Latest / Ridiculous History / The Architecture of Spite, Part Two: Macy's and The Skinny House

Transcript

The Architecture of Spite, Part Two: Macy's and The Skinny House · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: for tuning in. This is part two two two two
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: two of Spiteful Architecture, featuring now our super producer mister
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Max Williams to himself a font of spite.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Oh wow, I would maybe reserve that sobriquet for the
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: quist Jonathan Strickland.
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: I always think of Max as being pretty spite free.
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I can be quite spiteful, how about that?
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Huh?
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I am.
• 0:59
  Speaker 4: I am quite at holding a very powerful and useless resentment,
• 1:04
  Speaker 4: like very good at holding those resentments for way too long,
• 1:07
  Speaker 4: and they have no reason.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: Sospite I could build.
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: I could see myself building a massive stupid house to
• 1:14
  Speaker 4: piss somebody off. But that's that's just And then they
• 1:18
  Speaker 4: move away like three weeks later, and they were moving
• 1:20
  Speaker 4: away before I built the house.
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: Oh yes, yes, nice call back.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: How about we call you an architect instead of spiteful.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: The architect is a very good Actually, there was a
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: kind of a three to eleven adjacent band that was
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: a local band growing up called the riff Raff Kings,
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: and I believe the bassists. They all had like rap
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: names like the all of the Beastie Boys, and the
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: basis name was the Architect, which I thought was a
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: really cool, like you know, nickname, m M.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: I agree, and you are Noel, and they still this
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: is don't call it a comeback, or you may if
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: you wish, folks, because this is part of a somewhat
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: continuing series. Our pow research is so Jeff Bartlett hipped
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: us to something called spiite spiteful architecture, the architecture of spite,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: which is funny because we're architecture fans and we always,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: at least I always associate it with these noble things,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: these pretentious thoughts like good architectures, frozen music. But it
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: turns out quite a lot of people have instead used
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: architecture as a way of making a permanent screw you
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: guys statement to any number of other people.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: Are you guys familiar with Albert Speer s p e
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: e er correct?
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, famous German architecture, very closely involved
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: with the Nazis and building out some of their you.
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: Know, typically foreboding structures.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: But in the in the podcast that I'm working on
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: with our dear friend Jordan Runtag the Stones Touring Party
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: about the Rolling Stones Exile Main Street album and tour.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: He refers to Chipmunk, who is the guy that like
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: built the stages and also was like the MC at
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Woodstock as the Albert Spear of rock.
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: And I did not know who Albert Spear was.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: I had to look it up, but uh yeah, kind
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: of a dubious uh uh comparison there, but you know,
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: it's always good to learn new references. Chip Monk, chip
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: Albert something Beresford Monk the third and he was like
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: this this Yeah, he was the guy that told people
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: to lay off the brown acid at Woodstock and he
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: got hit. He was basically like the kind of you know, uh,
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: one of the first big like minds behind touring rock
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: music and like building elaborate stages and lighting setups. But
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: it was all very seat of your pants at the time.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: But he kind of created the mold for that whole world.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: Talk about him a lot in the pod. It's pretty
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: interesting stuff.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: So do check it out, folks. And no, what's the
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: name of that show? One more time?
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: Jone's Touring Party the podcast thank You and that was
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: an organic plug though you got to give me that.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: And well, I just want to make sure people know
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: their name and check it out. All the episodes are
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: free wherever you on your favorite shows. There is no
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: spiteful architecture. There just solid journalism and a hell of
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: an audible experience when we're talking, hey, thank you, when
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: we're talking about spiteful architecture. Man, I got to tell
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: you when we first got into part one, I thought,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: how many can there be? But sure enough, this is
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: a part two that may end up being a two
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: parter itself. Not sure we're gonna I.
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: Know, two part part two, that's what is?
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: It is idiomatic for the people.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: Exactly No, because it does seem like a very specific
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: flex that would be reserved for like the money gentry,
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: you know, for the most part, like someone to have
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: enough money to throw around, they could like invest their
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: money in just pissing somebody else off.
