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

[00:18] Jessica: I am Meg 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, where we still live and where

[00:28] Meg: we podcast about New York city in the 80s. I do ripped from the headlines and

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

[00:33] Meg: Guess who I heard from?

[00:38] Jessica: King Charles. No, I don't know.

[00:41] Meg: I think he's in the hospital.

[00:42] Jessica: Oh, is that what's keeping him from calling us?

[00:48] Meg: Andy Bragan. That's your new best friend, Meg. That's a very fun podcast. An enjoyable and witty conversation between the two of you. It certainly resonates with me as an 80s private school kid, albeit a downtown one at Grace and then prep school at Choate. And that's a crazy true crime story for sure. An echo of an out of control age. I feel like the kids who were five to 10 years older than us, closer to 15, I guess, in terms of the ones at that bar went through much crazier stuff than we did. Like, did. Did they?

[01:26] Jessica: I don't know. I mean, maybe. Maybe there's an interview. We need to find one of them. But no, I think. I think that, you know, to quote my father, every generation thinks that they invented sex and drugs. So I think we're all lunatics.

[01:42] Meg: Yeah.

[01:43] Jessica: In our. In our teenage ways.

[01:44] Meg: I think so too. And New York is a very interesting place to be a teenager, regardless of the generation. Back to Andy. The whole podcast is quite charming and funny. The past returning. I'm forgetting the phrase you used is very much of our time with the Internet how everything can be dug up. Interesting. Thank you so much for the kind shout out. And thank you to Jessica for finding that article and bringing it up. As I mentioned in it, I did see Moose Murders, perhaps in its final Preview as an 11 year old. I rather enjoyed it, but my parents were appalled.

[02:21] Jessica: Well, I was talking to Kim, dear friend Kim and listener to the podcast, and we were talking about Holland Taylor and how much we love bosom buddies and how bosom buddies would not fly nowadays. No, not at all. We were talking about it in the same breath as Rocky Horror and how Rocky Horror was originally, you know, a loving send up of the B horror movies and sci fi movies of the 50s. And she. She was like, do you think that Moose Murders was supposed to be a comedy? And I was like, I don't know. But now we have to find it, because the way that it's described is actually so funny. You know, like the kid says, is he A lima bean and, like, does a shuffle off to Buffalo offstage that. It seems so campy.

[03:15] Meg: I know the answer.

[03:16] Jessica: Okay.

[03:17] Meg: Because I found an article in Vulture. The guy who was the playwright was. Wrote a book about the making of Moose Murders and why he wrote it and how it got financed. It's such a big story. I actually think. Will you do a part two? I think I'm going to send you the article. And will you do the part two?

[03:37] Jessica: Yes, I will do a part two.

[03:38] Meg: I'm going to read the article. Let's do the Secret. I was going to read something from that article, and now I just. I'm going to send it to you. You're going to read it. You're going to pick out the best parts and tell this story. We're going to solve the mystery of moose murders.

[03:52] Jessica: This is so exciting to me.

[03:54] Meg: Done.

[03:55] Jessica: Thanks, Andy.

[04:06] Meg: Did you have a physical address book in the 80s? Yes.

[04:10] Jessica: Oh, definitely.

[04:11] Meg: Do you have a story about it? Let me talk a little bit about mine because I've had time to think about it and maybe it will prompt you.

[04:19] Jessica: Okay.

[04:20] Meg: So I had a handheld thing that folded up into itself, and it had pockets and it had a spiral. It was like a mini binder. There was a name for those things.

[04:31] Jessica: Do you mean a Filofax?

[04:33] Meg: There was a different name. Okay. Anyway, I loved mine so much, but there was only a finite amount of space for everybody's address and phone number. So when I was no longer friends with somebody, I would just use whiteout to make room.

[04:48] Jessica: Did it begin? Did it get thicker and break the walls of a tenement?

[04:52] Meg: It indeed. But isn't that crazy? Cause now we just have phones. Like, everything's just store storage is not an issue.

[05:00] Jessica: Yes. This is a window into my madness. I would get very agitated with my latent ocd. Not latent. My active yet undiagnosed ocd. Because crossing out and changing things, even if it wasn't that I was getting someone out of my life, they moved. I would get very uptight about the space that was available. Should I write it on a piece of paper and put it between those pages? Do I write something at the back? Like put an asterisk so that I know to look at the back of the book. Do I start a whole book all over again?

