Soul Of A City (And Discretion)

New York’s Carlyle Hotel—an elegant magnet for the famous and powerful—has been called a palace of secrets. A new documentary shares a few of them

- Mary Kaye Schilling

PRINCESS DIANA, MICHAEL JACKSON AND Steve Jobs walk into a bar. Actually, it was a hotel elevator, and this isn’t a joke. The operator closes the door. The four stare ahead; no one utters a word for several floors—until Diana cuts the tension by breaking into “Beat It.”

As power elevators go, it’s hard to top that trio—though, given this happened at New York’s infamously discreet Carlyle Hotel, there are likely juicier ensembles and tales, never to be told. (The New York Times once referred to it as the “Palace of Secrets.”) Regulars at the Carlyle have included numerous presidents, John F. Kennedy Jr., Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Condoleezza Rice, Jack Nicholson, George and Amal Clooney, Lenny Kravitz, Sofia Coppola, Roger Federer and on and on.

It’s hard to find another hotel that is preferred by the British royal family (see Will and Kate’s visit in 2014) and Tommy Lee Jones; a hotel that can provide the unofficial runway for the Met Gala (Naomi Campbell recalls that her floor was “bangin’” in 2016, when she shared it with Stella McCartney, Rihanna and Cara Delevingne) as well as a war room. Another rare anecdote goes: When the Iraqi delegation to the United Nations stayed here during the second Gulf War, the FBI wanted to plant agents in room service and tap the phones. Peter Sharp, then the owner, responded, “Under no circumstances. I wouldn’t let you do it to Warren Beatty, why would I let you do it to the Iraqi delegation?”