[00:16] Meg: Welcome to Desperately Seeking the 80s. I am Meg and this is David Levine, who is kindly filling in for Jessica, who is traveling for work. Now, David and I have known each other since what, we were 1585. We did the independent school theater circuit. Is that fair to say?

[00:41] David: Yeah, Inter school drama.

[00:42] Meg: Inter school drama. And we were. I think the first time we met was in Love's Labor's Lost at Trinity, a school which neither of us attended, but we were in a play there.

[00:54] David: Exactly.

[00:55] Meg: And then we were also in Elektra, which was.

[00:59] David: Yeah. Which was as depressing as Lost was fun. Like. Like the production was depressing. The environment was depressing. The whole thing, like the whole thing was really depressing.

[01:12] Meg: It's a good play.

[01:14] David: Great. Yeah.

[01:15] Meg: And then we started running into each other a lot in the 90s because we both did theater here in New York City as grown up adults. Professional theater. And then we kind of lost touch for a while and ran back into each other. Thanks to Matt Gazda and the whole Gazda verse.

[01:36] David: But I had just listened to your podcast, remember, and I saw you at a Gazda play and I was like, hey, Meg. Because I used to always say your full name whenever I saw you. Hey. Hi, it's me. And also I just listened to your podcast, so.

[01:51] Meg: Well, I love that, that the podcast also brought us together. And you are a theater director and a film director and a conceptual artist, correct? Yeah. All right. And I think most importantly, a New York kid.

[02:08] David: Yeah.

[02:10] Meg: That's really the heart of the matter, isn't it?

[02:13] David: Indeed.

[02:15] Meg: Well, it's really, really lovely to have you here and I very much appreciate the fact that you are filling in because there, honestly, it's like, it's a rare. I'm not gonna say it's a rare thing to have somebody who you have so much in common with, that you run back into and who has sort of a different or same perspective on your own childhood. But it's definitely a very special thing.

[02:40] David: Yeah, I agree.

[02:42] Meg: Great. Do you wanna get started?

[02:43] David: Yeah. I also. I wanna get started by giving a shout out to my stepfather, Bill Aller, who passed away at the age of 97. This. The reason it occurs to me to mention him on this podcast is because Bill Aller was one of the three in house photographers at the New York Times for the C section. So all the products you saw in the living section, in addition to which he was their main photographer of food, which means he did all of Craig Claiborne's cookbooks, all of Pierre Franny's cookbooks. So that particular look that food had in commercial photography, my dad has played a powerful but inadvertent hand in. And, yeah, any product you happen to see in the C section of the Times, if you were reading in the 80s, was probably photographed by him. In addition to a really random set of, like, he did a lot of portraits, like Robert Mapplethorpe. There's all sorts of portraits that he took Julia Child. But anyway, he passed away at home in apparently Rodney Dangerfield's old rental apartment, you know, which is where they live now. So went very peacefully, did a lot of photography from the 80s. So rest in peace, dad.

[03:57] Meg: Yeah, I'm very sorry to hear that. But now I'm really excited to look at those pictures and we can post them on the Instagram.

[04:03] David: That would be great.

[04:15] Meg: I love that you just. We're talking about a relative of yours who was very important to you, because my story comes courtesy of a relative of mine who is incredibly important to me. And without her, I would never have known that this crazy, crazy thing happened. But first, I'm going to ask you an engagement question.

[04:39] David: Okay.

[04:39] Meg: Now, where did you grow up? What neighborhood?

[04:41] David: I grew up in. I don't know if it's York. No, it's Carnegie Hill or Yorkville. Carnegie Hill. Border. I grew up on 89th between Lex and 3rd.

[04:50] Meg: 89th. Lex and 3rd. Awesome. This is so good. Where did you go grocery shopping?

[04:57] David: Well, we either went to Grist or we went to Sloan's because they were on opposite sides of the street. So there were these two. Yeah, there were these two big grocery stores. And it always seemed, now that you mentioned it, super arbitrary to me that there were two equally sized grocery stores across the street from each other. And I guess if they. If I were older, I would know what each one was known for. But you just went to one or the other right next to Andy Warhol's first house.