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: So you would think it might be rare.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: I think we've said in the last installment we reference
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: to the Spike Store, the coffee shop, and the Curb
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: your Enthusiasm. That was my first introduction to this concept,
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: but it's actually got a lot of historical precedent as
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: we will get into right now.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we're going to talk about the Skinny House,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: a place literally named the spite House, the Kavanaugh Building,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: the Pie House. But you know where we wanted to
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: start we were talking off air. I want to start
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: someplace close to home for the Americans in the audience.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: The Macy's department store in Times Square.
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: This is nuts.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: I've walked past that place so many times in the
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: pass never had any idea about the story behind it.
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: I didn't either.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: All I know is that it's just, you know, always considered,
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: been considered kind of the flagship Macy's. It was a
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: place to be and be seen, you know, in a
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: certain era.
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if you go over to the corner of thirty
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: fourth and Broadway in New York City, you'll see that
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: flagship store that you're just you just described.
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: It's a Macy's. It's huge.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: It's taken up almost an entire city block since nineteen
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: oh two. But it doesn't quite form a complete rectangle.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: It takes up almost the whole block except for one
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: little quarter notch.
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: Like a nook.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: Huh, that's weird. What's the deal with that? I mean, Okay,
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: guys like Jerry Seinfeld, but I'm leaving it in. He
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: doesn't own that expression. In fact, I don't know if
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: he ever even said it. I think people just making
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: fun of him say it. I know it's more of
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: a rooney I think that's right. It's like it's like
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: beat me up, Scottie, yeah, or Luke.
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: I am your father?
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: Well yeah.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: But in any case, this little nook in question here,
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: it has to you know, we know real estate is
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: at a premium in New York, as is just space.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: That's why everything's built on top of itself. So this
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: is obviously sported numerous non Macy's tenants over the years,
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: ranging from you know, fast food joints like Burger King
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: to the delightfully named sunglass Hut, which never really feels
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: much like a hut to me.
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: I don't know the sunglasses that sunglass hut. I haven't.
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: I've never seen the point.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: I did once because I had to. I was you know,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: I'm not a day walker by nature, so when I'm
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: forced out in the sun, I need to protect my peepers.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: And I picked up some sunglasses at a sunglass hut I.
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: Think it was.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Was it a Kiosk do they have kiosk for sunglass hut?
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: They're always pretty small. I don't know they necessarily have kiosk.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: But is it a sunglass hut owned by Luxodica at
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: this point?
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, ultimately yeah, Yeah.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: That's another story for another day.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: Actually, if you want to hear about it, you can
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: check out our sister show stuff they don't want you
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: to know, or we go into the conspiracy behind why
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: I Wear is so damn expensive.
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: And owned by one giant monopolistic company.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Weirdly enough out of Italy. But yeah, there's so there's
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: this huge building. It's amazing except for this very narrow
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: five story building. In a corner, in a nook, there
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: was a sunglass hut. There was a burger king. There's
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: a story behind this. It all goes back to the
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: eighteen hundred a guy named Roland H. Macy and a
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: dude he bitterly hated named Henry Siegel who was a
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: partner of a store called Siegel Cooper. They were beefed up.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Siegel Cooper back in the day was a store on
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: the between like the eighteenth and nineteenth streets on sixth Avenue,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: and in their glory days, they were a neck and
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: neck rival with Macy's.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: Bro Really quickly. I just had to google this and
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: I found a result. Really quickly. Turns out William H. Macy,
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: the actor, is third cousin four times removed.
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: Of Roland H. Macy, the founder of Macy's Departments.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Can I tell you, guys, I'm an ancestor of
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: the Adams family.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: You're an ancestor.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: There's Adams Family. That's it's a television show, John Adams.
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: You're sorry.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: The Adams Family, in my mind, purely belongs to Gomez
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: and Martish.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Unless you have some time travel technology, of which I
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: am unaware.
