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

[00:18] Jessica: And I am Jessica. 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.

[00:35] Meg: Go sports. I know.

[00:37] Jessica: Go Sports. Games.

[00:38] Meg: Amazing fun.

[00:40] Jessica: Totally fun. Fun to see the people get excited. Yeah. Last night we were sitting in this apartment and heard fireworks go off. And we were like, what could that be for? Then we heard screaming in the streets, horns honking.

[00:58] Meg: So you were not watching the game? No, we were talking about the Knicks

[01:02] Jessica: game, but no, but my point is, I wasn't watching the game, and yet I knew they won because New York is so excited, so on board, and it is bringing our city together in a way that is so badly needed.

[01:17] Meg: And I'll tell you, the show that I'm doing right now takes place right near Madison Square Garden. So I have a lot of experience with the fans of this game of

[01:30] Jessica: the New York Knickerbockers.

[01:32] Meg: Yeah. And I was there, and we had a show the night that Trump was there, and everyone was so pissed off because they blocked off the area. It was. I had a hard time even getting to the theater. And then for last night to just be so satisfying. Bring it back, Sage. The whole Madison Square Garden community and you. Big gate, that game.

[01:58] Jessica: Yes.

[01:59] Meg: So what was insane? Biter. Did you see it? It wasn't even. I saw.

[02:02] Jessica: I saw the.

[02:03] Meg: So far behind.

[02:04] Jessica: I saw the last shot like that. That Hail Mary.

[02:07] Meg: Like they were 29 points down at halftime.

[02:11] Jessica: Yeah.

[02:11] Meg: That's like, all right, we're just here to, like, give you guys support, but it ain't happening.

[02:18] Jessica: And they're like, no way. Cinderella story, motherfuckers.

[02:23] Meg: Very, very, very exciting.

[02:25] Jessica: It's so exciting. It's really, really cool. It's wonderful.

[02:28] Meg: Also exciting. This is Pride month.

[02:31] Jessica: Yes.

[02:32] Meg: Go Pride.

[02:33] Jessica: Go Pride. Go Sports.

[02:34] Meg: Go Pride. And I was on the AIDS memorial Instagram, which we've discussed. It's this wonderful Instagram page where people write in about mostly in memoriam of people they loved who died of aids. And they tell just their personal experiences with these people, and it's very heartwarming. And then you get to see photographs of mostly young men who died way, way before they should have this post I saw because. Do you recognize this face?

[03:10] Jessica: Yes, I do.

[03:12] Meg: It is Freddie Von Mears. Yes. So this is actually a little tiny bit of a follow up. I'm going to Do a bigger follow up later. I've been watching that documentary. Not all of the segments are out. I definitely want to do a follow up to my story because I've learned so much more, so that'll be fun.

[03:33] Jessica: By the way, he looks much less creepy in that photograph.

[03:37] Meg: Yes, he really does. He looks like a lovely young person,

[03:41] Jessica: a sweet, normal guy.

[03:43] Meg: Yeah, this is before all the facelifts. I assume that'll do it. So this post is a quote by Richard Dupont. Not the Richard Dupont that we did a story about who was a super creepy guy. This is actually a post by Richard Dupont, who was Andy Warhol's. One of Andy Warhol's friends. You know who I'm talking about. Happens to have the same last name. Now, Richard Dupont did not in fact write into the Instagram, but they lifted it from. They lifted it from something that he published. So this is a quote from Richard Dupont of the Andy Warhol world. I met Freddie von Mears in 1977. I was in high school in Connecticut. My mother took my brother and I on a trip to New York City for the weekend. While my mother was getting her hair done, I went shopping alone at Bloomingdale's. While in the men's department, a handsome man said hello to me. I smiled and said hello to the tall, blonde and very tanned Freddy who told me he was a Ford model and a famous decorator. I told him I was looking at colleges and considering attending nyu. I also told him I was gay, but my family didn't know. He gave me his number and said to phone him and that he would take me out to dinner and introduce me to his fabulous friends. I phoned Freddy the following weekend at Plaza 53530 AW. He invited me to spend the weekend with him at his apartment at 4o5 East 54th Street. I told my mother I was going away with friends to visit colleges and she was fine with it. Take your shoes off was the first thing Freddy said when he opened the door. He had just cleaned the marble floors. He said, please take off your pants. My silk sofas were cleaned also. I took off my jeans and was standing in the Billy Baldwin designed living room in my briefs. He was naked and offered me tea. We both sat drinking tea and ate sandwiches. Mrs. Vreeland had these sandwiches from William Pole every day, Freddy boasted. I woke up two days later on a daybed in Freddy's bedroom. I looked around the apartment for him. He was gone. There was a note left on his personal stationery. Please be gone by the Time I get home. I left, but couldn't believe two days had gone by and what had he done to me? He had drugged me with something, but I didn't have time to think about it. I had to get to Grand Central Station to take a train back home. I had school the next day. On the train, I rattled my brain. Was I raped? Can a boy be raped? Did I give him my number? Should I phone him and say something? I didn't do anything. I forgot about it and him. Until I moved to New York City and ran into him@studio54. He then began stalking me, but eventually got tired. I warned so many people about Freddy, but nobody listened.

