Emily Chan
In 1980, a man named Allan Bridge, who became known as Mr. Apology, launched The Apology Line, a hotline that people could call and apologize anonymously for their acts of wrongdoing.
Thousands of individuals confessed to theft, infidelity, domestic violence, abuse, murder, and more. The darkness of people’s crimes took a great toll on Mr. Apology. The phone calls took up most of his time, and he ended up losing friends.
The Apology Line all started when Allan decided that he wanted to atone for his sins. As an artist and a carpenter in New York City, he was struggling to make ends meet, so he turned to shoplifting.
Eventually, the guilt began to eat away at him, which led him to set up The Apology Line as a sort of art project and social experiment. The phone line was connected to an answering machine in his Manhattan loft.
He advertised it around town with posters encouraging strangers to call and describe their misdeeds in detail. The posters emphasized that the hotline was not affiliated with the police, government, or religious institutions, so they wouldn’t be jeopardizing themselves by confessing.
Callers were also instructed not to state their names and to call from a payphone so their numbers could not be traced.
Immediately, people started leaving messages on the line. Story after story came rushing in, including a man who claimed to have killed his own mother, a runaway who had left home because she felt unloved, a man with HIV who knowingly spread the virus to men and women, and a man who claimed to beat and rob gay men.
Another man witnessed a crime in the men’s bathroom at Penn Station but did not report it, a cop apologized for all the beatings he had given people, and a man admitted that he had been driving when he skidded on ice and crashed into a greenhouse, destroying $25,000 worth of roses. The man clearly felt bad, saying, “I want to make do for it, but I really don’t have that kind of bread.”
In addition, a little girl called in about hitting a dog that had attacked her. The most chilling call Allan received was from someone who threatened to track him down and murder him.
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