[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. Where we still live and where we

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

[00:33] Jessica: I do pop culture.

[00:34] Meg: And we just had our party.

[00:35] Jessica: We had a party.

[00:37] Meg: It was really fun.

[00:38] Jessica: It was so. It was lovely, actually. It was so lovely to see our BFFs there and some new friends. Yes. I was very, very happy that when we were setting up the swag that you. You, my friend, have created, made a couple of people at the bar want to come over and, you know, and get the. The lowdown on what we were doing. So that's excellent branding.

[01:08] Meg: So, yeah, we have.

[01:09] Jessica: Proud of us. But I'm proud of you because you're always the person who takes the. The lead on that, and I am grateful and I thank you.

[01:16] Meg: Well, I do enjoy merch.

[01:17] Jessica: I know you do.

[01:18] Meg: I like stuff. I like cute little things.

[01:20] Jessica: Wait. I have a question.

[01:22] Meg: You're going to make a distinction between swag and merch.

[01:24] Jessica: I want to ask you if I'm right.

[01:26] Meg: I. I'm. I have a feeling I know what you're going to say, and I'm going to say in advance. I think you're right. But go ahead and say it.

[01:32] Jessica: Oh, that. That swag is free and merch is pay.

[01:35] Meg: I think you're right. Yeah. Yeah. And we haven't charged anything for anything, so so far it's just been swag, which is fun.

[01:42] Jessica: And what I think is so awesome about it, Meg, again, I'm just going to, you know, know, throw a little shine on you is that the swag seems to be so popular that some of it, I think, will migrate into merch. And so soon enough on our website, there will be things for our beloved listeners to pick up at a very reasonable price. So you can be part of the Desperately Seeking 80s army, like the KISS army or the DS 80s Army.

[02:12] Meg: You know what Barbara Goodwin calls us?

[02:14] Jessica: What?

[02:15] Meg: Desperados.

[02:17] Jessica: I love Barbara Goodwin, by the way.

[02:19] Meg: Amazing.

[02:20] Jessica: She. She's the most. She might be the most rock and roll person who was there.

[02:25] Meg: Yeah. When she walked in, I was like, oh, yes. Now she's all is good with the world.

[02:31] Jessica: She is so awesome. I got to sit and talk with her before, really the lion's share the people who were coming arrived the. The stories and she was a naughty, naughty girl.

[02:45] Meg: Indeed she was.

[02:46] Jessica: She was a naughty. As our Friend Ale would say, what a naughty chocolate.

[02:51] Meg: And she has been the source of many a good story for me. Like, she just goes, oh, you gotta tell the story about this thing. Have you looked up that thing? And then there's this other thing. I'm like, oh, my God, yes. I've got stories for weeks and weeks.

[03:05] Jessica: Really?

[03:05] Meg: Yes.

[03:06] Jessica: Well, that would be helpful if you could throw some of them over here. This is pure ingenuity over here. Well, she is a peach, and it was really lovely having her with us.

[03:18] Meg: Oh, and speaking of good stories, 1980s now, the podcast. Isn't it amazing?

[03:25] Jessica: It's fabulous. And, you know, we're talking about community, and we have our own community and they have theirs, and they are so kind that the podcasters of 1980s now reached out to us, and now we're. We're. We're pals, which I love.

[03:44] Meg: They do so much about pop culture, so it's very much in your wheelhouse. Their. Their version of true crime. I. I was listening to one of them today that was about Donkey Kong. Like the guy who cheated on Donkey Kong. I'm like, oh, gosh, my true crime stories are a little bloodier than that.

[04:03] Jessica: Yes. But what I like about them, and for our listeners, you know, one of the things that they bring to the table that is different from us is, first off, it's two dudes and a woman.

[04:15] Meg: Yes.

[04:16] Jessica: They sort of look at what's going on right now.

[04:19] Meg: Exactly.

[04:20] Jessica: And then they look back at how the 80s brought it about.

[04:25] Meg: Exactly.

[04:26] Jessica: So we are looking at things through inverted lenses.

[04:30] Meg: And I am convinced, I think their premise is right, that so much of what's happening right now, actually the seeds were planted in the 80s because so much about pop culture and technology, like, started to blossom then, and we're kind of like reaping the. I think mostly the benefits of all that now.

[04:52] Jessica: Certainly the. The stone was thrown into the pond in the 80s, and the ripples are reaching the shore now. I think. I think you're absolutely right. I mean, that was a little poetic.

[05:02] Meg: But, you know, and I think certainly anyone who enjoys our podcast would very much enjoy it because, yeah, we're sort of working on the same prem is just approaching it a little bit differently. And they have tons of facts.

[05:14] Jessica: Are you making a slam on me about my fact checking?

[05:17] Meg: Oh, not at all.

[05:18] Jessica: I felt exposed just now.

[05:22] Meg: I'm just impressed with their facts. But, yes, you can find it on Apple podcasts and probably everywhere that you find your podcast. But it's 1980s now. Is the Name of it. Check it out.

[05:35] Jessica: Yeah.

[05:46] Meg: We have discussed our brothers frequently on this podcast with great affection. I know. And so, I mean, my, my engagement question is kind of like, what's up with John? Like, is he cool these days? I mean, Toby's pretty. Things are going well with Toby. I don't want to. Like, he's kind of a private person, but yeah, personally and professionally, everything's going well. And I just wish I saw him more often, but he lives in California.

[06:10] Jessica: Well, John and I speak with a regularity that I think would seem dysfunctionally close to some people. It's like, I had a thought. Let me tell you.

[06:23] Meg: I love it.

[06:24] Jessica: But you're gonna be able to ask him all of the questions you like at Passover.

[06:30] Meg: We get John for Passover.

[06:32] Jessica: We get John for Passover. So he's going to be making a glorious appearance descending on New York City from the Boston area.

