[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,

[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: It's spring and it's really cold. That's what I have to say about today.

[00:38] Jessica: I have to say, it's spring, it's really cold, and I don't know what is causing it, but I have not slept more than three hours a night for the last four nights, Honey bunny. And I. I'm like, is it the weather change? Have I gone. I was going to say mental. Have I. Am I more mental than normal? Am I. I'm not drinking coffee late at night.

[01:00] Meg: It must be a seasonal thing. I mean, come on, it's light.

[01:02] Jessica: The light.

[01:03] Meg: Y.

[01:03] Jessica: But, you know, do you know that I sleep not only with one sleep mask, but two in just to have super, super blackout One stacked on top

[01:13] Meg: of the other are a gift from God. How did we get through most of our lives without a sleep mask?

[01:20] Jessica: I sleep now with two sleep masks on and earplugs.

[01:24] Meg: And you live alone.

[01:26] Jessica: Could you. Well, now you know why. Could you imagine? Guess who doesn't live alone? I know, I know. I'm just saying it's rough. I think that I was. I think I'm married anymore because I. I couldn't handle the. The breathing. Oh, was it. Was it Naomi? No, no, it was Linda Evangelista who recently made a statement to the press about, like, I don't ever want to sleep with another person. I don't need to hear them breathing. And I'm like, it's a thing. Yes, yes, yes. I don't know how you do it, because I shouldn't talk about it, because

[02:00] Meg: Joe does listen to this podcast, but

[02:03] Jessica: he's not doing anything wrong.

[02:05] Meg: He's staying alive.

[02:06] Jessica: He's stay.

[02:08] Meg: Him to do.

[02:09] Jessica: Yes. He's doing what? He's. A little less loudly, I thought you were gonna say just a little less full stop.

[02:30] Meg: So, Jessica, what is your favorite section of the newspaper?

[02:36] Jessica: By the newspaper, do you mean the New York Times? Yeah. Okay.

[02:42] Meg: I mean, you don't read the Post or the Daily News, do you?

[02:45] Jessica: You don't know what I. You don't know. You don't know my life.

[02:48] Meg: I know you read the Atlantic. I know you get magazines.

[02:52] Jessica: Yes.

[02:52] Meg: But from the New York Times, do you flip to a certain section and

[02:56] Jessica: go, ooh, well, you know, because I'm pedantic. Here's my quick answer. I read it online now and I hate that there is no section to flip to. So now that you've said that, it will stick in my craw. And I'm gonna have to now get the printed New York Times. So I think, well, I always start reading with the style section because I want to read the book reviews. I want to read, you know, performance reviews. I want to, you know, whatever. Sunday styles, always. And it's a nice way to like, ease to whatever else is going on. Cause you're like, okay, here's some things going on in the world that won't kill me. And then I'll go on to what will kill me. Does that answer your question?

[03:43] Meg: It really absolutely does.

[03:44] Jessica: Is it surprising?

[03:45] Meg: No, no, not at all. My sources today are the New York Times obituaries and two of our episodes. So this is a follow up.

[03:57] Jessica: I love it. It's self referential. Although I will tell you, and I, I know you know this, but for the non New Yorkers listening, the obituary can also be called the real estate pages because you know that people look at the obits to see what might be on sale. Not on sale. That sounds weird. Like it's a bargain basement. What real estate might be up for grabs.

[04:20] Meg: This is true.

[04:21] Jessica: So it's, you know, morbid. More, even more morbid than you. No.

[04:26] Meg: Speaking of morbid, please tell me what

[04:29] Jessica: you're going to say. I'm just going to babble incomprehensibly here

[04:33] Meg: on January 24, 2024. So recently.

[04:38] Jessica: Yes.

[04:39] Meg: Carl Andre, renowned minimalist sculptor, died at the age of 88.

[04:47] Jessica: Yes, yes, I know. I know. The man of whom you speak.

[04:51] Meg: Okay. Did you know he was dead?

[04:52] Jessica: Yes.

[04:53] Meg: Oh, you did?

[04:54] Jessica: Yes.

[04:54] Meg: Okay. His obituary in the Times would have focused on his substantial floor pieces made of elemental metals, granite, wood and brick. It would have discussed in detail his influence on the art world. Richard Serra said Andre changed the history of sculpture. There would have been room to go into his working class childhood in Quincy, Massachusetts, and his distaste for galleries and the commercialization of heart. And it did cover those things. But really, almost a third of his obituary chronicled his arrest and trial for the murder of his wife, Anna Mendieta, who fell or was pushed from their 34th floor apartment on Mercer on September 8, 1985. While Carl was acquitted of second degree murder in a bench trial in 1988 and was strongly defended by many influential people at the time, it is now widely acknowledged that his story was. It was riddled with contradictions and obfuscations. And his cold demeanor and heartless behavior in the hours after her death were sus. But aided by a racist and misogynist defense that was all too common in the 80s and an incompetent prosecution, he walked free. We covered that in episode 33, Art, Crime and Social Climb, which we posted on October 4, 2022. So that's just catching us up.

