[00:16] Meg: Welcome to Desperately Seeking the 80s. I am Meg.

[00:19] Jessica: And I am Jessica. And Meg and I have been friends since 1982. We got through middle school and high school together here in New York City. We.

[00:27] Meg: Where we still live and where we podcast about New York city in the 80s. I do ripped from the headlines.

[00:32] Jessica: And I do pop culture.

[00:34] Meg: And today, we are on another field trip.

[00:37] Jessica: Yay.

[00:38] Meg: And of all the neighborhoods that we could possibly be in, what neighborhood did we find ourselves in?

[00:47] Jessica: The neighborhood we can't escape. Yorkville.

[00:50] Meg: It seems like everything comes back to Yorkville.

[00:54] Jessica: I don't. You. You're right. And I think that part of it is that the. The response that we've gotten, the neighborhood that has elicited the most response has been Yorkville. And so it's just naturally growing its own. I don't know, it's its own world.

[01:11] Meg: Are we the ambassadors or. No, we're just spreading the word. We're the community. I don't know. Is there a word for that?

[01:18] Jessica: Proselytizers. Nice. Beautiful.

[01:21] Jen: I knew you would do that. Okay.

[01:23] Meg: Yay. Okay. We are in Jen's apartment, apartment 1B in particular. And, Jen, would you introduce yourself to everybody?

[01:33] Jen: Yeah. So I am Jen Goodnow, and I am a longtime fan of the podcast. I grew up in New York, and I actually live in the apartment that I grew up in in Yorkville.

[01:45] Meg: And you have a blog.

[01:47] Jen: I do have a blog. It's me in apartment 1B dot com. So go check that out.

[01:53] Meg: It's a wonderful blog that definitely resonates with us because it's all about being hometown kids and what it's like in the neighborhood, but also just in New York City. Like, what? Because we are pretty much exactly the same age, I believe.

[02:10] Jen: Yeah, I graduated 87, and I think you guys did too, right? Yeah.

[02:14] Jessica: So I just wanted to, first off, thank you. We're both thanking you. I'm just. I just grabbed the mic in a territorial manner, and I almost pulled its wig off. You know, when Meg told me that we were going to interview you, I was like, who's this Jennifer? And I. I started, you know, I was like, how do I find out? Where is she? How old is she? And I thought you were, like, 20 or something. And I was like, she doesn't have anything to say about Gen X. And Meg was like, could you please not be an asshole for, like, five second and just look at her blog? And so I looked at. I read your blog and immediately started crying. And I was like, I love her

[02:52] Jen: now she's so good.

[02:55] Jessica: And the thing that I, you know, I asked you before we started recording that I really wanted to start with, and this is very Yorkville from the way that we've been describing it. But, you know, we would love it if you would just go into this. You. You wrote a blog post, which I invite you to. I'm not gonna paraphrase it, so you can tell us all about the blog post, you know, which one it is. But it really highlighted how much your building is a viable community. And there are people within the building who take on roles in your life. They play a big part. And think about a village like it really is. It's a village but just turned vertically. All of the different people who have all of the different little, you know, circles and things to do and things to say that you would find anywhere are your buildings.

[03:51] Meg: Please tell us how long you have lived in this apartment because that is absolutely part of the story.

[03:57] Jen: Okay. So we moved here in, my mom and dad and I in 1972 and I was three years old. My mom was a born and bred New Yorker and, and she grew up on the west side and she had a list of things that she was looking for when she was looking for this apartment. So rent stabilized number one. Because in those days if you didn't get a rent stabilized apartment, there was something wrong with you. Two bedrooms for the family, a backyard space for me, and then fireplace. And that was the one thing that she had to compromise on because we don't have a fireplace. So I grew up here. I was the only child in the building. It's a five story walk up, it's divided up kind of funny. And it's basically like one bedrooms and studios. And I have the only two bedroom in the building. So as a kid growing up here, I of course knew all the neighbors trick or treated here. And then would go to my friend's like big doorman building and start at the top and work my way down. That was much better than here. But also I was friendly with a couple of neighbors who were women who were kind of like second moms. So my parents got divorced when I was nine, I think. And fortunately my dad only lived like a mile away, so I was able to see him quite a lot. But I lived here alone with my mom, who was just a really rabid alcoholic. And you know, God bless, like, she meant well. And I've definitely gotten help for that over the years, like dealing with that. But I'll do a plug for Al Anon, not to give away My own anonymity. But, like, you know, if you know an alcoholic, you might look@alanon.org, which is for families and friends of alcoholics. And it's really, really helpful. But before I was able to get into that, I just. Once I figured out that she was drinking and started to realize how it was affecting me. I was 12, and I was very young to figure that one out. Like, most people don't figure it out so young.

