Our bar is inspired by Ingo Swann (1933 – 2013), the world’s foremost psychic. A visionary, a writer and an emblem of the downtown New York scene in the 1970s and 80s, Ingo is best known as the father of remote viewing, the ability to see distant events or places through extrasensory perception. He was a pioneer of the out-of-body experience — the act of perceiving the world from a location outside one’s physical body. In 1973, he viewed Jupiter’s rings, discovering them remotely years before NASA confirmed their existence. A talented artist, Ingo also created the cosmic paintings on display in our lobby (and in the Smithsonian!). In 1978, Ingo was involved in remote viewing experiments established by the U.S. Army and the CIA in collaboration with the Stanford Research Institute. This clandestine initiative — code-named Project Stargate — later became the basis for the movie The Men Who Stare at Goats, starring George Clooney and Jeff Bridges. For Stargate, Ingo and a group of psychics used their abilities to spy on Russia from Palo Alto, California, even remotely discovering a downed Soviet spy plane under jungle canopy in the African country of Zaire after the U.S. Department of Defense had deemed it lost. Ingo and his pet chinchilla lived on the Bowery. In addition to his paintings, much of his eclectic furniture, book and record collections have a home in the rooms and public spaces of The High Line Hotel. Our Shinola Runwell Turntable spins his music at the bar.