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: You're a descendant of same difference.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: Oh oh good times of flat circle is potato kleimano.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: But what's the deal? It seems like there's a beef
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: of bruin. Mm.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, our buddy Roland starts his store named in a
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: burst of humility, Macy's in eighteen fifty eight. It's on
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: the southeast corner of fourteenth Street and sixth Avenue. There's
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: a big shopping district that's just coming into play on
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: fourteenth Street around this time. We want to give a
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: big shout out to Bloomberg the author Mimi Kirk, who
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: helped us out a lot with this story. It's the
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: so he starts in eighteen fifty eight, it's the eighteen nineties,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: and Macy says, you know what, I'm gonna leap frog
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: over this shopping district. I'm gonna build a store on
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: thirty fourth and Broadway, and I'm gonna do it in secret,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: so my competitors don't know.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: Okay, we've seen that happen before, or like the Florida
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: Project as an example, where the Walt Disney Company secretly
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: bought up all this land in Florida, in the Orlando
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: area under this name, the Florida Project, so that no
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: one would know what was coming. They were developing this massive,
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: you know, theme park resort situall would ultimately become resort
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: in multiple theme parks. But yeah, this kind of you know,
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: buying up real estate in secret is not uncommon.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, one hundred percent. And it makes sense as well.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: I imagine for quite some time there's been a cottage
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: industry of people tracking down the actions of real estate
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: brokers right to try to figure this stuff out. I mean,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: even now in twenty twenty three out in California by
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Travis Air Force Base. There's a mysterious company buying hundreds
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: of acres of land Flannery associates. No one knows who
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: they are. So tales oldest time.
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: So, as you said, Ben, late eighteen nineties, Macy's is
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: getting into this creative expansion project to build their flagship
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: store at thirty fourth and Broadway.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: And they started to.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: Just buy up all of this, the blocks of property
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: from thirty fourth Street all the way to thirty fifth
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: Street a block, but you know, blocks.
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: Big, that's a big deal.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: Packets parcels right, and Macy's as an organization had a
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: gentleman's agreement to pay hilarious when you think about it,
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: time a mere two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: one Albert Dwayne Pell for that corner of thirty fourth Street.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: But someone leaked to the info. Maybe it was a PI.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: Maybe was someone trading a hot tip for anything like
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: anything from cash to you know, I don't know, maybe
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: just the price of a few drinks at a happy hour.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Somewhat squealed. Someone stitched Macy's plays became public knowledge in
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: April of nineteen oh one, and this is before that
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: gentleman's agreement turned into paperwork. We're getting a lot of
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: this from a book called Holdouts with an exclamation Mark
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: by Andrew Albern and Seymour Durst from nineteen eighty four.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: So when people know that Macy is conspiring to buy
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: up this block, his old rival Henry Siegel sends a
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: guy in kind of like Slugworth in Willie Wonka. And
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: this agent of Seagulls goes to Pell and says, hey, man,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: we'll give you three hundred and seventy five thousand dollars
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: just for this little this little plot of land.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: What was it?
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: What was it on?
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Like uh one thousand, one hundred and fifty four square
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: feet something like feet, not miles.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: They nailed it well, square a square feet. And this
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: was agreed to perhaps non gentlemanly, considering that there was
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: already a pre existing verbal agreement.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: Right yeah, I think so he definitely Pell that is
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: definitely decided to chase the money instead of keeping to
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: his word. So he I mean, business can be dirty.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: People are still kind of divided over this part. Did
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: Siegull want to buy that slice of land to embarrass
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: his competitor, and maybe have you know a picture a
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: big sign that says we got better prices, a seagulls.