[06:39] Jessica: Yes.

[06:39] Meg: All right. Last we heard of him, he was still making work, and it was selling. In 2006, the French collector Francois Pinault paid more than $6 million for 37th piece of work, which is a 36 foot square of metal plates.

[07:00] Jessica: Not my thing, but someone's thing.

[07:02] Meg: He never moved out of the Mercer street apartment.

[07:06] Jessica: Well, who would?

[07:07] Meg: Well, I mean.

[07:09] Jessica: I mean, real estate's. Real estate man. Come on.

[07:13] Meg: Okay. I mean, he could afford another place. In fact, how about this? He moved his fifth wife in.

[07:23] Jessica: Well, that's. That's. That's when it goes a bit far.

[07:27] Meg: Melissa Kretschmer, who is 27 years younger, never asked Carl about what happened to Anna. She trusted him completely and tried to shield him from what she called the haters. Because while he did walk amongst us, he was easy to recognize in his trademark overalls and white beard, and was frequently heckled on the street by those convinced of his guilt. Now, you remember when his work was shown in galleries and museums over the years, protesters would show up with signs calling him the OJ of the art world and saying, donda esta Ana Mendieta. Okay. In March 2013, he received a retrospective at the Dia Art Foundation Museum in Beacon, New York. In response, no Wave Performance Task Force organized Crying a protest in honor of Ana Mendieta. The event was billed as. This is on the poster. Tears of joy, tears of terror. Tears for Anna Mendieta.

[08:35] Jessica: Wow.

[08:35] Meg: Come celebrate the last day of Carl Andre's DIA retrospective at a public Cry in Silhouette party. Bring your own tears.

[08:46] Jessica: Vivid.

[08:47] Meg: And 15 feminist poets, artists and activists gathered to sit at his work and cry. And in 2018, Ana Mendieta's work was given fresh attention due to her belated Times obituary as part of the Overlooked no More series. And in the wake of the MeToo movement. And while Anna Mendieta's family is aggrieved that her legacy is overshadowed by her violent death, I would argue that Carl Andre's legacy is marred by those events as well. He didn't get off entirely. According to Philippe Vergnia from DIA in 2015, he said Carl broke something and he was ostracized. And it's part of the story.

[09:38] Jessica: Broke something.

[09:40] Meg: Yes.

[09:41] Jessica: That is very peculiar language.

[09:43] Meg: I agree.

[09:45] Jessica: To what does he refer, do you think? A person.

[09:50] Meg: It's so strange, right?

[09:52] Jessica: It's very.

[09:53] Meg: But I do think it speaks to how his supporters, who. I don't think anyone was particularly fond of him, but they appreciated his work so much that they compartmentalized what he did as an oops.

[10:10] Jessica: Well, that's the ultimate in separating the artist from the art. Crazy, but broke. I'm really confounded.

[10:21] Meg: Yeah. This was in a New Yorker article in 2015, and the interviewer did not ask him to elaborate on what he meant by something. Broke something.

[10:34] Jessica: Maybe what he broke was the tacit agreement about, like, don't ask what the artist is like. Like, he put it all too much out on the front lawn that he was a piece of shit.

[10:46] Meg: It's also interesting that Dia, including, I assume Philippe, didn't expect to have protests, so they were somewhat surprised when.

[10:57] Jessica: How did you.

[10:58] Meg: I mean, doesn't that people showed up and said, no, we're paying attention.

[11:04] Jessica: We're like, oh, with that little inconvenient murder, no one remembers that anymore. And this is pre. Me too. It's understandable that the care and attention given to that issue is zilch.

[11:20] Meg: Yeah. I think we're just now kind of realizing how little attention that issue.

[11:26] Jessica: Well, you might want to know what the background is of the person whose work you're celebrating.

[11:31] Meg: Well, what he's saying is we all know. We just don't really care.

[11:37] Jessica: Yeah.

[11:37] Meg: And that's actually.

[11:41] Jessica: That's the story that is it.

[11:43] Meg: F them Part two of my story. When we last heard from Andrew Crispo, he had been seen dining out on the Upper east side, despite orchestrating the murder of Igol Dag Vesty in 1985 and the kidnapping and torture of bartender Mark Leslie. As a refresher, this is again going back to our episode 14, Mr. Crispo's Dark An Escape from New York, which we published May 17, 2022.

[12:20] Jessica: We've been doing this a long time.

[12:21] Meg: That's true. So as a refresher, he was sent to prison for tax evasion in 1986, not for any of the murder stuff, Murder Most Foul, but rather because of money. And he was released three years later. And then he collected $8.6 million in 1991 after his Southampton home blew up. Now, do you remember how I couldn't find out much about him after that?

[12:51] Jessica: Yes.

[12:52] Meg: How it looked like the Internet had been scrubbed. Articles, yes, certainly do written about him in the 80s and since.

[12:59] Jessica: Indeed.

[13:01] Meg: It was weird. His Wikipedia page, like three bullet points.

[13:05] Jessica: Yep.

[13:05] Meg: Weird.