[06:44] Jessica: Holy

[06:48] Meg: crazy, huh? Although totally predictable as well, in terms

[06:55] Jessica: of, well, creepy, creepy, creepy ass guy. Freddie.

[07:00] Meg: Yeah.

[07:00] Jessica: You know, obsessed with male beauty, obsessed with young men. Obsessed with, like, control. Like, all of that. Like, it just adds up. Not that you would automatically say, well, that is what he must have been doing. But once, you know, like, oh, well, there are all the sign, all the markers there. Poor kid.

[07:16] Meg: I know.

[07:17] Jessica: Poor kid. Ugh. Hideous.

[07:21] Meg: Do you remember our friend Brian Dennis who recorded his personal story?

[07:26] Jessica: Yes.

[07:26] Meg: About being drugged and assaulted by the bad Richard du Pont.

[07:32] Jessica: Yes.

[07:33] Meg: Isn't that a crazy coincidence? The names are the same, but they're different people.

[07:38] Jessica: It's the same story as the Minnesota strip, but just with khakis and docksides. Sure, it's the same thing, but in

[07:47] Meg: one case, the person who was the predator was named Richard dupont, and in the other case, the victim was a different person named Richard Dupont. Yes.

[07:56] Jessica: Yes. Yes. No, no. It's completely fucked up. And it's so depressing about how young men at that time, if they were assaulted, sexually assaulted. The shame based on gender bias was so much that there was no way they were ever going to say a goddamn word.

[08:19] Meg: Well, that he didn't even know if he could.

[08:22] Jessica: If a boy could be raped, just conceptually very sick and very psychotic.

[08:28] Meg: I saw this and felt like I absolutely had to share it. Not exactly happy Pride, but in honor of Pride Month, remembering.

[08:38] Jessica: Well, here's a good one. Here's something more, maybe upbeat, which is that there is an Instagram account that I've become very fond of for Pride Month. I discovered it right before June began, called Queer Happened Here. And it has fascinating stories and some very uplifting stories about people who are no longer with us, but who were trailblazers and did important things and help to define a positive side of the gay community. So for Pride Month, if you want to check out On Instagram. Queer happened here. I think you will feel richly rewarded,

[09:25] Meg: Jessica. I think I told you to, didn't I? That I. I went to the baths in Flatiron. Like, baths are back.

[09:34] Jessica: Where you just. Bath House. Literally called Bath House. Yes.

[09:37] Meg: Right.

[09:38] Jessica: Which I, by the way, find to be a bit of a bad vibe. I think it's a bit odd that they went down that road, but. Okay.

[09:47] Meg: I think I told you on this podcast that I went at 11 in the morning on a Monday thinking I would just be alone with a bunch of other loners and we wouldn't make eye contact and it would just be a lovely, like, sort of peaceful experience. No, everyone was there with a date at 11 o' clock on a Monday. I was so confused. So it was not the spa experience that I had imagined.

[10:13] Jessica: Ew.

[10:15] Meg: I mean, everyone was, like, being very chaste, but they were definitely there. It was a group activity.

[10:22] Jessica: They were there to then go have sex elsewhere, perhaps, maybe if they're on a date. Because it was like, oh, show me what you got.

[10:28] Meg: Anyway, it wasn't what I had in mind. I. I just need a spa experience. Spa different from bath. Yes, But I gather you have not been to one of these bath houses.

[10:38] Jessica: It's not my scene, but I hear

[10:40] Meg: you, but I mean, I also went to one of the Korean baths with a friend, and that was communal and that was fun, but it was all women. Like, you can go certain hours. Sometimes it's just women, sometimes it's co ed.

[10:53] Jessica: I've done that too. And it wasn't that I found it particularly objectionable. It's just not for me.

[11:01] Meg: Gotcha. My sources are the Smithsonian magazine, the New York Times, and the New York Post. On October 25, 1985, New York Governor Mario Cuomo empowered local health officials to close bathhouses in an effort to curb the spread of aids. Cuomo and Mayor Ed Koch had pledged to work together on creating a policy. But in the end, the state decided to take action. While Koch, who at the time was politically crippled by a corruption scandal in his administration, resisted signing on to the closures, whatever he did, he was going to get yelled at, and he just didn't have the balls to do anything. At that moment, the plan was to send local health inspectors into establishments suspected of allowing, quote, high risk sexual activities. Kind of like how bars are inspected for liquor law violations.

[12:03] Jessica: Right.

[12:05] Meg: When asked how officials would be able to enforce this new policy question, Cuomo responded that it would be no big deal. How do you prove it? People were there. People who Observe it. I asked the guy at the desk who takes your $5 and gives you a towel. I say, did they do this all the time? He says, all the time. And that's your case. It's no big deal. This isn't ab scam. It's obvious to all the people of the town. We can translate that as Cuomo saying, guys are fucking in there. This isn't brain surgery. We can tell guys are fucking in there. So we're gonna go in and stop that from happening.