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: Or just macy sucks.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: You know what, Right, Macy's blows. But he didn't do that.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: He didn't make a bunch of anti Macy's propaganda. And
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: right now, if you look at the best records we have,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: it seems there are two possible explanations for his motives here.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he had, I guess, an associate by
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: the name of Robert Smith, not of the cure of family,
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: but this gentleman had a dry goods business. He already
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: had a brick and mortar spot set up near Macy's
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: and wanted to expand and set up a news shop.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: Smith then announced that he was planning on putting up
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: a twelve story building on the corner this location to
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: sell women's clothing, not dry goods at all. But this
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: was probably just a weird bit of flexing again because
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: remember the size is really odd. He couldn't really build
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: that upward, I don't think, right, it doesn't narrow, would
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: be weird building. It'd be like one of those half
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: floors and being John Malkovich.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it would be like one of those weird buildings
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: in downtown Tokyo or in a European country. It would
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: look up to code. The staircase would be very strange.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: It's just awkward all the way around. So there's another
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: account that feels a little more plausible, and the idea
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: is that Seagull himself wanted to build a new store
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: on the old Macy's site at fourteenth and sixth. Macy's
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: was moving from there, and they were thinking, you know,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: people will still walk by, there will still be foot traffic,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: so of course they're going to go shopping because they're
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: already there. And so what what he wanted to do
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: was have a have a hook in Macy's new plan
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: and seagulls. Seagull's own conspiracy apparently was that he would say, hey, Macy,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: I own that little corner plot there and i'll give
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: it to you for a song, so long as you
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: agree to give up your lease on the old fourteenth
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Street store bargaining chip a bargaining chip just so yeah,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: that lease would run till nineteen oh three. So the
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: timeline works out, But it appears Macy's he didn't play.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: Ball and just jump in here.
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: It feels kind of spiteful, even on Macy's end a
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: little bit more because it's like they were leaving the
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: place already, the guys, like, hey, might just leaving the
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: least like two years earlier.
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: Like he's not like telling them that they have to
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: pay the least or anything. It's like it is a
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: little dirty of a tactic. Sure, but it's like, I
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: don't know, like Macy's is also prey picking a little
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: bit of a break, like they don't have to pay
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: two years of this lease.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: So I don't know, true, but at a certain level
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: of wealth and success, which I would argue that if he's,
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: you know, building this giant flagship store, he's probably all right,
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: probably more worth it to cut out the competition than
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: it is to get a little bit of a break.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: He's thinking big picture. This is like high level spite,
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, this is the type of spite you
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: can do when you have more money than you know
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: what to do with.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Right, And there's there is a bigger picture, like you said,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: a long term goal here. But also, these guys don't
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: like each other, you know what I mean. They wouldn't
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: cross the street to piss the other guy was on fire.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Can I say that on this show? Thank you?
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: It's not one of the George Carlin words. I think
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: you say that on the radio. Yeah, you definitely can.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: And if you were. If you find yourself in a
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: survival situation, remember, piss is not the best thing to
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: use to put out a fire. Try to find another
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: source of non petroleum liquid.
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: But if you're stung by a jellyfish, it's just a ticket.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: If you're stung by a jellyfish, you know what, depending
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: on the jellyfish, why not why not live a little
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: at the very end? See if it was nothing you were.
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: Into Balsamic dressing also does it? You don't have to pee.
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: On it.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Unless you're on a picnic lunch situation on the beach
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: and you happen to be making some sort of salad.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: The piss comes with the with the human body. Enough
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: about this though.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: Well well, yeah, so clearly Macy's and Seagull their their
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: main rival. He was urine based, but it bled over
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: into their department store businesses. Yeah, if you will, And
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: so now these guys are beefed up with this. Macy's
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: refuses to play ball with Seagull, and he says in
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: July of in July nineteen oh one, he says, we're
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: building a huge new store, a flagship store. It's nine
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: stories high. It's an entire city block. And then someone says,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: is the entire city block mister Macy's.