[06:42] Meg: Right. And you have to tell me what I should bring for Passover. Unless you've already decided.

[06:46] Jessica: Well, no, it's, it's. I have some thoughts, but I'm gonna tell you the menu because you're a very good menu builder. And they're like, you know, they're the Passover classics. Some of which are great, some of which are less great. But they have to be there. Like. But I have some thoughts. So we'll, we'll discuss amongst ourselves, but I'm making that kick ass brisket again. That is a brisket.

[07:06] Meg: I would love to cook. I would like to make something, but I would also have to shout out Butterfields which is expanded their Lexington.

[07:15] Jessica: I don't require you to cook. It's the showing up with food that I don't have to cook.

[07:21] Meg: Yeah. Because I mean it is such a beautiful place. It just makes me so happy to go into that market.

[07:26] Jessica: They should start sponsoring us. This is a really nice.

[07:28] Meg: They really actually should.

[07:30] Jessica: Yes. You've plugged them several times. I think we need to reach out to them for free. At least give us some cookies, you bastards. Yeah. So however you want to come to Passover with food in hand. I just. Thank you. Woo hoo.

[07:46] Meg: Woo. Looking forward to it.

[07:48] Jessica: Okay, so that's my John answer.

[07:50] Meg: My story today. The sources are the Village Voice and the New York Times. Hang in there.

[07:56] Jessica: Where am I going?

[07:58] Meg: I'm just like, just. You know what I mean? Like the payoff doesn't happen. Just hang in there.

[08:05] Jessica: I'm totally hanging.

[08:06] Meg: Sometimes, Sometimes it's very clear early on. It's gonna, it's gonna happen.

[08:10] Jessica: Well, I like when you start with, like, there is a bloody handprint on the wall and then a head rolled out of the closet. So it's not one of those.

[08:18] Meg: It's not one of those. Okay, okay. In the summer of 1981, Father Gigante celebrated the dedication of Tiffany Plaza, a beautiful outdoor area with ornamental fountains of lion's heads made in Italy, a stage and 30 honey locust trees. The plaza is across the street from St. Athanasius Church, where Father Gigante was a parish priest, and is located in the Hunts Point section of the South Bronx. So not known for its beautiful places,

[08:55] Jessica: not known for its beautiful places or people who would be inclined to go to church.

[09:00] Meg: The Plaza had been built by the city with $830,000 in federal funds. And considering its location was a miracle. The white flight of the 1960s and 70s left whole swaths of the South Bronx eerily abandoned and an appealing destination for indigent squatters, drug addicts and the mentally ill. There was a surge in violent crime which made the South Bronx the murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault and arson capital of America.

[09:40] Jessica: That's a lot. They're overachieving. Exactly. They were really going for the brass ring on that.

[09:47] Meg: In the 70s, Mayor Beam tried to solve the problem by converting the whole neighborhood into Section 8 housing. So federal HUD funds, housing and Urban development funds, would subsidize the rent for low income households. So the city's going to get federal funds. And the way that works is tenants pay 30% of their income in rent and the federal government pays the difference. But the HUD rates for the apartments, they valued the apartment so low that really, like the slumlords, the people who own those buildings had very little incentive to keep the apartment safe and clean and functioning. So it was a great idea, but didn't really work out.

[10:38] Jessica: Not well planned.

[10:40] Meg: In fact, it became more profitable to simply burn them down for insurance. By 1980, the 41st Precinct was renamed Little House on the Prairie.

[10:52] Jessica: Damn, that is desolate.

[10:54] Meg: Because 2/3 of the 94,000 people who used to populate the precinct had fled. The 41st was one of the only buildings in the neighborhood that had not been abandoned or burnt out. So it was just standing there in the middle of a wasteland. Over 40% of the South Bronx was burned or abandoned between 1970 and 1980.

[11:21] Jessica: Can I do a quick interjection? Sure. Pop culture interjection. So one of our all time favorite movies fame. When Ralph Garci, played by Barry Miller, we see him going home for the first time. And he's picking his way across mountains of trash and rubble, around burned out buildings and just a desolate and terrifying wasteland. And that was filmed there?

[11:47] Meg: Yes. The city medical examiner said residents had only a 1 in 20 chance of dying of natural causes.

[11:56] Jessica: Not good.

[11:58] Meg: But Father Gigante had a plan. He used the HUD funds to found the Southeast Bronx Community Organization, which I will now call Sebco. Instead of paying absent slumlords the HUD money, SEBCO used the funds to construct and rehabilitate 1,100 federally subsidized apartments. So he just changed how that money was being used.

[12:29] Jessica: And why was he able to be a decision maker, a parish priest? How did he get that juice?

[12:34] Meg: I think that's going to become a little bit more apparent. But he was definitely a mover and a shaker and he knew everybody, Right?

[12:42] Jessica: He was connected.

[12:43] Meg: Yeah. In doing so, he provided jobs for South Bronx residents and Sebco became their landlord. Quote, what he's done for that area is fantastic. It's almost like a phoenix rising from the ashes, said the city's housing commissioner. Quote, if I had one wish, it would be to clone him, said the head of the South Bronx development office. Quote, he makes everything good. He has good ideas, inspiration, you know, inspiration. Said Jenny Aponte, a South Bronx resident. Father Gigante himself said, quote, I brought the neighborhood up from ashes to help the people in the South Bronx. There isn't one other organization that can take credit. If I weren't here, it would be all devastation. If I want to kiss myself or something else, I'll kiss myself. I pushed the government, I pushed the bureaucracy to bring back something that was dead.

[13:43] Jessica: I have two questions.

[13:44] Meg: Yes.

[13:44] Jessica: The first is. Or something else? And the second thing is, I mean, I don't know. And the other thing is, I may have missed this. Is Father Gigante in charge of Sebco?

[13:57] Meg: Yeah, he started it.