[06:09] Meg: I'm curious, what was the tip off? Was it secret drinking?

[06:14] Jessica: No.

[06:15] Jen: Oh, God, no.

[06:17] Jessica: No.

[06:17] Jen: You know, everybody in my family drank. My dad was actually in aa, so he was the only one who didn't. And I just started to, like, one by one, look at family members when they were really drunk. And then I realized, wait, this happens all the time. Like, Christmas is especially bad, but, like, this is kind of an everyday thing. And so as I looked at different aunts and uncles, I realized, like, oh, my God. And then I. Once I figured them out, then I zeroed in on my mom, and I was like, oh, no. You know, like, her drinking is. She falls asleep, like, every night in the chair watching tv, but it's because she's passed out drunk. And so I figured that out pretty early. And I also thought, like, well, I'll just tell her that it's upsetting me and she'll stay. Stop. And of course, that it didn't work out that way. And we would get into massive arguments, like screaming and yelling matches. And one day, one of the women neighbors that I was friends with, who, honest to God, she must have moved in here. I mean, to me, I was 12 and she was an adult, and. But she was probably like, 18, you know, or 20 or something. I didn't know. To me, she was just an adult. You know, she saw me in the hallway one day and she said, you know, I hear, because she had the apartment right above, and her bedroom was on the air shaft, and my mother's bedroom was on the air shaft. And she said, you know, I hear you and your mom fighting, and I want you to know it gets better and I'm praying for you. And I was like, I don't know, it was just such a shock to realize, like, oh, people can hear us fighting. But also, like, I really adored her. She was like a young adult and pretty and had a beautiful singing voice. And, like, I used to hang out with her, and, you know, she was just really, really kind. So I never forgot that she said that. And then many years later, one of my Neighbors who still lives here who has one of the rent stabilized apartments. I don't know how that woman did it, but she raised two children in a studio. Yeah. And you could hear her and her daughter fighting. They're on the second floor, but they're not on the air shaft. And I could hear them in the hallway, you know. And so one day I saw her daughter in the hall and I was like, hey, you know, you Remember Beth from 2A? She said this to me and I'm saying it to you now. And her mother wasn't an alcoholic. They were just fighting because they were growing up in a studio with their, you know, it's impossible. So I just said to her, like, I hear you and your mom fighting and I promise it's going to get better when you grow up and like, you know, get your own space and get out, but it'll get better, I promise. Field trip, Field trip, Field trip, Field trip. I have a blog like episode about hearing a Christmas party in the, in the air shaft and feeling like I wasn't invited to my neighbor's Christmas party. So in the days of tenement apartments that didn't have any kind of circulation and diseases like that flu of 1918 would just rip through an entire building because there was no ventilation, they built, when they started building newer buildings, they built them with almost like a tunnel. So my bedroom windows open up to sort of a. Not quite a courtyard. It's way too small to be a courtyard, but it's an open air space. And the building next to mine, instead of being smack up against my building, has a little pocket that would be like a courtyard. It just goes straight up. So there's air ventilation coming through, but you can hear everybody. Like you can hear everybody as if they're in Europe apartment. And so you have to be really careful of what you say when you're on the air shaft.

[10:19] Jessica: Think about the construction. That's a megaphone. So not only could you hear them, you could hear them at top volume. Like it was even more amplified than if you were just standing next to them.