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: And he goes, I did everything right, and they indicted me.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: Sorry, that was just the voice was hitting me on
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: that level. I love that sound bite, by the way.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: But yeah, So Macy is employing the architectural services of
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: De Limos and Cordes, and they were able to complete
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: the structure that they had planned around the little enclave,
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: the little cutout, and they created a ground floor arcade
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: which is kind of like a lobby or is it
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: an open space that you can kind of like go
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: through between spaces.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like that. It's almost a promenade. Yeah, you
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: can just walk, you can stroll through and take in
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: the sites.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: I love the idea of a promenade, and also the
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: action of promenading through the promenade.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: That always struck me as a real classy.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: So yeah, he builds this arcade, which unfortunately didn't have
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: any claw machines or gallica tables or anything like that
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: at least at this point. So this does create this
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: little cut through connecting Broadway in thirty fourth Street, and
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: the Macy's flagship store does have its grand opening in
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: nineteen o two.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: It sure does. And this is the structure that's still
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: there under those big macy signs. And here's a bit
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: more of spite of the old ultra respite for you.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Macy's paid to keep its old store vacant until its
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: lease went up, so they weren't doing business there. They
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: kept it as a ghost store, and then once the
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: lease expired, Seagull took over the property. He built a
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: ten story high structure he called the fourteenth Street Store.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: His buddy Robert Smith, the women's clothier, brought bought Seagull's
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: interest in the thirty fourth Street corner in nineteen oh seven,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: and in nineteen eleven, just a few years later, he
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: sold that structure for one million dollars. At the time,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: this was a record breaking price for any property in Manhattan,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: about eight hundred and sixty six dollars and fifty five
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: cents a square foot, And people wondered if Macy's was
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: the you know, the ultimate buyer of that property, but
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: they never were. And that's why even in modern times
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: there was a sunglass hut, a burger king, you name it. Oh. Also,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: an arcade is just like a series of arches. Just
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: to correct myself there.
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I was thinking it was my columns got it,
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: But but it is.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: It's just a path, you know, it's meant to kind
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: of like connect two spaces, so you can like cut
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: through sort of like a bespoke alley.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it can be freestanding or it can be attached
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: to a wall, but it can also be a promenade,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: because a promenade is just a public place for walking
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: as a social activity. Life was weird before TV.
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: Oh god, yeah, yeah, what do people even do?
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: I guess they just strolled, you know, just strolled strolled
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: around and have really really petty fights.
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: That's true.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: I mean that's still oh well, that's that'd be twitter.
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's just that's just part of the human condition.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: So moving on, and boy, you know these it's it's
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: you wouldn't I think there'd be so much spite to
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: talk about when it comes to architecture. But we just
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: filled up a proper half hour just about just talking about.
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: Macy's and these two fellas arguing over space.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: So we think we're gonna do another one here, and
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: then we're gonna take a pause and do a second
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: part of this episode for Thursday.
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: But this is Ben.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: You teased it beautifully at the top of the show
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: about something called the skinny house.
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: What's up with that? What's the skinny house?
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Oh? The skinny house. Yes, right, let's do this one.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: This is definitely two part of now. So, speaking of
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: awkward architecture itself an awkward phrase, if you go to
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Boston's North End in New England, you will see a
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: weird building tucked between two other brick buildings. It's four stories,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: it's pale green, it is about thirty feet long, it's
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: only ten feet wide. It's the house at forty four
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: Whole Street. You can see pictures of it easily. It
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: has no front door. You can only get to it
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: through a side alley. First question would be, why the
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: heck would someone build that.
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: House to what end? You might ask, right to what
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: North End? Yeah, well exactly.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: I love a good brotherly legend, and in this one,
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: these two brothers inherited a plot of land from their father,
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: and when one of the brothers returned from their time
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: serving in the Civil War. To his chagrin, he found
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: that his other brother from the same mother had built
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: a large home, presumably just for him and his family
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: on this shared piece of land. That's not cool, other brother, No.
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: That is accurate.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: That has been documented multiple times. We pulled some of
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: this from Boston Magazine written by Madeline Billis And what
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: a dick move.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it is the stuff of legend. Though.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: That we we know of them is the brothers, you know,
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: one brother the other. This is like classic, you know,
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: fairy tale stuff. So the one who built the house
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: used pretty much the whole share of land, at the
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: very least, he took more than what was meant for him.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: And presumably all this was demarketed in some form of paperwork.