[13:59] Jessica: So he started it. But is he handling the funds? Am I jumping the gun?

[14:03] Meg: You're jumping the gun a little bit now. Father Gigante didn't grow up in the South Bronx. He and his four brothers, sons of immigrants from Naples. Their father was a watchmaker and their mother was a seamstress. Grew up in Greenwich Village.

[14:19] Jessica: Interesting.

[14:19] Meg: Yes. He got a basketball scholarship to Georgetown.

[14:23] Jessica: Also interesting.

[14:24] Meg: And was ordained in Yonkers. His first post was in Puerto Rico and that's where he learned Spanish. And then he was transferred to Saint Athanasius in the South Bronx. What was his secret to success? It's an advantage for Me to be a priest as well as the district leader. At first, there were those who felt it was wrong for a priest to be a politician. But then when I did a few favors for them, these same people changed their minds. Patronage is where it is.

[14:58] Jessica: So he's really a hustler.

[15:00] Meg: Yeah. Father G blended politics, religion and community activism. And he didn't hang out behind the pulpit. Once he organized a demonstration where 300 Hunts Point residents heaved furniture and wood from abandoned buildings and set fire to them in trash barrels. But marching up and down 163rd street chanting, no hot water, no heat. We're sick and tired of junkies. He carried a bat as he walked the streets to defend himself.

[15:31] Jessica: Wow.

[15:32] Meg: His headquarters, named the Bruckner Democratic Club, was in a storefront. And before clubhouse meetings, he would go to the back room to hear requests for favors.

[15:45] Jessica: Now it's the Mob.

[15:46] Meg: According to a Times article.

[15:48] Jessica: Sorry.

[15:49] Meg: According to a Times article, quote, someone's son was in trouble with the law. Did he know a lawyer? A nod and it was done. Someone needed a part time job, perhaps as a building super. He would make calls the next day. He was paid for his work for his community group, but he said most of his salary went to support his aging mother. So Father G. Holding down a few jobs, including having a seat on the city council in the early 70s. Quote, I didn't take a vow of poverty. People think that I don't get paid and that I'm a saint for doing it. That's their problem.

[16:27] Jessica: I actually kind of like that moxie now.

[16:31] Meg: He wasn't the only Gigante brother to make a name for himself. His older brother Vincent was no.

[16:40] Jessica: Oh, stop it. This is who they are. Oh, for God's sakes. Jesus.

[16:47] Meg: Oh, no. Listeners don't know yet.

[16:50] Jessica: Hold on. All right.

[16:54] Meg: So his older brother Vincent.

[16:56] Jessica: I can't. I was like, I need a minute to myself.

[17:00] Meg: Was a boxer when they were young. Greenwich Village youth rather than a basketball player. A different sport. While Father G was founding Sebco, Vincent, whom his mother named Cinzino, quietly became the boss of the Genovese crime family. Vinnie the Chin Gigante was tutored by Vito Genovese and acted as his enforcer before being awarded the Greenwich Village Crew

[17:30] Jessica: and a lifetime supply of bathrobes in which to shuffle around.

[17:34] Meg: Greenwich Village, which you're jumping ahead.

[17:37] Jessica: I'm sorry. It's just so exciting.

[17:40] Meg: After Vito's death of a heart attack in 1969, Benny Squint Lombardo became boss of the Genovese family. It was around this time that Vinnie the Chin got bribery charges dropped after his lawyers presented reports from psychiatrists that he was mentally unfit to stand trial. When Benny Squint stepped down as boss, Fat Tony Salerno was announced as his successor. But actually, Vinnie the Chin was the real boss of the Genoveses. Fat Tony was only used as a distraction.

[18:16] Jessica: Wait, what year did. Did Fat Tony ascend?

[18:20] Meg: Oh, Lordy, it's gonna be in the 70s.

[18:23] Jessica: Okay, so. So the Chin has. See, I thought that that was in his later years, but apparently that was

[18:30] Meg: all started it very early.

[18:32] Jessica: That's such an amazing long grift. That's a good one.

[18:36] Meg: Claiming to have an IQ of 69, Vinny the Chin, also known as the Daffy Don and the Odd Father. I knew you'd like that, would carry out the same daily routine. In the early evening, he would emerge from his mother's walk up on Sullivan street dressed in a bathrobe and striped PJs. He'd cross the street to the Triangle Civic Improvement Association, a storefront club, and play pinochle. After midnight, his bodyguards would drive him to his townhouse on East 77th and park, owned by Olympia Esposito, the mother of three of his eight children. In 1986, FBI agents were able to spot him from a nearby rooftop, change into elegant clothes, read, watch tv, have a lovely evening in his Upper east side townhouse the next morning.

[19:36] Jessica: Well, that's the ultimate. They walk amongst us, Meg. On the upper east side.

[19:41] Meg: 77th too.

[19:42] Jessica: I mean, that's a really good address.

[19:46] Meg: That was right around the corner from Allen's.

[19:47] Jessica: Stevenson is right around the corner from the hospital where he sent many people, I'm sure.

[19:52] Meg: And Butterfields.

[19:53] Jessica: It all comes back to Butterfields.

[19:56] Meg: The next morning, he would reappear in his PJs and be driven back to Sullivan Street. He avoided the phone and only whispered so was impossible to capture on wiretaps. Genovese members were not allowed to mention his name. They would just point to their chin and when referencing him. In January 1987, the Mafia Commission trial sent top members of New York crime families to jail for racketeering. But not Vinnie. And after John Gotti, head of the Gambinos, went to prison, Vinnie the Chin became capo di tutti capi. The boss of all bosses because everyone else was in jail. In May 1990, Gigante was indicted for conspiring to rig bids and extort payoffs from contractors on multi million dollar contracts with the New York City Housing Authority to install windows you remember?

[20:59] Jessica: Wait a minute, did you say housing?

