Ian Schrager is in the hospitality business. Hotels or nightclubs, uptown or downtown, Miami or Manhattan, Schrager defines luxury and leisure. When he and his late business partner Steve Rubell opened Studio 54 in 1977, the club quickly became the epitome of the disco era's cultural mores. It was Mick Jagger, Andy Warhol, Cher, and as Schrager recalls, "serious, sweaty dancing." Today, Schrager says nightclubs are a young person's business; he's long since reinvented himself as one of the inventors of the boutique hotel. The aim, he tells host Alec Baldwin, is essentially the same: make people comfortable, and change their expectations. At 68, Schrager shows no sign of slowing down; his heroes are Giorgio Armani and Clint Eastwood—passionate people who are inspired by work they love.
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This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing, My chance to talk with artists, policy makers, and performers, to hear their stories. What inspires their creations, what decisions change their careers, what relationships influenced their work. The Vietnam War had ended, the AIDS epidemic had not yet begun, and a nightclub one night club will forever symbolize the glamor and debauchery of that time. If you managed to get through the doors of Studio fifty four, you'd find yourself among the biggest stars of the day, Warhol, Liza Minnelli, Halston Share, Mick Jagger, the midtown Manhattan hotspot pulsed with sexual experimentation, drug culture, and yes, disco fever. My guest today. Ian Schrager opened Studio fifty four nineteen seventy seven with his then partner, the late Deve Rubel. Before becoming a club owner. Schraeger, a lawyer with little interest in practicing, searched for a business opportunity close to home. You know, I didn't realize, you know, what a global capital in New York City was, you know, to me, it was kind of I lived in New York. It was very provincial. I grew up in Brooklyn. And you know what, I well, well, what's happened here is New York has kind of followed the lead that happened in London. It's become a world capital. It's a safe place. People from all over the world want to live here, and and and because of that, I mean, it's made the real estate prices grow, and it's also made a hotel dusty change. When I when I first started in the industry, there was sixty thousand hotel rooms. Now there's almost a hundred thousand hotel rooms. And I and I think it's just completely different. And I think what's so funny, because everything is so cyclical, is that, you know, I came from Brooklyn. My my dream was to come and be in Manhattan. Now everybody's in Manhattan, and everybody's dreams go back to Brooklyn. Did you did you ever predict that was possible? That I had no idea? What you had no idea? And did you? Did you? I mean, I hate to see use this kind of slang with did you get it on that? Did you? Did you head out to Brooklyn Queen's in a timely way to develop, did you develop? I totally missed it because I thought I left. I had never gone back, but I I But you know, it's so funny the way these things happened every generation. That's what happened to Brooklyn a hundred fifty years ago. And well, women started to go to go over there. You got two crowded. Here was too expensive for you. People went to Brooklyn happening again. And when you grew up with your father in real estate, with your father, what your father coute matter of factoring he's in the clothing business. And did your parents live to see you become the success that you've become. No, they didn't. They didn't act they That's something you know, I really sanssen to me. They didn't get to see me successful. They also didn't get to see me go into Studio fifty four, which they would not have approved of. They wanted a doctor and other things they wouldn't have approved that. They wanted a doctor, they wanted a lawyer. But the one thing is that I you know, because they died so young, I didn't have an opportunity to give back, like say with me with my dad. My dad died when I was twenty five and he was only fifty five. You know, he was very young when he did. I was nineteen. My dead was fifty one, and he didn't get to see me become successful, which would have given him so much joy. Which so the same thing with your dad. So you come out of Brooklyn. You went to Syracuse undergraduate or undergrad and law undergrad? And where'd you go to law school? St? John's? You go to St. John's Law school and you and you really don't want to be a lawyer. Didn't want to be a lawyer. You just were killing time. I didn't know what I wanted to do. How could you possibly know what you want to do when you were like nineteen or twenty years old? I mean, you know, now I went to law school. I never worked. And then when the law school was over, I said, now, what first job I got was a fourteen tho dollars a year and I was filing papers as an associate law firm. How long did that last? How long were you win? About three and a half years. You know, Laura's the kind of profession that I required to out of discipline. A lot of years. I got bored by it. So I wanted to a nightclub business. I read an interview where you said you were driving by and you saw people lined up out in front of a club, and you thought, that