[05:42] Meg: No.

[05:43] Jessica: I know. But my mem. That's my memory of it. And that I had. I did wind up having a multitude of them. And I remember because I always loved paper products the same way that you do. I love stationery. That I would get lovely, like, Italian paper cover, like the pencil cup and the letter holder on my desk.

[06:06] Meg: Yes. Beautiful.

[06:07] Jessica: Part of that set would be an address book. Got it. So I would get a lot of these little Italian, like, with gold, and they're beautiful. And the marbled papers, and I would sort of fetishize them and then be like, but now I have to throw it away because I have to do it. So it made me very anxious. And the. The lack of storage issue now is amazing. And yet I feel like I've been robbed of the beauty of all of those stationary products.

[06:37] Meg: And also, if I may add, because, you know, you would know someone in high school, and then you would have. They'd have a different phone number when they went to college, and then. Or you'd meet someone in college, and they would start their job after college. I mean, tracking people during those particular years. I mean, they could move to Colorado, and you would just never know. And you would call that New York phone number. It's like, that's it.

[07:01] Jessica: That. Well, that's also why having their original number and their parents phone numbers was key, because you could call the parents and be like, where's Joe? Oh, where's Lucy? And then you'd be like, oh, if they're not telling me, I must have been cut from the list. Damn it.

[07:19] Meg: I'm so glad that you said that. That sets us up very well.

[07:23] Jessica: Let's do it.

[07:24] Meg: My sources are the Washington Post and a bunch of articles in the New York Times and one more source that will become apparent.

[07:34] Jessica: Mystery.

[07:36] Meg: On Saturday morning, October 1, 1983, Inger Elliott's phone rang at her apartment at 71st and 5th Avenue. The young man on the line said he was David Poitier, a friend of their daughter, Carrie McCabe, who was at Yale. David went to Harvard and was in town to meet up with his father, Sidney Poitier, who was flying in from Los Angeles the next day.

[08:00] Jessica: I'm so happy right now. I can't believe you're doing this today, Dory. I'm so happy. Yay. And wait. And bizarrely, just as a quick aside. And the reason that this is relevant will become clear shortly, but I was talking to Kim again recently about how in the 80s, the ultimate hostess gift was a pot of jam.

[08:25] Meg: Ooh.

[08:26] Jessica: And we were talking about pots of jam. Take it away. Okay.

[08:32] Meg: Sidney Poitier was about to start rehearsals for the film version of Dreamgirls, which he was directing. This is, according to David, his son, David Poitier. The reason David was calling the Elliotts was because he had been mugged and had no money and no place to stay until his father arrived. This is a quote from Inger. I remember saying, I don't give a damn who your father is. Come on over. And David did. Once there, David told Inger, who was a photographer and a designer, and her husband Osborne, who was the dean of Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism, that he was especially upset because the muggers had stolen his term paper on injustices in the criminal justice system. Quote, he was very pleasant.

[09:23] Jessica: He.

[09:24] Meg: He said he had gone to Andover and Exeter and that he was now a student at Harvard. He was dressed perfectly nicely. We had a long discussion of what it was like to be the son of a famous actor. Then he started talking about how awful Malibu was. He said it was like Fire Island. Inger thought to herself that Malibu is nothing like Fire island, but let it go. David said Diane Carroll was his mother. Quote, he described the inside of Diane von Furstenberg's apartment, which I've been in. He knew where John Kennedy Jr. Lived. He talked of Nina and Lenny Bernstein, and he clearly knew the nooks and crannies of the Harvard campus and other Ivy League schools, too. The Elliotts gave him $50 in fresh clothes to wear and invited him to stay the night. David asked Inger to wake him up early the next morning so he could go jogging. The Elliotts tried to get in touch with Carrie at Yale, but she wasn't picking up the phone in her dorm room. And you remember that, too. Like, it was really easy to dodge your parents at school.

[10:34] Jessica: We. My freshman year, we didn't. In fact, for most of all of Kenyon, we only had a PBX phone in the hallway.