[21:04] Meg: Yes, yes I did. Okay.

[21:07] Jessica: I'm like rubbing my hands together for the glee.

[21:10] Meg: Vinnie attended his arraignment in pajamas and a bathrobe.

[21:14] Jessica: Yeah, it was awesome.

[21:16] Meg: His defense stated that he was mentally and physically impaired. And for seven years they fought off his competency to stand trial.

[21:26] Jessica: He just drooled for seven years.

[21:29] Meg: Eventually, in 1997, he was found guilty on charges of racketeering, an obstruction of justice. Given a lenient sentence of 12 years, but continued to run operations from jail through his son Andrew. It wasn't until 2003, when his son was facing prison, that Vinnie agreed to plead guilty to new charges of obstruction of justice. As long as the people who had helped in his deception not be charged. On that list, his common law wife Olympia, his mistress, his son and his brother

[22:10] Jessica: comes back.

[22:12] Meg: Not surprisingly, Father G had never left the family fold. In fact, he was the spokesperson for his biological family. He vehemently insisted his brother was mentally ill and couldn't possibly be in charge of a crime syndicate. What's more, he argued that the Mafia doesn't even exist. It's an anti Italian stereotype created by the media and law enforcement. So there.

[22:38] Jessica: That was a bold move.

[22:40] Meg: By 2004, SEBCO had registered 18 businesses, both non profit and for profit companies with a 50 million dollar real estate value. And Father G was listed as either CEO or, or chairperson for most of them. Sebco gets money through government funds and tax deductible donations. And the for profit companies get contracts for services. There's so much money flowing through this organization. And in 1989 it came to light that Father G had developed his housing units with $50 million of federal money by hiring mob connected contractors. Not a shock. But there was never enough evidence to pen anything on him. And after his death in 2022, his will revealed that he had amassed a $7 million fortune, which he left to his son, Gino Gigante. He was a priest who had a son in Yonkers.

[23:48] Jessica: This is very Medici of him. In Yonkers. I know that was the tastiest of stories and I apologize for jumping the gun. But the minute I heard, because I was like gigante and it didn't. Right, right. And because I think I'm a little hungry right now, I was like, ooh, gigante beans and a light tomatoes. That sounds good. But then, oh God, yes. I mean, I mean the fact is

[24:21] Meg: he really did do a lot of good in the South Bronx.

[24:25] Jessica: Well, isn't that just A lesson that, you know, nothing's straightforward, nothing forward. Black and white, not so much. And I mean in city politics, for God's sakes. I think.

[24:35] Meg: Who is taking a. I think the

[24:38] Jessica: assumption has to be that you're crooked. But just how crooked are you? And are you crooked? You know, roughly on the side of good?

[24:47] Meg: And I don't know what we can say, really, because, I mean, his brother really was, like, a very scary crime boss. So.

[24:56] Jessica: Yeah. Yeah, he was. I mean. But I have to say that I love. Could you imagine, just for a second, let's get into the head.

[25:04] Meg: You know, that I would wear my onesie all the time if I could.

[25:08] Jessica: Yes, I do. And you converted me to the land of the onesies. But here's the. As our friend Nick would say, here's the thing. Could you imagine what kind of brain it takes to be like, I've decided that I'm going to publicly brand myself or create a public Persona where I am the word that starts with R. Right. Which was in use at the time. And there was. At the time, there was no, like, overt kindness or, like, consideration about people who were challenged. There was no benefit in that way. There was zero benefit except nothing possibly privacy.

[25:52] Meg: Right, Right.

[25:54] Jessica: Because no one. Right. And so. But what I'm saying is, like, the juxtaposition of being like, I am going to live every day of my life in pajamas and drooling on Mulberry street, and then I'm going to go to East 77th and put on my, you know, Taylor, I was just thinking the same thing and, like, my life, you

[26:17] Meg: know, and watch all in the Family,

[26:19] Jessica: or I'm thinking, like, you know, reading whatever philosophical tomes he's picked up that day. It's such a commitment. You know what it's like. You know what? It just popped into my head, you know, our good friend Durst, Robert Durst, and how he was like, yep, I'm gonna be a lady now. Even though he was not transgendered, he's like, I'm a lady, and I'm gonna run around the United States. Yes. Murdering people. Not unlike Giganti. But it was like this total commitment to, this is how I'm going to get away with my life. And I don't care what I look like. I don't care how I'm perceived. I don't care if it's freakish. This is the ticket.

[26:58] Meg: Right? The Vinnie the Chin approach is also in wonderful contrast to John Gotti, who was a contemporary, dappy John. John Gotti was like, I want all the perks and more, and I want all the cameras flashing, and I want the best table at the best restaurants, and I want to be on the COVID of the Post every single day. So it was a completely different approach. And the FBI, apparently, they were baffled. They couldn't comprehend why someone would be a mob boss if they didn't actually enjoy all the money they were making. They just didn't get it.

[27:39] Jessica: You mean about Gigante? Yeah.

[27:40] Meg: Yeah.

[27:41] Jessica: Right, right. I mean, because they were.

[27:42] Meg: Look, they were like, if you're going to be a mob boss, do it like John Gotti. And then you get. At least you've got all the women and the, you know, furs, whatever the hell you get.

[27:50] Jessica: Furs.

[27:51] Meg: Furs.

[27:51] Jessica: I love you so much right now. Women in furs. That's what organized crime is about.

[27:57] Meg: Pinstripe suit. Yes.

[27:59] Jessica: But, of course, interestingly, they wound up with the same dilemma of going to prison.

[28:06] Meg: Yes.

[28:07] Jessica: So you could be in a bathrobe, you could be in your pinstripe suit. Eventually, they're gonna get you. Meg, I have an engagement question for you.

[28:26] Meg: Yes.

