LITTLE EDIE'S FASHIONABLE NYC ADDRESS : THE BARBIZON HOTEL FOR WOMEN

140 East 63rd Street, New York, New York

 

1927 PHOTO OF THE 23 STORY BARBIZON HOTEL FOR WOMEN

A FASHIONABLE ADDRESS

from THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

THE ROARING TWENTIES were raging female liberation as this building, designed by Palmer H. Ogden, was built.  The style was considered to be part Italian Renaissance, part Gothic, even part Islamic. 

When Little Edie went to New York to live as a young graduate of Miss Porter's School, she was conforming to Society's desire that young women in the city be protected from sweet-talking strange men physically and preserve their reputations as chaste.  Young women who applied to live at the hotel had to have three letters of reference!  You couldn't just walk in.  Parents could request that their daughters be given chaperons.  Men were allowed only in the lobby.  If a woman wanted to have an affair with a man, she had to sneak around and meet him elsewhere.