looks like a good business to me. Yeah. I mean, do you remember what club where it was one? It was on forty third Street between um sixth Avenue and Broadway. At that time, the whole social millennium was being set by gay clubs, not blacks, the way it is now and the way it was before then. But then it was gay because everything was just emerging sexually, and if you had a successful gay club, you were trying to keep all the straight people out because once the straight people came to gay people left. And that was one of the first clubs that I call a fusion club that they're really It was gay, and it had that kind of sexual electricity in the air that gay clubs at. But there was a lot of straight people there and and there were people waiting in lines, and all these great people were being insulted and try to be turned away because everybody just wanted to get in there. That was a business I wanted to get into because he were giving nothing, offering nothing, and people are paying to get in now for people my generation. When I say your name, all you have to do is say uh Ian and Steve and people will know who the Steve is. But for those who don't know, in our listening audience to Steve Rebel, who was your the late Steve Rebel? Who was your partner? How did you hook up with him? And how did you meet him? To birth? We both born in Brooklyn and different they were Jason neighborhood, but you know, different school districts. We didn't know each other, middle class Brooklyn. You know, his his dad was a mailman, his mother was a teacher. We went up to school. He was a few years older than I. He was up in Syracuse, and we just became fast friends from from when we when we met. You know, I left after four years. He stayed on because it was the Vietnam War. Everybody was trying to stay in school. And and when he ultimately came back to New York, you know, we stayed friends obviously, and and and I repre prevented him. He went into the stake business tachmon like for five dollars, you could have all the steak and beer you wanted. And he went into the restaurant owned Yeah, what was it called steakloft stick. It's like unsuccessful undercap for people who want to go have steak and soho stake loft and so uh. And I represented him, keeping the credits off his back because he was under capitalized. And then it was during that time that I saw like the nightclub thing was just emerging. When it was kind of shifting away from you know, going into a nightclub and trying to meet people and meet girls and it was pick up places and things like that. It was kind of evolving into like a gay club kind of scene where it was serious, sweaty dancing, you know, and and and that's the kind of club that I liked. But do you do you ever? I mean, you're married, you've got a young kid, you're super successful businessman. Do you ever stick your finger in the night club business? Now, we'll see what it's like, you know, different. Well, you know, there are certain things that never change. Fashion change, but there are kind of certain things that never change. You know, people always ask me to do nightclubs. I'm not interested. I have nothing new to offer. I mean, it's a young person's business. You know. When I went into it, it it was like a like a garage business. It was like making music in a garage or inventing a technology company in the garage. Now it's become big business. You need a lot of money to do a nightclub. But I do them. I still do them when I think it'll have a positive impact on a hotel. You do I'm doing. I'm doing a couple for the additions, but but not big ones, like with studio to two thousand, three thousand square feet, but still with dancing at the hot sweaty serious dancing where I'm one in Miami, which is like probably the nightclub capital in this country, and a couple of other places where I have the facility sectacular lighting effect I Vegas. It's nothing my competition, you know, with spectacular lighting effects, and it still works. Like I remember Steve asking me when we did a Platium a second nightclub, but people still like to dance, And I would say, of course, I like the dancing and dancing some sodom and gomor. You just have to kind of find what it is that kind of activate you know, people and let them, you know, get loose and let the head down. What were the other places that were the top clubs? Then you guys opened Palladium a couple of years later on fourteen Street. When we opened up um, when we when we had Studio fifty four, there was a kind of Uh, there was a place called Zeno with a knockoff. Knockoff was where you went because you couldn't get into studio exactly great, you said it, Yeah, but but there was some some great, great, great great gay place. There's a flamingo, very creative twelve West. Uh. This is a cliche office. But when the early eighties roll around, did aids kill that culture? Today it's uh, it didn't kill it, but a change things because all of a sudden, before age, there wasn't anything you couldn't do at night, and it went up to their frauning and walk away. Sure, it was carefree, it was different things things, things were different. But but I think the nightclub business got killed not because of age, but but but because I think government when they started to regulate