A frequent caller, who asked to withhold his name, described the Apology Line to The Post as “a proto-Internet. It’s unknown what became of the case, and Allan did not hear from the detective again.īy 1983, voyeurs could phone in and listen to recorded confessions. Due to be interviewed by NPR, he tipped police that he’d play the suspect’s confession on air. (She narrates the podcast and provided the recordings.) He came up with a compromise. Marissa Bridge, who was dating Allan at the time and would marry him in 1984, recalled he did not want to betray his promise to callers. The apologist’s MO seemed to match an unsolved murder in Chelsea.Ī poster from the Apology Hotline that was posted across the city.
After the article ran, a detective left a message on the line, wanting to hear this particular call. without jeopardizing themselves.” The phone line connected to an answering machine in his West Chelsea loft.Ĭallers were instructed to “not identify yourself and call from a pay phone to prevent tracing.” The flyers made clear there was no association to police, government or religious organizations.Ĭalls came in immediately: confessions of violence, infidelity, theft.Īllan was interviewed by the SoHo Weekly News and played the reporter a recording of someone who claimed to beat and rob gay men. In 1980 he papered downtown neighborhoods with flyers encouraging people to call and “apologize for their wrongs. Marissa Bridge, Allan’s wife, narrates podcast. Carpentry helped to make ends meet, but so did shoplifting. Apology” Bridge was an ambitious painter, with a few gallery shows under his belt, when he moved from Washington, DC, to NYC in 1977. It all started because he needed to atone himself.Īllan “Mr. Apology got more than he bargained for - losing friends and years of his life to the venture.
Apology knew more than 100,000 of them thanks to his Apology Line, which let people call in and anonymously confess their misdeeds.īut, as recounted in the podcast “The Apology Line,” available on Tuesday, Mr.
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