I've always been fascinated by New York's women's hotels. My great-grandmother lived in the Martha Washington Hotel off and on and there were books and movies where the female protagonist was heading off to New York and the Barbizon. This story captures what it meant to be at the Barbizon in its heyday, when aspiring writers like Joan Didion and Sylvia Plath served as interns for a summer at Madmoiselle Magazine (which turns out to have been quite progressive despite the pittance paid for the prestigious internships). We learn about the models from Powers and Ford who had some responsibility for the hotel's being called the "Dollhouse." The Katherine Gibbs secretarial students, schooled in dress (always a hat), manners and etiquette as well as job skills lived at the Barbizon. But more importantly, we learn about the rise and fall of the business/building itself; its famous inhabitants, the suicides, the elderly women who never left and paid cheap rent in their rent controlled rooms until they died, long after the hotel was no longer the Barbizon. I liked the stand alone chapters on some the famous residents. There is no question that the Barbizon was basically an only white, upper class female hotel for most of the time it was a women only hotel. There is an interesting take on the year Madmoiselle chose a Black woman for one of its spots, Barbara Chase-Riboud from Temple University. She was allowed to live there, but without it being spoken, the pool in the basement was off limits. All in all a worthwhile and enjoyable read that scratched my itch to better understand NY's women's hotels.