[05:24] Meg: Right. Now, I grew up on 92nd between park and Lexington, and there was a Pioneer, you know where the Y is? So on the other side of the Y. And my parents, I remember, did make a distinction between the Pioneer and the Gristides, because that was actually the choice that they would make. Gristide's was more expensive, but it had better selection. So it was like, do we walk those couple of blocks to Gristide's? But we're gonna have to pay more. That's what I remember. The scuttlebutt in the kitchen.

[06:01] David: Okay. All right. Okay. The idea that Gristee, it's Like, compared to the grocery stores today? It was so fucking nasty.

[06:08] Meg: Oh, my God. Disgusting.

[06:10] David: But this was a purveyor of foods of quality on the Upper east side? Apparently, yes.

[06:17] Meg: I mean, that's the crazy thing. I remember visiting my grandparents in Atlanta and being like, oh, this is a grocery store. It's clean. It's not like dusty or anything. I mean, like, grocery stores in New York are gross, right?

[06:31] David: Yeah.

[06:32] Meg: And weird. And not a lot of produce.

[06:35] David: No, no, not when we were growing up. It sort of. It wasn't until Korean delis came along that you started getting produce.

[06:45] Meg: Exactly. I'm so glad you said that. That's the perfect segue into fact. My sources are my Aunt Laura and the New York Times. In 1984, Kyung Sang Choi, a Brooklyn resident and small business owner, decided to open a Korean deli. After the Immigration and Nationality act of 1965, many South Koreans came to New York, but few spoke English, so their employment options were limited. And as it turned out, opening a small business in New York in the 70s and 80s was a great way to make ends meet. For as little as $5,000, you could open a small grocery store in a kind of sketchy neighborhood. And that neighborhood needed you and wanted you. As the Jewish and Italian small businessmen of the previous generation retired or moved to the suburbs, the new Korean immigrants filled their shoes and provided much needed services, as we were just talking about. Without a Gristide's or a Pioneer or any of those kind of grocery stores close by, Korean delis were the only source of food and produce for many blocks. Kyung Sang Choi had already run a successful Carvel ice cream store in Brooklyn. Now he was ready to open a deli and was looking for a community that didn't have a handy grocery store. And he found one on 75th street and Park Avenue. Now, rezoning, the look in your eyes right now is like 75th and Park.

[08:25] David: Oh, I remember the super anomalous Korean Deli on 75th and Park. And I always wondered what in the world a business like was doing there or how it got there. So I'm.

[08:35] Meg: You're about to find out.

[08:36] David: I'm beaming with perspective, edification.

[08:38] Meg: Okay, so rezoning in 1961 made Park Avenue strictly residential between 60th and 96th streets. But a flower shop, Flowers by Court was the name of it, had been grandfathered in on that corner of 75th and park, and it had only just recently closed now in 1984. So Mr. Choi figured he'd replace flowers with fruit and everyone in the neighborhood would be delighted. They were not. Shirley Bernstein, who lived across the street since 1950, was horrified. Quote, do the residents of Park Avenue want to look out the window at vegetables? They most certainly do not. A delicatessen is simply inappropriate. It's despoiling the neighborhood. It belongs on Lexington or Madison, not here. Mr. Choy was shocked. There were very few grocery stores on the Upper east side, at least that close to the park. And he assumed his small deli would be a welcome addition to the community. Instead, the community called their lawyers and their representatives. Borough President Andrew Stein's parents lived in Shirley Bernstein's building, and he took up the anti Korean deli. Cause the argument was that the deli would ruin the character of the neighborhood, lower property values, disturb the peace with lights and noise, generate litter, attract rats, and bring criminals to the otherwise peaceful Park Avenue oasis. Mrs. Bernstein made 750 flyers, and 120 volunteers from the Friends of the Upper east side Historic District stalked the renovations of the storefront looking for any possible violation that would get it shut down. Can you imagine? They're just. He's just trying to clean the place up, give it a new coat of paint. And there are all these people walking by, like, with binoculars and taking pictures, trying to catch him in something.

[10:54] David: I wish. I wish you could find a flyer.

[10:57] Meg: Oh, my God, that would be so good.

[10:59] David: Look, I mean, I bet. Yeah.

[11:01] Meg: Yeah, no, I'll look around. No, that would be amazing.

[11:05] David: That's like the Upper east side version of the Hardhat riots, right? Fuck.

