Concierge Confidential (21 page)

It started to soften when the airports opened up, and there was a bit of an exodus. We suddenly had to struggle to make space and get rooms ready: the people from Cantor Fitzgerald were coming to stay with us. They had been headquartered at the top floors of One World Trade Center, and two-thirds of their workforce had been killed.

CEO Howard Lutnick came in with a whole crew from his company. They stood at the front desk, and from everywhere in the lobby you could hear them crying. They weren't trying to hide it, sniffling into a handkerchief or something. These very successful people were just absolutely devastated. It's not like they lost one friend or one family member; they lost their staff, everyone who they used to spend hours at the office with, day in and day out. Their emotions were so raw that I started to panic.

Suddenly things became real. All of the greediness and brattiness was gone. It was replaced by a somber, humble, and depressing energy. In a selfish way, that's when I got scared. I realized our whole city is built on those people who snap their fingers and make demands. “Get it now! Get it
now
! I don't care what it costs and I want more!
More!
Bigger! Closer to the stage! Louder!” That attitude that I sometimes resented was gone—but without people like that, who was I going to provide service for?

Over the following days, the hotel started to empty out and things became weird. We were only booked at around 50 percent capacity when it came to rooms. Every single person was calling to let us know they couldn't get in, and wondering what to do about their theater tickets. I obviously wasn't going to tell them that they had legally committed to the purchases, so every cancellation was money out of my pocket. It was just
spiraling
. Our concierge desk was very formal and old-fashioned. Instead of doing things in the computer, we had a big logbook with the ribbon down the middle to mark the page. Every sheet was filled with line after line as we crossed out the various reservations, one after another.
I'm not going to have a job,
I thought. Everything that had made me crazy about my job instantly faded away. I was into my work. I was a great concierge and things had been going well, and I mostly did love this business. I loved the air of power, I loved the mystique, and frankly I loved the money for doing it all.

One quiet evening, the lobby was deserted. Literally every phone call I took was for people canceling their dinner and/or theater ticket reservations.
Oh my God,
I thought.
People can't stop coming. Now is the time to come!
There was tremendous damage that had been done to the city—but it was just getting worse and worse.
This
damage could be mitigated, in some small way.
How do we convince people to come to New York without sounding greedy?

It was the same thought process I went through when a show was sold out. I always knew that there
must
be
some
way. Like my most demanding guest, I absolutely would not and could not accept the notion that there wasn't at least
something
that could be done. Maybe I could get someone from the theater industry to call all the incoming guests to leave a message or send a letter out to people that would encourage them to come. I knew who was listed as scheduled to check in and I had all their contact information. Maybe there was a way to reach out to everybody due to come in the next month. I obviously didn't want to make it something like, “On behalf of the hotel: We need your money!”

There seemed to be a lot of help and support for those who lost loved ones in the towers, but as dirty as it made me feel, I couldn't help but think about the next wave of residual damage. More bad things were happening. Shows close when seats are empty. Waiters don't make a living from empty tables. Concierges are useless without a hotel full of people snapping their fingers. I was terrified of trivializing, in any way, the anguish New York was going through. Yet I couldn't help but think that this, of all times, was a good time to bury some sorrow in great food, music, theater, and art.

Then I thought bigger and I began to feel that there really wasn't anything wrong with my message. What the message needed to make it legit was star power. I was fixated on all those public service announcements that celebrities do for various causes.
Was this a “cause”? Could I pull something like this together? Would it seem odd for me to reach back to my Hollywood contacts, as someone now on the outside?
Thoughts of Dolores gave me a sense of fearlessness.

I needed to get a star who was really famous and really recognizable.
Who do I have contact with
, I wondered,
that knows someone with a famous, distinctive voice
?
Charlie Sheen would be good, and I certainly know how to get to him. Salma Hayek? Now there's a distinctive voice—but I just couldn't. I do have an in with Rosie O'Donnell. She's all about New York. But would her voice be instantly recognizable?

Whoopi Goldberg was
blaring
in my inner monologue. She was on Broadway, she had won a Tony award, and her voice was totally distinguishable. She just seemed like someone who I could be real with about my mission—and someone everyone loved.

Whoopi was on my periphery because one of my acquaintances from Los Angeles was Tom Leonardis, who I knew as her assistant. He was one of the people I had tried to network with by sending little notes and articles about themselves to. I had a little bit of pull with him but not a lot; I hadn't talked to him at all since I moved to New York. I found his number and gave him a call.

“Tom Leonardis's office,”
his
assistant said.

I did a quick double take. I knew that he was still with Whoopi and I knew that he had risen in the organization, but I didn't know the extent. I had eventually stopped reading
Variety
. He had actually become the president of Whoop, Inc., her production company. “Hi, this is Michael Fazio.”

“Can I ask what this is regarding?”

“Oh. I'm an old acquaintance of Tom's, and I just wanted to say hello and to run something by him.” I didn't want to get into detail about what exactly I wanted, and I
definitely
didn't want to mention Whoopi. I felt like that wouldn't warrant a response, or would probably even put up a wall.

I got the typical tepid assistant's answer. “Okay, I'll take your number and let him know you called.”

Oh, crap,
I realized.
There's no way she's going to do this. What the hell was I thinking
?
Tom is going to blow me off.

I got more down-to-earth about the kind of person I was looking for. I brainstormed people who would be known to guests of the hotel—but who would also have a direct vested interest in what was happening. Daniel Boulud was a famous restaurateur with a great French voice and Abbie knew him very well. Danny Meyer was an icon in the restaurant industry, and I knew his assistant. Both of them agreed to do it on the spot.