[10:41] Meg: Yeah, you're. You're on your own.

[10:43] Jessica: Yeah, you're. You can be incognito.

[10:47] Meg: The next morning, when Inger went to wake David up, she found him in bed naked with a young man. David rolled over, pointed to the guy and said, this is Malcolm Forbes nephew, who was locked out of his house.

[11:05] Jessica: Well, if that isn't some great storytelling, I don't know what is.

[11:12] Meg: Osborne Elliot tossed the two young men out of his home unceremoniously.

[11:18] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[11:19] Meg: While exiting, David asked to borrow $50 to buy flowers for Inger.

[11:24] Jessica: Shut up.

[11:26] Meg: Inger was shocked by the whole incident, especially after she got in touch with her daughter. And Carrie said she had no idea who David Poitier was. So Inger called her lawyer, Leah Iceland. Leah's husband, John J. Iceland, was the President of WNET channel 13. After she explained to Leah what happened, Leah said, quote, I think he was at our house the night before.

[11:56] Jessica: Stop it.

[11:57] Meg: On Friday night, the Icelands let David stay overnight and they also gave him money. After all, he said he was a friend of their daughter Josie who was at Harvard. David told them that Sidney Poitier would be staying at the pier and filming Dreamgirls at the Plaza. Now remember, Jay works for wnet so he, he's got some connections. He made a few phone calls. He could not get in touch with his daughter because who's picking up the dorm phone? Nobody. But he called the Pierre and the Plaza and determined that David's story was bogus and he asked him to leave. Quote, he must have walked out of Jay's place and into a phone booth to call us. That's a quote from Oz Elliot Osborne. We call him Oz. The two couples started calling around and were able to find more friends who had fallen for the scam. Everyone gave him food, money and clothes and some invited him to sleep over. Lt. Edward Shea of the Special Fraud Squad said, quote, this is a new scam to me. But we know the kind of people who would would try it. They live by their wits. They do it more for the challenge than anything else. The police were able to identify the mysterious David as David Hampton, a 19 year old from Buffalo. He'd recently been spotted at Connecticut College claiming to be scouting for the touring production of Dream Girls.

[13:33] Jessica: He is just obsessed with Dream Girls.

[13:37] Meg: Robert Stammers, who went to Andover with the kids of the Icelands and the Elliots, was a student at Connecticut College and at some point somehow lost his address book. In August, David was arrested on Columbia's campus for harassment. He had talked his way into students rooms by saying he was a friend of a leader of a campus organization for gay students. Apparently the kids didn't buy the bullshit like their parents did and they called the police. But he was soon out on bail and needed a place to stay. According. Now buckle your seatbelt.

[14:19] Jessica: Snap.

[14:21] Meg: According to Gary Sinise.

[14:23] Jessica: Stop it right now. Oh my God. Lieutenant Dan is involved. I can't quote, I was doing True

[14:34] Meg: west off Broadway and living in Melanie Griffith's apartment. She was married to Stephen Bauer then.

[14:41] Jessica: Oh my God, really?

[14:43] Meg: One morning about 2am I was sleeping and the doorman buzzed up and said, David is here. At the time I was working with a lawyer named David and I said, send him up. He said, I'm a very close friend of Melanie and Rocky's. Stephen Bauer's. Nickname and I miss my plane to la. All my luggage and money is on the plane and I need a place to stay the night. My name is David Poitier and I've stayed here before. So I let him in and said, you can stay on the couch. Then I lay back down and thought this guy could rob me and kill me in my sleep. I tried to track down Melanie and Rocky but couldn't find them. I told him I had a bad feeling about letting him stay. He insisted he was Sidney Poitier's son and said he had just come from a party with Diana Ross. Then he told me he played a kid in the classroom in To Sir With Love, though it later occurred to

[15:41] Jessica: me way too young to do that.

[15:43] Meg: And also that Sidney Poitier was the only black person in that classroom. That's the friggin point of the movie.

[15:49] Jessica: Indeed.

[15:50] Meg: He told me all about his backyard in Bel Air. We Talked till about 4 in the morning and I felt okay about him. The next morning I took him out to breakfast and gave him $10. I spoke to Melanie after that and she said this guy had met Rocky in Florida while he was shooting Scarface and that he was nuts and I ended up sleeping in the same room with him.