[13:07] Jessica: Truly.

[13:07] Meg: Well, the New York Times has more resources than I do and just this week they filled in a bunch of holes. His obituary basically said, oh yeah, we have all of that information and fasten your seatbelts.

[13:26] Jessica: So Crispo is dead?

[13:28] Meg: Very much so, yes, he is. Where did Crispo go in the early 90s? Because he sort of dropped off the face of the earth as far as like, you know, I mean, he'd been spotted in New York, but that was all you could find out about him right online. Well, he went to Charleston, South Carolina, where he tried to get back into the gallery biz, but then he declared bankruptcy in 1996. He was able to retrieve most of his art that was seized by the IRS and sold it off to the tune of $14 million.

[14:02] Jessica: How on earth do you get something back from the irs? This guy, they don't give anything back.

[14:08] Meg: He knew how to work a loophole, obviously. He just keeps getting out of messes and somehow getting more money. It's really notable. And some of that money he used to scrub the Internet, which is interesting. But anyway, okay. And with that $14 million, he planned to open the largest sculpture gallery in the world in the meatpacking district, his old haunts.

[14:37] Jessica: That's like a giant fuck you.

[14:40] Meg: In 1998, he told the Times, I do think that I am on the road to a great success and I don't think that I will let anyone be disappointed.

[14:51] Jessica: Also weird phrasing.

[14:53] Meg: Very. But just as the gallery was set to open, Andrew got himself in hot water again.

[14:59] Jessica: I was gonna say. Did it explode?

[15:02] Meg: No. The law firm in charge of dispensing him money during his bankruptcy was late getting him a two thousand dollar check. So he told the lawyer in charge of his case that he had pictures of her 4 year old daughter at a playground, that he knew where she lived, and that he could kidnap her child. He didn't get that check pronto.

[15:25] Jessica: That is an escalation. That is wackadoodle.

[15:29] Meg: And by the way, if he had just cooled his jets for a heartbeat, he would have gotten tons more money. But he let his ire get ahead of him and threatened a child of a lawyer who's.

[15:46] Jessica: Who's looking after you for $2,000. I mean, that's what I was gonna say next. Like, I mean, I know if you're desperate, you're desperate, but $2,000? No.

[15:56] Meg: He had millions coming to him.

[15:58] Jessica: Well, there's the illness talking. Mm.

[16:02] Meg: So he was arrested for this, and he was not even let out on bond this time. He could not wiggle his way out. The judge in the case said, quote, the defendant certainly has had a checkered history up to this point, and there is a sufficient threat of irrational. Crispo was convicted of attempted kidnapping and sentenced to seven years. He was released in 2005 back in New York.

[16:30] Jessica: So how many years did he serve?

[16:32] Meg: 98.

[16:34] Jessica: Oh, so seven years.

[16:35] Meg: He did seven years. He did it.

[16:36] Jessica: Wow.

[16:37] Meg: Back in New York, he bought a co op in Fort Greene and planned to open another gallery, but ended up facing bankruptcy again in 2017. He took out loans using his co op as collateral. He then defaulted on the loans and lost his co op, but he refused to leave the apartment. His neighbors hated him. He took drugs and threw sex parties and wandered around the building naked.

[17:12] Jessica: So awful.

[17:14] Meg: Hold on a second.

[17:16] Jessica: I'm genuinely gripping the arms of my chair.

[17:18] Meg: Once he pooped in the hallway.

[17:20] Jessica: No, no, he didn't.

[17:22] Meg: He did.

[17:23] Jessica: He just pooped in the hallway.

[17:26] Meg: In the hallway of his co op. He was going to be evicted finally in March 2020. Okay, so, you know, his sex party

[17:41] Jessica: was so well attended, the bathroom was being used. He couldn't leave.

[17:44] Meg: So he's going to be evicted.

[17:45] Jessica: Yes. Okay.

[17:47] Meg: March 2020. Why wouldn't he be evicted in March 2020?

[17:52] Jessica: Because of COVID Exactly.

[17:55] Meg: And so that bought him a couple more years. And once the moratorium on evictions was lifted in 2022, he claimed that he had suffered from hypertension, heart disease, and depression. Too sick to be evicted. Right. In September 2023, the judge said, too bad for you. You're evicted. Crispo appealed, and then he died in February. But the world did not find out about his death until two days ago, when his obituary in the Times was printed. A couple more fascinating things that came to light in his obituary. Possibly the most fascinating obituary I've ever red. But maybe that's because I'm a Crispo person. But, like.

[18:43] Jessica: Well, I think when someone is deeply and truly nutsy. Cuckoo. Ca. Choochoo. There's gonna be something juicy.

[18:50] Meg: And that it was also silenced for so long.

[18:54] Jessica: Yes, that is. And now it's very weird. Weird fact.

[18:57] Meg: All those articles are now accessible that I couldn't find when we first did this story.

[19:03] Jessica: Okay, so dish.

[19:05] Meg: He was abandoned by his parents in an orphanage soon after he was born.