[12:48] Jessica: Yes.

[12:49] Meg: I don't know why he felt like it was so obvious to him. I don't think he actually knew where men were fucking, but whatever.

[12:57] Jessica: I'm so interested by that statement. Why would you. Because he wasn't going there himself or because I think you can make some

[13:05] Meg: assumptions about some establish. But there were tons of establishments where it was all clandestine by almost by design. So lots of sex was happening in lots of places. And to assume that you know where it's happening and where it isn't happening is a little presumptuous.

[13:25] Jessica: Fair.

[13:26] Meg: The New York Public Health Council resolution defined high risk sexual activity as, quote, anal intercourse and fellatio. That's the only high risk sexual activity.

[13:38] Jessica: The way that they phrase it, it's like, you gotta do both before it's a problem.

[13:43] Meg: And it defined, quote, establishment as, quote, any place in which entry, membership, goods or services are purchased.

[13:53] Jessica: Entry, membership, goods or services. Okay.

[13:58] Meg: Are purchased.

[13:58] Jessica: Purchased.

[13:59] Meg: Yes. Yes. So they're not going to go in to the.

[14:03] Jessica: If it's a public toilet, that's not an establishment. Because there's nothing going on.

[14:08] Meg: Because you're not.

[14:08] Jessica: No.

[14:08] Meg: Because you're not.

[14:09] Jessica: No, no, no. Because you're not. There's no cross my palm with silver. That doesn't happen.

[14:14] Meg: And. And parks. Right. You're not purchasing.

[14:17] Jessica: It's not an establishment.

[14:18] Meg: There was huge pushback, of course, as more was discovered about HIV and how it spread. The bath houses actually served as educational hubs, offering facts and support to their community. Closing the baths didn't stop unsafe sex. It just pushed it further underground to more furtive places like movie theaters and parks and video stores. It took Ed Koch a few months to cave, but he eventually padlocked the last of the gay baths. In April 1986, Everard was one of the last to fall. And now we're gonna go on a little history tour, like you do sometimes, going back in time in New York City.

[15:06] Jessica: Oh, yes, the Everard Baths.

[15:08] Meg: The Everard Baths at 28 W. 28th St. Opened in 1888 in a former church. It is now a wholesale center.

[15:20] Jessica: How much less glamorous.

[15:22] Meg: Truly. It was a Victorian Turkish bath intended for general health and well being. The bather sweats in hot, dry air and is then washed and massaged, followed by a cold shower. Not everyone had a bathtub in their home, so bath houses were necessary and in the case of the Everard, quite the destination. It had mosaic floors and Italian marble wainscoting. The spigots were shaped like dolphin heads and spewed water into the pool above the front doors. E B in Victorian script were spelled out in stained glass. Everard's first tragedy occurred 10 years after it opened in 1898. A soldier was found dead in his room at the baths, having asphyxiated on gas. It was assumed to be accidental. It didn't take long for Everard to become a known homosexual hub in the heart of what was called the Tenderloin.

[16:29] Jessica: Wait. Tell me one more time what the address was.

[16:31] Meg: 28 West 28th Street. Oh. In 1919, the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice encouraged a police raid. The manager and nine customers were arrested for lewd behavior. That's in quotes. In 1920, it was raided again with 15 arrests. The raids probably helped spread the word about it being a gay friendly establishment because by the 1930s it had become a popular destination as, quote, the classiest, safest and best known of the Babs. By then it had assumed its nickname. Ever hard. A visitor in 1927 described his experience, quote, up some stairs, at a desk, an ashen, bored man in his shirt sleeves produced a ledger crammed with illegible scrawls. I added mine, paid my dollar, was handed a key, towel and robe, hung the key on my wrist and mounted to a large floor as big as a warehouse and as high. Intersecting rows of private rooms, each windowless cell dark except from the glimmer from above through wire netting shredded with dust and containing a narrow workhouse bed. A casual whisper, a sigh lighter than thistledown, a smothered groan, then appeasement, the snap of a lighter as two strangers sat back for a smoke and polite murmured small talk such as they might exchange in a gym. Very evocative in the 50s. A local rag described it as well kept and reasonably clean, attracting a kinky cross sectional clientele from every age group. Some familiar names who frequented the Everhard. Alfred Lunt, Truman Capote, Noel Coward, Gore Vidal and Rudolf Nureyev. When the continental baths opened in the basement of the ansonia Hotel in 1960, 8. It became all the rage, and we've talked about that on the podcast.

[18:57] Jessica: Indeed.

[18:58] Meg: And the Everard started to have a somewhat seedier reputation. It still had a steam room, but that wasn't its most popular feature. Its top two floors had been converted into 135, six and a half by four foot cubicles available for rent. Reportedly, they were rarely cleaned. Many in the gay community were repulsed by the conditions. Bruce Voller, co founder of the National Gay Task Force, called the Everard a quote, shabby, dreadful place, rundown and grubby beyond words. In 1972, gay newspaper described it as a moldy domain and a Transylvanian crypt. Larry Kramer recalled, it was hideous, like Kafka. There were wire mesh walls and the floors were filthy and stank.

