Stanley Bard - This Ain't no Holiday Inn: Down and Out at the Chelsea Hotel 1980-1995 - page 148

He loved the artists and writers in the hotel, and he became very friendly with
them. For example, he knew John Sloan 86 very well—they were dear friends.
Young Stanley would tag along as his father perambulated the hotel, so he too had access
to the artists and luminaries.
STANLEY BARD
When I was a child, I met these people like [composer and writer] Virgil
Thompson. These people were quirky, someone might say. They had their own
distinct ideas, and they were interesting people. I loved being around them.
As the years passed, however, young Bard began to march to the beat of his own drum.
After graduating from college and, in 1955, serving a stint in the Army, he wanted to forge
his own path in the world.
STANLEY BARD
As a child, who thinks that someday he will do exactly what his father did? That
was not my intent.
But the elder Bard had a feeling about Stanley.
STANLEY BARD
My father asked me if I wanted to learn management. He said, “You will love
this hotel and the people living here.”
The younger Bard agreed to give it a try and fell under the spell of the hotel's allure. He
started out “doing the accounting work, learning management and learning about the hotel
business,” he said, while his father worked to convince co-owners Gross and Krauss that
his son had what it took. In college, Stanley had received good training in accounting, but
he was young. Nevertheless, Stanley and the other owners hit it off.
STANLEY BARD
Joseph Gross and Julius Krauss were very lovely people, and I never had any
problem with them.
Once the two elders trusted him at the helm, they retired at around the same time, and be-
fore his father died, Stanley had taken over his duties as general manager.
STANLEY BARD
Then, I was left to myself running the hotel.