[19:10] Jessica: Why was he trying to set up a gallery in his room? And his parents weren't into it.

[19:22] Meg: He worked as a prostitute in his late teens in Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia. Tracks.

[19:31] Jessica: Yeah, it doesn't sound.

[19:34] Meg: He didn't have the best youth.

[19:39] Jessica: You know, normally when I laugh at things like this, you silence me. But he's so. He's so loathsome that we can have a good. A good chuckle.

[19:49] Meg: Gross.

[19:50] Jessica: Yeah, well, teen pronouns.

[19:52] Meg: And terrifying. And terrifying. Like he.

[19:54] Jessica: He.

[19:55] Meg: Whatever trauma he went through as a child, he turned around tenfold on Everybody else. Henry McKenney was a wealthy art patron and chairman of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. And he's the one who taught Crispo all he needed to know about art. Obviously, he was skilled because he became very good at what he did. Once he came to New York and started making his way up the art world food chain, he didn't exactly have a clean record. There were whispers about him fudging provenance and that he would quote one price to the artist and a higher price to the buyer and pocket the difference.

[20:38] Jessica: A classic.

[20:39] Meg: One employee said, quote, it was a horror show. I was convinced that Andrew was never going to make it to the following month, which is in, you know, then later in his life. I mean, how many bankruptcies do we know? About three or four.

[20:56] Jessica: Yes.

[20:57] Meg: I mean, that's like a pattern. And that he's getting millions of dollars and then filing for bankruptcy. That's a lot of spending. He was in and out of court for all kinds of civil cases. And who did he turn to when his lawsuits mounted in the 80s? Who would he turn to, do you think? We've also done a story about this person, Roy Cohn.

[21:27] Jessica: Oh, for God's sakes. Roy Cohn. Yeah. Ugh.

[21:32] Meg: I mean, of course they found each other.

[21:34] Jessica: You know what? You're absolutely right. Yes. But. Ugh. That. That's just gross. You're taking me back to a very unpleasant thought. Go ahead. Sorry.

[21:45] Meg: So I saw my friend Michael this week, who, as you know, is a devoted bff.

[21:51] Jessica: I think he's a musician Michael.

[21:52] Meg: Yeah, a musician Michael. And he's rarely behind in listening. Sometimes, bless his heart, a couple weeks. But really, he always catches up. Anyway, I told him what I was planning this week, that I was calling it asshole update for my next story.

[22:08] Jessica: That is pithy. I love it.

[22:11] Meg: And he said he was so relieved that at least two of the horrible men we talk about can't come after us because he's been a little nervous that they will.

[22:20] Jessica: Well, now I am, too. Thanks, Megan. Michael, are we in D? Are we in danger?

[22:27] Meg: No, no, we'll be fine. But at least, you know, two of them.

[22:30] Jessica: Yes, two of them down.

[22:31] Meg: Andrew Crispo and Carl Andre no longer walk amongst us.

[22:36] Jessica: You know that I love diagnosing people as sociopaths and psychopaths. It's my favorite. And there is a business book. I forgot the title while find it, but it's basically how to succeed in business by thinking like a sociopath.

[22:52] Meg: Oh, I believe that.

[22:54] Jessica: And when you're talking about Crispo just sort of, you know, barreling through all of these situations and sort of not paying his bills.

[23:04] Meg: Yeah, whatever.

[23:05] Jessica: Because it doesn't matter. Like he's gonna do what he's gonna do and that's it. I just kept thinking like, yeah, that's the sociopath behavior where there's no. It's. How do I. How am I getting ahead from point A to point B? And that's it. Like there is no consideration of anything else. I mean, murder aside, multiple bankruptcies, but still finding ways to con people and get cash, That's a classic.

[23:36] Meg: Let's just. Just throw out a couple of names here. Rory Cohn is a good example. We've got Andrew Crispo and yes, Trump, to a certain degree, whatever. These people are not happy people. They may be successful, and I'm putting that in quotes by some people's estimation, but they strike me as like the most miserable people on the planet.

[24:00] Jessica: Well, self loathing drips from all of them. And in fact, you know, is now, from what I read, very much part of the public narrative of their lives. You bring up an interesting point. And I was having a conversation with a newish friend of mine. We were talking about, are you making new friends?

[24:22] Meg: I'm sorry, are you doing that?

[24:25] Jessica: It's a friend of a friend who I just started chatting with. She's. I'm not cheating on you. I swear to God, I'm not cheating on you. I get worried that you'll worry. And here we are now it's out in the open, we're talking about it. It's horrible.

[24:36] Meg: I'll talk about it real quick.