it, it became so expensive to do a nightclub to comply with all that read what you said that we're a nightclub to open it, of course to you tens of thousands of dollars, now somebody a million. Well because of why because if it was because directs and things like that, So all of a sudden, young people didn't franchise. I did my first nightclub with twenty seven thousand dollars. You know, you didn't have to know anything, You didn't have to have a lot of money. It was like you roll up the carpet, you put on a record player when you have a nightclub. And did that stopped? That kind of roll all energy stopped. That happened in rock and roll, and it happened with technology do when appleca invented in the garage and so it changed. The business evolved, and so young people can't do it anymore. And that's why now in the nightclub business, nobody owns anything anymore. They have promoters going around from clubs to clubs because it's just too expensive. When you and Reubel decided to go into business, what did you think he brought to the table and what did he think you broke to the Was it kind of a front of the house back of the house battery? Oh, it wasn't that simple. It's just like with a husband and a wife, nobody really knows what goes on except the husband and a wife. With a fifty fifty partners. You're not going to share a fifty percent with someone that's not making a fifty percent contribution. You know. They weren't mutual exclusive fears of influence. I mean, he was more of the people person and I was more of the creative person, you know. But but like, for instance, I might be in the nightclub and I would see Steve go get friendly with Austin over there, you know, And if I was wanting to do something, I would go to Steve and he'd be like, my did one man sample survey that he had had good instincts and and and it's just so funny that the vision of responsibility happened naturally. You know. We we had a we had a first night club was in Queens, which was about six months before studio. It got killed by Son of Sam. I remember the first night we opened, Steve went to hang out with the kids at the bar and Queen's and I went up into the d J boot the play with the Lights. It just kind of happened. And that club was called what Enchant of Garden and then that died after the Son of Sam shoots. It was hord to get people to come in to a nightclub and someone was out there killing me on the streets and parked cars. Yeah. Now, when you open up the studio and you uh were you married at the time, when you come to your first wife, how soon after your studio for quite a while, so you could live that life and out a different boy. But you were letting somebody down, crawling in the door at eight o'clock in the morning, So it was long night's view. You were in it. You weren't somebody who was turned into somebody blowing them a kiss and I'm going home and you were in bed by one o'clock. No, but Steve used to say he stayed too long and I left too early. You know what would really happen is I stayed two one, two o'clock till the night to thirty, sometimes until the night turned the corner and I knew it was stable, and then I would grab somebody and go home. Now back stairs, Now back then, is it safe to say? Another risk of businesses back then with the credit cards were not that big back in the Lake. It's a cash business. And ultimately that was part of the problem, was that it was a cash We didn't have any money, you know, There was a movie once was to Go the Brings Robbery And after they robbed the truck and they were in the room, they're throwing the money up in the air. Was one of the scenes in the movie touched the way it was with Steve and I. We didn't have any money. All of a sudden, we were the toast of the town and all this money was coming in and it was it was, you know, like you couldn't believe it. It wasn't we went in it. We weren't motivated by the money. It was just the kind of byproduct that kind And I'm trying, I'm trying to be generous here insofar as that when you get yourself into trouble with taxes and so forth, and eventually led to some tough consequences. Was it Did you find that it was more difficult back in the day when things weren't computerized and things weren't credit cards and you have to handle that much cash. We were the gang that couldn't shoot straight, you know, we were just it was kind of very spontaneous and impulsive. It was like a kind of silly, stupid thing. Everybody in the whole world knew what was going on and you weren't the only ones to say, well, I mean, I know this has been brought up to you added infinitum about going to prison. You're you're there for thirteen months, and where did you go? We were in the mcc here for six months, and then we were in Montgomery, Alabama for six months. So you say, we who's weed? Steve and I so you got to see him pretty regularly. What was that like? Oh, it's the worst. I mean, you know, we were the only and that were guilty. Nobody else in jail was guilty. Uh, it was. It was terrible. I mean, you know, like even I mean if I would take you and put you in the grandest suite in the grandest hotel for a year and let you have room service, it's still gonna hate it. Yeah, maybe it's just you. You arrived, You are robbed of your discretion