[28:27] Jessica: Is there a movie that you've ever watched that scared you enough or freaked you out enough that to this day, it still gives you just, like. Just, like, thinking about it, Like, a little tingle of, Mmm.

[28:44] Meg: I'm gonna go with the Omen.

[28:48] Jessica: The Omen. What was it about?

[28:51] Meg: The Omen, specifically, In the Omen, the babysitter kills herself. She jumps out a window to hang herself. It's very dramatic. And before she does it, she looks at Damian and says, this is for you, Damien.

[29:10] Jessica: Oh. You know, you just gave me a little. A little frisson of horror.

[29:14] Meg: Yeah, it's pretty horrible. I guess we should have. Yeah, it's pretty horrible.

[29:20] Jessica: Well, one of the movies that does that to me is from 1993. And it's a movie that, for some reason, like, no one talks about anymore, but it was, like, a big deal when it came out because it was based on a true story or purported to be a true story by the author of the book that it was based on, and it was his experiences. It was called Fire in the sky, and it was about alien abduction.

[29:46] Meg: Oh, I don't. I don't know.

[29:47] Jessica: And in the lore of alien abduction, the notion is that when you're abducted, your memory is erased. But there are a couple of people who are like, no, I was awake the whole time, and here's what happened.

[30:02] Meg: Oh, gosh. Is this about being probed?

[30:05] Jessica: Well, for him, it was. It was but worse than that, like. Like, really, like, it's. Oh, it shows you, like, the inside of the ship, and it's not the way that. Like, there's nothing cute about it. And it's like. There's, like their mouths are filled with slime, and they're like. Like bugs in. Oh, it's just so bad.

[30:27] Meg: Is this a B movie or is it.

[30:29] Jessica: No, no, no. This was a major movie.

[30:31] Meg: Oh, my gosh.

[30:32] Jessica: And it scared. I'm not. I'm not gonna mince words. It scared the shit out of me, but it stayed with me. So I bring this up because 1993 is not that long after the 80s.

[30:47] Meg: Yes.

[30:48] Jessica: And in New York, New York City, and in the suburbs of New York City, there was a ton of alien activity. And we're going to talk about the aliens of New York, okay. Today. Now, before we do that, here's some fun facts that I'd like to share with you. Did you know that during the pandemic, there were, I think it's three times more UFO sightings in New York City and its environs than ever before? From your.

[31:21] Meg: From your reaction, you know, I have actually seen a ufo. I saw it with Charlie Kersey. Hello, Charlie. He's an actor. We act in this play together right now. And we were on the roof. We're in the first act of the play.

[31:35] Jessica: Wait, when did this happen?

[31:37] Meg: This just happened, like, in the wintertime.

[31:40] Jessica: Okay. Because in 2023, there was another rash then.

[31:45] Meg: Listen. No, there's no question. Okay, Can I just. I'll only take a second. But it's very important that I say this.

[31:52] Jessica: All right, I'm delighted.

[31:54] Meg: So the theater that we work at, there's a roof, and we're done after the first act. The first act is the two of us. The second act is two other actors. So first act, we're done. We go out on the roof. It was a lovely evening. So we're looking at the stars, and we're having a conversation. I look over his head and I'm like, charlie, you're gonna have to turn around right now, because I'm really freaking out.

[32:17] Jessica: Were you that calm?

[32:19] Meg: Yes, because I thought there must be a reasonable explanation for what I am seeing.

[32:24] Jessica: There was. It was aliens.

[32:26] Meg: And he turned around, and I was like, so what's the reasonable fucking explanation for that that I am seeing in the sky over Manhattan? Because we were in Greenpoint, and he was like, there's no reasonable explanation for what we're looking at right now. What did it look like it looked like a line of lights that was vertical. And we were like, maybe we're seeing the bottom of a blimp or something. And that's what it. But why would that line of light, that vertical line of lights be moving slowly up? I was like, no, it's not a blimp. That blimps don't move vertically. That's crazy. Anyway, that's what I have for you. And I swear to God to this day, we're like, we were both there, we both saw it, we both know.

[33:21] Jessica: Well, the New York Post would agree with you.

[33:23] Meg: Okay.

[33:23] Jessica: And I'm going to share something before we get to the 80s. This is. I was inspired by our friends at 80s now. And I'm doing a little tie in of first now, then 80s.

[33:34] Meg: Okay.

[33:34] Jessica: Okay. So the New York Post on January 6th, 2024 reported ET at the Empire State Building. UFO sightings in New York City took over off in 2023. The Big Apple registered 30 UFO sightings with the National UFO Reporting center last year, up 7% from the 28 flying saucers seen in 2022 and 10% from the 27 in 2021. Now what they saw was different. It was a pill shaped ship, like a Tic TAC.

[34:10] Meg: Okay.

[34:11] Jessica: Over McGuire Fields. That was one of them. One of 12 UFOs reported in Brooklyn in 2023. An egg shaped UFO was in Bay Ridge July 30th. A Staten Islander was putting out his garbage on January 20th when he saw two formations of orange objects crossing the sky. A true believer in Bed Stuy lodged a report on June 13 of a freely rotating, yet again Tic Tac shaped metallic reflective object that suddenly disappeared. That person took a video which is available online.

[34:55] Meg: We didn't have our phones.

[34:56] Jessica: That is too bad. Manhattan had nine UFO reportings and Staten island had five.

[35:05] Meg: Do you call 311? What do you do?

[35:08] Jessica: No, they called the UFO National UFO center that I. I mentioned at the top of this. They called National UFO Reporting Center. Good to know there is such a thing.

[35:18] Meg: Yes. I had no idea.

[35:20] Jessica: Oh, and rather hilariously, the extraterrestrials only went to the Queen, to Queens and the Bronx twice. They were like, eh, not so much. Nah, not so good. And Staten island, they were like, our people will never be recognized here. It's perfect. On August 1st, someone reported a craft over the Empire State Building which He watched for 25 minutes. The center to which they reported was founded in 1974. And it says we don't make any claims, we're just Collecting the information.