[11:09] Meg: And the fact that the Upper east side Historic District. I didn't. Friends of the Upper east side Historic District. I don't even know if this still exists, but, I mean, no. You don't think so?

[11:20] David: I mean, something like that must exist, but.

[11:24] Meg: Yeah.

[11:24] David: I wonder if it was formed just for this reason or if it perhaps.

[11:29] Meg: Or maybe it morphed. My mom is a member of the Carnegie Hill Neighbors, which is the same story.

[11:37] David: All I can ever think of is the stuff is the Men's association and the Stepford Wives. This is part of the Men's Association. Okay.

[11:45] Meg: All right. So, Mr. Choi, in the meantime, did recon work at Zabar's to find out what these people would find acceptable in a food store. He's just trying to give them what they want. He stocked up on Grey Poupon and Fauchon herb vinegar. He hung a canopy that said Gourmet Foods. He agreed to cut its hours to only 17 rather than 24. He moved the offending vegetables inside and replaced them with straw gift baskets in the windows. But Mrs. Bernstein was not appeased. Quote, we do not want a food store of any kind. Flowers might be all right. Or chocolates. Yes. Swiss or Belgian chocolates. The fuck I know, lady.

[12:38] David: But also, again, sorry. And I say this as a Jewish person. The particular WASP affectations of Upper east side Jews in that moment were just so bonkers. Like, oh, would it, Ms. Bernstein, would it offend the eye? Would you prefer to have Swiss chocolates? They were neutral during World War II. Like, what? What.

[13:05] Meg: Now? It's interesting that she would have approved of it being a flower store, considering the reason Flowers by court closed in 1981. Howard Finkelstein. Finkelstein. What do we think? Who knows? The 52 year old owner of Flowers by Court was arrested for instructing his employee, George Attard to bomb. Bomb. Like a bomb. Felon Co. Florists on 72nd and 3rd. Twice. Twice on January 26th and May 7th, 1981. Felon.

[13:50] David: Wait, it's called Felon.

[13:51] Meg: Felon. I know it is. F E I llan.

[13:55] David: Okay.

[13:55] Meg: Felon Floral shop was bombed. Actually bombed, resulting in some damage, but no injuries. Thank goodness. Finkelstein wanted his competitor Felon closed down for Mother's Day. A huge day for flowers. Incidentally, Finkelstein was also selling heroin out of the Park Avenue storefront. Flowers by Court sold heroin to Sylvia Bernstein? No, I don't think so. But that's why it was empty. That's why they had to close down. Because he went to jail. He and George sold about $1 million worth of heroin to an undercover agent. So that's why the Park Avenue store was vacant when Mr. Choi was looking for a deli location. Strangely, Mrs. Bernste didn't have issue with the element associated with a heroin hub of arsonists. But Mr. Choi was another matter, Quote. Oh, absolutely not. You're Being Korean has nothing to do with this. This is. She was talking to Mr. Choi on the phone when a reporter from the Times was in her apartment. I'll continue. I. I'm not prejudiced. I employ Chinese people. Our lawyer will call your lawyer. I'm so sorry about this. But you must understand that you have your ways and that we have ours. Lady. And the reporter, he just wrote down every single detail of all of this. He did not spare her. Now, I'm happy to report that she was not, in fact, successful in thwarting Mr. Choi. Some neighbors were appalled by her behavior and the behavior of her squad. They were also equally connected and they formed a Legal defense fund to aid Mr. Choi. Isn't that nice? And Mr. Choi was victorious. And in April 1984, Mr. Choi's Korean Gourmet food establishment, God forbid we call it a deli, opened. And this is A quote from Mr. Choi. Business is pretty good. People are treating me very nicely. They like my store. I don't want to think about the past. I want to think about the future. I want to try to do my best for the neighborhood. Now, he did put melons, apples, oranges, and grapefruits in the window, along with the straw gift baskets. But in deference to Mrs. Bernstein's strong feelings, there were no vegetables. And do you know what it is now? Can you picture that corner?

[16:49] David: I can picture the corner, but I don't know what's there now.

[16:51] Meg: A Gagosian showroom.

[16:53] David: Oh. Huh. Yeah, that was. It always did stand out. It's true.

[16:57] Meg: Yeah, it was.