[24:38] Jessica: Anyway, she's a really, really interesting woman. And we were talking about the definition of success. As times have changed, the definition of success has really been re examined. And people are more prone to say what they. Their standards of success are. You know, instead of it just being, oh, I'm, you know, racking up more and more money and influence or belongings or whatever, that it's all tied to money, which was very 80s precisely. And I mean and think about when. What's a great portmanteau of Trump and Voldemort? Volda. Trump. Trump. Amort. Trump. Amort. He whose name shall not be spoken. But, you know, he is an emblem, a symbol of the go go 80s, right? Because that's the perfect standard of excess. And gold plated. I mean, I just love our whole podcast about, like, that's just tacky. It's terrific. What a tacky bastard. But anyway, what. What is interesting to me about all of this is that the idea of success is shifting. And these guys who you're talking about who are miserable, you know, they are successful in this very male, very outdated way of measuring success. And it. That measure of success is completely externalized. There's no. It's. There's no emotional reward that has, like, a purity to it. It's entirely venal. It's venal. That's what it is. And if. If that's what scratches the itch for you, it's not a good sign about where you are in your emotional development when you say they're miserable. They are all the perfect example of when your soul is bankrupt, you know, when you are so traumatized or so broken or so mentally ill or whatever the fuck it is, that the only measure of success is this outward success. And certainly Crispo and Cohn being literally and figuratively, possibly in bed together is. Yeah. I mean, like, sticks to, like, they understand each other's and that they tortured themselves.

[27:02] Meg: Crap. They also had to torture other people.

[27:07] Jessica: And we know people like that personally.

[27:09] Meg: Do we?

[27:10] Jessica: Yes, we do. We'll talk about it offline. Okay.

[27:13] Meg: Oh, my God. Now I'm scared.

[27:15] Jessica: So, yeah, so, yeah, these people are. They're. They're. As our dear friend Ali would say, they're shitbirds. Well, unsurprisingly, Meg, you and I were thinking similarly today with our podcast.

[27:41] Meg: Oh, in what way?

[27:43] Jessica: I, too, am revisiting something.

[27:45] Meg: Oh.

[27:46] Jessica: But I'm not revisiting the specific incident thematically. I am revisiting the Ray's Pizza spy versus Spy litigation situation.

[28:00] Meg: Okay, and what episode is that?

[28:03] Jessica: Episode 93 from February 20th, titled Guest Pass. And you can call me Ray.

[28:10] Meg: Excellent.

[28:11] Jessica: Yes. So. So one of the things about New York City, as I would assume with most major metropolitan areas, but New York City, I think, really takes the cake for being litigious. People just love a lawsuit here. So bagels are very meaningful to New Yorkers. And interestingly, there's not a lot of controversy with other cities the way that there was with, like, pizza Pizza, you know, deep dish. Our dear friend, BFF of the podcast, Alex, sent me Jon Stewart's rant about how Chicago pizza is not pizza. And it is one of the funniest. And yet every word is true. Things I have seen. There isn't a similar thing for bagels. But I'll tell you when I. I don't know if I've told. I don't think I've told the story on the podcast before, but, you know, you come from New York and which bagel shop you get them from? Oh, yeah, you know, they're all a little different. And do you like this? Do you want it drier? Do you want it moister? Do you want it bigger? Do you like all of that? Stuff matters, Right? So you don't know what is of great importance to you, first off, when you're young, when it's just something that's part of the normal fabric of your life, like it's just a fact. Right. So when I went to Kenyon, so there I was in Ohio. Oh, yeah.

[29:38] Meg: Bagel free.

[29:39] Jessica: It was a dark time. Well, interestingly, it was when people in the United States, outside of major metropolitan areas on the coasts were waking up to bagels. And if you recall, Lender's bagels were around for a long time.

[29:56] Meg: But you could get these in the grocery store, right? Kind of like Thomas's English muffins.

[30:01] Jessica: Exactly. And they were bagel. Ish. Ish.

[30:04] Meg: Yeah.

[30:05] Jessica: But they weren't bagels.

[30:06] Meg: The texture was wrong. It just.

[30:09] Jessica: Yes, a good bagel is firm, chewy, with a crispy outside. Fresh and fresh. You can't have like the whole freeze it. And toasted bagels, by the way, are an abomination. That. That happened once bagels started. Like the idea of toast, like, let's see what you do if it's stale and dying. Like, you don't.

[30:30] Meg: I always used to order a toasted bagel with cream cheese at double duck on 90 seconds.

[30:37] Jessica: And I will tell you why that's an abomination, okay? Because what happens when you take a hot toasted item and you put cream cheese on it?

[30:48] Meg: It gets all melty, which is wrong.

[31:01] Jessica: No, the cream cheese has to maintain its integrity because then when you put the nova on it, they're all different layers and different tastes that you're experiencing on top of the bagel.

[31:10] Meg: So I would never toast my bagel if I was having salmon and capers and red onion.

[31:16] Jessica: Yes, but you're at least, you know, a New Yorker. You know that. But toasting is Is. Is. So what are you gonna do if

[31:26] Meg: you wanna put butter on your bagel?

[31:29] Jessica: You get a fresh bagel that's still a little warm. You have thinly sliced softened butter or just softened butter that can just sort of smear onto it. Yes. This whole thing also with keeping butter in the refrigerator as a very American thing, is like, Jo puts the butter

[31:46] Meg: outside the fridge, and I'm like, why is it there? It's getting all mushy.

[31:50] Jessica: That's the point. Because then you could put it on something.

