Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing,
Speaker 1: My chance to talk with artists, policy makers, and performers,
Speaker 1: to hear their stories. What inspires their creations, what decisions
Speaker 1: change their careers, what relationships influenced their work. The Vietnam
Speaker 1: War had ended, the AIDS epidemic had not yet begun,
Speaker 1: and a nightclub one night club will forever symbolize the
Speaker 1: glamor and debauchery of that time. If you managed to
Speaker 1: get through the doors of Studio fifty four, you'd find
Speaker 1: yourself among the biggest stars of the day, Warhol, Liza Minnelli,
Speaker 1: Halston Share, Mick Jagger, the midtown Manhattan hotspot pulsed with
Speaker 1: sexual experimentation, drug culture, and yes, disco fever. My guest today.
Speaker 1: Ian Schrager opened Studio fifty four nineteen seventy seven with
Speaker 1: his then partner, the late Deve Rubel. Before becoming a
Speaker 1: club owner. Schraeger, a lawyer with little interest in practicing,
Speaker 1: searched for a business opportunity close to home. You know,
Speaker 1: I didn't realize, you know, what a global capital in
Speaker 1: New York City was, you know, to me, it was
Speaker 1: kind of I lived in New York. It was very provincial.
Speaker 1: I grew up in Brooklyn. And you know what, I well, well,
Speaker 1: what's happened here is New York has kind of followed
Speaker 1: the lead that happened in London. It's become a world capital.
Speaker 1: It's a safe place. People from all over the world
Speaker 1: want to live here, and and and because of that,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's made the real estate prices grow, and
Speaker 1: it's also made a hotel dusty change. When I when
Speaker 1: I first started in the industry, there was sixty thousand
Speaker 1: hotel rooms. Now there's almost a hundred thousand hotel rooms.
Speaker 1: And I and I think it's just completely different. And
Speaker 1: I think what's so funny, because everything is so cyclical,
Speaker 1: is that, you know, I came from Brooklyn. My my
Speaker 1: dream was to come and be in Manhattan. Now everybody's
Speaker 1: in Manhattan, and everybody's dreams go back to Brooklyn. Did
Speaker 1: you did you ever predict that was possible? That I
Speaker 1: had no idea? What you had no idea? And did you?
Speaker 1: Did you? I mean, I hate to see use this
Speaker 1: kind of slang with did you get it on that?
Speaker 1: Did you? Did you head out to Brooklyn Queen's in
Speaker 1: a timely way to develop, did you develop? I totally
Speaker 1: missed it because I thought I left. I had never
Speaker 1: gone back, but I I But you know, it's so
Speaker 1: funny the way these things happened every generation. That's what
Speaker 1: happened to Brooklyn a hundred fifty years ago. And well,
Speaker 1: women started to go to go over there. You got
Speaker 1: two crowded. Here was too expensive for you. People went
Speaker 1: to Brooklyn happening again. And when you grew up with
Speaker 1: your father in real estate, with your father, what your
Speaker 1: father coute matter of factoring he's in the clothing business.
Speaker 1: And did your parents live to see you become the
Speaker 1: success that you've become. No, they didn't. They didn't act
Speaker 1: they That's something you know, I really sanssen to me.
Speaker 1: They didn't get to see me successful. They also didn't
Speaker 1: get to see me go into Studio fifty four, which
Speaker 1: they would not have approved of. They wanted a doctor
Speaker 1: and other things they wouldn't have approved that. They wanted
Speaker 1: a doctor, they wanted a lawyer. But the one thing
Speaker 1: is that I you know, because they died so young,
Speaker 1: I didn't have an opportunity to give back, like say
Speaker 1: with me with my dad. My dad died when I
Speaker 1: was twenty five and he was only fifty five. You know,
Speaker 1: he was very young when he did. I was nineteen.
Speaker 1: My dead was fifty one, and he didn't get to
Speaker 1: see me become successful, which would have given him so
Speaker 1: much joy. Which so the same thing with your dad.
Speaker 1: So you come out of Brooklyn. You went to Syracuse
Speaker 1: undergraduate or undergrad and law undergrad? And where'd you go
Speaker 1: to law school? St? John's? You go to St. John's
Speaker 1: Law school and you and you really don't want to
Speaker 1: be a lawyer. Didn't want to be a lawyer. You
Speaker 1: just were killing time. I didn't know what I wanted
Speaker 1: to do. How could you possibly know what you want
Speaker 1: to do when you were like nineteen or twenty years old?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, now I went to law school.
Speaker 1: I never worked. And then when the law school was over,
Speaker 1: I said, now, what first job I got was a
Speaker 1: fourteen tho dollars a year and I was filing papers
Speaker 1: as an associate law firm. How long did that last?
Speaker 1: How long were you win? About three and a half years.
Speaker 1: You know, Laura's the kind of profession that I required
Speaker 1: to out of discipline. A lot of years. I got
Speaker 1: bored by it. So I wanted to a nightclub business.