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: I would I would hope.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: But maybe it was just sort of like gentlemen's rules,
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: you know, where it's like, you know, we get this
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: inherited equally. We are two people that should be split
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: evenly right down the middle. But I guess that all
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: depends on the shape of the land and all of that.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: We'll get into this. So when the second brother came
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: back and he saw what his other brother had done,
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: he was. He was very upset, and he decided to
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: take his revenge.
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: To exact his revenge.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: We had a similar story to this in our last episode,
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: where I believe someone built an ugly monument or something
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: like that to where like you just would see this
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: annoying thing.
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: I think he was in France. It was like some
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: sort of there was one sea. I'm getting the confused
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: because there was one with like a feature on a
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: fountain that was in that was in Vadic in the city. Yeah,
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: I can't remember.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: They're all running together for me so much Spie, so
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: much SPIKEE in the world of architecture. But he decided
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: to build what was referred to as historical writings as
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: a skinny house to block out the sun from his
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: brother's building. Yeah, and he obviously didn't intend on inhabiting
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: the spot because it didn't even have a door.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, only has that side entrance.
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: If you if you look at that precisely.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if you look at a picture of it, it's
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: not even the most impressive. It's not even the most
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: impressive house. It's it's four stories if you count that
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: window coming out of the roof. It's definitely a Spike house,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: and it is clearly meant it's it's a budding the
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: other building. It's clearly meant to block out the view.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: If if you look at the side door, and you
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: can find tours and stuff of this building online, the
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: side door looks like a window. It reminds me of
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: I've been to some hotels in Europe where they say
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: they have a terrace, and it took me a second
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: to find the terrace because it was a window that
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: happened to open big enough to be like a hobbit door.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: So that's kind of what this door is like. And
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: people still live there, people enjoy it. It's kind of
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: a flex to own that piece of history in Boston.
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: I believe it was.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Oh there's an interview that's been going around a while
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: back with the Semonic Semonic family, sim Nic and they
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: talked with the Boston Globe about how much fun they
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: had throwing a party in the Hull House for New
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: Year's Eve. I'm saying fun somewhat sarcastically. I think the
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: novelty wore off once someone had to use the restroom.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: This is not a big place.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: No, it's it's I mean, it's you know, it's not
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: something when you look at it, it's not It looks
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: kind of like a condo, you know what I mean, Like, well,
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: you might see like a townhouse. Like here in Atlanta,
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: there's a couple of spots where there are these like
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: rows of these real skinny type houses that are you know,
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: you buy them and it's it's like a relatively affordable
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: human dwelling, but they are kind of weirdly skinny. And
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: you'll see places like this and you know, San Francisco
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: and in other spots.
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: But this was not part of the urban planning.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: Lets let's just say, right, this was like an afterthought
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: and it still stands to this day, and it looks odd,
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: but it doesn't look like crazy, you know.
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: It's something that we definitely see stuff like it.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it would make sense to see that in Philly,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: or to see that in some older US towns. It
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: would make a lot of sense to see it in
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: places like Amsterdam too, write any densely populated place that
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: has some centuries to its past. If you want to
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: figure out what it looks like inside, do check out
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: the tours that are available on YouTube. You'll see walkthroughs
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: one of the seminent family members. Jennifer told The Boston
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: Globe this quote. We had a party of ten one
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: New Year's Eve, and when one person has to go
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: to the bathroom, everyone has to move.
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: She said.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: There are only five doors in the house. The bathroom,
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: in the living room or one of the few rooms
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: actually separated by a door. And if you look on
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: the outside, each of those four floors is a different room.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: That's how skinny it is.
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, exactly exactly.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: And the youngest daughter's bedroom actually shared the floor with
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: a closet.
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, how does that work?
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: That's all they had room for. They have a bedroom
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: on the third floor, a closet and stairs. So if
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: you want to go to the master bedroom on the
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: top floor, you got to walk through your daughter's room.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: I'm sure every teenage girl would love that.
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: There's no walls either. You just walk into that floor
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: and you're in the room. Am I right? Right?
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: Yes? Yeah, yeah, I don't think there's a door. I
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: think it's just the stairs.