[16:57] David: And I always thought it was funny because it was so classy looking. And I was like, is this how they do their Korean? Because the other weird thing. Just two, three weird things about this.

[17:05] Meg: Yes.

[17:06] David: One is, I would have thought the real issue would have been, you know, the fanciest grocery store in Lexington is right around the corner. Right.

[17:13] Meg: That is true.

[17:14] David: Like, what are they called? The legendary, you know, Butterfields. Butterfields. That sold flowers.

[17:19] Meg: And I love Butterfields. It is my absolute favorite place.

[17:23] David: And it was. But it was, you know, it was only a block or two away, and

[17:26] Meg: I would've thought at 79th Street.

[17:28] David: 79th. Okay. Thing two was. Yeah, it always, like, really stuck out. It always really. You did notice. You were like, what is that doing there? And it always seemed to qu. Not quite managed to fit in because it was the only business. But number three is they must have been selling smack to rich people, because otherwise Ms. Bernstein would have noticed this element congregating around the florists.

[17:55] Meg: You have such a good point.

[17:58] David: So this was.

[17:59] Meg: They were selling heroin to people who did not stand out in a weird way on the corner of 75th and Park.

[18:09] David: And this is also going to your mugging discussion of last week. I mean, I'm amazed that place didn't get knocked over. Well, I mean, he would have bombed them. Do you know anything else about Sylvia or Frank?

[18:20] Meg: No, I don't. I want my next, you know, sleuthing. I want to find out about this poor floral shop that got bombed twice and still, by the way, managed to sell flowers on Mother's Day. They stayed open in stock spite of it all.

[18:37] David: Wow. I mean, the Number of bumblers, comedies that could be made.

[18:41] Meg: Crazy. And like, who bombs? Who bombs?

[18:45] David: I mean, a mobbed up owner of

[18:48] Meg: a flower shop sampling his own supply. I don't know.

[18:52] David: No, no, it mellows you out, right? Okay.

[18:55] Meg: I don't know about you.

[18:56] David: He's clearly a gangster, right? Like he's thinking about bombing and he's dealing heroin. I mean, he's in with some mobile

[19:03] Meg: and he's making a million dollars selling drugs. But he also really wants to sell flowers too. Like, how much are you going to make on the flowers? Like, what is happening right now?

[19:14] David: Crazy. Yeah. That is a great story. That is a great story.

[19:17] Meg: Thank you, Aunt Laura.

[19:19] David: Thank you. So one thing that seemed prevalent in the 80s, if you went to private school or if you grew up in a certain way was the presence of Irish nannies. There had been a big exodus from Ireland maybe 10 years earlier, and they were all in New York and they all kind of knew each other. So your nanny would bring you over to a friend's house and it would turn out that they were both, you know, they were from neighboring counties and they knew each other. And this is how I came to know about the personal habits of one very wealthy man while simultaneously working for that wealthy man. Now the personal habits I'm just sort of not going to get into, but it was interesting that I would always get like background gossip on this guy.

[20:17] Meg: Through your nanny?

[20:18] David: Through my. Yeah, through my, through my, through my nanny. Because she knew, she knew somebody who was his personal maid.

[20:25] Meg: Okay, right.

[20:26] David: Or she'd been his personal maid, really,

[20:28] Meg: around little David Levine.

[20:31] David: Well, you know, and you're hearing, well, the real story kicks in when I'm older and it's really more about things in the 80s, but I just would find out things about this guy's like, personal habits. Like, you know, he had. I don't know, I don't know how you're gonna edit around this, but he had, you know, he had a lot of mistresses. He was single and he lived in palatial digs and, and my mom was friends with many of his mistresses. But, you know, this nanny who had since become the housekeeper, once I no longer needed a nanny, was told, you know, his maid would tell, you know, her friend about, you know, how. And I mean, just very kind of like, anyway, you can, but you can cut all this out because in a sense it's not germane. But I'm just laying, laying. So.

[21:16] Meg: Only if you want me to cut it out.

[21:17] David: Well, it's just that it's. You're gonna be able to figure out who this person is by the time I'm done with this story. So even though I'm not gonna say his name, we might just cut out, like, the sex stuff.

[21:28] Meg: Okay.

[21:29] David: He was a confirmed bachelor. I met him a few times. He had this. Oh, I smell like vanilla.