[10:32] Meg: I'm on an air shaft and my bedroom is specifically. And there's this sort of anonymity. You, you, you go, oh, I can't hear anything at all. If you see somebody in the hallway, I mean, you have these lovely little moments where you're making a connection, but for the most part you just don't make eye contact with people. If you've heard something that maybe you feel uncomfortable hearing. During the pandemic, I ran into my next door neighbor. I think she listens to this podcast too. So I'm outing myself. I ran into my neighbor in the hallway, and she was like, did you hear that uncontrollable sobbing?

[11:13] Jen: Oh, no.

[11:14] Meg: Over the weekend, I actually felt like, maybe we should call the police. Is that person okay? And I was like, I didn't. I have no idea who you could

[11:27] Jen: be referring to who would be sobbing uncontrollably for hours. An hour. Oh, no.

[11:42] Meg: Yeah, the pandemic was rough.

[11:44] Jen: Field trip, field trip, field trip, field trip. I thought it was going to be a sex story, because I've definitely heard. I've definitely heard people having sex. And then one time. One time I was in bed with my boyfriend at the time, and we heard our neighbors across the way having sex. And then we heard like. And we were like, oh, oh, oh, okay. It's like that making a turn.

[12:12] Jessica: Well, speaking of, when I was in law school, the first two years, I lived on 16th street, right off 3rd Avenue, in the building that our friend Rania grew up in.

[12:24] Jen: Oh, wow.

[12:24] Jessica: Isn't that weird? And there were some really weird characters. But on my hallway, I heard wild sex happening. And I was like, okay, I gotta

[12:36] Jen: know who this is.

[12:37] Jessica: Like, what's going on? And then I realized, because, no, there was no air shaft. This is someone who left her door open. So I went over to my neighbors, like, guys, guys, guys, what's going on? And they looked at me like I was really mentally deficient. And they're like, she's a hooker. And I was like, what?

[12:55] Jen: What?

[12:56] Jessica: And they were like, why do you think she leaves the door open? It's so that they are, well, advertising. That is a very good concept, but it's so people can come and literally come and go. And I was like. Because it wasn't, like, wide open. Oh, God, the hits, they keep on coming. The puns. But it was open enough so that you could tell, like, this is the door. So if you want to live in New York and hear a lot of sex, weird or otherwise, you will. That is a guarantee. But I like the smack.

[13:31] Jen: Yeah, that's fun.

[13:32] Meg: And so, yeah, the byproduct of knowing a lot about the people who live near you, even though you might not be best friends, is maybe, I mean, not unique to New York, unique to city life, but for sure, it's something that New Yorkers can't escape.

[13:52] Jen: Yeah.

[13:52] Jessica: I mean, it's not even that they're. They're not their friends. These are people who are, at best, passing Acquaintances and, you know, intimate details. And that's when you should have a blog like our friend Jennifer

[14:07] Meg: living since you've been three years old. So let's just say your whole life in this one little stretch of Yorkville, which we got a tour of with our friend Travis the other day. And the 84th street bombers had their hangout right across the street. Street, which is crazy. He pointed out all kinds of other places that are unrecognizable now. How would you describe how the neighborhood has evolved?