[35:59] Meg: Okay.

[36:01] Jessica: However, Peter Davenport, who directs the center, says, I do believe we are being visited by extraterrestrials on a regular basis. The government has been declassifying UFO information at a rapid pace as of late. And I would like to share with you that I saw a video from. That was a declassified video of Navy fighter pilots locking in on a UFO with their voiceovers on it, freaking out over what they were seeing. And they were talking about how, like, how fast it was going, like they were tracking it, and they were like, can you. Can you get a load of this? Oh, my God.

[36:35] Meg: And that's from the seventies.

[36:37] Jessica: No, now.

[36:39] Meg: Oh, now they declassified something now.

[36:43] Jessica: Recently, there's been a whole push to declassify UFO information.

[36:48] Meg: Okay.

[36:49] Jessica: Look it up.

[36:50] Meg: Okay.

[36:51] Jessica: Not making it up.

[36:52] Meg: So they. Sorry. They declassified it now. And the actual Navy. The event happened relatively recently.

[36:59] Jessica: Yes. But what they're declassifying is over the course of decades.

[37:04] Meg: Got it.

[37:04] Jessica: Material for decades now. Why? That's a really good question. And now I. I'm going to say something that I don't want to stand behind. I read something that said, like, that Trump was about declassifying it. And I'm for declassifying any woo woo stuff. And I don't want it to be something that I credit him with, but if I have to, I will.

[37:26] Meg: No.

[37:28] Jessica: As if that wasn't enough, we're going to go back in time to 2010 when UFOs were seen over New York City again or previously. FAA unable to identify object flying over New York City. Hundreds gaze skyward at Manhattan. UFO Feds say they don't know what it was. And I'm going to read to you from an ABC News report. Usually jaded New Yorkers froze in their tracks Wednesday and gazed skyward at the still mysterious objects that hovered above the iconic Manhattan skyline for several hours.

[38:06] Meg: What?

[38:08] Jessica: Where were we, for God's sakes?

[38:12] Meg: I can't imagine.

[38:13] Jessica: We are not able. Less than 10. Where were we? Seriously, what was I doing? Where? What? Oh, oh, that was when my husband left me. I was on another planet that year. All by myself. No, I was the ET Hovering above Manhattan. That was me hovering in rage.

[38:32] Meg: Why wouldn't they shoot it down, though? They don't know what it is.

[38:34] Jessica: Well, do you want to get some aggravated aliens on your ass? I don't think so. We are not able to make an identification of what the objects were. Federal Aviation Administration spokesperson Arlene Salak said today. We know they weren't aircraft or helicopters. We Wouldn't be able to say if they were balloons or something else. Balloons described as bright white lights or glittery silver balloon like objects, the floating balls seem to separate and converge on Manhattan's west side, high above the trendy Chelsea neighborhood. Balls in Chelsea? What silver ones? Oh, my God. Stop it. The police said that it received dozens of calls. No one was able to come up with any conclusion. I think it's a balloon, said another man. This is so New York. But on the other hand, balloons don't stand still. And some other comedian said, maybe it's Superman, maybe it's Wonder Woman, who confessed he would rather that it was Wonder Woman. Who are these people? Okay, it's happening, right? And, you know, and we don't think

[39:46] Meg: it's some foreign government doing it.

[39:49] Jessica: I think that there would have been some more scuttlebutt about it being the Chinese or the Russians. Well, the Chinese have been having some balloon situations. Yes, we read it. Don't you love. Don't you love just the image of, like, a giant balloon with, like, made in China on the side, like, floating? Like, it's so Mel Brooks. Like, it's so Mel Brooks that it's unbelievable. But, yeah, they shot it down. It was like.

[40:22] Meg: They did eventually. Yeah.

[40:23] Jessica: Like, no, thank you. Thank you. No, thank you. However.

[40:26] Meg: And don't do that again. Use your balloons over here.

[40:30] Jessica: No, no. Bad China. You snorted.

[40:38] Meg: Yay.

[40:38] Jessica: I win. However, Roswell.

[40:42] Meg: Yes.

[40:43] Jessica: New Mexico.

[40:44] Meg: Yes.

[40:44] Jessica: We think of that as the big meeting point.

[40:48] Meg: Yeah.

[40:48] Jessica: But no, in the 1980s, from 19, roughly 1984 to 1988, the Hudson Valley was a hotbed of alien activity. And I'm going to share some more information that I gleaned because I love this so much. And what I love the most about the reporting on this New York City alien stuff is like, there's nothing quite like getting a New Yorker on camera for, like, a Man on the street interview. Right. It's always like, I thought it was my cousin Irma. It wasn't. It was gold of my ear. Who wants a hot dog? Like, it's always so random and weird and, like, uninhibited and kookalooka. So they did not disappoint in the 80s. This is from actually. And what I also love about this is this is from the LA Times, because it's like, the one time that LA had the ability to point the finger at New York and be like, you're crazy. This time it's not us. While they're, like, wearing tinfoil hats and whatever so from the LA Times hot spot for UFO fans, New York's Hudson Valley draws the hopeful faithful each night. Clouds are filling up in Pine Bush, New York. Yet half a dozen people. I'm paraphrasing. Yet half a dozen people have parked their cars on the shoulder of a country road, scanning the sky. This is a prime place for UFO spotting. Yet the only things visible at this moment are airplanes. Peter Gersten waits suspiciously. The silver bearded lawyer believes 99% of supposed UFO sightings are easily explainable. Despite the the vanity license plates on his porsche that read UFOs Real, he has devoted hundreds of hours to resting UFO documents from the government. In court, most UFO watchers are more patient than the federal government. The U.S. air Force canceled its surveillance program, Project Blue Book On December 17, 1969, almost five months after the Apollo 11 astronauts landed on the moon. That's it. Seems like they gave up really quickly

[42:57] Meg: and all aliens are coming from the moon. No, no.