Speaker 1: I read an interview where you said you were driving
Speaker 1: by and you saw people lined up out in front
Speaker 1: of a club, and you thought, that looks like a
Speaker 1: good business to me. Yeah. I mean, do you remember
Speaker 1: what club where it was one? It was on forty
Speaker 1: third Street between um sixth Avenue and Broadway. At that time,
Speaker 1: the whole social millennium was being set by gay clubs,
Speaker 1: not blacks, the way it is now and the way
Speaker 1: it was before then. But then it was gay because
Speaker 1: everything was just emerging sexually, and if you had a
Speaker 1: successful gay club, you were trying to keep all the
Speaker 1: straight people out because once the straight people came to
Speaker 1: gay people left. And that was one of the first
Speaker 1: clubs that I call a fusion club that they're really
Speaker 1: It was gay, and it had that kind of sexual
Speaker 1: electricity in the air that gay clubs at. But there
Speaker 1: was a lot of straight people there and and there
Speaker 1: were people waiting in lines, and all these great people
Speaker 1: were being insulted and try to be turned away because
Speaker 1: everybody just wanted to get in there. That was a
Speaker 1: business I wanted to get into because he were giving nothing,
Speaker 1: offering nothing, and people are paying to get in now
Speaker 1: for people my generation. When I say your name, all
Speaker 1: you have to do is say uh Ian and Steve
Speaker 1: and people will know who the Steve is. But for
Speaker 1: those who don't know, in our listening audience to Steve Rebel,
Speaker 1: who was your the late Steve Rebel? Who was your partner?
Speaker 1: How did you hook up with him? And how did
Speaker 1: you meet him? To birth? We both born in Brooklyn
Speaker 1: and different they were Jason neighborhood, but you know, different
Speaker 1: school districts. We didn't know each other, middle class Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: You know, his his dad was a mailman, his mother
Speaker 1: was a teacher. We went up to school. He was
Speaker 1: a few years older than I. He was up in Syracuse,
Speaker 1: and we just became fast friends from from when we
Speaker 1: when we met. You know, I left after four years.
Speaker 1: He stayed on because it was the Vietnam War. Everybody
Speaker 1: was trying to stay in school. And and when he
Speaker 1: ultimately came back to New York, you know, we stayed
Speaker 1: friends obviously, and and and I repre prevented him. He
Speaker 1: went into the stake business tachmon like for five dollars,
Speaker 1: you could have all the steak and beer you wanted.
Speaker 1: And he went into the restaurant owned Yeah, what was
Speaker 1: it called steakloft stick. It's like unsuccessful undercap for people
Speaker 1: who want to go have steak and soho stake loft
Speaker 1: and so uh. And I represented him, keeping the credits
Speaker 1: off his back because he was under capitalized. And then
Speaker 1: it was during that time that I saw like the
Speaker 1: nightclub thing was just emerging. When it was kind of
Speaker 1: shifting away from you know, going into a nightclub and
Speaker 1: trying to meet people and meet girls and it was
Speaker 1: pick up places and things like that. It was kind
Speaker 1: of evolving into like a gay club kind of scene
Speaker 1: where it was serious, sweaty dancing, you know, and and
Speaker 1: and that's the kind of club that I liked. But
Speaker 1: do you do you ever? I mean, you're married, you've
Speaker 1: got a young kid, you're super successful businessman. Do you
Speaker 1: ever stick your finger in the night club business? Now,
Speaker 1: we'll see what it's like, you know, different. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: there are certain things that never change. Fashion change, but
Speaker 1: there are kind of certain things that never change. You know,
Speaker 1: people always ask me to do nightclubs. I'm not interested.
Speaker 1: I have nothing new to offer. I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: young person's business. You know. When I went into it, it
Speaker 1: it was like a like a garage business. It was
Speaker 1: like making music in a garage or inventing a technology
Speaker 1: company in the garage. Now it's become big business. You
Speaker 1: need a lot of money to do a nightclub. But
Speaker 1: I do them. I still do them when I think
Speaker 1: it'll have a positive impact on a hotel. You do
Speaker 1: I'm doing. I'm doing a couple for the additions, but
Speaker 1: but not big ones, like with studio to two thousand,
Speaker 1: three thousand square feet, but still with dancing at the
Speaker 1: hot sweaty serious dancing where I'm one in Miami, which
Speaker 1: is like probably the nightclub capital in this country, and
Speaker 1: a couple of other places where I have the facility
Speaker 1: sectacular lighting effect I Vegas. It's nothing my competition, you know,
Speaker 1: with spectacular lighting effects, and it still works. Like I
Speaker 1: remember Steve asking me when we did a Platium a
Speaker 1: second nightclub, but people still like to dance, And I
Speaker 1: would say, of course, I like the dancing and dancing
Speaker 1: some sodom and gomor. You just have to kind of
Speaker 1: find what it is that kind of activate you know,