[31:54] Meg: He read something somewhere. And we used to not do this.

[31:57] Jessica: We give him credit because European folk always think that we're nuts because of our refrigeration obsession. And butter. No, you know what? A butter keep. This is a whole digression. Okay, hold on.

[32:12] Meg: I apologize.

[32:13] Jessica: No, no, no, no, no. Believe me, this is something that I could go on about for an hour. So I'm self monitoring. So there I was in the middle of Ohio and Kenyon, at the time, really, the hub of life was the bookstore. And it was one of the first places that I had ever seen where there were couches in the bookstore to hang out. They had a little station where you could get coffee and a toaster oven so you could take a Lender's bagel, toast it. They had those little tubs of Philadelphia cream cheese. And there was a girl and our dear friend of the dear friend and friend of the podcast. Nick and I were sitting on this couch and we were like, friends with her, but she was also kind of horrible. And we were like, oh, she's from Texas and she's kind of. And she, you know, toasts her bagel, smears, whatever, on it, takes a big bite and turns to us as though commiserating with the New Yorkers and goes, mm, nice and soft, just like a bagel should be. We were like, that's it. You're dead to us. Not acceptable night friends. And to this day.

[33:31] Meg: Did you attack her on the spot or made an internal decision?

[33:35] Jessica: No. We snidely rolled our eyes at one another indicating no. We were horrified. And to this day, I promise you that when we have our next party, you go up to him and you say, lender's bagel. Don't even say Lender's. Say this bagel is so nice and soft, he will drop to the floor. Not even nice and soft, just like a bagel should be, right? So this is how much people care, right? So growing up, Sunday brunch was always bagels and fish appetizing. You Know all of that stuff. Whitefish salad, smoked salmon, baked salmon, sable, what have you. Cream cheese, scallion, cream cheese, a whole thing.

[34:24] Meg: Yum.

[34:25] Jessica: So good. We would get this at Barney Greengrass on the west side. You would also get your bagels there. There's another major bagel emporium, purveyor of bagels in New York City, which is H and H bagels. This is true. Which has been around as long as I know of bagels. Right. And you. You know this as well, that H and H is.

[34:49] Meg: Yes, I do.

[34:50] Jessica: And there's one on the east side and there's one on the west side. Now here I was thinking that H and H is like Herschel and, you know, Hebrew. I don't know, like, whatever. Turns out, not so much. It's a Puerto Rican baker and his friend. Two guys who had been bakers and then came to New York, learned how to make bagels and opened up the west side. H and H bagels.

[35:23] Meg: Fascinating.

[35:24] Jessica: Yes. So you know that old advertisement for Levy's Jewish rye? You don't have to be Jewish to like Levies.

[35:31] Meg: Yes, I do.

[35:32] Jessica: Well, you don't have to be Jewish to make bagels. You also don't have to be Jewish to make the best fish. Appetizing stuff. Because I think I've mentioned this before. One of the best places in New York, Jewish appetizer, Chinese run. Because they're the guys who used to run the counter at Sabor's, and then in the late 70s, they opened there.

[35:55] Meg: You're telling me that there's a place to get all the fish?

[35:58] Jessica: Yes. So it's called Sables, and it's where you get all of the fish and the salad. Yes. For, like, since the 70s. Because they were trained at Zabars.

[36:09] Meg: Okay.

[36:09] Jessica: So this is a similar kind of New York melting pot. You know what's good?

[36:16] Meg: You know, you can.

[36:17] Jessica: Exactly. A beautiful mosaic. So the people who started them started H and H. Helmer Toro, Puerto Rican baker, and his friend Hector Hernandez, in the early 70s. I know. In the early 70s, they had one company together using one recipe, and they then expanded to Second Avenue on the east side. But in 1985, the partnership faced bankruptcy. Why? I don't know why. All I know is that it did. They were clearly not running the business. Well, they expanded. Who knows what. So the two stores Split up, and Mr. Toro, the original one, bought back the west side store out of bankruptcy for around half a million dollars.

[37:18] Meg: Okay.

[37:19] Jessica: And then opened the factory for H and h Bagels on 12th Avenue and 46th Street. Along the way, Mr. Hernandez was somehow left out.

[37:30] Meg: Oh, is he mad?

[37:32] Jessica: Worse. It's a tragic tale. He became a livery cab driver, so

[37:39] Meg: they must have had a falling out.

[37:40] Jessica: Working seven days a week just to make ends meet. And then was killed in a hit and run in 1996.

[37:48] Meg: Oh, that's horrible.

[37:50] Jessica: Horrible story. So what was to become of the east side? Well, it was purchased for a mere $125,000 by a new person on the scene named Perry Alexiou, a New York resident who had other local restaurants.

[38:10] Meg: Alexiou. Is that Greek?