as a human being a terrible What got you through that? I mean you're young, so you're still pretty tough. But what did you keep telling yourself to keep yourself together? You know? Uh, we would read a lot and dream a lot. It was a very very tough thing. Being with Steve made it a little bit easier, you know, someone who could understand, Yeah, I mean, and someone I mean when you're in there with a lot of psychopaths, and and and it's just it's just kind of difficult. Life is cheap, and you know, and and and it was just a very difficult thing. And you know, you you try and not let them rob you of your enthusiasm for life, from your verb for life. You know, you know when you succeeded at that. So by the time you're ready to get out of there, by the time were you both released at the same time, And when at the same time we released the same time, we went to a halfway house here and I think it was in on seventy nine or something, and on the website, and you were there for how long? Three months? And then you're free, right And when you were even then very tentative and very you know, very tentative, couldn't even open a bank account. It was kind of re entry and it's tough. So three months you're done with the halfway house. So what does the team of Schraeger and Rebel, what's the first thing that comes to hotel Hotel? Why, you know, when we were in jail, first of all, I was reading all these great books, you know, you know David Apperstram, you know, the best and the brightest, and you know, and and which was a kind of study of the rise of the media empire, and and and in there a lot of those guys had interludes in their life the war, and and and after those interlude they all did gain changing switches in their lives, and one open to different directions. Well, you know, the Bill Pilly decided to CBS after the war, and the New York Times up to the anti and so are intlude force. But but that's when when Harry Helmsley and and and Donald Trump, the newspapers were playing up this big rivalry. Uh. Harry Helmsley was doing a hotel and fifty one to Madison that was called the Palace, and Donald was doing one on on Fort Street, and they were playing up the rivalry and that kind of rivalry, and the papers sucked me in, boy, and I said, well, we can do a better hotel than than both of them. And when you say better hotel, weren't you're actually doing just a completely different outtel. They're doing big, are they? This is safe to say they're still doing the old style, and you wanted to do what we liked. We went to to a hotel that was that that that it wasn't rocket science, was just what kind of hold We did a club we liked, and and and and we went to do a hotel that manifested who we were all popular culture and not my parents, but but but but what we liked. No rules, start from scratch. And then Morgan was the first hotel and that was on one Street A thirty eight and Madison. And so when and why that property good story. When we sold Studio fifty four, we took back promisory notes. You know, it took a very meaga down payment and promisory notes, and we were helping the person run the clubs. We get a promisory notes paid well, he couldn't pay the promisory notes. So when he couldn't pay the promisory notes, we traded his promisory note for his interest in the hotel, which happened to be Morgan's. And so there was a hotel before. It wasn't like a private mansion or something before what had it been before? It was a hotel. It was a dump was called executive hotel, and it was a dumpy hotel, looming house, you know, you know in a kind of very how many floors, uh fourteen and you took it over and you just hand gratted the whole thing. And we did the whole thing. We we we we didn't bang on the walls because once you start doing that in an old building, you can't have a definitive budget. So you know, the rooms are very small. So we took the rooms the way we found them, and we try to have good design, come up with solutions, and we did a lot a lot of tricks. You know, we made the furniture, always scaled the furniture down ten percent to make the room feel bigger, and etcetera, etcetera. And it was a natural hit. Light to Way studio was a natural hit. It just it resonated with people to day one. And were now before you access the crowd? I mean you and rebel owning a nightclub in Queens did not give you access to the crowd that came to the studio. So how did you access that crowd? Who got who to come? You know, it's kind of a two pronged approach. We hired a couple of party promoters and then Steve went out to conquer the town. He was a kind of very people oriented person. When you talk to him, you thought you were the only person in the world, and etcetera, and etcetera. And so a few months before, you know, Steve would do that. He'd go to this restaurant that red, president this and and meet these people and he was kind of entertaining and fund and so on and so forth, and that gave us a platform. Then the next thing was is that you do a great place and a great product, and if it's really really cool, people come. Don't tell me how they come the time time from beat out there. They know and they beat the door to get to it. And then we had a bunch of parties um with the right people, you know, Like I remember one time, you