[16:13] Jessica: Oh, Gary, Gary. Trust your instincts, people.

[16:18] Meg: That was in September. And David encountered the Elliots in the Icelands in October. On October 18, the New York Times printed a story about his shenanigans and David read it and called the Elliot's to apologize. He's on the lam at this point, right? He proposed meeting at a phone booth at 7th Avenue and West 4th street, which I'm sure you can picture. That's where the duplex is and Village Cigars. The Elliot agreed to meet him, but they called the police instead. And David was arrested at 7:15pm and charged with petty larceny, criminal impersonation and fraudulent accosting. He pled guilty to a lesser charge and was ordered to make financial restitution of $4,490 to his victims and banned from New York City. That's a thing?

[17:16] Jessica: That's a thing. Wait. Can you imagine, considering his obsession with Dreamgirls, did he answer that with. And I will tell you, I'm telling you, I am not going. No, no. Wouldn't that be great? I'm just saying I wish that happened. Okay, okay. Sorry, I got excited.

[17:36] Meg: Yes. Not only did he fail to make the payments, he checked into the Pierre.

[17:44] Jessica: So unrepentant and to my point, not going.

[17:51] Meg: There he IS so in January 1985, he was sentenced to one to four years in prison. John Guare, the playwright, was a very close friend with Inger Elliot and was staying in London. Inger called him up, quote, we've just arrived in London, and do we have a story for you. Meet us tonight and we'll tell you everything. Six Degrees of Separation, John Grier's extraordinary play about identity and class and race in New York city, opened in 1990 and swept the Tonys in 91. Once paroled, David Hampton began harassing John Guare with intimidating phone calls and death threats. And he filed a 100 million doll lawsuit, claiming that the play had infringed on the copyright of his Persona and his story. But the lawsuit was dismissed, and he died of AIDS in 2012.

[18:50] Jessica: How old was he in 2012? He was 19.

[18:54] Meg: He was 19 in 1983.

[18:57] Jessica: Okay, so 84. He was 20. So what did you say, 2000? When did he die? I already forgot.

[19:04] Meg: 2012.

[19:05] Jessica: Oh, okay. I'm not going to do the math, but older.

[19:09] Meg: Yes. Thank you for that digression that resulted in nothing. And all of our listeners now are

[19:18] Jessica: like, get a calculator, you bitch. Okay, I'm sorry.

[19:25] Meg: I mean, now I'm embarrassed that we can't just do it, say, 42.

[19:28] Jessica: Well, it's 2004, so that's 28 years later. So, yeah, he's 48.

[19:34] Meg: 48.

[19:34] Jessica: He's 48.

[19:35] Meg: When he died about David, and I

[19:38] Jessica: did that in my head, by the

[19:39] Meg: way, I hope you're right about David. John J. Iceland said, quote, when he showed up at our house, Leah was the one who took care of him, doing all the Good Samaritan bits. I guess this proved that behind our seasoned New York facades, we could be as gullible as anybody else. But I didn't encounter him as a calculated criminal, and he defrauded more of the spirit than the flesh.

[20:07] Jessica: The reason I brought up the pot of jam.

[20:10] Meg: Yes.

[20:10] Jessica: Was that the poster for the play famously had on it an illustration of a pot of jam, which I believe he brings in the play.

[20:21] Meg: In the play, yeah.

[20:22] Jessica: As his passport to. I know what to do. I'm on the inside.

[20:28] Meg: Yeah. In the play, he gets tutored by one of the students who went to boarding school with these kids. And. Yeah. And he's like, well, you have to bring a pot of jam.

[20:41] Jessica: And to this day, still not a bad gift.

[20:45] Meg: This is a monologue that the incredible stalker Channing delivered on Broadway playing the, I guess, the Inger character. And then she also did in the movie of Six Degrees of Separation, which I watched. I have never seen a movie that is so faithful to the play. I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation between us and everybody else on this planet. The President of the United States, a gondolier in Venice. Fill in the names. I find that A, tremendously comforting that we're so close, and B, like Chinese water torture, that we're so close because you have to find the right six people to make the connection. It's not just big names, it's anyone. A native in a rainforest, a Tierra del Fuegan, an Eskimo. I am bound to everyone on this planet by a trail of six people is a profound thought. How Paul found us. How to find the man whose son he pretends to be or perhaps is his son, although I doubt it. How every person is a new door opening up into other worlds. Six degrees of separation between me and everyone else on this planet. But to find the right six people.