[20:00] Jessica: Oh, God.

[20:02] Meg: In 1977, poppers were having a moment. Poppers are highly flammable and people still smoked indoors. And the plywood partitions between the cubicles were definitely not up to code. On the morning of May 25, 1977, Miguel Augusto smelled smoke and peeked out his cubicle on the fourth floor of the Everard. He saw two men across the hallway trying to extinguish a burning mattress. Within seconds, smoke filled the hallway and the electricity cut out, trapping 80 to 100 men on the top two floors. Miguel found his way to a bathroom and, quote, grabbed a bar outside the bathroom window and swung to the other roof. As it turned out, there were no fire escapes. Jesus. And the windows had been sealed shut with Sheetrock. When the fire trucks arrived, There were about 25 men perched on ledges or dangling from windowsills. Two hundred firefighters fought the flames for two hours. When the smoke cleared, nine men were dead and 12 injured, including two firemen. It took 30 hours for the dead to be identified. They were naked.

[21:36] Jessica: I love the face that you're making, as you say, like they were naked. Yes. How do you, how, how do you identify and remember?

[21:43] Meg: They don't give their real names.

[21:45] Jessica: Not good.

[21:46] Meg: So did they tell a friend they were going there? Like it. It. It took a while. They were for the most part identified by friends rather than family. The Mind Shaft, which we've also talked about on the podcast, had just opened the mineshaft, raised money to help pay funeral expenses for the victims. Why men would choose the Everard over well kept bath houses like the Continental and the St. Mark's Baths? It's a question.

[22:17] Jessica: Oh, I, I had a thought from the way that you described, just the way you described Miguel figuring out about the smoke, maybe because it was a Bit run down. You could sleep there. I would imagine that people were squatting in the Everard Baths on the top two floors. No one's coming to look, no one's coming to clean. Nothing. Nothing. This is becoming a. For gay men who are transient SRO kind of situation. Yeah, yeah. For very little. For less money than an sro.

[22:47] Meg: Right. One survivor of the fire said this, quote, I was willing to put up with a lot in the way of dirt and mattress fires because I thought the place would never be raided. So there's also the anonymity of it.

[23:03] Jessica: Sure.

[23:04] Meg: And this is what's sort of interesting, I think, to talk about, especially in Pride month. In the years post Stonewall and pre aids, gay liberation had many faces. For many, though, it remained critical that their activities stay vague. Very much out of the sunlight. And the Everard definitely did not let any light in. Even after the tragic fire. The Everard reopened and stayed open until KOT shut it down. And the other baths as well in 1986, but again, not for safety reasons.

[23:39] Jessica: So it stayed open another nine years after the fire.

[23:43] Meg: Yep.

[23:43] Jessica: Astonishing.

[23:45] Meg: Well, that's the other thing. No one really cared about safety regulations in places where they didn't care about the people who were going there.

[23:55] Jessica: True. I'm just thinking about, like, it must have been quite burned out. So did they just.

[23:59] Meg: Yeah, they rebuilt.

[24:00] Jessica: They rebuilt the. Wow.

[24:02] Meg: Yeah, they rebuilt the top two floors, but, yeah, it was ultimately closed down because of AIDS and not because of fire safety. About the legacy of the baths, Brooks Peters wrote in out magazine in 1994, quote, the baths were gay men's Bastille, a hard won symbol of fraternity, equality and liberty. The right to be a homosexual man without harassment from society was closely linked to the right to have promiscuous sex in that window of time. Crazy when you think about it, because no one really talks so much about that particular window. They talk like, pre AIDS and post aids or pre Stonewall and post Stonewall. But what about Post Stonewall, pre AIDS? That's a really interesting period.

[24:54] Jessica: Well, it's the 70s.

[24:56] Meg: Yeah.

[24:57] Jessica: Okay, so it's the 70s, 70s and early 80s.

[24:59] Meg: Yeah.

[24:59] Jessica: And yeah, I mean, think about. I'm just off the top of my head, you know, that was the period where Harvey Milk was elected and then executed. That was when gay men were becoming more visible. Stonewall was over, but there was a lot of fighting to do. But now they could do the fighting in the streets, certainly in San Francisco and somewhat in New York. Gay discos, gay clubs, all of that. Was happening without the ability for raids to happen. It was also because the 70s were so openly promiscuous for heterosexuals because of the advent of the pill. So promiscuity generally was going on. Like it wasn't necessarily focused just on gay men. It was everybody could have sex of all kinds, anytime, because consequences were considered zero. There certainly weren't. I mean, the worst that you'd get. I always think of the scene, and we've talked about this on the podcast in the Big Chill, when Jo Beth Williams character says that her husband would never leave her and her friend says, oh, because he loves you so much. And he goes, no, no fear of herpes. You know, that the consequences were extraordinarily

[26:18] Meg: low or the consequences were worth the behavior. You were willing to take some penicillin, right?

[26:24] Jessica: Exactly right. The cons. Yes, yes, there were consequences, obviously, but it wasn't social ruination of the same kind and it wasn't death.