[14:36] Jen: When we first moved here, I would go on errands with my mom up 86th street, and I would not hear a word of English, like, not a word, because everybody spoke German. So it was German from 86 to, like, I want to say 82nd. And then from 82nd to 79th you started getting into Hungarian. And then from 79th down to about 72nd, it was Czechs and Slovaks. So a lot of Central European and veering towards Eastern European people who just settled into the neighborhood. Actually, I will tell a quick version of the reason that I've heard of why the Germans came here. There were some Germans already living here who were more middle class. The working class Germans lived around like St. Mark's and like the East Village. St. Mark's Church. I want to say it's St. Mark's Church, but I could be wrong. A church, a big church. And I want to say St. Mark's down in the East Village had a special day out for the Sunday school. So as mothers and children. And it was on a school, like a workday, so maybe it was like summer vacation. And they hired a steamboat to go up the east river to go north on the East River. And it got to a little, a few blocks north of here and a fire started on the boat. The boat was called the General Slocum. And there were like, I don't know, thousands of people on the women and children on the boat. And they drowned right around here. And before 9 11, it was the largest loss of life in New York City. And the thing I'm. Every time I tell this, I get choked up. But the thing that really gets me the most is the men were all at work. There was no such thing as, like. I mean, telephones existed, but not really. All of their neighbors waited for them outside on the street when they got home from work to say, your wife and children are gone. So people, like neighbors, a community, were just waiting outside to let these guys know. And a bunch of these German guys moved up here to be close to where their wives and children died. I know. Can you imagine? Field trip, field trip, field trip, field trip. I'm a teacher and I took a sabbatical year during 2020, 2021 school year, because it was the worst year of, you know, the year before had been the worst with, with COVID and everything. So I took one of the courses I had to take for my sabbatical. I had to take college classes and I went to Hunter. And one of the courses I took was the Archaeology of New York City, which I never stopped talking about. It was so much fun. And the professor lives right down the block and she's the best. She's so awesome and amazing. So for my research project, I researched the Rhinelander family, who were like, if you've ever watched the TV show the Gilded Age, they're an old, old New York family who were not like, their name is not on stuff because they weren't great philanthropists. So there's, you know, they don't. Their name isn't out there as much. And the grandfather owned a ton of land, like basically, I want to say, from third or Lex down to the river from 87th to like 91st or so. And he kept it as his country home. So people would take a pleasure boat up the river and he would have a dock. And this was their country home when this was the woods in the country. And then when he died, they divided up the land into a whole bunch of lots. And that's how it became Yorkville. Like it did not become a neighborhood that people lived in until this guy died in like the 1880s, I want to say. And then his grandchildren each got different lots and they swapped out lots so that they would have adjoining spaces.

[19:01] Jessica: They.

[19:02] Jen: One of his granddaughters was named Serena Rhinelander. She's actually the woman that the Henry James novel the Heiress is based on.

[19:11] Jessica: Really?

[19:11] Jen: Uh huh. And she built the Church of the Holy Trinity on 88th between first and second, the one with the nice garden out front to be a mission church for the German and Irish immigrants who lived in the neighborhood. It used to be like a vicarage of St. James on 71st and Madison. And these were essentially the servants of the people who went to St. James. But it's a really, I mean, it's a very interesting neighborhood. And when I was a kid, I used to think, oh my God, it is so boring here. I cannot wait to leave Yorkville. And I am moving to Greenwich Village as soon as I grow up, you know. And then I'm like, still here. But yeah, but now I like it.

[20:06] Meg: Why did you stay?

[20:08] Jen: Okay, so I didn't. So here's the thing. When you grow up in New York City, you want to. Everybody comes here to make it right. But when you grow up here, like, where do you go to make it right? You can go to California, which would mean San Francisco if you don't have a driver's license, which I do not. And also I don't like LA because the people there are vapid and that's not my thing. So I was like, okay, where am I gonna go? Or you go to Europe or you go to Asia. I ended up in Prague, and that's where I first started teaching English. So I lived in Prague for a couple of years, and then after that I went to Japan and I taught in Japan for a year. And then I lived in a few different places, ended up in another foreign country. I went to Northern Ireland. And when I came home, by this point I was 31 or 32 or something like that. And I started to realize my mother wasn't doing well. And, you know, she died extremely young of alcoholism. She drank herself to death. And when I came back from Northern Ireland, I thought, I think I'll just stay here and take care. She was still up and about and didn't seem quite that ill. But I just had an interesting intuition and I realized I don't think she has a lot of time left. So I stayed in my old bedroom and sure enough, within a few months, she started to really get sick and fall apart and she. Now here's the thing with rent stabilized apartments. So When I turned 18, my mother put my name on the lease and this was like my big inheritance to, you know, inherit this apartment. And. Yeah, so I've been here since. Yeah, since she. Before she got sick, which is a while.

