Welcome to New York’s legendary hotel for women, the Barbizon. Liberated after WWI from home and hearth, women flocked to New York City during the Roaring Twenties. But even as women’s residential hotels became the fashion, the Barbizon stood out; it was designed for young women with artistic aspirations, and included soaring art studios and soundproofed practice rooms. More importantly still, with no men allowed beyond the lobby, the Barbizon signaled respectability, a place where a young woman of a certain class could feel at home. As the stock market crashed and the Great Depression set in, the clientele changed, though women’s ambitions did not; the Barbizon Hotel became the go-to destination for any young American woman with a dream to be something more. While Sylvia Plath most famously fictionalized her time there in The Bell Jar, the Barbizon was also where Titanic survivor Molly Brown sang her last aria; where Grace Kelly danced topless in the hallways; where Joan Didion got her first taste of Manhattan; and where both Ali MacGraw and Jaclyn Smith found their calling as actresses. It was home to American royalty like Liza Minnelli and Little Edie Beale, who made their way here as they attempted life beyond their famous family homes. Students of the prestigious Katharine Gibbs Secretarial School had three floors to themselves, Eileen Ford used the hotel as a guest house for her youngest models, and Mademoiselle magazine boarded its summer interns there, including a young designer named Betsey Johnson.

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Larry Sultan Portrait of My Father with Newspaper, 1988 Chromogenic print 28 5/8 x 34 5/8 inches

I almost wish we were butterflies and liv'd but three summer days - three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.

John Keats, bright star: love letters and poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

moving far away to a sunny place.

— Aure Vives, ‘Soul beloved’

oh and btw the love was there and it changed everything. if u even care

summer activities include: getting MARRIED, wtf???

This tweet came for me.

Francesco Hayez, Il bacio Particolare

Detail of Flower Still-life with Fruits, 1842, by Leopold von Stoll (1808-1889)

@mer__wk

*tiffany pollard voice* KEVIN YOUNG?!?!

The Booksellers (D.W. Young, 2019)

love and company

Before Sunrise (1995) dir. Richard Linklater Normal People S01E08 (2020) dir. Hettie Macdonald

I’m obsessed