[26:34] Meg: It was a very brief period of liberation.

[26:37] Jessica: Yes, short lived heyday, but still, you

[26:40] Meg: know, here we are in 1977, still pre AIDS. And that's why I said, like liberation had a lot of faces. Because sure, some people were out and proud and some people could not afford to be out and proud. Right. Even after, well, Koch for a great example. And there was so much gay bashing in the 70s.

[27:00] Jessica: Well, because they were becoming more visible and unrepentant and we knew where they were. Yeah, that too. You know, when you're giving the historical background of the Everard, which is of course like catnip to me, and you said what the address is, or was it made me think about the reading that I've done about gay clubs and gay bath houses and bordellos in New York city in the 19th century, of which there were many. But if anyone wants to look up the very first and most notorious of these clubs, take a little deep dive on Google into the club the Slide. I believe it was in Five Points and it was, I think, the first recorded, like a playground. So the Slide. No coincidence, I suppose it was called that, but an absolute cornucopia of titillation and excitement for gay clientele.

[27:58] Meg: I wish they still called that neighborhood the Tenderloin.

[28:02] Jessica: Oh, on 28th Street.

[28:03] Meg: Yeah. Yeah, that's such a cool name. Like at some point they decided Chelsea sounded better than Tenderloin.

[28:10] Jessica: I don't, but I'm curious to know why. Why it was called that.

[28:14] Meg: Me too.

[28:14] Jessica: I mean, the Slide and all of its ilk were on the Bowery by The way, just for funsies, the book that we spoke about on this podcast, the CBGB Conspiracy, includes the Everard as one of its locations and discusses the fire at the Everard and that people were still frequenting it. So as you were talking about it, I was like, the Everard, the. Oh. So, yes. It was obviously so much a part of gay pop culture. I have a question for you.

[29:01] Meg: Okay, okay.

[29:02] Jessica: It's an engagement question. Awesome. Do you recognize this quote? You won't accept a guy's tongue in your mouth, but you'll eat that? Can I eat? I don't know. Give it a try.

[29:19] Meg: No.

[29:20] Jessica: That is from The Breakfast Club, 1984.

[29:24] Meg: Oh, sushi.

[29:25] Jessica: Yes. Now, why was this such a perfect encapsulation of that particular time, 1984, where you have a very blue collar boy and a very, very upscale girl who gets out of a BMW on her way into school for detention? Having this conversation around sushi? Because it's a reflection of what I'm going to talk about today, which is the rise of the yuppie. Now, before I begin, I'm going to say that there are two essential callbacks in this episode to episodes 17 and 19 of our podcast.

[30:10] Meg: What about the episode I did about sushi?

[30:14] Jessica: Okay, this. Yes. I'm thinking about the yuppie callbacks, not the sushi callbacks.

[30:20] Meg: All right, 17 was what?

[30:22] Jessica: 17 was die yuppie scum. And episode 19 was Lennon Leaves Us and Yuppie Chow.

[30:30] Meg: Got it. Yes, we did do back to back.

[30:32] Jessica: Yes, we did. So that was June 21 of 22, and I think June 12, 2022, about

[30:40] Meg: the Tompkins Square riot.

[30:42] Jessica: Yes, yes, yes. That was the Die Yuppy Scum.

[30:46] Meg: Yes.

[30:47] Jessica: So my sources range from the New York Times to the New Yorker to a couple of different from the period segments on local news stations about yuppies. This is from the New Yorker. Let's start with how did the term come to be? The New York of the 80s and 90s will no longer be a magnet for the poor and the homeless, but a city primarily for the ambitious and educated, an urban elite. This term, yuppie, first appeared in print in 1980 in a Chicago magazine piece by Dan Rottenberg. Yuppie was an inspired coinage in an etymological line of descent from hippie, yippee and preppy. A similarly irresistible neologism. After the word appeared in the Chicago Tribune column by Bob Greene In 1983, Yuppie took off. The column was syndicated in 200 newspapers, and overnight, the world turned yuppie. Gary Hart, running for president in the Democratic primaries was the yuppie candidate. Jay McInerney's bright light's big City was the yuppie novel. Lawrence Kasdan's the Big Chill was the yuppie movie. Madonna's Material Girl, the Boy with the Cold Hard cash is always Mr. Right was the yuppie anthem. Yuppie became so divisive so quickly, and we're going to talk about why it was that people started to divide themselves into, are you pro yuppie or are you anti yuppie? Everything about yuppie was everything that the 60s was not about. The 60s was LSD. Yuppies were cocaine. Ronald Reagan was a very big part of why yuppies came to be. He said, quote, what I want to see above all is that this country remains a country where someone can always get rich. Yuppies loved their money. What were they going to use it on, you ask? Watches, indeed. Here's a wonderful list of things that became upscale simply because yuppies decided they were status symbols. They weren't before, but they became it because part of yuppism is striving and status symbol identification and then adoption. So you had Sasson jeans, cross pens, Rolex watches, Perrier Apricot strollers, Grey Poupon mustard, Haagen Dazs ice cream, even though it was invented in the Bronx.

