#546 Ari S. Heckman (Ash) | From a Providence Brothel to America's Coolest Hotels

**Ari S. Heckman** (0:00)
New York is this place where all of these like fantastical characters, some of whom we've met tonight, are jammed into a couple of square mile. Density of like creative, smart, enterprising people is such a gift. I always knew from a really young age that I wanted to be a real estate developer. I was obsessed with the idea of like creating something, and I wanted to be involved in every facet of it.

**Adrien Garcia** (0:28)
What is a real estate developer ? What is he doing exactly ?

**Ari S. Heckman** (0:32)
It's like a film producer. They often come up with the concept and the idea, and they figure out how to execute it, and they bring all of the participants together to make the thing happen.

**Adrien Garcia** (0:42)
Why you decided to go by yourself ? Actually, what has been with the clique ?

**Ari S. Heckman** (0:45)
I think I always knew that I wanted to do my own thing. Like I was sort of like, entrepreneurship was very much in my DNA.
Maybe it's narcissism, maybe it's ego, I don't know. This feels like chaos is in the air, like it's a crazy time but a good time to kind of try to do your own thing.

**Adrien Garcia** (1:02)
What's the final destination ? What's the old vision for this Ash Hotel ?

**Ari S. Heckman** (1:06)
We knew so little about creating and designing a hotel, and those are the things that people actually liked about it. It's what made the product interesting.

**Adrien Garcia** (1:15)
What do you make sure your brand doesn't fade away ?

**Ari S. Heckman** (1:19)
When you go into something completely naive, and you bring an inexperience, there's something really, really beautiful about that. Obviously, it could go terribly wrong. You don't know the rules to know you're breaking them.

**Adrien Garcia** (1:34)
Hello, everybody. Thank you for listening to Bold Way. Today, I am with Ari Heckman, right ?

**Ari S. Heckman** (1:40)
That's me.

**Adrien Garcia** (1:40)
Yeah. So, Ari, where we are ?

**Ari S. Heckman** (1:45)
We are at Bridges Restaurant in sort of the edge of Chinatown. Restaurant opened maybe a year ago, and I would say it's kind of become one of like the hottest tables in New York.

**Adrien Garcia** (1:57)
All right.

**Ari S. Heckman** (1:58)
People just love the room and the space and this neighborhood, which is historically a Chinese neighborhood, has had a lot of young people move into it over the last five or 10 years. And this is really one of the first like new fine dining establishments in the neighborhood. I mean, there's many like amazing Chinese restaurants that have been around for decades or 100 years. But this is sort of a new concept here.

**Adrien Garcia** (2:25)
Fantastic. Thank you for making us discovering that kind of thing. Yeah.
You know, I've been lucky doing this New York chapter with a lot of insiders of New Yorker. It's so exciting to visit a city with the people who make the city and know the city at the best. This episode you're watching or listening to was filmed in New York City. This New York chapter of Bold Way was made possible by my partner, La Compagnie. I had the chance to fly with them on the Paris New York route and honestly it completely changes the way you travel. It's a 100% business class experience, much more intimate, much more comfortable, designed so you arrive rested and in great shape. What I particularly loved was how seamless the whole experience is. Lounge access before the flight, fast boarding, high speed Wi-Fi the whole way, seats that turn into real beds. You can really work, sleep or just enjoy the flight. And even on board everything is thought out in detail. The food is made with chefs, the menus change with the season and honestly, I've never eaten so well on a plane. In fact, La Compagnie is the official airline of the French National Soccer Team for the World Cup in the US. That's saying something. And since you guys are life's athletes too, treat yourselves to athlete level conditions. To find out more, go to lacompagnie.com and thanks again to La Compagnie for making this series possible.
You know today, the idea is to come back on your pathway, to understand who you are, what's your business, how do you do business, and this inside the perspective of New York City, discovering places, nice places, and to understand what's out in hospitality, because this is your main field, you're going to tell us what you do. But to begin with, for the people who don't know you, who never heard about you, who don't know what you do, and to make sure they stay here until the end of this episode, who you are, what you do, and what we're going to learn today.