[21:35] Meg: Fascinating.

[21:36] David: And in high school, I think the summer between. It must have been the summer. It was the summer between, like, I just graduated from high school. It's 88. And, you know, New York had weathered that little Black Monday thing. Everyone was fine again. I was going off to. I was going off to Cornell at the end of the summer. And my mom, who knew this guy, she. She wasn't. She. She wasn't romantically involved with him, but he was a patron of the arts, and she knew a lot of his girlfriends. Somehow I wound up getting a job working for his real estate company.

[22:10] Meg: Okay.

[22:11] David: And the real. And I am given a summer job. I'm working for his real estate company. And I am placed under the vice president in charge of evictions.

[22:24] Meg: Ooh.

[22:25] David: Who is a very short tempered, very intense guy named Arthur Zabarkas.

[22:30] Meg: Okay.

[22:32] David: And what you did with evictions was because these guys owned a lot of property. A lot of it was rent controlled. And the rent control laws were. Were stricter then. And the only way you could boot somebody off. Alpha rent control lease. Really? I could be wrong about this. One of the few mechanisms that real estate companies had to get rid of rent control tenants because you could pass it on.

[22:59] Meg: Right.

[23:00] David: Was finding out they'd broken the terms of the lease.

[23:02] Meg: Okay.

[23:03] David: But to do that, how were you going to figure that out? You were going to hire private investigators. So one day I'm busy doing my whatever stuff, and Arthur comes in and he's like, come on, come on, come on. This is the best day of the week. You got to see this. It's Friday. And they have retained the services of Dossier. It's Dossier Services Incorporated. It's a private investigations firm. They send all their communiques in very thick, opaque envelopes with an insignia D on the corner. Right. And Dossier every week will message over whatever dirt they got on these people's tenants. This day they brought over, like, they sent over a videotape because I GUESS it's the 80s.

[23:47] Meg: So they owned the video camera was probably like, yes, yes.

[23:53] David: Yeah. Except for maybe those, like, special ones you get at Hammocker Schlemmer or something, you know? But, like, it was like, next to the bondage Teddy bear or what have you, like. But so it was like. It was. They owned a big property near the

[24:04] Meg: U.N. okay, and like across the street from it.

[24:08] David: Across the street from it. A lot of the tenants would rent rooms out to aides de camp, right? To like. To like diplomats assistance. Right. They run out the rooms. So Dossier sent answered an ad that had been placed in some, you know, paper or something. Somebody pretending to be.

[24:25] Meg: To be a diplomat, to be a

[24:26] David: diplomat's assistant looking to rent a room. And so they've got a little video camera, a little pinhole video recorder in their briefcase which they put on their lap. And me and Arthur and a couple of people from legal are sitting around in this conference room watching this VHS tape, watching this entire transaction take place. This entire arrangement takes place. And at the end of it, you know, I think at the end of it, the woman who's renting the place to this guy who's pretending to be like a, you know, Brazilian lower level whatever, is like, well, here, let me write down my contact info, you know. And the guy's like, that's okay, I got it. And the entire room like bursts into laughter, right?

[25:07] Meg: Because they've, you know, and just to clarify. So she's. That's breaking her lease because she's not allowed to sub.

[25:14] David: She's not allowed to sublet.

[25:15] Meg: Yeah.

[25:16] David: So they had files and dossiers on everybody. They had a file on Jimmy Stewart. It was my job. Jimmy fucking Stewart.

[25:23] Meg: You're gonna kick Jimmy Stewart out of his rent control.

[25:26] David: His poetry book had just come out. But like, he was like an aging. But like. And I was supposed to go through and sort of clean up these files. And there were files on my. Everybody.

[25:37] Meg: You read the dirt on everybody?

[25:39] David: Yeah. I mean, there wasn't always dirt, but because they were sending Dawsey out like 10 lease by lease to see who was breaking it. But yeah. So I worked for Arthur Zabarkis for a couple months. He had a really bad temper, though. And I think at a certain point he didn't really want me around anymore. At which point I started getting sent out on the most baroque errands. Many of which involved the business owner's mother, uh oh. Who lived in her own penthouse. Right. In her own. And again, this isn't really much of a story, but it's kind of. There was a very 80s feel to the whole thing. And at one point she's like, ailing. At one point I was assigned on a very important, time sensitive mission, which is. I Had to go get her teeth.