Speaker 1: people and let them, you know, get loose and let
Speaker 1: the head down. What were the other places that were
Speaker 1: the top clubs? Then you guys opened Palladium a couple
Speaker 1: of years later on fourteen Street. When we opened up um,
Speaker 1: when we when we had Studio fifty four, there was
Speaker 1: a kind of Uh, there was a place called Zeno
Speaker 1: with a knockoff. Knockoff was where you went because you
Speaker 1: couldn't get into studio exactly great, you said it, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but but there was some some great, great, great great
Speaker 1: gay place. There's a flamingo, very creative twelve West. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is a cliche office. But when the early eighties
Speaker 1: roll around, did aids kill that culture? Today it's uh,
Speaker 1: it didn't kill it, but a change things because all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, before age, there wasn't anything you couldn't
Speaker 1: do at night, and it went up to their frauning
Speaker 1: and walk away. Sure, it was carefree, it was different
Speaker 1: things things, things were different. But but I think the
Speaker 1: nightclub business got killed not because of age, but but
Speaker 1: but because I think government when they started to regulate it,
Speaker 1: it became so expensive to do a nightclub to comply
Speaker 1: with all that read what you said that we're a
Speaker 1: nightclub to open it, of course to you tens of
Speaker 1: thousands of dollars, now somebody a million. Well because of
Speaker 1: why because if it was because directs and things like that,
Speaker 1: So all of a sudden, young people didn't franchise. I
Speaker 1: did my first nightclub with twenty seven thousand dollars. You know,
Speaker 1: you didn't have to know anything, You didn't have to
Speaker 1: have a lot of money. It was like you roll
Speaker 1: up the carpet, you put on a record player when
Speaker 1: you have a nightclub. And did that stopped? That kind
Speaker 1: of roll all energy stopped. That happened in rock and roll,
Speaker 1: and it happened with technology do when appleca invented in
Speaker 1: the garage and so it changed. The business evolved, and
Speaker 1: so young people can't do it anymore. And that's why
Speaker 1: now in the nightclub business, nobody owns anything anymore. They
Speaker 1: have promoters going around from clubs to clubs because it's
Speaker 1: just too expensive. When you and Reubel decided to go
Speaker 1: into business, what did you think he brought to the
Speaker 1: table and what did he think you broke to the
Speaker 1: Was it kind of a front of the house back
Speaker 1: of the house battery? Oh, it wasn't that simple. It's
Speaker 1: just like with a husband and a wife, nobody really
Speaker 1: knows what goes on except the husband and a wife.
Speaker 1: With a fifty fifty partners. You're not going to share
Speaker 1: a fifty percent with someone that's not making a fifty
Speaker 1: percent contribution. You know. They weren't mutual exclusive fears of influence.
Speaker 1: I mean, he was more of the people person and
Speaker 1: I was more of the creative person, you know. But
Speaker 1: but like, for instance, I might be in the nightclub
Speaker 1: and I would see Steve go get friendly with Austin
Speaker 1: over there, you know, And if I was wanting to
Speaker 1: do something, I would go to Steve and he'd be like,
Speaker 1: my did one man sample survey that he had had
Speaker 1: good instincts and and and it's just so funny that
Speaker 1: the vision of responsibility happened naturally. You know. We we
Speaker 1: had a we had a first night club was in Queens,
Speaker 1: which was about six months before studio. It got killed
Speaker 1: by Son of Sam. I remember the first night we opened,
Speaker 1: Steve went to hang out with the kids at the
Speaker 1: bar and Queen's and I went up into the d
Speaker 1: J boot the play with the Lights. It just kind
Speaker 1: of happened. And that club was called what Enchant of
Speaker 1: Garden and then that died after the Son of Sam shoots.
Speaker 1: It was hord to get people to come in to
Speaker 1: a nightclub and someone was out there killing me on
Speaker 1: the streets and parked cars. Yeah. Now, when you open
Speaker 1: up the studio and you uh were you married at
Speaker 1: the time, when you come to your first wife, how
Speaker 1: soon after your studio for quite a while, so you
Speaker 1: could live that life and out a different boy. But
Speaker 1: you were letting somebody down, crawling in the door at
Speaker 1: eight o'clock in the morning, So it was long night's view.
Speaker 1: You were in it. You weren't somebody who was turned
Speaker 1: into somebody blowing them a kiss and I'm going home
Speaker 1: and you were in bed by one o'clock. No, but
Speaker 1: Steve used to say he stayed too long and I
Speaker 1: left too early. You know what would really happen is
Speaker 1: I stayed two one, two o'clock till the night to thirty,
Speaker 1: sometimes until the night turned the corner and I knew
Speaker 1: it was stable, and then I would grab somebody and
Speaker 1: go home. Now back stairs, Now back then, is it
Speaker 1: safe to say? Another risk of businesses back then with
Speaker 1: the credit cards were not that big back in the Lake.