[38:13] Jessica: I believe, yes. When he opens the store, the conflict begins. Who's making the better bagel? Who's using the name? They both are using the name. HH&H&H East. Mr. Toro says you're not allowed to use the name. He says, I'm not using the name. It's H and H East. And furthermore, and this is my favorite thing, I'm now reading from the New York Times. So there's a civil case to see who has the trademark. The case appeared before a federal civil court judge in January of 96. In it, Diane Alexiou, wife of, says, this is very painful for us. We have the more upscale customer, and it is a source of shame and embarrassment to them. Ooh. We have marble floors. We're more elegant. And we sell Italian cookies and muffins and gourmet coffee. They're just basically bagels. And lately their factory is producing frozen lenders style bagels. Well, worst insult. So she threw down. But I read that passage and I started laughing so hard because that's. That's my east side. H and H. Okay. That. That is.

[39:41] Meg: Diane would have gotten along.

[39:43] Jessica: Diane. Diane, you know, she's not really characterizing this accurately. It is not a luxury emporium.

[39:54] Meg: Oh.

[39:54] Jessica: Because you've been there 8 million times and I was like, marble floors. No, I'm thinking pastry, Very high end linoleum in a black and white check. All right. And yes, there are some, you know, like, Italian bakery cookies. But no one goes there for the Italian cookies. That's like, oh, yeah, I need something sweet to go to this brunch with. I forgot. I guess I'll take these. It's not the draw at H and H Bagels East. That's where I'm going to get my Italian cookies. No, Diane, no.

[40:34] Meg: But the bagels were good.

[40:35] Jessica: Bagels were exactly the same.

[40:36] Meg: Okay.

[40:37] Jessica: As the ones on the west side. As they always had been. Precisely. Eric Weinstein, the lawyer for Mr. Toro on the west side said simply that the Second Avenue store is imitating the west side's marketing logo and slogan. He says, quote, we're the top rate. And I love we like when lawyers over identify with their client. It's also kind of hilarious. We're the top rated bagel in the bagel capital of the world. They're getting a free ride riding on our coattails, mind you, in the brains of every New Yorker. Unlike with the Rays scenario where everyone knew these are different stores. And which one are you going to. Cause the pizzas. There is no difference between these two, zero and the.

[41:30] Meg: The Also I'd be surprised if they were taking.

[41:32] Jessica: They're not taking.

[41:33] Meg: Cause it's a local customers from each other. I'm not going to go to the west side if I'm on the east side. East siders are going to get their bagels. Westsiders are going to get their bagels. Everyone gets a bagel.

[41:46] Jessica: And we haven't even started to talk about what the people downtown do. I mean, they have Russ and daughters and they also have Essa bagels.

[41:53] Meg: Well, that's my local place and we're

[41:55] Jessica: going to talk about Essa in just a moment. All right. So there are no coattails to ride. Mr. Weinstein, this is is utter horseshit. And Ed Levine, the author of New York Eats More A Guidebook for Noshers, he weighs in on the HH bagels and he says the west side bagels aren't very good. They're too sweet, almost cakey, with absolutely no crunch. Lies. And the Second Avenue H& H, he continued, struck me as totally generic with even less taste than the West. People love H and H bagels because, number one, they're big bagel elephantitis.

[42:38] Meg: Oh, yeah.

[42:39] Jessica: And on the west side at least, they're invariably hot, which makes up for a multitude of sins. Now, I would just like to have a quick aside again about elephantitis and how a good bagel is in the eye of the beholder. There is no bagel in New York bigger than an Essa bagel. They are practically balls of dough. You know this because there's no hole in the middle. There's like a dent. Like it's, it's.

[43:10] Meg: I ordered them cut in half or in quartered. Really? Because one big one is ridiculous.

[43:17] Jessica: You can't eat if you eat an Essa bagel.

[43:19] Meg: No, I eat a quarter of one.

[43:21] Jessica: Yes. If one ate an entire Essa bagel and they ate again the same day, they would run into some trouble. It Would not be a good time. Would be had by none. You know, a bagel is not something that's going to keep you regular. Let's just start with that. Most Jewish cuisine is really intended to keep you sated. I mean, we've talked about Sammy's Romanian, which could actually put you in the hospital. So we're gonna leave that.

[43:56] Meg: Last I heard, they're still coming back, which we've gotta keep an eye on that.

[44:00] Jessica: I know we have to keep an eye on that. So we can go and pour chicken fat directly from a container onto our food. But. Yeah. So bagels, they'll creep up on you. You know what? It's the exact opposite of the Chinese food myth of you eat it and then you're hungry 20 minutes later and you eat an Essa bagel, and you're really just gonna be like, no, I'm good. No, no, Just a cup of coffee and a laxative. I'm fine. There's not as much information about the ins and outs of the H and H litigation. Just that they threw themselves into it wholeheartedly. The only postscript that I can give at this moment is that both outposts are still alive and well, branded, exact as they were from 1985 to 1996 when this article and the other research that I did. This article is from the Times. Research that I've done was. Was recorded. And I'm feeling like nothing happened and that the Alexios got over themselves in their marble floors. Just as a quick aside, this was not the only litigation in the world of Jewish cuisine that was happening in 1985. Guess what else happened?

[45:18] Meg: Tell me.