[26:26] Meg: You had to pick up her teeth?

[26:27] David: I had to pick up her teeth.

[26:28] Meg: Please tell me you didn't have to insert her teeth.

[26:30] David: No, I never saw her because. No, these people were insulated by layers of doormat.

[26:35] Meg: So you're just dropping off a package.

[26:37] David: But I had to get there by a particular. You know, by a particular time. And it was. I mean, it was like being in a movie. I had to race over to the dentist who's like, you know, Midtown east, you know, grab the teeth and run uptown through traffic to get them back to, like, to the hotel that all these people were living in. Anyway, those are my very. They're not story stories, but they seem emblematic. I mean, that and that and the time I got in a fistfight with somebody at Dalton who. The only fistfight I ever got into because he told me with a straight face that his clothes were worth more than my family. And then he corrected himself to tell me that his clothes were worth more than my entire life. And he meant it. It was a special time.

[27:19] Meg: It was. Do you think it's changed? You're still a New Yorker.

[27:25] David: What do you mean? Those are two different questions.

[27:27] Meg: You've got the perspective of having been here for a few decades. Has it changed?

[27:33] David: Oh, has New York changed?

[27:34] Meg: What do you mean? Are those people. Like you said, it was a special time. Like the 80s, like that kind of sort of Wall street asshole.

[27:42] David: No, I think it's. Well, I think it's. I think it's back. I think it's back. I think it happens in different places, but I think it's basically back. Like, I think that degree of. That degree of kind of, like, wealth and heedless entitlement is, you know, it's.

[27:57] Meg: And being proud of it. I guess you're right. Like, for a period of time, there was a little bit of embarrassment, or at least, like, flaunting that kind of wealth and power didn't seem to be trending.

[28:10] David: But I think. I think one thing that's happening, though, now is that just not, you know, like, Wall street was a quiet place that suddenly got supercharged, but the buildings and the institutions were there to house these, like, newly minted lunatics. Right. Whereas. Whereas now, you know, most of the money is coming from, like, you know, crypto or coming from tech or coming from, like, VC stuff, but that doesn't really have. That doesn't really live in. It doesn't live in a building or a district in the same way.

[28:43] Meg: Right.

[28:43] David: I feel like. So.

[28:45] Meg: But those Guys are. Those guys are hanging out and they're, They're.

[28:49] David: But there's many more women in the workplace. Like, there's. There's a lot more women making that kind of money now too. So I feel like. It's just. I feel like when I. When I run into, like, bsds kind of, they're not necessarily like the Wall Street. The Wall Streeters are comparatively well behaved. That's not like, where the real, like, rapacious frenzy is happening.

[29:08] Meg: So this summer, because of, you know, everybody getting nervous. Not everybody. Some people getting nervous about the upcoming mayoral election. My brother, who now lives in la, was like, well, I've heard that all the rich people are going to leave New York now if. If Mamdani wins. And it's like, what? Do you really think that's gonna happen? That's such a crazy, crazy place.

[29:34] David: Nobody's going anywhere.

[29:35] Meg: Nobody's going. They never do.

[29:37] David: And besides, you know, they threatened this with Koch too. And then he got elected and then he kowtowed to them for years. Cause the city needed, you know, more money. So, you know, I mean, who knows?

[29:48] Meg: We'll see what happens. But I did think it was so funny, the idea of, like, all these rich people just packing up all their toys.

[29:56] David: I'm going to Iowa.

[29:57] Meg: I know. Where exactly you go?

[30:03] David: No, totally. Like, Sioux City's got nightlife.

[30:08] Meg: Did you read that article? I think it was like a New York magazine article this. This summer about all the people in the Hamptons, like, freaking out about the upcoming election.

[30:18] David: I think it's adorable. I think it's so cute. I mean, I was talking to somebody the other night. Doubles in my talks.

[30:30] Meg: You have to tell us a little bit about Doubles, because that is also, like. It just sounds so crazy. 80s.

