New York is a city of secrets. The man who called himself Mr. Apology knew more than 100,000 of them thanks to his Apology Line, which let people call in and anonymously confess their misdeeds.
But, as recounted in the podcast “The Apology Line,” available on Tuesday, Mr. Apology got more than he bargained for — losing friends and years of his life to the venture. It all started because he needed to atone himself.
Allan “Mr. Apology” Bridge was an ambitious painter, with a few gallery shows under his belt, when he moved from Washington, DC, to NYC in 1977. Carpentry helped to make ends meet, but so did shoplifting. Then the guilt got to him.
In 1980 he papered downtown neighborhoods with flyers encouraging people to call and “apologize for their wrongs . . . without jeopardizing themselves.” The phone line connected to an answering machine in his West Chelsea loft.
Callers 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.
Calls came in immediately: confessions of violence, infidelity, theft.
Allan was interviewed by the SoHo Weekly News and played the reporter a recording of someone who claimed to beat and rob gay men. After the article ran, a detective left a message on the line, wanting to hear this particular call. The apologist’s MO seemed to match an unsolved murder in Chelsea.
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. (She narrates the podcast and provided the recordings.) He came up with a compromise. Due to be interviewed by NPR, he tipped police that he’d play the suspect’s confession on air.
It’s unknown what became of the case, and Allan did not hear from the detective again.
By 1983, voyeurs could phone in and listen to recorded confessions. A frequent caller, who asked to withhold his name, described the Apology Line to The Post as “a proto-Internet . . . with a community composed of people you never meet.” He remembers confessions from “Johnny the Dick of Death, who spread AIDS to both genders.”
There were calls from child molesters, a man called who claimed to have killed his mother, and someone who vowed to murder Allan. “We were scared,” said Marissa. In ’80s NYC, “if somebody said they were coming to kill him, I believed it.”
But she also recalled being touched by a runaway’s call: “She was sorry for leaving home because she did not feel loved; she came to New York, lived on the streets and felt very lonely. I thought, ‘There but for the grace of God go I.’ ”
Occasionally, Allan would pick up an incoming call and talk. “He did it when somebody sounded suicidal,” said Marissa.
It became all-consuming. The line grew to include extensions (press 1 for crime, 2 for cheating). Allan launched a fanzine. HBO made a 1986 movie, “Apology,” built around a character based on him. (It was the only time he made money off his project.)
By the early ’90s, Marissa said, Allan was “unraveling. It took up his whole life. He slept very little and worked minimally at carpentry. Keeping up with everything was a Sisyphean task. Calls got dark.”
Having started the line as a place for sinners to unload in the hopes of healing, Allan was frustrated when, Marissa recalled, “people showed no remorse” — and, in fact, some sounded like they were bragging.
Allan grew isolated. “Most of our friends drifted away. It was difficult to be friends with Mr. Apology,” Marissa said. “He spent each day hearing [sins] from all of humanity.”
Finally in 1995, at age 50, Allan was ready to figure out the next phase of his life. He was illegally scuba-diving in Shinnecock Inlet, on Long Island, when fate made the decision for him.
“Allan was coming up from the water and a Jet Ski hit him,” said Marissa. “The guy made a circle and just kept going.”
Allan died as a result of the hit-and-run. The incident received plenty of press attention at the time, but the Jet Skier was never caught.
And that begs a question: What would Mr. Apology have wanted from the person who killed him?
“Allan would tell him to apologize,” said Marissa. “He’d want the person to let go and not carry around guilt. Apologizing is a release of pain.”