[45:19] Jessica: Zabars. Zabar's.

[45:21] Meg: Who was suing Zabars?

[45:23] Jessica: There was no suit, but the three original founding owners, two of them are Zabar, were Zabar's folk. The another one was not. And they wanted to sell the business. But they had made a rather stupid agreement that everything had to be done. All decisions about how to dispose of the business had to be mutual. They had to be. They had to have consensus.

[45:48] Meg: Oh, with three people.

[45:50] Jessica: Exactly. So there was a lot of a kerfuffle. One of them wanted to retire, and the other two were not interested in buying him out or retiring or. And so they were not going to buy him out and they were not going to sell the business. So they were in a real life bind. Now, do you remember in New York City, David's cookies? Of course, David Lederman. He was a frontrunner for them to sell the whole business to when they were considering this because he had made chocolate chip cookies a thing across America and had started the whole, you know, like, chains, gourmet chocolate chip extravaganza. So that did not happen. And Zabar stayed in the. Zabar's family.

[46:44] Meg: I'm very grateful for Zabar's personally.

[46:47] Jessica: Well, so was Jill. So was Jill Clayberg.

[46:50] Meg: And have around when you need it.

[46:52] Jessica: Yes.

[46:52] Meg: What does she have to say?

[46:53] Jessica: Well, she was in. In a New York Times article that I was reading about all of this.

[46:56] Meg: She said this in the 80s.

[46:57] Jessica: She was. Yes. And she was. She was actually purchasing a tea kettle. And while she was being interviewed, she's like, yeah, they can't leave. This is the worst thing that ever happened to New York. But marvelously crabby about the entire thing. But the way that in 1985, there was this constant reporting about what was happening with Zabars. It was like. Do you remember the show Moonlighting? Of course it was like that. That entire TV show was the biggest protracted will they or won't they romance that has ever been on tv.

[47:34] Meg: Happy to say, for many years. They couldn't. It couldn't be streamed, I think, because of music rights. Somehow they figured it all out. And you can watch Moonlighting.

[47:46] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[47:49] Meg: That's my gift to you.

[47:50] Jessica: Thank you. But that whole premise. And in fact, the show finally jumped the shark when they did actually get together. And then they tried to roll it back in some weird way. But that's sort of how I see this Zabars thing. Cause it went on for ages. Will they or won't they? The Upper west side version of Moonlighting. And in the end, Zabar stayed, even

[48:14] Meg: though there are tons of them all over the city.

[48:17] Jessica: Zabars.

[48:18] Meg: There's one on the east side.

[48:20] Jessica: Oh, you're thinking of Eli's. So Eli Zabar, one of the scions of the original Zabars, started opening these, like, gourmet groceries. Yes, it's Eli. Eli Zabar.

[48:35] Meg: And that's a different organization.

[48:37] Jessica: Yeah. It is not the same thing as when you go to Zabar's, which is what they sell is entirely different. Eli Zabar started with the vinegar factory on the Upper east side. His whole thing is, I'm gonna charge you $400 for an egg salad sandwich. And I love that some people do. They make some very nice things. But, like, I will never forget, there's a. On Madison Avenue, there's an Eli's where truly, like, in the 90s. In the 90s, a chicken salad sandwich was $25, and it was like, are you doing this to take the piss or are you doing this, you know, like. Cause you can't.

[49:26] Meg: Like, so this is the son of the original Zabar's People. And the original Zabar's people is only one organization or one storefront on the west side.

[49:37] Jessica: I mean, look, Eli's might be a subsidiary company of Zavar's, but what I really mean is that they are. They do not sell or present in the same way.

[49:48] Meg: Okay.

[49:49] Jessica: And that the original Zabars of the west side, which is just Zabars as kitchen supplies food, Jewish food and coffee and that sort of thing, and some gourmet packaged foods. And they were one of the first company, first places in New York to really promote high end packaged. Right. And which, by the way, I believe is in 1983, they started competing with Macy's, of all places. Remember how we talked about this? Bloomingdale's had the food halls. Macy's was trying to do the same thing. And they got into the beluga Caviar wars of 1983, trying to cut the price on each other until I think it was an ounce of beluga wound up being like, Zabar's won, I guess, if you can call it winning by undercutting Macy's down to, I think, $119. The original price was like 150, so they won that round. So you can find Zabar's at 2245 Broadway on the corner of. Not 79th, 80th Street.

[51:10] Meg: On 80th and Broadway.

[51:12] Jessica: Yes. And by the way, Macy's also decided to go toe to toe with Zabar's over chocolate. And lost on that one as well. So figure out where you like bagels and don't get into an argument because really everyone is right.

[51:36] Meg: All right, the tie in Queen Jessica

[51:39] Jessica: says, okay, obituaries, which is death and, you know, awake. A viewing Shiva and Zabar's H and H. Because that's what you serve at one of those things. Ooh, Get a nice platter made at Zabar's for your next funereal occasion. All right, that's my tie in.

[52:02] Meg: That's good. I like that.

[52:03] Jessica: That's all I got. That.