[22:06] Meg: I mean, it's interesting because I went away for school, but I could not wait to get back to this city. And I do find that I don't think it's across the board. I think some people happily leave New York City, but I don't know them. I only know the people who like. Sure, they either stayed or they went away and came back because it is such a magnet. But it's also interesting to hear that it's not just a magnet because it's a wonderful place to be, but also because of real estate and because of family and that in that sense you really can go home again because, you know, you better.

[22:47] Jen: Field trip, field trip, field trip, field trip.

[22:54] Jessica: Jennifer, you just said something that I've tried to explain to many people over the years, but it's the sensibility of, you grow up in New York. The whole idea of New York being a town for strivers is not for you. It passes you by. It's never a sensibility. You don't read Vogue magazine in your, you know, tiny bedroom in Indiana, hoping to come to this amazing place. It's just. It's a fact. But as you get older and you start to have this understanding that there is an idea of making it, you know, or what are you going to make of yourself? I remember being really stymied and feeling at first a bit confused, like, how do I make it and what is making it? When the only thing I want to do anyway is in my hometown, book publishing. And then I was like, oh, my, am I fucking up that I'm not leaving New York? And then, you know, to echo what Meg said, and then I realized all of my friends stayed as well. So when people asked me, like, why did you stay at home? I was always like, why would I leave New York City? Like, what part of that I'm not getting? The other thing about real estate, and that's the other thing is the idea is not to get the fanciest apartment that you possibly can on Hudson in the Village, all glass. Anna Wintour is there. No. The biggest achievement is if you can exercise right of succession. And you're like, suckers. I pay $1,000 a month for my two bedroom, and I don't care if there's a heating pipe in the bathroom. And it's fine. Like, I am here. I'm planted in the soil and you cannot move me. Thank you, New York landlord. Tenant courts.

[25:00] Jen: Yeah. So it was. It was good to leave New York. I think about now and, you know, I would love to be able to, like, get away to the country. But again, I cannot drive a car. Like, my mom couldn't drive. She was terrified of driving. She was from New York. We didn't have a country house. Like, all my friends who had country houses, they all learned to drive in the country house. And then they would all get their licenses at the town where the country house was because the test was easier. And there was no parallel parking, and I didn't have that. So I never did learn to drive or get my license. I took lessons. And yeah, I. In some ways, I'm sort of like, oh, God, I'm stuck here. But then I have moments where I realize, but I wouldn't want to live anywhere else, really. I did Have a moment that I was thinking I would talk about in, in this interview. And it was just the other day I was taking the subway to go. I left work and I was going to pick up pickles at the pickle guys on. Yeah. On grand in Essex.

[26:13] Jessica: Yeah.

[26:14] Jen: Because I am a real pickle person. They have enormous barrels and there's a bunch of guys that work there. And I am so serious a pickle person that I actually have my own container that has like the. It's a quart sized container and it's got the thing for the juice, but then it has like a lift out basket. Thank you very much. Where you put the pickles. So I usually get two courts. And so I was taking the subway there and I was in a really good mood and just feeling like connected, like really connected with like everybody on the subway, which I tend to experience quite a lot. And as I was exiting the subway and also I was listening to music and the song that came on, which I'll give a plug, it was the band Elbow and it was the song Magnificent, which is very. There's lots of strings, violin, it's very orchestral and it's a beautiful song. So I'm listening to that. It was a very dramatic kind of moment. And as I'm walking up the stairs to get to the street, there were two soldiers ahead of me in camo. The other side of the people coming down got like a traffic jam. And once I got to the closer to the street, I realized, oh, there are two women with a great big canvas kind of red wagon, like the kind that people bring to the beach. Except these two women had like made prepared food that they then bring to construction sites and they sell to construction workers. And it's something that immigrants do as a way to make money. It's cash and it's cheaper than the deli. It's cheaper than the food cart. So these two women were struggling with their cart to take it down the stairs onto the subway because that's what everybody. Everybody rides the subway. Subway, right. And so I thought, oh, well, the soldiers will help them for sure. And one of the soldiers took the front end of the wagon. And by now I am up on the street, right? I have gotten off. The other soldier is standing off to the side and he is not helping because he is holding a wooden box with like a brass kind of laurel, you know, leaf marking on it. And it was. It could only be one thing. And I thought, oh God, they're bringing cremains of like a fallen soldier. To, I assume, the family of this soldier, and they're on the subway. Because everybody in New York, like, if I lived anywhere else, all these people would be in cars and we would never be around each other. Meanwhile, like, the music on the AirPods is, like, you know, super dramatic and super intense. And I was just like, I feel so connected right now to, like, the immigrants and the soldier and this guy who died and, like, oh, my God. Like, but that, you know, it is such a New York thing, though. Like, that's New York. That is New York. And, you know, as I'm on my way to this historic pickle place in the Lower east side that was, you know, like, it's New York. So, yeah, I can't drive, and I guess I'm not getting, like, a cottage in the Catskills anytime soon, but, like, oh, well, you know, I'll survive. Field trip, Field trip. Field trip. Field trip.