Speaker 1: It's a cash business. And ultimately that was part of
Speaker 1: the problem, was that it was a cash We didn't
Speaker 1: have any money, you know, There was a movie once
Speaker 1: was to Go the Brings Robbery And after they robbed
Speaker 1: the truck and they were in the room, they're throwing
Speaker 1: the money up in the air. Was one of the
Speaker 1: scenes in the movie touched the way it was with
Speaker 1: Steve and I. We didn't have any money. All of
Speaker 1: a sudden, we were the toast of the town and
Speaker 1: all this money was coming in and it was it was,
Speaker 1: you know, like you couldn't believe it. It wasn't we
Speaker 1: went in it. We weren't motivated by the money. It
Speaker 1: was just the kind of byproduct that kind And I'm trying,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to be generous here insofar as that when
Speaker 1: you get yourself into trouble with taxes and so forth,
Speaker 1: and eventually led to some tough consequences. Was it Did
Speaker 1: you find that it was more difficult back in the
Speaker 1: day when things weren't computerized and things weren't credit cards
Speaker 1: and you have to handle that much cash. We were
Speaker 1: the gang that couldn't shoot straight, you know, we were
Speaker 1: just it was kind of very spontaneous and impulsive. It
Speaker 1: was like a kind of silly, stupid thing. Everybody in
Speaker 1: the whole world knew what was going on and you
Speaker 1: weren't the only ones to say, well, I mean, I
Speaker 1: know this has been brought up to you added infinitum
Speaker 1: about going to prison. You're you're there for thirteen months,
Speaker 1: and where did you go? We were in the mcc
Speaker 1: here for six months, and then we were in Montgomery,
Speaker 1: Alabama for six months. So you say, we who's weed?
Speaker 1: Steve and I so you got to see him pretty regularly.
Speaker 1: What was that like? Oh, it's the worst. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, we were the only and that were guilty.
Speaker 1: Nobody else in jail was guilty. Uh, it was. It
Speaker 1: was terrible. I mean, you know, like even I mean
Speaker 1: if I would take you and put you in the
Speaker 1: grandest suite in the grandest hotel for a year and
Speaker 1: let you have room service, it's still gonna hate it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe it's just you. You arrived, You are robbed of
Speaker 1: your discretion as a human being a terrible What got
Speaker 1: you through that? I mean you're young, so you're still
Speaker 1: pretty tough. But what did you keep telling yourself to
Speaker 1: keep yourself together? You know? Uh, we would read a
Speaker 1: lot and dream a lot. It was a very very
Speaker 1: tough thing. Being with Steve made it a little bit easier,
Speaker 1: you know, someone who could understand, Yeah, I mean, and
Speaker 1: someone I mean when you're in there with a lot
Speaker 1: of psychopaths, and and and it's just it's just kind
Speaker 1: of difficult. Life is cheap, and you know, and and
Speaker 1: and it was just a very difficult thing. And you know,
Speaker 1: you you try and not let them rob you of
Speaker 1: your enthusiasm for life, from your verb for life. You know,
Speaker 1: you know when you succeeded at that. So by the
Speaker 1: time you're ready to get out of there, by the
Speaker 1: time were you both released at the same time, And
Speaker 1: when at the same time we released the same time,
Speaker 1: we went to a halfway house here and I think
Speaker 1: it was in on seventy nine or something, and on
Speaker 1: the website, and you were there for how long? Three months?
Speaker 1: And then you're free, right And when you were even
Speaker 1: then very tentative and very you know, very tentative, couldn't
Speaker 1: even open a bank account. It was kind of re
Speaker 1: entry and it's tough. So three months you're done with
Speaker 1: the halfway house. So what does the team of Schraeger
Speaker 1: and Rebel, what's the first thing that comes to hotel Hotel? Why,
Speaker 1: you know, when we were in jail, first of all,
Speaker 1: I was reading all these great books, you know, you
Speaker 1: know David Apperstram, you know, the best and the brightest,
Speaker 1: and you know, and and which was a kind of
Speaker 1: study of the rise of the media empire, and and
Speaker 1: and in there a lot of those guys had interludes
Speaker 1: in their life the war, and and and after those
Speaker 1: interlude they all did gain changing switches in their lives,
Speaker 1: and one open to different directions. Well, you know, the
Speaker 1: Bill Pilly decided to CBS after the war, and the
Speaker 1: New York Times up to the anti and so are
Speaker 1: intlude force. But but that's when when Harry Helmsley and
Speaker 1: and and Donald Trump, the newspapers were playing up this
Speaker 1: big rivalry. Uh. Harry Helmsley was doing a hotel and
Speaker 1: fifty one to Madison that was called the Palace, and
Speaker 1: Donald was doing one on on Fort Street, and they
Speaker 1: were playing up the rivalry and that kind of rivalry,
Speaker 1: and the papers sucked me in, boy, and I said, well,
Speaker 1: we can do a better hotel than than both of them.
Speaker 1: And when you say better hotel, weren't you're actually doing
Speaker 1: just a completely different outtel. They're doing big, are they?
Speaker 1: This is safe to say they're still doing the old style,
Speaker 1: and you wanted to do what we liked. We went
Speaker 1: to to a hotel that was that that that it
Speaker 1: wasn't rocket science, was just what kind of hold We
Speaker 1: did a club we liked, and and and and we
Speaker 1: went to do a hotel that manifested who we were
Speaker 1: all popular culture and not my parents, but but but
Speaker 1: but what we liked. No rules, start from scratch. And
Speaker 1: then Morgan was the first hotel and that was on
Speaker 1: one Street A thirty eight and Madison. And so when
Speaker 1: and why that property good story. When we sold Studio
Speaker 1: fifty four, we took back promisory notes. You know, it
Speaker 1: took a very meaga down payment and promisory notes, and
Speaker 1: we were helping the person run the clubs. We get
Speaker 1: a promisory notes paid well, he couldn't pay the promisory notes.