[30:36] David: Well, okay, so I went to. I went to a wedding. I went to an anniversary party. I went celebrating the fifth anniversary of a wedding that had not taken place because of COVID Right. Oh, okay. So they finally had their party and they had it in the basement of the Scherren, Netherlands, which is like one of the, you know, I know most of the venerable hotel bars, and I had not actually known of this one. And it's a private club called Doubles.

[30:57] Meg: And it's in the basement.

[30:58] David: It's in the basement and it's. And you can rent it out. And black tie, very encouraged. And it's this very kind of loose, mirrored and kind of red walls kind of scene. It has like a Turkish motif, but like, Turkish in the sense of like, you know, Orientalist paintings. And, you know, it's very. I mean, it must be from the 80s. And it's got, like, you know, wall to wall carpeting and, like, little stepped, like, sunken areas that some of the grandparents, like, fell on and a disco ball at the center of the room and.

[31:32] Meg: Perfect. My dad was, for a short time seeing a woman who became a very, very good friend after they were no longer romantically involved. A woman who lived in the Sherry Netherland. She was very proud of her address. And she had her kitchen turned into a. You know, you need more room for all of your clothes. You certainly are never gonna be eating in there. You know, she lost. She lost the apartment. She had a horrible divorce. And the one thing she walked away with, she was, I think, the second wife, which is not so great, like, being the. Being divorced. If you're the first wife, maybe you're gonna get something. The second wife. No. And they gave her. They gave, you know, said, all right, you can have this apartment. But then the daughter of the person she had divorced sued her for the apartment years later and got it. And so she was left with nothing.

[32:32] David: Wow. But the daughter was shocked when she found out she didn't have a kitchen.

[32:35] Meg: Right, Exactly.

[32:38] David: That's terrible. She was left with nothing.

[32:40] Meg: Yeah.

[32:40] David: Oh, wait, look. So wait. She had no income. She had. No.

[32:43] Meg: No.

[32:44] David: Oh, those kind of New York stories. This is. This is a total aside, but I. Somebody told me once that. Who was in a position to know that? Ruth Kligman, who was Jackson Pollock's girlfriend after Lee Krasner. Frank o' Hara called her death car girl. But she survived the accident, Right?

[33:02] Meg: Okay.

[33:02] David: Her friend died, Pollock dies. The only possession she has is a painting that Jackson gave her. And Lee Krasner refused to authenticate it. Right. Well, I mean, I probably would have done. No, because. No. Well, because of the cheating situation. It was the only lever she had. But it's these people who like these amazing apartments in New York and yet. And yet they have nothing.

[33:25] Meg: Cash poor.

[33:26] David: Cash poor. Like, you're living at the Sherry Netherland and you have no money.

[33:29] Meg: That's like.

[33:30] David: That's like Eloise. That's what happened. That's what probably would have happened to Eloise's mom eventually. I also want to say, as an aside, you can cut this, too. Are we still recording even?

[33:37] Meg: Yeah.

[33:38] David: Like, I did propose. I did. No, I didn't. Sorry. I had my first day with my wife in the Oak Room before it closed.

[33:44] Meg: Nice.

[33:44] David: Back when it was pretty tacky. It was pretty tacky at that point. But it wasn't gone, which was perfect.

[33:50] Meg: I'm keeping that. Sorry.

[33:52] David: Wait. So I went down to this club and this guy. So it was. It was a super fun party and everyone looked great. And they're. You know, the tuxes look great. The formal dresses look great. The mirrors made everything look quite smooth.

[34:03] Meg: Can you tell everybody where you got your tux?

[34:04] David: Because I started laughing. Yeah, they should. They should let me have it for free now. Don't fuck with Men's Wearhouse. I'm telling you, New Era Factory Outlet on Orchard street is both better fitting and much more entertaining.

[34:19] Meg: Amazing. I'll do a little shout out on the Instagram.

[34:23] David: Yeah, no, New Era Factory Outlet is where it's at. It's run by, like, a husband and wife. They're about 70 to 75, maybe. Forgive me if I get the age wrong. They're super fun.

[34:32] Meg: On Orchard Street.

[34:33] David: On Orchard Street. And they send you up. They send you up the block to a tailor they have a deal with. So you rent the tux and then you get it altered for 10 bucks.

[34:45] Meg: Oh, my God.