[29:40] Meg: Okay. I had a question that I was thinking about on my way here. So if you live in the same. I mean, this happens to me because my mother is still where I grew up, and. And Jessica's father is still where she grew up. My friend Kathy, we were just talking about. She lives in the apartment she grew up in. What I was thinking today was, you know, you have breakups with people and fights with people and sad things happen in different restaurants, or that's where you had your first kiss, or that's where you remember finding out that you got into some great program. You know, all these life events happen in a neighborhood that physically changes so much.

[30:23] Jen: And.

[30:24] Meg: And what I was checking in with. With myself, and I wanted to, like, ask you guys, was like, I don't actually feel those emotions anymore when I pass those familiar places. And I'm wondering if it's because I've gotten over it or if it's because the archeology has changed so much. Do you know what I'm saying?

[30:48] Jessica: I experience it slightly differently. Like, where. Where a place no longer is. I see everything. Like, there's an overlay. You know, there's still Stacy's stationers on York Avenue, where there's now a Starbucks. But to me, that's Stacy's. And that's where we would shoplift gum, you know, or whatever. And so I would have, like, a prolonged sense of shame when I would pass Stacey's. Do you no longer. No. Now it's a deep longing.

[31:21] Jen: Yeah.

[31:22] Jessica: For Stacy's or Melnikoff's or. Yeah. To steal gum.

[31:27] Jen: I definitely. You know what? I think a lot. I Think a lot about old boyfriends. And, like, I can't. Why? So here's the thing. I went to st. Hilda's in St. Hughes. There were a hundred kids in the high school. I do not poop where I eat. So I did not date anybody from my school. I was like. Even at, you know, 15, I was just like, oh, no, this is not my dating pool. And I ended up dating a couple of boys from Trinity. And I hung out in 10th grade. I had a whole bunch of friends who were guys from Trinity who lived on the east side. And we would go to all these parties on the east side. I saw. Oh, my God, amazing apartments. Like, Classic Six. Okay, sure. But I had friends who lived in Classic Sixes. I saw places on East End Avenue that I was like, what is even happening right now? Like, what is going on? What? So there was a really mean girl who had a crush on a friend of mine. And so that's how we'd get into her parties a couple of times. And she lived. Every time I walk past it, when I go to Carl Schurz Park, I think about this. She lived on 84th. Her apartment went from 84th to 83rd. Right on the water, like on the boardwalk. Do you know her? Okay. I can't remember her name, but we

[32:49] Jessica: talk about this person. The minute that you said, I was like, I know if this is. Was it a duplex?

[32:55] Jen: Oh, it was.

[32:56] Jessica: Oh, yeah.

[32:56] Meg: We know this person.

[32:57] Jessica: We know her.