Speaker 1: So when he couldn't pay the promisory notes, we traded
Speaker 1: his promisory note for his interest in the hotel, which
Speaker 1: happened to be Morgan's. And so there was a hotel before.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like a private mansion or something before what
Speaker 1: had it been before? It was a hotel. It was
Speaker 1: a dump was called executive hotel, and it was a
Speaker 1: dumpy hotel, looming house, you know, you know in a
Speaker 1: kind of very how many floors, uh fourteen and you
Speaker 1: took it over and you just hand gratted the whole thing.
Speaker 1: And we did the whole thing. We we we we
Speaker 1: didn't bang on the walls because once you start doing
Speaker 1: that in an old building, you can't have a definitive budget.
Speaker 1: So you know, the rooms are very small. So we
Speaker 1: took the rooms the way we found them, and we
Speaker 1: try to have good design, come up with solutions, and
Speaker 1: we did a lot a lot of tricks. You know,
Speaker 1: we made the furniture, always scaled the furniture down ten
Speaker 1: percent to make the room feel bigger, and etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And it was a natural hit. Light to Way studio
Speaker 1: was a natural hit. It just it resonated with people
Speaker 1: to day one. And were now before you access the crowd?
Speaker 1: I mean you and rebel owning a nightclub in Queens
Speaker 1: did not give you access to the crowd that came
Speaker 1: to the studio. So how did you access that crowd?
Speaker 1: Who got who to come? You know, it's kind of
Speaker 1: a two pronged approach. We hired a couple of party
Speaker 1: promoters and then Steve went out to conquer the town.
Speaker 1: He was a kind of very people oriented person. When
Speaker 1: you talk to him, you thought you were the only
Speaker 1: person in the world, and etcetera, and etcetera. And so
Speaker 1: a few months before, you know, Steve would do that.
Speaker 1: He'd go to this restaurant that red, president this and
Speaker 1: and meet these people and he was kind of entertaining
Speaker 1: and fund and so on and so forth, and that
Speaker 1: gave us a platform. Then the next thing was is
Speaker 1: that you do a great place and a great product,
Speaker 1: and if it's really really cool, people come. Don't tell
Speaker 1: me how they come the time time from beat out there.
Speaker 1: They know and they beat the door to get to it.
Speaker 1: And then we had a bunch of parties um with
Speaker 1: the right people, you know, Like I remember one time,
Speaker 1: you know, somebody had called we had opened up the
Speaker 1: place and it was nothing like it in New York
Speaker 1: at the time, and and and and somebody called up
Speaker 1: and and Houlston wanted to have a party for Bianca.
Speaker 1: It was on Monday night when we were ordinarily dark,
Speaker 1: and we we we opened up for that night and
Speaker 1: there were more celebrities are about people like we were like,
Speaker 1: you know, the Oa you look right from Mick Jagger
Speaker 1: and Jack on Beset, all the movie people, I mean,
Speaker 1: and and and we had a naked woman. We painted
Speaker 1: a like Lady Gouldive and put her on a white
Speaker 1: horse to come out and give Bianco a birthday cake.
Speaker 1: That picked you went all over the world. This reminds
Speaker 1: me of a quote your at I always used to
Speaker 1: like the Halloween parties, who said in an interview it
Speaker 1: was the one night that anybody could get into Studio
Speaker 1: fifty four. You just had to come up with a
Speaker 1: great costume and you were in. You could not believe
Speaker 1: some of the things that people would wear. I remember
Speaker 1: doing a party inspired by the artist Bosh with midgets
Speaker 1: eating cornish game hens and walking in on a floor
Speaker 1: full of white mice lit with ultra violet light. It
Speaker 1: was just anything goes. Mayhem you said now that picks
Speaker 1: mice finals, so there was. It was anything goes, whatever
Speaker 1: your imagination you could think of. That's a great part
Speaker 1: of the nightclub business. When we did it, it wasn't
Speaker 1: constrained and you could work in any discipline film, music, theater, fashion.
Speaker 1: It's like wide open. When we were in it above
Speaker 1: the dance floor at Studio fifty four hung a giant
Speaker 1: sculpture of the Man in the Moon with an animated
Speaker 1: cocaine spoon that glided down to the moon's nose. Take
Speaker 1: a listen to more conversations in our archives with other
Speaker 1: longtime New Yorkers, like the late Elaine Stretch. About a
Speaker 1: month ago, I really said, I want out of here.
Speaker 1: I want out of New York. I shouldn't live in
Speaker 1: New York anymore. It's not for me anymore. It's too
Speaker 1: fast for me. Or no, it's not too fast. And
Speaker 1: I changed my mind about that. It's not this, it's
Speaker 1: not that, it's just not for me. Take a listen
Speaker 1: at Here's the Thing dot org. This is Alec Baldwin
Speaker 1: and you're listening to Here's the Thing my guest. Ian
Speaker 1: Schrager's current life hardly resembles his days and nights at
Speaker 1: Studio fifty four. Schweger is one of the most important
Speaker 1: hotelier and real estate developers in New York today. He
Speaker 1: and his second wife have a four year old boy.