[22:09] Jessica: Only the best six people. No. It's an amazing, amazing play and a fantastic movie, which also brought about a little bit controversy for Will Smith.

[22:20] Meg: Yeah.

[22:21] Jessica: Who has really leaned into controversy in the last couple of years.

[22:25] Meg: Do you remember what it was?

[22:26] Jessica: Oh, yes.

[22:27] Meg: He was uncomfortable.

[22:28] Jessica: He wouldn't play gay.

[22:29] Meg: Yeah, yeah, that's it.

[22:30] Jessica: That's. He. He simply would not. And that followed him for quite some time.

[22:35] Meg: Yeah. Oh, Will.

[22:37] Jessica: Oh, Will. Will is troubled, but great story. So iconically New York. Love it. As you could tell from my squealing, the second you began, all I had to hear was David Poitier. And I was like, I'm so excited. Well done.

[23:04] Meg: Fred Scepisi directed Six Degrees of Separation, the film.

[23:10] Jessica: And what else did he direct?

[23:11] Meg: He has also directed Roxanne.

[23:15] Jessica: Oh, really?

[23:16] Meg: Incredible movie. And a Cry in the Dark.

[23:19] Jessica: Really?

[23:20] Meg: Yes. Well, he's Australian.

[23:23] Jessica: Oh, well, maybe that's a cry in the dark. Yeah. Isn't that a dingo ate my baby?

[23:27] Meg: I think it is. A dingo ate my baby.

[23:29] Jessica: A dingo ate my baby. Wasn't that, like a terrible wig on Meryl Streep in that film?

[23:34] Meg: I did not see that film.

[23:35] Jessica: Oh, see it. Just for the wig, for everything. Okay. All right. So I have an engagement question. Did you read Mad magazine?

[23:47] Meg: Yes. My brother very much into it. So I was very much into it. Cause that's how that works.

[23:54] Jessica: That's how siblings. So do you remember that there was a running, like a comic strip within this comic book, Spy vs. Spy. Yes.

[24:04] Meg: Yes, I do.

[24:05] Jessica: Well, we're going to talk today about Ray versus Ray.

[24:07] Meg: Okay.

[24:09] Jessica: In 1964, Ray Magnano opened the first original Ray's Pizza at 1073 First Avenue, 59th street and First, right in Sutton Place.

[24:24] Meg: You are about to answer so many questions I have.

[24:28] Jessica: Well, we'll see if I do.

[24:30] Meg: Okay, so where are we again? 57th and first.

[24:33] Jessica: 59th and first.

[24:33] Meg: 59th and First.

[24:35] Jessica: Under the reign of Ray. Actually, it's not Ray. Sorry. It's Rosolino. Rosolino Magnano opened nine more. And it was the original. It was called Original Ray's Pizza 1964. And a quick digression, I was reading. I think it was Gothamist or something. I was reading something about the true New York slice. Or maybe it was something by Pete Wells. Anyway, the description of the New York slice, the classic slice, reminded me of my favorite pizza, which I think I've talked about on this podcast before, which was Zip's Pizza. But the way that they described it was so perfect. And this was the standard when all of this was going on thin crust that you could crack. Not too much cheese. Cheese and sauce blended together in the oven into a substance that was neither cheese nor sauce. It was New York pizza. And enough oil, olive oil in the ingredients, when you cracked it, to eat it, you had to stand away from it because it would drip. And that was the classic eating New York pizza. Standing up at the pizzeria, a little bit of space between you and your arm.

[25:56] Meg: Okay?