[34:46] David: And then you can return the tux. You buy the tux, basically, but then you return it. So. And so the alterations happen while you wait so you can get, like, a very. Like, I walked in and the guy looked. The guy looked at me and he was like, 33. And I was like, what? He's like, I hope you don't think that's creepy.

[35:02] Meg: And I was like.

[35:03] David: I was like, no, you clearly have been doing this for a long time. Yes, that is my waist. Like, anyway, so, yeah, I recommend. But this guy I was talking to, like, a rich guy, was like, yeah, that mayoral contest, that's gonna be. That's gonna be a mess. And this is a guy who grew up in New York. I'm not sure he still lives in New York. He's like, that's. You guys are gonna have a real mess on your hands. You know? And I realized, you know, with the kind of clarity, I was like, right, if you have money to lose, you don't want Mom Donnie to win. But there was something. So I was. I was just kind of like, oh, right, right. This guy has a lot of money, so he doesn't want it suddenly made a certain kind of. It makes me sound really stupid, but it made very clear sense.

[35:46] Meg: I know what you mean. I know what you mean. I mean, I. But the flip of that, of course, is you can afford to lose a little bit of money. Like, just chill the fuck out. You won't be living on the street.

[35:58] David: Well, this is. Yeah.

[35:59] Meg: What is. Do you actually think you're going to be destitute because of who the mayor is?

[36:04] David: But this is what was so interesting about him is he was relatively calm about it. Like, he has certain. He wasn't hysterical about it, but he has certain interests that he would like to protect more than he would like other things. It was very, like, straightforward in a way. Yeah.

[36:16] Meg: I mean, I guess that's why they have so much money. Because they think that way.

[36:20] David: Yeah, probably. Yeah.

[36:22] Meg: Life's work.

[36:23] David: Life's work.

[36:24] Meg: Gathering money. Okay, so, David, you know what Jessica and I usually do? We try and do a tie in at the end.

[36:41] David: Oh, yeah.

[36:42] Meg: What do these two stories have in common?

[36:47] David: Oh, right.

[36:49] Meg: We've got the heroine, arsonist, florist, Korean deli.

[36:57] David: And we've got the eviction.

[37:01] Meg: The evictions.

[37:03] David: Real estate.

[37:05] Meg: Real estate. The spying.

[37:07] David: The spying, actually.

[37:09] Meg: How about that? I think that might be it.

[37:10] David: Okay.

[37:11] Meg: Like, something about the spying and the bombing to me feels like 007 kind of thing. Which to me feels of a time.

[37:24] David: Well, I think also. Yeah. I mean. Yeah. Yeah. Well, like, but it's. It's this funny thing of like. Like the dossier thing is like sort of fake. Classy. Right. Like, but the bombing thing is like fake mobster. It's like these two kind of. These two kind of like they want to be of New York kind of intersect in this weird section of the Upper east side kind of.

[37:44] Meg: Right. And everyone just trying to like pretend to be. Or maybe they actually were bad guys. It actually sounds like your guy was a pretty bad guy.

[37:52] David: But it also is like really multi ethnic. Right. Like Arthur Zavarkis, you know, is clearly like a first generation guy too, you know? So it is this kind like. Yeah. Or something. I don't know. Maybe I'm reaching it seemed. But it does seem like really, like, what are you going to do to protect your real estate? Like, what kind of depths are you going to go to to protect your real estate? Like, evictions, bombings.

[38:12] Meg: I know. And this is Bernstein in her window with her binoculars.

[38:16] David: People get crazy. I mean, I told you that I. I told you that I started. I started like discovering Facebook accounts for like the parents of people we knew in high school.

[38:27] Meg: Oh, no, you didn't.

[38:29] David: During, like research, like researching some like, story or something, and they're all like these batshit 80 year old, like right wingers, you know, like, people lose their. People start to lose their minds, you know?

[38:41] Meg: I know.

[38:42] David: I think so.

[38:42] Meg: I think being I'm related to one of those.

[38:45] David: Are you?

[38:45] Meg: Yeah.

[38:46] David: Yeah. So having lived. I think having lived in the same apartment on the Upper east side for too long, especially on Park Avenue, might be bad for you. Okay.

[38:54] Meg: That's a good one. Good advice.

[39:00] David: If you have. If you've had one for a long time, just. Just mix it. Just mix it up a little bit, change it up.