Speaker 1: He has two daughters from his previous marriage, and he
Speaker 1: prefers to spend his nights at home with his family.
Speaker 1: Life is calmer, but it's not as if Schreeger is
Speaker 1: slowing down. I was just talking to my wife about
Speaker 1: this the other day, you know, I I you know
Speaker 1: that somebody sent me an interesting article on Georgio ALMANI.
Speaker 1: The guy's eighty years old, so incredibly wealthy, still out
Speaker 1: there working every single day. Clint Eastwood eighty three or
Speaker 1: eighty four years old, you know, I mean better, becoming
Speaker 1: more and more and more of a servious, serious filmmaker.
Speaker 1: Why it's not about the money, because you love it.
Speaker 1: It's the way you express yourself and you just truly
Speaker 1: really love it. I feel the same way. I love
Speaker 1: what I do. It never was about the money, and
Speaker 1: and it's putting my name on something. You're doing something
Speaker 1: you're interested in, another creative field fashion, no home film,
Speaker 1: film or theater. Seriously, you would want to when Julian
Speaker 1: Snobble did that film The Diving Bell in the Butterfly
Speaker 1: and it had no knowledge, no schooling, know anything, just
Speaker 1: a really really creative guy. Uh to go into that
Speaker 1: and do it with such credibility and do a real film,
Speaker 1: which had made me want to work with him, to
Speaker 1: do a hotel because maybe people convinced how talent that
Speaker 1: he was. I could see what I do in the
Speaker 1: hotels and what I've done in nightclubs and putting things together.
Speaker 1: And you know, I could see that kind of methodology
Speaker 1: working in the film business or theater business. So after
Speaker 1: the Morgan you dot four two, things start to get
Speaker 1: easier because you eat each time, you have to up
Speaker 1: the ante. I mean, we we we did Morgan to
Speaker 1: It was really big. It Everyone in the industry took note.
Speaker 1: Everyone came to buy it from us and said, you're
Speaker 1: better sell it because somebody's just going to copy you
Speaker 1: and and do it better, and somebody's going to go
Speaker 1: into the business doesn't care about making money, spend more
Speaker 1: money than you. So the challenge for doing Royalton was
Speaker 1: to do a hotel that had a different personality, not
Speaker 1: one that merely looked differently, but one that attracted a
Speaker 1: different kind of person because it had a different fields,
Speaker 1: different vibe. So Morgan's was a kind of quiet, understated,
Speaker 1: introverted hotel. No lobby. You went in there, quietly, went
Speaker 1: up to your room. Royalton was the opposite, a big
Speaker 1: extrovert of scene. You're in the lobby, see and be seen,
Speaker 1: so and so what. So I gave people a choice
Speaker 1: you could stay here, you could stay there. They were
Speaker 1: choosing a hotel because the personality was different, and emic
Speaker 1: goes it look different. So after you do the Morgan
Speaker 1: and people come to you, as you just said, and
Speaker 1: they say, you better sell this because someone's gonna copy
Speaker 1: it and do it better. Do you find now that
Speaker 1: people are taking you seriously because they are trying to
Speaker 1: squeeze you when they are interestingly just just recently, you
Speaker 1: know when when W came out, Up until then, it
Speaker 1: was still thought up that only people who wear black
Speaker 1: and live in Soho come to my hotels. It wasn't
Speaker 1: until W came out, you know whenever, that was a
Speaker 1: while ago, that it gave real credibility. Hey, this is
Speaker 1: a real idea. Now there isn't a hotel company in
Speaker 1: the world that doesn't want to do a boutique hotel.
Speaker 1: And it's the fastest growing segment. There are thousands and
Speaker 1: thousands of versions all over. But it was treated with
Speaker 1: absolute skepticism and dismissively by by because you know why,
Speaker 1: they couldn't They couldn't put it in a box. They
Speaker 1: couldn't understand what it was. Uh So, do you find
Speaker 1: that that major hotel companies not only want you because
Speaker 1: you're doing additions now, is that with Marriott and that
Speaker 1: you're partnering with Maryott to do this addition series. It's
Speaker 1: it's a style of hotel you're gonna do with them.
Speaker 1: Do you find out with that that you wouldn't call
Speaker 1: that a bouktic hotel? I would? You? Would? You know?
Speaker 1: Like to me, I you know, because it's so over you. Steve,
Speaker 1: it's the one that came up with the name boutique.
Speaker 1: By the way, because we were in New York. The
Speaker 1: fashion business is probably the central most important business here
Speaker 1: and uh and when he was trying to explain to
Speaker 1: people what we were trying to do, he said, look,
Speaker 1: all the other hotels are like the Poppin stores. They
Speaker 1: try and be all things to all people. That's kind
Speaker 1: of generic. We have a specific thing to say. We're
Speaker 1: very specific, have a specific attitude will like a boutique.