[25:56] Jessica: Okay. So I loved it. My brother and I would go to Zip's Pizza after being tortured by going to Bloomingdale's or sometimes after being at the orthodontist. Cause that was right on 59th and Lex. So that was like the hub of a lot of our activity. All of this stuff about, like, more cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese. That's nonsense. And I believe that that is a. An abomination brought in the 1980s when Pizzeria Uno first brought Chicago style pizza to New York City, which is very thick, thick, doughy. It's a pie. It's like. It's not a pizza. It's an entirely different thing. I know that that has now been a battle cry and that we will have people writing in who are going to be very upset, but no.

[26:52] Meg: Chicago. Chicago pizza versus New York pizza.

[26:55] Jessica: Chicago pizza is just a pile of cheese and dough, not a pizza. In fact, no one in Italy makes it that way. And I did when I did the research. I know that it wasn't even created by Two guys who were from Chicago. They weren't even from Illinois. It was from someplace else.

[27:10] Meg: Ridiculous.

[27:11] Jessica: Anyway, there's Mr. Magnano with his Original Rays.

[27:16] Meg: And he called it Original Rays. He called original.

[27:20] Jessica: Hold that thought, okay? Oh, and by the way, my sources are the New York Times, Business Insider, New York Post, and Gothamist.

[27:28] Meg: Ha ha.

[27:29] Jessica: Research. Because there's no way to tell the story without real grown up research, because this one is bananas. So in 1987, Mr. Magnano starts a lawsuit to enjoin the use of the name Ray, which is being used all across New York City. In fact, he uses the. He starts this lawsuit against a growing army of Ray's knockoffs.

[27:55] Meg: There's so many.

[27:56] Jessica: And some of the names employed by these knockoffs in an attempt to either differentiate themselves or to avoid any potential copyright infringement are Original Rays, Raise, Famous Raise, Pizza Raise, Original, Famous Raise, Famous, and Original Raise. The one and only Famous Ray's, and my favorite, the incredibly straightforward Real Raise. All of these different Ray's pizzas started fighting amongst one another. Because when there's so many Ray's pizzas, as you and I both know, how do you know which one you really want to go to other than whatever your local is?

[28:42] Meg: And I guess it's like a Yellow Pages situation or something, right? Where you're just trying to get on that page with all the other Rays. Because if you're going to be looking for a pizza place in the Yellow Pages, you're definitely going to look for rays.

[28:58] Jessica: Exactly. And you know, to your Yellow Pages point, it's like calling yourself Acme Nobody or Double A, triple A, quadruple A. Right. And so these, these people all knowingly took the name because of the association with good pizza. But hilariously, they all started complaining about each other as supposed imposters because they got blamed for each other's health code violations. Oh, someone, someone was quoted in the paper saying, that's not my filth. Oh, my God. There is general confusion. So customers didn't even know where to go to their pizza. But it's like, dude, you chose the most confusing name. Why is this a problem? Because of you. And they also complained that the bad reviews of a different Raise would affect them. Again, I say, sir, that was not a well thought out strategy.

[29:55] Meg: No.

[29:56] Jessica: At this point, Ray Mignano says, we have to take a stand on Ray's Pizza. To which one of his competitors quipped, that's all Mignano's pizza is good for. Standing on it. Oh, my God. So all of this is a Marketing frenzy, as well as a sort of point of honor. All in the good name of ray. So in 1987, an article was written about this when Ray Mignano first started his lawsuit and called one of the pizzerias. Can I speak to Ray? Ray's not here. He can't come to the phone. You know, there is no Ray. Really, Nobody is Ray. So New York had more than a pizza problem. It was having a mass existential crisis. If Ray is not Ray, and I identify by my Ray of choice, who am I? Am I Ray?

[30:56] Meg: Oh my.

[30:59] Jessica: So keep in mind, Rosalino Magnano is not Ray.

[31:03] Meg: He's also not Ray.

[31:05] Jessica: He's the only one we've talked about. He's not Ray. None of the others are Ray either. Let's get introduced to Joe Barry. B A R I. He owned three Ray's Pizzas. He disputed Mr. Magnano's suit because he owned the trademark to Ray.

[31:23] Meg: Oh no.

[31:25] Jessica: Original and famous, not all three together.

[31:30] Meg: Got it.

[31:30] Jessica: Interestingly, separate words Ray, because that would just be ridiculous. Exactly. So I was perplexed. And this is of course another tangent to shoot off on. How does that even work that you can trademark than the word original? I am confounded. But somehow this is what Joe Barry does. So he started some of his own lawsuits against the other Rays that have been mentioned. Such as real.