[43:01] Jessica: UFO searchers persist. Victoria Lacas waits expectantly. She is mad because most people abducted by aliens are unwilling victims, and she would be more than happy to submit herself to experiments.

[43:16] Meg: What's her name?

[43:16] Jessica: Victoria Lackes.

[43:18] Meg: Victoria. Why?

[43:19] Jessica: Linda Dorn waits calmly. Linda and her husband Peter, both real estate appraisers, admit to being fascinated by psychic and other unexplained phenomena. An evening in Pine Bush, she says. Beats watching tv.

[43:33] Meg: That's fair. I just. I'm worried about Victoria wanting to be abducted.

[43:37] Jessica: Victoria's not going to turn out well in any of this.

[43:39] Meg: What is she trying to escape?

[43:41] Jessica: Ellen? Crystal is in the same camp as Victoria. She waits excitedly. The self described UFO photographer is. Is the guardian of the field. I don't know what that means either, Meg.

[43:51] Meg: Okay?

[43:52] Jessica: I've seen the face. I don't know where. She claims to have seen aliens and dozens of unexplained lights. She has driven to this field from her New Jersey home hundreds of times since 1981 in the hopes of making contact again. You missed it, Ellen Gersten tells Crystal when her car pulls up half an hour later than expected. The mothership was here. There used to be several more of us waiting. Crystal dismisses the joke and checks the sky. It doesn't bode well.

[44:21] Meg: Don't mess with her.

[44:22] Jessica: The aliens, who she suspects are building an underground base in the Hudson Valley, don't seem to like clouds or rain, she says. Okay, right. So Now Victoria and Ms. And Ellen, they're in the new club of.

[44:37] Meg: They have each other. Yeah. Do they like each other? I'm not sure they like each other.

[44:41] Jessica: I'm sure that they're vying. They're like, no, take me. No, take me, me. Whatever the reason, strange sightings seem commonplace in the Hudson Valley. Hundreds of people, not just those who go out looking for them, have seen things in the sky that can't be explained. The sightings caused a sensation in 1983 and 1984 in this area of the New York City suburbs up into western Connecticut. Ellen Crystal says that she saw something unusual at the cornfield off Searsville Road, 20 miles from Middletown, soon after she was first taken there by a magazine writer. She says that she saw a three and a half foot creature with a beige body and huge yellow eyes staring back at her. When she saw a craft drifting slowly to the ground in the field, she then saw something flutter and it was her three and a half foot tall friend. This thing had a worried look on its face and it totally threw me off. Crystal says I was panic stricken. I could not utter a sound. She says she holds no grudges against people who don't share her beliefs, but confides, I try to avoid them.

[45:47] Meg: I mean, it's interesting coming out of like, ET And Close Encounters.

[45:51] Jessica: Yes, absolutely. Like, there's the scene in Close Encounters where they're on the highway on the shoulder with, like, the things zooming. Yeah, that's kind of what these people are describing.

[46:01] Meg: And that is an incredible moment.

[46:04] Jessica: That is a movie that should not be missed by anybody. The New York lawyer says, imagine a civilization 10,000 years more advanced than us. Do you think they'd come here in spaceships? Yes, says Lackeys, because they want to investigate the inhabitants of Earth. She's a legal assistant and flower child holdover. She is fascinated by the current UFO fervor and abductions during which people are supposedly beamed up by aliens. For a quick examination, Lackeys calls herself an abduction volunteer. I want to bring trinkets to trade, she said, fingering some jewelry, because I want to make friends when I go on board. Fingering. You know that whoever wrote this article is just like, how can I choose the grossest word to describe her? Weird fondling of her hippie bee as she hopes to be beamed aboard by a three and a half foot fluttering, worried. See, that's what I love about this report is that very clearly this woman has projected herself onto the alien. It's worried. Yeah, the alien's worried. Really? Oh, how can you tell? Because how do you know what its face normally looks like, Ellen? How do you know? Maybe that's just the way it's shaped. My dog always looks grumpy. I don't think he's upset. It's the shape, Ellen.

[47:35] Meg: But you believed in them and you still do.

[47:38] Jessica: Me. Didn't you say at the beginning of this podcast?

[47:42] Meg: Yes.

[47:42] Jessica: No. What I was saying is the movie scared the shit out of me, and I am. Look, I love some. I love me some Woo Woo. Like I am deeply in. In fact, I recently learned this is an unsolicited plug that the amaz. Hilarious Rachel Dratch has a podcast called Woo Woo with Rachel Dratch. It's all about unexplained phenomena.

[48:03] Meg: She goes to my dog run.

[48:05] Jessica: I love her.

[48:07] Meg: I know I never sit next to her, but my dog plays with her dog.

[48:11] Jessica: Oh, that's good. Well, tell her that we need to do a crossover. One of Crystal's companions points the flash of her camera at some shrubbery, hoping that others notice the particles in the air she sees during the brief burst of light. What she claims is, quote, angel dust looks suspiciously like pollen. So I'm going with they're all on angel dust.

[48:36] Meg: Or they're looking for something more than themselves. They're trying. There must be some sort of cultural thing going on, don't you think?

[48:45] Jessica: Oh, there's no question. There absolutely has to be. And I think that you know the question, like fun and games on brief pause. What is it about the 80s in New York that would make people so desperate to have these aliens? Is it the lack of good governance?

[49:05] Meg: They can't be worse than this.

[49:07] Jessica: Are they just on new really good designer drugs? Is it the beginning of al. Oh, I didn't even mean to make that pun. But alienation. And they're looking for friends in the sky. Like, what's going on in the 80s in New York? That's my question. What's your thought?