know, somebody had called we had opened up the place and it was nothing like it in New York at the time, and and and and somebody called up and and Houlston wanted to have a party for Bianca. It was on Monday night when we were ordinarily dark, and we we we opened up for that night and there were more celebrities are about people like we were like, you know, the Oa you look right from Mick Jagger and Jack on Beset, all the movie people, I mean, and and and we had a naked woman. We painted a like Lady Gouldive and put her on a white horse to come out and give Bianco a birthday cake. That picked you went all over the world. This reminds me of a quote your at I always used to like the Halloween parties, who said in an interview it was the one night that anybody could get into Studio fifty four. You just had to come up with a great costume and you were in. You could not believe some of the things that people would wear. I remember doing a party inspired by the artist Bosh with midgets eating cornish game hens and walking in on a floor full of white mice lit with ultra violet light. It was just anything goes. Mayhem you said now that picks mice finals, so there was. It was anything goes, whatever your imagination you could think of. That's a great part of the nightclub business. When we did it, it wasn't constrained and you could work in any discipline film, music, theater, fashion. It's like wide open. When we were in it above the dance floor at Studio fifty four hung a giant sculpture of the Man in the Moon with an animated cocaine spoon that glided down to the moon's nose. Take a listen to more conversations in our archives with other longtime New Yorkers, like the late Elaine Stretch. About a month ago, I really said, I want out of here. I want out of New York. I shouldn't live in New York anymore. It's not for me anymore. It's too fast for me. Or no, it's not too fast. And I changed my mind about that. It's not this, it's not that, it's just not for me. Take a listen at Here's the Thing dot org. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing my guest. Ian Schrager's current life hardly resembles his days and nights at Studio fifty four. Schweger is one of the most important hotelier and real estate developers in New York today. He and his second wife have a four year old boy. He has two daughters from his previous marriage, and he prefers to spend his nights at home with his family. Life is calmer, but it's not as if Schreeger is slowing down. I was just talking to my wife about this the other day, you know, I I you know that somebody sent me an interesting article on Georgio ALMANI. The guy's eighty years old, so incredibly wealthy, still out there working every single day. Clint Eastwood eighty three or eighty four years old, you know, I mean better, becoming more and more and more of a servious, serious filmmaker. Why it's not about the money, because you love it. It's the way you express yourself and you just truly really love it. I feel the same way. I love what I do. It never was about the money, and and it's putting my name on something. You're doing something you're interested in, another creative field fashion, no home film, film or theater. Seriously, you would want to when Julian Snobble did that film The Diving Bell in the Butterfly and it had no knowledge, no schooling, know anything, just a really really creative guy. Uh to go into that and do it with such credibility and do a real film, which had made me want to work with him, to do a hotel because maybe people convinced how talent that he was. I could see what I do in the hotels and what I've done in nightclubs and putting things together. And you know, I could see that kind of methodology working in the film business or theater business. So after the Morgan you dot four two, things start to get easier because you eat each time, you have to up the ante. I mean, we we we did Morgan to It was really big. It Everyone in the industry took note. Everyone came to buy it from us and said, you're better sell it because somebody's just going to copy you and and do it better, and somebody's going to go into the business doesn't care about making money, spend more money than you. So the challenge for doing Royalton was to do a hotel that had a different personality, not one that merely looked differently, but one that attracted a different kind of person because it had a different fields, different vibe. So Morgan's was a kind of quiet, understated, introverted hotel. No lobby. You went in there, quietly, went up to your room. Royalton was the opposite, a big extrovert of scene. You're in the lobby, see and be seen, so and so what. So I gave people a choice you could stay here, you could stay there. They were choosing a hotel because the personality was different, and emic goes it look different. So after you do the Morgan and people come to you, as you just said, and they say, you better sell this because someone's gonna copy it and do it better. Do you find now that people are taking you seriously because they are trying to squeeze you when they are interestingly just just recently, you know when when W came out, Up until then, it was still thought up that only people who wear black and live in Soho come to my hotels. It wasn't until