. This reminds 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:34.800