[33:41] Meg: Love that.

[33:41] Jessica: Brooks Brothers Cuisinarts, the word foodie going back to yuppie chow. And our friend Gale Green, where you ate mattered, Le Madre, the quilted giraffe, where you could have a beggar's purse filled with beluga caviar, The Odeon, of course. And on television you had. And in pop culture, you had Michael Milken and the Junk Gaunt. You had T. Boone Pickens and the leverage buyout, Ivan Boesky, an insider trading scandal, Donald Trump Publishing in 1987, the Art of the Deal, and all of the TV shows that promoted the rich. Dallas Falcon's Crest Dynasty, and of course, everyone's favorite, Robin Leach's Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. All of it, directly or indirectly, was promoting the yuppie ethos. Because this is my pop culture moment, I'm going to start by saying, let's look at the pop culture items that really embodied and reflected yuppism to the culture. This was the mirror giving it back. Now, our first primary example, though it came out in 1991, the book was American Psycho. It was a lampoon of yuppies, but so many people, it got it. So Right. That people didn't see that it was a satire which got its author, Brett Easton Ellis, in a lot of trouble.

[35:11] Meg: And I gotta say, I didn't realize it was a satire. I thought it was a glorification that just like went to the extreme, but that it was pro rather than a

[35:23] Jessica: comment on and you were in the majority. In fact, his original publisher dropped him and 30 other publishers were denied the opportunity to pick the book up until Vintage did. It was the only one that would and quote, got the joke. It reflected the need for yuppies to have elite restaurants like Dorsia, designer suits, intense personal grooming for men clubs, exclusivity, conformity. In the book, Paul Allen is so completely unidentifiable that his death means nothing because no one can remember what he looks like or what he did because he's just like everybody else and even Bateman. His killing is possible because no one knows or cares who he's disposed of. The movies about yuppies, Slaves of New York, which we have covered on this podcast, in that film and in that book, one of the characters played by Chris Sarandon is the ultimate yuppie and older than everybody else movies. Wall street from 1987, Greed is Good, St. Elmo's Fire, 1985. You've got Ally Sheedy and Judd Nelson as the yuppie couple that no one else can even identify with. And they mystify their friends. We've also talked on the show about Vampires Kiss, which lampooned the upwardly mobile vampire literary agent who self destructs. You've got Bright lights, Big City, 1988, from the 1984 book Baby Boom, which we've talked about from 1987, after hours that we've spoken about as well. And finally, bizarrely, we haven't spoken about Michael J. Fox's the Secret of My Success. Every single one of these films was at what price will you go to get everything you want and get it ruthlessly? Hmm. What was being a yuppie really about? And why is it that when the Tompkins Square park riots took place, the battle cry Die yuppie scum took root so perfectly? Well, Oliver Stone got it right when he had Gordon Gekko proclaim in Wall street, greed is good. Amazingly, even though that's really boiled down and simplified seeming, that really was what it was.

[37:55] Meg: I mean, for me, what is difficult for me to. To always has been difficult for me to get my head around is the fact that nothing is actually produced. I mean, when you said advancement at all Costs, right, Would you say? But you're not actually producing anything. There's no item or product or book or movie or anything that comes out of it, or cardboard box or roll of toilet paper. There's no, there's nothing being produced. It's just the exchange of money.

[38:30] Jessica: I am in love with you. And do you know why I'm in love with you in this moment? Why? Because what you just said is the key, in fact, to the economic development of the United states in the 80s. And exactly why this happened?

[38:47] Meg: Well, yeah, I mean, when you're talking about baby boom, that's a big deal that she goes from being one of those people that's just sort of exchanging money to being someone who's creating applesauce.

[38:59] Jessica: To your point, yuppies were the first time that the inequality in the nation was really visible since even the Depression or even the twenties. What you had was Reaganomics. You had trickled down economics. There was an economic downturn, as we know, in the 1970s. So the promise of the Reagan era was there's going to be a new way of approaching money and business and the poorer are going to be taken care of by the rich with trickle down.

[39:30] Meg: Wouldn't it be wonderful if we have a whole lot of rich people who then spend all their money and so that will help the people who are, you know, the drivers of the taxis and the owners of the corner stores and the waiters in the restaurants and. And yet it didn't work well because,

[39:49] Jessica: well, it was for a much deeper reason than just the greed of holding onto the money and moving it around in echelons that had nothing to do with the middle class. But the 80s was the disappearance of American manufacturing. And with that, the middle class, blue collar workers and pink collar workers, basically anyone without a college education, that class, started disappearing. So what was going on? Finance began generating a greater share of profits than manufacturing or services. Investment banks and law firms stopped being services for manufacturing businesses and private wealth and began shaping them by forcing them to react to the financial climate they were creating. All of this was happening because Carter and Reagan administrations had loosened regulations on Wall Street. So those two administrations allowed Wall street to become an industry on its own instead of a service industry. What they were making was new companies by buying companies, breaking them apart for parts. Like a chop shop working girl. Exactly. Creating new things that are in their own image and for their own benefit. These banks and investment firms now had enough money and leverage to take over, chop up for parts, outsource jobs and remake the Landscape of both the finance industry and the corporations that actually did make or do things. The minions who kept the system going were the yuppies at the time. This is pre computer, pre AI, pre all of that. You needed bodies to be churning the machine. And where did those bodies come from? Well, these financial and legal institutions were able to pick the best of the best because that's where the money was. In Liars Poker, Michael Lewis says, I had stood in 6 inches of snow with about 50 other students awaiting the opening of the Princeton University career services office. 40% of the Yale class of 86 applied for banking jobs. This was in some ways bizarrely a democratization of white shoe banking. Because they needed so many people to run the system. There weren't enough white WASPy men to do all the jobs. So people of color and women started getting brought in as well. Bizarre backlash, good fortune.