[32:00] Meg: They just should put all their energy into the pizza.

[32:03] Jessica: Yes, to your point, Joe is then quoted as saying, I got tired of the legal process and the bills.

[32:11] Meg: I bet.

[32:12] Jessica: So he dropped it and decided to focus on the pizza. By the way, he opened in 1973. So even though he said that he trademarked it, Mr. Magnano clearly opened his pizzeria in 1964. But in 1973 he opened his restaurant on 76 and 3rd.

[32:31] Meg: When asked, I remember that well so far.

[32:34] Jessica: Keep in mind, also, we are now only talking about the Upper east side Sutton Place. This is not a downtown pizza situation.

[32:43] Meg: Which it did eventually spread to.

[32:45] Jessica: Well, just you wait until you hear who else gets involved. So when asked why do you call it Ray's Pizza when you are not a Ray of any kind? His answer, let's be honest, rather weakly, was. Ray is a nice name. Uh huh.

[33:05] Meg: It reminds me of really tasty pizza. I wonder why.

[33:09] Jessica: So our timeline so far is Magnano 1964, Barry 1973. However, while this fracas is going on, another entity enters the fray. This contestant is from Little Italy, gets involved in what had been an Upper east side issue.

[33:30] Meg: Legit, I mean, more legit. Little Italy.

[33:33] Jessica: We'll see. Anthony Salvatore opened Ray's Pizza on Prince street in 1959.

[33:42] Meg: I know that one, too.

[33:43] Jessica: Plain old Ray's Pizza.

[33:45] Meg: There's a picture of Madonna there.

[33:47] Jessica: I'm sure there's a picture of her in a lot of places. No, no, no. I know. I'm kidding.

[33:52] Meg: She used to go to this particular Ray's bar.

[33:54] Jessica: She was a downtown girl on Prince Street. So to me, so far, this sounds the most plausible. Cause it's just Ray's Pizza. He's not saying original. He's not saying famous. He's just, hey, Ray Pizza, 1959. And they actually have a Ray, which I got very excited about when reading this. But then it turns out that the owner is Ralph Cuomo. And Ray is a nickname from Ralph that doesn't make any sense to me. And also Cuomo, I was wondering, is he any relation to our former governor, our disgraced governor, or his disgraced News Anchorage brother? Interestingly, all of these guys claimed that their nickname was Ray, though they had decidedly un Ray first and last names.

[34:46] Meg: I'm going to call you Greg from now on.

[34:48] Jessica: I hope you do. Now, here's where the case breaks wide open. Ralph Ray Cuomo had two pizza shops. He sold his second location to Manano in 1964. Oh, who claims that Rosalino, the nickname in Italy, is Ray in the same way that Mr. Cuomo claims.

[35:17] Meg: So Cuomo is the original.

[35:19] Jessica: But wait, there's more. Now, this is where the. The whole thing.

[35:24] Meg: It does make sense why he called it Original Raise. Because he did need to make a distinction between his new establishment and the Little Italy establishment.

[35:37] Jessica: Exactly. However, because it is evident that there is this handover, this purchase, what these guys start to do is they say, I'm the real raise because of the innovations I made.

[35:51] Meg: All right, whatever.

[35:52] Jessica: Which is great. However, did you know that Mr. Magnano, of the 1964 purchase of Ray's, he was the first person, or so he claimed, in New York City to have the pizza displayed in glass cases, which

[36:05] Meg: is the standard that's iconic.

[36:08] Jessica: That is the standard for all New York pizza, no matter who's making it these days. And he also is the first person to create the Ray's logo with the crown that was then ripped off by all of the other Rays.

[36:22] Meg: Okay, so he's part of the story.

[36:25] Jessica: But wait, in 1973, famous Ray's Pizza, which was my Ray's on 6th Avenue and 11th street, it even had a subtitle on a little awning underneath the main sign. Which was the one and only Famous Ray's Pizza of Greenwich Village.

[36:45] Meg: Okay, that.