Speaker 1: And that was the invention and the use of that name,
Speaker 1: which we've lost ownership of. It become part of the
Speaker 1: English language. But Steve really was the first one to
Speaker 1: use that when he tried to when when we were
Speaker 1: promoting mortgage and we're trying to explain to people what
Speaker 1: we were trying to do. So it was Marryott trying
Speaker 1: to take Marryott properties and make them more like a
Speaker 1: boutique hotel, or were they buying other properties that are
Speaker 1: boutique hotels and putting the Marry Up label on both.
Speaker 1: They're doing both. What Marriott realizes that this lifestyle hotel,
Speaker 1: this space is the future of the business. This that
Speaker 1: people are not going to choose a hotel because of
Speaker 1: its location or price points, or because of its loyalty points,
Speaker 1: but they're going to choose a hotel because the experience
Speaker 1: is unique and elevat and so they're getting into that business.
Speaker 1: And I kind of felt that with everyone in the
Speaker 1: world rushing into the boutique space, it was a little
Speaker 1: less interesting for me. So I'm gonna team up with
Speaker 1: a big guy and do a lot of them. Then
Speaker 1: I have had my own brand, Public, which is a
Speaker 1: less expensive, hilly skylized hotel, but a real value proposition,
Speaker 1: which I think is always a cool idea, you know,
Speaker 1: because I always think people, no matter how much money
Speaker 1: they have, they get it when something's something's cool. Now,
Speaker 1: when the world of boutique tells them, they've been people
Speaker 1: who have come to you and said Ian Straker, we
Speaker 1: want you to design a hotel for us, and they
Speaker 1: wanted to have something insane, you know, like Peacock's. You know, No,
Speaker 1: I couldn't do it. I mean I I you know,
Speaker 1: to me, I think that, Um, have you seen some
Speaker 1: hotels like that? Yes? You thought? This is just crazed
Speaker 1: my kind of thing. And I don't think they're really
Speaker 1: sophisticated people. I think it's more Vegas. Yeah, pretty, I
Speaker 1: mean over the top kind of stuff. I I I
Speaker 1: don't think more. I think less is not only more.
Speaker 1: I think it's better. And I think it's a little
Speaker 1: bit like a writer. If you have time, you're gonna
Speaker 1: edit it and bear it down. And I think it's
Speaker 1: more powerful. And I think that that that people who
Speaker 1: have good taste today rather than money, because so many
Speaker 1: people have it. It's really a status temple, you know.
Speaker 1: Leonardo da Vinci says, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. I
Speaker 1: believe that, and I have I have confidence in in
Speaker 1: the people that that if it's simple and well done,
Speaker 1: they kind of get it and you don't have to
Speaker 1: hit him over and add with marble and gold. Have
Speaker 1: you had people come to you and ask you to
Speaker 1: design private homes for them. Yes, you have, and you
Speaker 1: never never got you know, I would do it if
Speaker 1: I was selling home and the clod those and there
Speaker 1: was some you know something, some kind of financial benefit
Speaker 1: for me and my bar and I. But you know, look,
Speaker 1: I enjoy all of the benefits that come with the money.
Speaker 1: But you can't do what I do for money. I'm
Speaker 1: sure you can't do what you do for money. It's
Speaker 1: a benefit, but it's it's now you're driving force. We're
Speaker 1: so to go from the nightclub business to the hotel business,
Speaker 1: two different businesses obviously, and then is it this is
Speaker 1: it another transition to go into the condominium business and
Speaker 1: their real estate. They're all very related. In the nightclub business,
Speaker 1: your primary goal, if you script it down, you know,
Speaker 1: of all the smoke screens the night clubs, your primary
Speaker 1: goal is to look after people, make sure people have fun,
Speaker 1: elevate the experience, make them comfortable. Same going all business,
Speaker 1: same going to business, you know, and so there is
Speaker 1: a common denominated there were differences in it, you know,
Speaker 1: like the people that work in the nightclub business most
Speaker 1: of the time they look like vampires in the day.
Speaker 1: The you know, most of the time they can't cut
Speaker 1: it during the day. There are differences, but there are many,
Speaker 1: many more similarities that by the Royal quote hospitality businesses,
Speaker 1: because it's it's it's looking at the people. How has
Speaker 1: New York changed totally different? I, you know, like to me,
Speaker 1: I you know, there was two there are two New York's.
Speaker 1: There's one downtown and there's one uptown. You know, I
Speaker 1: think the real New York is Downtown. It's not about
Speaker 1: the restaurants or anything like that. It's just that it
Speaker 1: feels more like a village down there. Uptown it's kind
Speaker 1: of anonymous, it's intense, it's a hostility there. I it's
Speaker 1: it's no different than London, except the architecture is different.
Speaker 1: I if it doesn't have a personality to me, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, I think we we've had a real dichotomy
Speaker 1: now between uptown and downtown. You know, in the seventies
Speaker 1: and eighties when we were bumping around, you know, downtown
Speaker 1: is really when you went down to hung out and
Speaker 1: have fun. It's not like that now. And then now
Speaker 1: you live down there, it's a different city. And I
Speaker 1: think New Yorkers most of the time New Yorkers don't
Speaker 1: live uptown. There were Farigners. You know, rem coolhouse. It's
Speaker 1: a great architect, says to meet me. Good keep it.