I started calling my contacts in the theater industry, since they would have access to actors. They were all cautiously polite, but they didn't really want to promise me someone who they couldn't deliver.

I looked through my old L.A. book to see what contact info I had. I put calls out to everyone that I could, but Whoopi was far and away my best choice. I decided to call her office again; the worst thing that they could tell me was no. By this time I knew that Tom wasn't likely to return my call anyway. I came up with my thirty-second elevator pitch of what I wanted; the first time I'd called, I just hadn't been prepared. I rang him up again, and again I got the assistant.

I thought about what worked and what didn't work with me, as a service industry person. I wasn't going to get through by being dismissive, or fakely nice, or needlessly aggressive. I couldn't take his caution personally. The assistant was just trying to do his job, which was to be a gatekeeper for his boss. So I was truthful and to the point about what I wanted. “I hate to be impatient and I know Tom hasn't called me back but I would just like to get his ear for twenty seconds. This is something that's kind of time sensitive and it would mean a lot to me. I don't work in the business anymore; I work in a hotel. I have this idea that I think would be really positive, and help bring some attention to the tourism industry in New York, which is in really bad shape.”

It worked. “Okay,” the assistant said. “Hold on one second.”

Tom got on the phone. “Yep?”

“Tom,” I said, “I hate to be calling you for this because we haven't spoken in so long. I work in a hotel now and I'm scared out of my mind, because the hotel is emptied out. I'd like to know if Whoopi might consider doing some sort of public service announcement. This wouldn't be broadcast nationally or anywhere in the media if she doesn't want it to be. It's just to play to our hotel guests because everyone's calling and canceling, and we are all flipping about our jobs.”

His tone changed, and he warmed up. “Oh … Wow, when did you move to the hotel?”

I gave him the condensed version about becoming a concierge, and explained what the situation was like in the New York tourism industry. “Look, it's a crazy idea to think that somebody of her stature would even be interested.”

“You know what?” he said. “Fax me over what you're asking, and put it exactly how you told me. If we can keep this to around five minutes, I can find a slot. She's going to be in a recording studio, and I can just put it in front of her.”

I couldn't believe it. “Of course!” I wrote up exactly what I was envisioning, and sent it over to him.

He called me back the next day. “I still can't guarantee it,” he said, “but just looking at it quickly she said okay. But I think we need to have a script.”

I sat down immediately.
What do I write?
I remembered my friend Brendan's answering machine. He paused after saying hello, and I always thought that it was him picking up the phone. I would start talking as the message continued with, “I'm not here to take your call right now.”

I envisioned the guests calling the hotel. When you're on hold, you're kind of brain dead and not paying attention. It would be a great way to jolt people, to have Whoopi Goldberg say “Hello?” Then, when they started talking to the recording about how they needed to cancel, she could continue with, “Are you still there? Oh, there you are. I just didn't want you to get cranky while you're on hold. Hey, it's me, Whoopi Goldberg. Your visit can really help lift us up, and I know that once you experience some of what this city has to offer, you'll be lifted up, too.” I kept it cute and I kept it quick.

“Oh, this is perfect,” Tom said. “This is all she needs to do?”

“Yep!”

Just like that, I had the brass ring. I had underestimated how accommodating she would be—just like I underestimated how accommodating so many other people would be. Rather than getting doors shut in my face all over town, celebrities willing to chip in started calling me back.

I told everyone's people the same thing: “I work in a hotel; our business is a catastrophe; the city needs all of this tourism. This is how so many people make their living—not just me. Here's my idea, to broadcast this to people to stop them from canceling.” It wasn't like I was sponsored by some big corporation. It was just little ol' me. People took the cause on as their own. My friend Nancy Richards, head of a theater marketing company, brought in tons of Broadway celebrities. The roster grew bigger every day:

HALL OF FAME

Charlie Sheen

Dominic Chianese

Fran Drescher

Vanessa Williams

Michael Feinstein

Bernadette Peters

Billy Crystal

Ray Romano

Helen Mirren

Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee

David Hasselhoff

Anne Meara and Jerry Stiller

Christine Baranski

Marc Anthony

Tony Bennett

Paul Shaffer

Cindy Adams

Wynton Marsalis

Bea Arthur

Mayor Bloomberg

Joan Rivers

I was shocked by the people who were saying yes, but I was even more shocked by the people who were saying
no
. When I had Valerie Harper and Joel Grey calling me personally, it was hard to believe that a Bebe Neuwirth would be turning me down. There were so many people signing up that if Brooke Shields didn't want to do it, it wasn't any problem. When you own that belief and when that really is your philosophy, things have a way of snowballing in a very positive way.

HALL OF SHAME

Sarah Jessica Parker

Mathew Broderick

Billy Joel (but what about “New York State of Mind”?)

Brooke Shields (not-so-pretty, baby)

Rosie O'Donnell (the “Queen of Nice”)

Barry Manilow (it would have been such a personal triumph)

I am absolutely certain that of those famous people who refused, none of their representatives ever even took it to them to begin with. It was very much like being back in Los Angeles. Instantaneously, I could tell if the contact was going to be a yea or a nay. The refusals probably came from those who wanted to hear that this was the next “We Are the World,” with people flown to New York in private jets for a huge press extravaganza.

The campaign soon took on a life of its own. Steve Karmen had written the “I Love New York” jingle and donated its use. It occurred to me that this should be a love letter
from
New York to its visitors. With “I Love New York” playing behind each message, I decided the perfect tagline would be “New York Loves You Back.” I called a studio in L.A.; they donated time. Sony in New York donated studio time as well. Tapes were constantly coming in the mail, from celebrities all over America.