[36:46] Jessica: Oh, you say Exactly. Now, in 1981, the mess continues. Magnano decides that he wants to perhaps not manage quite so many restaurants as he has. Maybe he just needs an influx of cash. He sells one of his restaurants on Second Avenue and 51st street to Gary Esposito.

[37:12] Meg: Okay.

[37:13] Jessica: Mr. Esposito wondered, who is Ray. Mr. Esposito does not, however, tumble into the existential crisis that the rest of the Rays did. Mr. Esposito called Ralph Cuomo recently out of jail for mob related activity. Okay. That's the Ray that he lands on. I don't know why, and I don't know if Mr. Esposito had mob ties. These are questions I have. They decided to form a joint company and they trademarked it so they could begin franchising. Okay? So they got serious about business. And not just about, let's not fight each other. Bragging rights. Yeah, right. Mano went off his nut. And he fought them for five years and this raged. And the people and New Yorkers do about this. But then in 1991, in an epic moment of forget about it, Mignano joined the USA Famous original Ray's Licensing Corp.

[38:28] Meg: If you can't beat em, join em.

[38:30] Jessica: Exactly. And then, just to put another sort of mob ish gloss on the story, Mr. Magnano, who we know is a fighter, goes from fighting in court to fighting in person. He makes personal appearances. He visits many of the other Ray's restaurants in New York and tells them to stop. That's what's reported. I'm thinking that he came with a baseball bat. Some forcers. Yes. A burly. A burly gentleman with a broken nose and biceps that do not fit inside his jacket. So that's where things stood in 91. To this day, there's no litigation that has taken place that I've been able to find that really put an end to who is Ray. And from my research into this, that's the most fabulous part of the story. Like, businesses are businesses. They come and go. They fight over trademarks. That happens all the time, Right? But the proliferation and the complete disregard for the fact that there were so many others, it was the ultimate in, hey, I'll take a shot, right? Like, I'll just be Ray. But what I love the most is that this is a question of identity. And these guys are not just saying, it's my restaurant. They're actually saying, I'm Ray, who goes

[40:06] Meg: way out of their neighborhood to go

[40:09] Jessica: to a pizza place.

[40:11] Meg: I know that there's some standouts, but in general, you order pizza from the place around the corner because there's so many pizza places in New York.

[40:21] Jessica: Although I will say this, I agree with you. When we were growing up, obviously there were fewer places, and your local place was a real pizza place. It wasn't a Domino's.

[40:37] Meg: Oh, yeah.

[40:38] Jessica: It wasn't a Papa John's.

[40:39] Meg: I mean, Nino's Pizza.

[40:41] Jessica: Indeed. And we've talked about video games. Exactly. Mimi's. There are so many pizza places around the city now that have no Italian, original Italian roots. They are sort of like, you know, pizza by the kit. And you can tell, it's not that it's bad, but it's not New York pizza. It's kind of something else. On that note of how much has the pizza drifted? Anna of Ray Barry's said this about he put pasta on pizza. Write that down. Manano shot back about Barry. Watery sauce Barry, by the way, finally changed his name to Ray Barry Pizza. Ray Barry. One word. Apparently that was one offshoot of this lawsuit that made some changes, and I remember when that happened. But to this day, Ray's still exists in New York City in one form or. Or another, though the Prince street location and my favorite location on 6th and 11th closed, as have many, many others. But the raise question lives on, even if only as part of New York history. Postscript for you Charles Dickens fans who loved Bleak House, don't despair that there was no sequel, because there is, and this is it. You can relive the never ending lawsuit of Jarndice v. Jarndice by attempting to unravel the convoluted and continuing story of Ray's Pizza and its existential crisis, which we are only able to scratch the surface of today. Nice.

[42:37] Meg: Oh, Jessica, that was delightful. You look like you have a tie in.

[42:54] Jessica: I do. And it's one word. Imposters. Ooh, good. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yes. David Poitier. What was his real name?

[43:10] Meg: Hampton. David Hampton.

[43:10] Jessica: David Hampton. David Hampton. And the many not Rays in this story, they all rebranded themselves to get where they wanted to go. And in some ways, isn't that the ultimate New York story? Ooh, that's right. I did that. See, I'm on fire today. This is what happens when we work in the morning. I'm on it.