Speaker 1: Don't live in London. It's only Fargners live who lived there.
Speaker 1: I think that's happening, you know now with New York.
Speaker 1: I think if you want to see the way in
Speaker 1: New York is you just look at London because it's
Speaker 1: on that same continuum. I mean, obviously there's there's benefits
Speaker 1: to both. But I lived up there for twenty five years.
Speaker 1: I did too, I lived up there. I used to
Speaker 1: say that, you know, I live up down, I go
Speaker 1: downtown to a restaurant. You live in the park. No,
Speaker 1: I lived on the Park a while, but you know,
Speaker 1: when I didn't have money all the time to live there.
Speaker 1: You know, I lived on the Upper east Side. Then
Speaker 1: I moved to the West Side, and I moved back
Speaker 1: to the east Side, and then I eventually, you know,
Speaker 1: what's the longest you've ever lived one place? Now, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm I've been living in the same apartment now for
Speaker 1: ten years? Is it getting aunty? Do you like to move? Well?
Speaker 1: Do my two projects so we may move. My kids
Speaker 1: are leaving for school. And one question I want to
Speaker 1: ask you is were you close with your dad and
Speaker 1: he died when you were how old you were nineteen?
Speaker 1: Were you closer through bell? Yes? Where were you when
Speaker 1: he died by his bed? You were? So you were
Speaker 1: still that close right to the end. You were best
Speaker 1: friends with him, and you were there he We took
Speaker 1: him to the hospital. We watched the monitor numbers sinks terrible.
Speaker 1: And then your dad not in your life and your
Speaker 1: partner gone. He died in nineteen nine. Who's been your
Speaker 1: mentor or who's been your trusted advisor for the last
Speaker 1: five years? You know? By myself now? You don't have
Speaker 1: my wife, you know, and I have some good friends,
Speaker 1: but you know that it's it's a it's a loss
Speaker 1: when you buy yourself. You know, it's good to have
Speaker 1: somebody to bounce things off of. It. It keeps you moral, comfistrated.
Speaker 1: It almost operates like our conscience. You know, it's it's tough.
Speaker 1: I'm bombed by myself now. You don't have a partner.
Speaker 1: Who's you're someone you consulted. You don't have friends that
Speaker 1: I asked questions, but no one replaced rebel. No, you
Speaker 1: never have a friend or a part like that. Lucky
Speaker 1: to have that. Um, you're married now and you've been
Speaker 1: married the tier your current wife for how long you've
Speaker 1: been with for eight years? And you have a five
Speaker 1: year old child almost almost five? Boy? You have a boy.
Speaker 1: Finally you have two girls from your and she has
Speaker 1: to you know, you and I are the same. I've
Speaker 1: got a girl, and then I had a girl, and
Speaker 1: now I'm having a boy in July. What a pleasure?
Speaker 1: Tell me, what's it been like? What's it like having
Speaker 1: a son? When we're definitely in the in the in
Speaker 1: the night, we're in the seventh inning. Here we're with
Speaker 1: a girl. Everything's too tight, too low, too much to everything.
Speaker 1: It's just I used to think when I used to
Speaker 1: go to kindergarten and the nursery school, and all the
Speaker 1: boys will be bouncing off the wall, and I do
Speaker 1: with my girl, she'd be sitting at the desperately stats boar.
Speaker 1: I got a maid in a shade. But it reverses
Speaker 1: the boys I I identify. We wrestle. I don't know
Speaker 1: whether it's my where I am in life, my age.
Speaker 1: I don't love him more than my daughters, but it's
Speaker 1: just into what's he like to do wrestle, soccer, you know, soldiers,
Speaker 1: thanks superheroes. You know, I can kind of relate swords.
Speaker 1: It's it's amazing. My son comes into my bedroom sometimes
Speaker 1: the sword to me and a sword dam in the morning.
Speaker 1: The first thing, here is your sword, I present you.
Speaker 1: Here's your weapon. And and what's it like for you
Speaker 1: in your work and the and the balance? Is it
Speaker 1: different for you? Now? I got the balance now finally.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately it took me this long to figure it out.
Speaker 1: You know, I gave up a lot for the work.
Speaker 1: You know, it was very very important to me, and
Speaker 1: I kind of didn't have the capacity all the time.
Speaker 1: And so to me, you know, I worked very odd.
Speaker 1: But you know I I don't work pass four five o'clock.
Speaker 1: I don't work on the weekends. I take vacations. I
Speaker 1: just when I come home, I play with my family.
Speaker 1: And I think the secret isn't balanced. I think if
Speaker 1: you're going to really be happy, you need everything. You
Speaker 1: need a good wife, you need a good work, you
Speaker 1: need a good family, need to go to abby, you
Speaker 1: need a good grange. You need it all. Ian Schrager's
Speaker 1: attempt to have it all appears to be working. This month,
Speaker 1: he'll open his fourth boutique hotel, this time in partnership
Speaker 1: with Marriott. You can visit the New York Edition Hotel
Speaker 1: on Madison Avenue, a short walk from Schrager's very first hotel, Morgan's.
Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin you're listening to. Here's the Thing
Speaker 1: four