W came out, you know whenever, that was a while ago, that it gave real credibility. Hey, this is a real idea. Now there isn't a hotel company in the world that doesn't want to do a boutique hotel. And it's the fastest growing segment. There are thousands and thousands of versions all over. But it was treated with absolute skepticism and dismissively by by because you know why, they couldn't They couldn't put it in a box. They couldn't understand what it was. Uh So, do you find that that major hotel companies not only want you because you're doing additions now, is that with Marriott and that you're partnering with Maryott to do this addition series. It's it's a style of hotel you're gonna do with them. Do you find out with that that you wouldn't call that a bouktic hotel? I would? You? Would? You know? Like to me, I you know, because it's so over you. Steve, it's the one that came up with the name boutique. By the way, because we were in New York. The fashion business is probably the central most important business here and uh and when he was trying to explain to people what we were trying to do, he said, look, all the other hotels are like the Poppin stores. They try and be all things to all people. That's kind of generic. We have a specific thing to say. We're very specific, have a specific attitude will like a boutique. And that was the invention and the use of that name, which we've lost ownership of. It become part of the English language. But Steve really was the first one to use that when he tried to when when we were promoting mortgage and we're trying to explain to people what we were trying to do. So it was Marryott trying to take Marryott properties and make them more like a boutique hotel, or were they buying other properties that are boutique hotels and putting the Marry Up label on both. They're doing both. What Marriott realizes that this lifestyle hotel, this space is the future of the business. This that people are not going to choose a hotel because of its location or price points, or because of its loyalty points, but they're going to choose a hotel because the experience is unique and elevat and so they're getting into that business. And I kind of felt that with everyone in the world rushing into the boutique space, it was a little less interesting for me. So I'm gonna team up with a big guy and do a lot of them. Then I have had my own brand, Public, which is a less expensive, hilly skylized hotel, but a real value proposition, which I think is always a cool idea, you know, because I always think people, no matter how much money they have, they get it when something's something's cool. Now, when the world of boutique tells them, they've been people who have come to you and said Ian Straker, we want you to design a hotel for us, and they wanted to have something insane, you know, like Peacock's. You know, No, I couldn't do it. I mean I I you know, to me, I think that, Um, have you seen some hotels like that? Yes? You thought? This is just crazed my kind of thing. And I don't think they're really sophisticated people. I think it's more Vegas. Yeah, pretty, I mean over the top kind of stuff. I I I don't think more. I think less is not only more. I think it's better. And I think it's a little bit like a writer. If you have time, you're gonna edit it and bear it down. And I think it's more powerful. And I think that that that people who have good taste today rather than money, because so many people have it. It's really a status temple, you know. Leonardo da Vinci says, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. I believe that, and I have I have confidence in in the people that that if it's simple and well done, they kind of get it and you don't have to hit him over and add with marble and gold. Have you had people come to you and ask you to design private homes for them. Yes, you have, and you never never got you know, I would do it if I was selling home and the clod those and there was some you know something, some kind of financial benefit for me and my bar and I. But you know, look, I enjoy all of the benefits that come with the money. But you can't do what I do for money. I'm sure you can't do what you do for money. It's a benefit, but it's it's now you're driving force. We're so to go from the nightclub business to the hotel business, two different businesses obviously, and then is it this is it another transition to go into the condominium business and their real estate. They're all very related. In the nightclub business, your primary goal, if you script it down, you know, of all the smoke screens the night clubs, your primary goal is to look after people, make sure people have fun, elevate the experience, make them comfortable. Same going all business, same going to business, you know, and so there is a common denominated there were differences in it, you know, like the people that work in the nightclub business most of the time they look like vampires in the day. The you know, most of the time they can't cut it during the day. There are differences, but there are many, many more similarities that by the Royal quote hospitality businesses, because it's it's it's looking at the people. How has New York changed totally different? I, you know, like to me, I you know, there