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: Got it.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, not particularly conducive to privacy, you know, So, like
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: you said, yeah, teenage girl would not be down with that.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: So nine hundred and sixty four square feet is what
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: we're dealing with here, just to give you a clear
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: picture for folks out there that are into, you know, measuring.
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: Stuff, and to add insults injury.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: I suppose with all this lack of privacy, the house
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: became something of a draw for tourists, so they would
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: pretty commonly find folks camped out, you know, in their
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: yard taking pictures.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: I wonder why they didn't build out the backyard at
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: least a little bit, you know, and put maybe put
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: a garden on the roof somewhere. Anyway, you know what,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: it's a it's a piece of history now, so you
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: can't there's probably a law preventing them from doing too
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: much renovation to it. But that house was built entirely
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: despite the story, as you said, Noel, does seem a
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: bit apocryphal. There aren't a ton of really solid sources
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: on how it was constructed. I think the closest we
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: could find here is that if you go to the
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: Boston City Archives, you can see in the Hopkins Atlas
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: of eighteen seventy four the way the land was split
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: up into five lots in the eighteen eighties.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: And we have a good.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Friend of ours, Frank well Heron, who's appeared on Idiomatic
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: for the people. He's worked in this world before, and
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: he can attest how sketchy land deeds and titles can
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: get right when you go that far back, because at
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: that point, isn't it mainly handwriting?
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: I think that's right.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you have to definitely go to you know, physical
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: archives and records to pull these sort of chains of custody,
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: you know, for making sure that a title is quote
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: unquote clear.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: And I kind of want to go there. You know
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: what it reminds me of. It reminds me of the
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: tiny house movement. It's a little bit bigger than the
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: popular tiny houses. And oh, our Palchris Vrosiotis had owned
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: out tiny house. I always wanted to live in one,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: But I'm wondering if I just liked the idea of
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: it more than the actual experience, you know what I mean?
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: Sure, I mean the skinny house is I guess, kind
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: of ahead of its time in that way. And you know,
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: Ben my favorite, you know, if I'm paying for my
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: own hotel when I go to New York, I very
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: much love to stay in the Pod Hotel, which is
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: the tiny house of hotels. It's like a ship's cabin,
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: you know, with bunk beds and like the desk built
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: into the wall and stuff. But it's very ergonomic and
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: I stay there all the time. I couldn't recommend it more.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: It's a fun experience, but maybe not for like all
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: the time.
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: Right, yeah.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: I mean one thing that's great about that, and this
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: is not a paid ad for for pot hotels, is
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: places like that also encourage you to go out and
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: explore the city, which I absolutely love about them. The
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: only place I've spent some time in there was a
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: little too small for me capsule hotels and I don't
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: have claustrophobia, but that's a that's a tight fit.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: I don't recommend it, no, no, no, no.
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: I mean even after like you know, two or three
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: days in the pot hotel, if you're staying with somebody,
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: it's it's time to go, and right time to go
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: your separate ways. But it's still fun. I stayed there
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: with my kid recently actually only had a good old time.
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: But yeah, it does.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: You're right about that, because at the end of the day,
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: a hotel is just a place to you know, hang
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: your hat and grab a little shut eye. If you're
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: spending all your time in the hotel room. What are
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: you even doing right?
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: And speaking of time to go, it is time for
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: us to hit the hit the old dusty trail of
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: the in folks, we are returning, as my partner in
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: History Crime said earlier, we're going to be back on
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: Thursday with part two of Spiteful Architecture Part two, So
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: it's like two points, you know what, don't think about
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: it too much, just join us in giving a big
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: old thanks to mister Max Williams, our super producer, our
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: architect who has chosen a higher path than spite. Thank
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: you and congratulations Max.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and don't call it a comeback, but do come
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: back for part two of Part two of spite Architecture.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: Huge thanks to christophrasiotis here in spirit, who we mentioned
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: a tiny house trailblazer in his own right, Jonathan Strickland,
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: it truly is our spider architecture.
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: I think we can all agree. And to you Ben, yeah,
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: that was fun.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah and also with.
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: You, let's see you next out folks.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.