One of the most interesting articles in the April 2010 issue of Vanity Fair is Sorority on East 63rd Street - a lively chronicle of the legendary Barbizon Hotel for Women on New York City's Upper East Side.
Now a luxury condo building, during it's heyday the Barbizon housed young women with big dreams, including Grace Kelly, Joan Crawford, Ali McGraw, Liza Minelli, Joan Didion, Cybill Shepard, and Sylvia Plath. During her stay, Ms. Kelly was known for "performing exotic dances in the hallways, while scantily 
attired, and for her facility in in arranging covert romantic assignations in the darker corners of the hotel lounges." Way to go Grace!
Although fellas, including famous ones like Ricky Gervais, now live at the Barbizon, surprisingly the Big Apple still has women's only residences where gentlemen are only allowed in the lobby. Read the November 2009 New York Times article Where the Boy's Aren't for more information about the Webster Apartments, the Brandon Residence for Women, and the Jeanne D'Arc Residence.
I must admit that whenever I walk by the Barbizon, the theme song from the 1980's sitcom Bosom Buddies pops into my head. Starring Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari as two men in drag who move into an all women's hotel in NYC when their apartment is demolished, Bosom Buddies showed that people will do just about anything for cheap rent in Manhattan.