was two there are two New York's. There's one downtown and there's one uptown. You know, I think the real New York is Downtown. It's not about the restaurants or anything like that. It's just that it feels more like a village down there. Uptown it's kind of anonymous, it's intense, it's a hostility there. I it's it's no different than London, except the architecture is different. I if it doesn't have a personality to me, you know, you know, I think we we've had a real dichotomy now between uptown and downtown. You know, in the seventies and eighties when we were bumping around, you know, downtown is really when you went down to hung out and have fun. It's not like that now. And then now you live down there, it's a different city. And I think New Yorkers most of the time New Yorkers don't live uptown. There were Farigners. You know, rem coolhouse. It's a great architect, says to meet me. Good keep it. Don't live in London. It's only Fargners live who lived there. I think that's happening, you know now with New York. I think if you want to see the way in New York is you just look at London because it's on that same continuum. I mean, obviously there's there's benefits to both. But I lived up there for twenty five years. I did too, I lived up there. I used to say that, you know, I live up down, I go downtown to a restaurant. You live in the park. No, I lived on the Park a while, but you know, when I didn't have money all the time to live there. You know, I lived on the Upper east Side. Then I moved to the West Side, and I moved back to the east Side, and then I eventually, you know, what's the longest you've ever lived one place? Now, I'm I'm I've been living in the same apartment now for ten years? Is it getting aunty? Do you like to move? Well? Do my two projects so we may move. My kids are leaving for school. And one question I want to ask you is were you close with your dad and he died when you were how old you were nineteen? Were you closer through bell? Yes? Where were you when he died by his bed? You were? So you were still that close right to the end. You were best friends with him, and you were there he We took him to the hospital. We watched the monitor numbers sinks terrible. And then your dad not in your life and your partner gone. He died in nineteen nine. Who's been your mentor or who's been your trusted advisor for the last five years? You know? By myself now? You don't have my wife, you know, and I have some good friends, but you know that it's it's a it's a loss when you buy yourself. You know, it's good to have somebody to bounce things off of. It. It keeps you moral, comfistrated. It almost operates like our conscience. You know, it's it's tough. I'm bombed by myself now. You don't have a partner. Who's you're someone you consulted. You don't have friends that I asked questions, but no one replaced rebel. No, you never have a friend or a part like that. Lucky to have that. Um, you're married now and you've been married the tier your current wife for how long you've been with for eight years? And you have a five year old child almost almost five? Boy? You have a boy. Finally you have two girls from your and she has to you know, you and I are the same. I've got a girl, and then I had a girl, and now I'm having a boy in July. What a pleasure? Tell me, what's it been like? What's it like having a son? When we're definitely in the in the in the night, we're in the seventh inning. Here we're with a girl. Everything's too tight, too low, too much to everything. It's just I used to think when I used to go to kindergarten and the nursery school, and all the boys will be bouncing off the wall, and I do with my girl, she'd be sitting at the desperately stats boar. I got a maid in a shade. But it reverses the boys I I identify. We wrestle. I don't know whether it's my where I am in life, my age. I don't love him more than my daughters, but it's just into what's he like to do wrestle, soccer, you know, soldiers, thanks superheroes. You know, I can kind of relate swords. It's it's amazing. My son comes into my bedroom sometimes the sword to me and a sword dam in the morning. The first thing, here is your sword, I present you. Here's your weapon. And and what's it like for you in your work and the and the balance? Is it different for you? Now? I got the balance now finally. Unfortunately it took me this long to figure it out. You know, I gave up a lot for the work. You know, it was very very important to me, and I kind of didn't have the capacity all the time. And so to me, you know, I worked very odd. But you know I I don't work pass four five o'clock. I don't work on the weekends. I take vacations. I just when I come home, I play with my family. And I think the secret isn't balanced. I think if you're going to really be happy, you need everything. You need a good wife, you need a good work, you need a good family, need to go to abby, you need a good grange. You need it all. Ian Schrager's attempt to have it all appears to be working. This month, he'll open his fourth boutique hotel, this time in partnership with Marriott. You can visit the New York Edition Hotel on Madison Avenue, a short walk from Schrager's very first hotel, Morgan's. This is Alec Baldwin you're listening to. Here's the Thing four