[32:58] Jen: So, like, on the ones. And I think, did she go to Nightingale or did she go to Brie? Okay. Because she was right across from Braylee. Across from Brie. Okay. Yeah, yeah. But she went to Nightingale. Okay. I mean, I can't remember her name, but I just remember, like, going, okay, after Great Chismay. As my students would say, gossip. Absolutely. Yeah. So, like, her apartment was just like, what is even happening? One time when I was really little, this same friend knew a girl who lived at east end in 85th. And so, like I said, through her, I knew the super son Tommy, and we would, like, hang out with Tommy, you know. But then we all. Through my friend, we also. She knew a girl who lived. I want to say her apartment was on the second floor. We walked through. She took us on a tour. Can you imagine? We were like, 11. Who goes. When you're 11, who goes on a tour of a house or an apartment? Like, who cares about that stuff? You know, you might be like, where does your older brother or sister, like, keep their. Whatever, you know, their porn stash? No, this was a proper tour. And these rooms went on and on and on and on and on. And it was like they had names, like, this is the Red Room and this is the library. And I was like, what is happening right now? Yeah, it was really intense. So, yeah, I definitely, when I walk around the neighborhood, I definitely think of boyfriends and where they lived, spaces where we used to like, make out and like, spaces where I didn't drink because of my family. Once I clocked like, oh my God, everybody in this family is an alcoholic and it's hereditary. I don't know that I can trust myself to do it. So I actually did not drink and I didn't do drugs through high school and college and Prague and Japan. And it wasn't until I was about 28 where I was like, I think I can handle like a glass of white wine and be okay. I don't think I'm an actual alcoholic. So I made it through all that. But so my friends would like, you know, do drugs and stuff like that in like little weird spaces. We used to go to, of course, Dorian's, but we used to, we used to go to the Blarney Stone. The Blarney Stone, which was like,

[35:27] Jessica: it

[35:27] Jen: was, it was this Irish bar that had really bad food. It. I don't know, it was for like middle aged people and then a bunch of teenagers who were not going to get carded because the legal drinking age back then was 18 and we were 15. And that was the place where my friends could like not get carded. And I was like, I'll have a Coke, you know, like, I didn't care. But yeah, and I also do the overlay thing where I, I look at like there's a Lush Cosmetics that used to be like Cafe Geiger and Kleine Conditurai is like the Fairway. And my hair salon is. Used to be the Merritt Farms, you know, like this big deli. And yeah, so I, I do see a lot of that. I mean, the Germans are, you know, they all kind of died out and their kids left and moved to the burbs or left New York. Jeremy Schaller, we have a charcuterie board here, thanks to Schaller and Deborah. Shout out to Liz, who helped me. I told her I would give her a shout out who helped me pick out some of the meats and cheeses. Yeah, like, he's one of the few that's around that's keeping the traditions going. It's very, very different from the neighborhood I grew up in. My mom Told me when I was little I used to speak, I used to talk in my sleep in German, like, and we didn't, we only spoke English in this house. Like nobody in my family knew any other languages really. But I just was so immersed in German that I would talk in my sleep in German, which is funny. Feel Trip, field trip, field trip, field trip. The original rent stabilized people. There's, I think five of us left. There's 17 units in the building. I am best friends with the super who's been here since like 92 and he and I share a dog, mocha. And there's my, my neighbor whose daughter. I said, you know, I swear it gets better and I'm sorry that you and your mom are fighting. She's still here. There's a neighbor on the fifth floor who moved here when she was like 20 because she knew the super and so he helped her get a rent stabilized place. And fourth floor, no, third floor. Oh, this was interesting. So 3B right above me, two floors up. I remember when Johnny Kuhl K u h L but still Johnny Kuhl moved into that. He moved in there and I want to say like 75 or 76, but he was like German American and very much of the neighborhood had a karate school next door. Used to be a private eye, a really interesting cool guy who was very much like a local guy. And he passed away and his wife kept, you know, the apartment. They tried to give her a little bit of grief because he did not put her name on the lease. Right. So she had to show her marriage certificate, all kinds of stuff. She had a one bedroom with a big terrace. I have the backyard, but everybody above me has a terrace. And then during the pandemic, she went to stay with her aunt upstate and decided to just give up. Can you imagine? Give up that apartment. Now the rent stabilization laws have gone back to the way it used to be when I was young. So that means whoever got that apartment was getting a one bedroom with a big ass terrace for $1,000. And we, I mean we were all of us, all of us in the building. And my next door neighbor in one seat also has a rent stabilized apartment. So we were all of us, like, who is gonna move in there? It was the realtor.