[42:34] Meg: But was it?

[42:35] Jessica: The hard driving pace of the new recruits to the banking and legal armies brought their ethos to recreation as well, effectively ruining the concept that pleasure could be found in simply being or doing another death Knell of the 60s and 70s. Think about it. It was in the 80s, it was the first time that the New York City marathon was televised. Jogging and running became competitive ironman competitions, competitive aerobics, competitive restaurant reservations. The rise of gourmet groceries. Groceries that was the advent of Dean and DeLuca and even amazingly, do you remember when the food emporium first arrived in New York City? Oh yeah, that was originally Shopwell. They just rebranded to sound fancy and that's how they got the yuppies to come in.

[43:29] Meg: Oh yeah, yuppies liked kitchen stuff.

[43:31] Jessica: They certainly did. Art acquisition as investment instead of appreciation of the arts. Interestingly, and this is going to come in in a moment, these college educated people who were running the on the treadmill, joining the rat race to get their peace. Traditionally they were Democrats, they were college educated. Keep that in mind. The rise of the yuppie college educated striving towards refinement, consumption and elitism gave birth to where we are today politically. In the 1980s, Trump was an outer borough uncouth, mocked by and rejected by New York society no matter what. Openly avaricious thug. He was the perfect lightning rod for the blue collar people displaced by the Democrat yuppie culture who started in whatever way he was getting a toehold, as in with his book the Art of the Deal, getting their attention because in many ways his, his lie that he Wasn't of the 1% made some sense because he was just too Gross to be in the club. All of this led to anti intellectualism and hatred for those who bought into and benefited from the demise of blue and pink collar workers, even if they owned their own businesses. So people who were owning their own businesses but were not college educated still started identifying as anti yuppie, which is the thin edge of the wedge with where we are today. More about what's a yuppie? What does a yuppie look like? WCVB TV in 1984 said that it was 20 to 40 years old, single, earning at least $25,000 a year and not having to punch a time clock, even though they were usually working 75 hours a week. They had no kids and they would love to have a meal of sushi and chardonnay at the drop of a hat. WLWT Channel 5 said you had to have a BMW. You gotta eat out every night and you must follow the herd. They could be found in major cities, they were big buyers and increased debt in the country.

[46:02] Meg: Credit cards.

[46:03] Jessica: Credit cards, that is from the Hagley Museum and Library. What were some of the other things that they loved? Well, if you look at the movies that we've talked about on this podcast or that you now want to watch, here's some of the other things that they were into and the status symbols that spoke to them. Because these were people who were status obsessed but were not part of the 1%, the true 1%. They were striving to be the 1 percenters, and some of them became them. They were a backlash against the 60s. They weren't reformed hippies, as some people like to say. No, no, no. These were a micro generation. What were you going to say?

[46:41] Meg: I was going to say family ties.

[46:43] Jessica: That's exactly it.

[46:45] Meg: It's the parents are older hippies who protested and had all these democratic values and progressive values, I should say. And their son, Alex P. Keaton. Alex P. Keaton is a capitalist. A capitalist and is rebelling against his hippie parents by being a yuppie.

[47:09] Jessica: Yes, precisely. So what was the look? Power suits for both men and women. Shoulders were in for women, exaggerated for men, still there for women. Sneakers with skirt suits. Not only was that convenient when you're running from wherever you're running to, but it became a status symbol on its own because it showed that you were a woman on the rise.

[47:38] Meg: Love it.

[47:39] Jessica: Working girl, as we know, is the perfect example. Again, just as a quick overview, some of these are repetitions, but I found them again and again. Perrier, BMWs, loafers, pearls, cordless, Phones, health clubs, sushi, espresso and brunch.

[47:58] Meg: Surf club.

[47:59] Jessica: Yes, I agree with you. Yes.

[48:01] Meg: Surf club, yes. Because we did a story about the surf club, which was just had such a different vibe from some of the other clubs that we talk about, like Nels, like Palladium, like Limelight. And mostly, I think, because it's kind of predated. It was an early version, and it was definitely catering to the pearl set.