[49:25] Meg: Well, it's probably colored by the story that I'm researching for next week that definitely is coming out of you've got, you know, the hippies in the 60s

[49:37] Jessica: and then free love of the 70s.

[49:39] Meg: Right. And then what's happening in the 80s is still like what happens to those counterculture people in the 80s? And for the most part, like, it wasn't great. Like they were trying to set up communes sometimes and a lot of them got sucked into cults or the cults or there's some drug issues. Like the 80s didn't treat the flower children very well. Exactly.

[50:07] Jessica: Such a good point. But, and I do think that you're very right, that the 60s and the 70s were about connection and the 80s was really about you're on your own.

[50:16] Meg: And I mean, I don't want to, you know, spoilers for next week or whatever, so I won't say anything more about it, but we can revisit it next week when we talk about.

[50:26] Jessica: I love this story. I look at this, we're all, we're just finding connection.

[50:30] Meg: Let's remember to discuss. Yeah, aliens next week.

[50:35] Jessica: Well, in the New York Times in 1986. 7. September of 1987. So we just started college. So we didn't see this article.

[50:43] Meg: No, because we were not reading the newspaper.

[50:45] Jessica: Most certainly not. While United States Air Force officials deny any experience with or interest in unidentified flying objects in the Hudson Valley area, an estimated 6,000 residents in Westchester and Putnam counties and Connecticut have reported UFO sightings. And since 1983. So in four years, 6,000 sightings. Now, one of the things that I really love about the whole UFO thing is the made up language because obviously there is no vocabulary for this. So they're making it up as it goes along. One of the UFO sighting information gatherers, he runs reports of UFO sightings and alien contacts through a special computer program. The computer divides the reports into three. Those that can probably be explained, those that can possibly be explained, and those that involve, quote, high strangeness.

[51:42] Meg: I love that.

[51:43] Jessica: Or cannot be easily explained. About half of the reports fall into the explainable categories and are dismissed. The rest are investigated further. The majority of the reports are encounters of the first, first kind. A sighting within 600ft. One of these guys has fully investigated 301, quote, high strangeness cases since 1983 and he believes they are all authentic. My question is yes. When you have been exposed to that much high strangeness and let's be honest, it's all murky, how do you start? How do you really maintain objective? I don't know. The Air Force says they've not seen UFOs in the nearly 440 years that they've been stationed in the area. Quote, we've never had reports or encounters with any unknown objects since 1948, said Lt. Col. John E. Perez, deputy commander for support of the New York air National Guard's 105th Military Airlift Group. The issue is, quote, nothing we concern ourselves with. That's from the Public affairs branch.

[52:50] Meg: Right. But now we know that that wasn't true. That they were like, actually.

[52:55] Jessica: Yes.

[52:56] Meg: Okay. They lied.

[52:57] Jessica: They 1987 lies. Oh. Most proponents, though, said they are less interested in UFO sightings than in reports of contact with beings. Mr. Gersten said he believes the recent publication of a book by Whitley Striber, quote, communion and one by Bud Hopkins, Intruders, which give accounts of visits to Earth by extraterrestrials, have induced people to come forward and tell others about similar experiences they believe that they have had. Many of these people also say that they had these experiences as children. So you were talking about, like, they go to cult, like, these are people who are disenfranchised in some way. So now we're going back into childhood trauma, maybe.

[53:38] Meg: Yeah. That's very interesting.

[53:40] Jessica: And so this is my favorite because this is a real account. Jackie Kelly, a real estate saleswoman who lives in Cross River, New York, said she has communicated with aliens since she was a child. When I was 10 years old in 1954, I watched the stars through my telescope on the Knoll Wood golf course in Elmsford at night. I saw a strange, steady, white, glowing light in the sky. It hovered above me, and I was aware of a being that did not take shape that was communicating with me and told me this was mental telepathy and not to be afraid. Afraid. I said, why are you here? And they said, because I would accept them. She said the beings whom she did not fear visited her several more times before she became 16 years old. They came at night, she said, before she went to sleep. Years later, in 1980, she said these beings, quote, abducted her from the bedroom of her house in Katona, New York, outside of the city where she lived then, and took her aboard a spacecraft. They examined her, she said, and took her to their planet or asteroid.

[54:47] Meg: Oh, okay. I'm sorry.

[54:49] Jessica: So here's what's interesting to me. So in the 80s, there was. And this is also in, like, the movies and the books of that time, there was a lot of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Like, these people were really interacting with aliens. Now, not so much.

[55:06] Meg: Yeah. So why is it happening again?

[55:08] Jessica: And here's what I'm thinking. I think people are playing around with drones. I think there's all kinds of stuff going on. I do think that there's lots of room for unexplained phenomena, definitely. But what I think is interesting is that in the 80s, people didn't. The average person had zero grasp on technology. And how someone would do anything to put something up in the sky was absolutely beyond them. And so the myth is building of, okay, well, I'm seeing this thing, and maybe I have some early childhood trauma or maybe something hap. Whatever. And now I'm going to blend it all. I think that now people are more skeptical, but they're still seeing it. Maybe they're. I don't know. Maybe. Well, maybe by tomorrow, by the time this airs, I'll bet you that someone has said I've been beamed up from the top of the Empire State Building and it's three and a half feet tall and has yellow eyes and looks white, worried.

[56:01] Meg: Well, I'll tell you, if you have, in fact had a close encounter, we definitely want to know about it.

[56:07] Jessica: So right in, we won't make fun of you.

[56:20] Meg: Quickest tie in ever.

[56:22] Jessica: Okay, so the tie in is aliens, spaceships, people seeing things that they can't explain and can't wrap their heads around. Same thing as seeing Vincent Gigante wandering around in a bathrobe and yet also being in a pinstripe suit. Who knew? Hard to explain.

[56:39] Meg: Sure, I'll take it.