[39:15] Meg: Right.

[39:16] Jen: But she's really nice and I like her a lot, so it works out, it's fine. You know, like if anybody should get that apartment, she's super awesome. Yeah. Like she. I don't even think they advertise the apartment. Like she just moved in and then There was a drug dealer who lived on the fifth floor or the fourth floor, I can't remember. He, I think probably dealt. Besides pot, also like coke. So he's a little more upscale than just pot. I was still in college, so it might have been 1990. Like, we're just coming out of the 80s, right? So it's still the 80s. I was away at school and the kitchen wall phone rang and my mom answered it and somebody asked for Jennifer Goodenow. And instead of saying like, no, she's not here, my mother just said, who's speaking? And it was so and so from the New York Times. And do you know anything about Gus Farace? And my mom said, no, I never heard of the guy. And that was the quote that was in the Times. Jennifer Goodnow of Apartment 1B, like, said, no, I never heard of the guy because they just assumed my mom was me. So Gus Veracci was in the mafia and kind of like a low level guy. But there was a police officer, a DEA agent who was undercover working with him. And I guess he or somebody else figured out that this guy was doing an undercover operation and he killed him. Gus Farace killed the DEA agent. And then Gus Farace had to go into hiding. And one of he ended up living in a whole bunch of places. And the mob were of two minds. Like, half of the family were like, he's family and we have to take care of him. And the other half were like, because the Drug Enforcement Agency came down on the mob like a ton of bricks. They were just like, you killed one of ours. We are gonna make your lives a living hell. And so the other half of the mob were like, no, we gotta give him up. He's like a second cousin third time removed or whatever. Like, let's give him up or get rid of him. And he ended up living in this building. He's sublet from the drug dealer. So there was also a made for TV movie starring Tony Denza as Gus Farace. And he like, never left the apartment. But I did actually see a couple of mafia guys once when I was home on like spring break. And like, really obvious, kind of broken noses, fedora type guys. And I was like, that's funny. What are they doing here? Because the mob is usually like, there's mafia. There used to BE in the 60s, there was one divino, do you remember Restaurante Divino? That was a big mafia restaurant. But that was like a few blocks away. So I'm like, what are they doing here? And I just saw them on the street. And I. I realized, like, oh, maybe one of them was Gus Veraci. I don't know. They ended up luring the family, said to Gus Farace, like, meet us in Brooklyn. He was in a car. Cause I guess he had a driver's license or whatever, and he was in a car. And they shot up that car. It was like Swiss cheese. Yeah. Field trip, field trip, field trip, field trip. My best friend of 86 and Park. We would go down to the Village to hang out because let's get out of this neighborhood. Also, she had a big crush on Daryl hall, and we knew where John Oates lived, and so we would slightly stalk hoping that Daryl Hall, I don't know, would come and hang out with John Oates or something.

[43:01] Jessica: Did you know that he has a restraining order on John Oates? That fills me with. Very upsetting.

[43:06] Jen: We group texted that one recently. But, you know, we would like. We would. We would take the subway down to the Village. And I, at like 15, 16, 17 years old, I would say to my best friend, like, let us take a moment right now and like, let's have a moment of silence for our brothers and sisters in the suburbs who are not privileged enough to have this childhood that we are having here in New York City, the most amazing city of all places and the best place to have a childhood.

[43:41] Jessica: Thank. Thank you so much for being with us today.

[43:44] Meg: This has been so delightful. And tell us again the name of your blog and how people can find it.

[43:51] Jen: It's me in apartment 1b.com. I'm just such a huge fan of this podcast. I think what you guys are doing is so great, and I talk about it with all of my friends all of the time. So I'm totally thrilled and honored to be on the podcast.

[44:07] Meg: Now we need to finish up this show. Charcuterie board.