[48:21] Jessica: Yes, it was the upwardly mobile. I mean, and that's, of course, you know, what this stood for. There's a little discrepancy. Young urban professionals or young upwardly mobile professionals. So the yuppie really was the harbinger of what we're dealing with now. When we have someone like Jeff Bezos chairing the Met Ball, it's, I don't care what the art is. I care about being seen and having the money. That's what this is. And yuppies still very much exist, but now we call them things like tech bros. Yuppies. Not as cute as the preppy. And during the Tompkins Square riot, which was a riot. We've talked about it on the podcast you did specifically Meg and the creation in that neighborhood of the Christabella Apartments.

[49:19] Meg: Is it Christadora? Yes, Christadora.

[49:22] Jessica: That was when die yuppie scum came up, because yuppies were also well known for being, again, the first ones to go into areas that would have benefited from some kind of regeneration. But the cities weren't doing it. And real estate developers would if the yuppies said, we're ready to buy.

[49:43] Meg: Right.

[49:44] Jessica: So.

[49:45] Meg: And that did not help the residents who were there already.

[49:50] Jessica: And if you really want to spend some money, you can go on ebay and you can find some original dye yuppie scum T shirts.

[49:59] Meg: Right. I do think I saw one of those. I think I posted a picture of one of those.

[50:02] Jessica: There you go.

[50:03] Meg: And they're a little older than we are.

[50:06] Jessica: Yes. Five to 10 years in 1987. People who were, let's say, 22 years old. The very youngest. Right. So 87. 67. Born in 55. Right, right. So definitely, you know, older than we are now.

[50:23] Meg: How old are they now? They're like 70 something.

[50:26] Jessica: Yeah.

[50:27] Meg: Early 70s.

[50:27] Jessica: Yeah.

[50:28] Meg: Okay, guys, well, bring some good to the world.

[50:32] Jessica: Yeah, no kidding.

[50:34] Meg: If you made all that money, good for you.

[50:37] Jessica: Now use it for good if you still have it.

[50:49] Meg: Okay. Right before we started recording, Jessica and I had an idea for next week.

[50:56] Jessica: We're very, very enthusiastic about it.

[50:58] Meg: We're Pretty. I hope we will be enthusiastic about it next week as much as we are right now. The idea is we are going to say things we're really enthusiastic about.

[51:08] Jessica: This is just a moment of, you know what? Why not bring a little positivity we recommend, because are we going to have consensus about what we want to recommend?

[51:16] Meg: Oh, I'm going to bring you things I am enthusiastic about and you will bring me things you're enthusiastic.

[51:22] Jessica: Ah. Okay. My confusion is because we started off talking about something that we have a common passion for you.

[51:29] Meg: I might be telling you about something you don't know about.

[51:31] Jessica: Okay.

[51:32] Meg: And then that's something exciting. Or I might be telling you something that you're like. I didn't have the best experience with that, but I'll keep an open mind.

[51:40] Jessica: All right, so it's sort of like really biased Consumer Reports.

[51:45] Meg: That's it.

[51:47] Jessica: And are we. Are you going to allow me to have a moment of. Here's what I hate?

[51:51] Meg: Yeah. I think we should do three recommendations and one. Don't go close to this.

[51:58] Jessica: Each. So a total of eight items.

[52:01] Meg: Total of eight items.

[52:02] Jessica: Six goodies, two baddies.

[52:04] Meg: Yeah. What should we call it? We're still working on the title.

[52:08] Jessica: Yeah, we'll. We'll get there.

[52:09] Meg: When we get there, we'll come to it. I'm excited.

[52:12] Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's really going to force me to be positive.

[52:17] Meg: Yes.

[52:18] Jessica: What do I love? I don't even know anymore, Meg. I don't even know.

[52:23] Meg: I can. Off the top of my head, I can think of three things that you love. Off the top of my head.

[52:29] Jessica: Oh, yes. I love many things, but I'm thinking of products.

[52:33] Meg: No, I'm thinking of products, too. And we could also do restaurants, places. Okay. Anything. And let's keep it like New Yorky.

[52:41] Jessica: Yes. It will be New York centric. Or if not specifically from New York, highly used in New York by others, or at least us.

[52:51] Meg: Yes. Okay.

[52:53] Jessica: I love it.

[52:54] Meg: Cool. I'm excited. What's our tie in for today?

[52:56] Jessica: Well, baths. There's the baths.

[53:00] Meg: Yuppies, I would say.

[53:04] Jessica: I would say maybe. How about if it's just identity of community.

[53:09] Meg: Good. I like it.

[53:11] Jessica: You've got gay community, you've got scumbag community. And. And I'm sure, by the way, that the twain met. I'm sure that there were yuppie guys. That would be fun to do. Absolutely. A yuppie and yuppie at ever guy

[53:31] Meg: on Christopher street eyeing each other.

[53:33] Jessica: How about two guys on Wall street eyeing each other. Tbd.

[53:39] Meg: That's where there's a movie.

[53:41] Jessica: Tbd. There has to be some kind of, like, gay porn movie about Wall Street. Ball Street. So we're gonna have to do a little search for some titles.

[53:50] Meg: We should trademark that right now.

[53:52] Jessica: Okay? Trademark Ball Street. I do think, by the way, that it's gonna ruin both of our algorithms, but so be it.

[54:03] Meg: Sam.