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How Central Park Works · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from how Stuff Works
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bright, and Jerry Rowland over there. Uh,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: and this is stuff you should Know. Was that a
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: real stare down? Yeah, Jerry one, Jerry one, because I
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: was like, I don't have time for this any laundery.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: That's pretty funny because that's just sort of all the
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: three of us. You guys are having a stare down
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: over nothing. You're just over there grumpy like I was
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: just doing my thing, and then all I heard from
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  Speaker 1: you was nice job, Jerry, So like you conceded, Well,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: sure you gave it to her. I mean, Jerry one.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: My friend, uh Billy, the one who I passed away
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: from MS that I talked about. He and I used
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: to do with staring contest. But it was a certain
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: face we had to make and you had to not laugh.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: That was our staring contest. So we both make this
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: certain face that he invented in the first one of
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: us to break and laugh, which was always men. Can
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: I see the face? Uh No, okay, that's fine, I've retired.
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  Speaker 1: I understand. Um. Okay, Well, thanks for the story. Oh,
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  Speaker 1: by the way, very special listener mail coming up today everyone,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: so stick around for that. Whoa Sarah the amazing eleven
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: year old fans. Yeah, and she's reappeared, everybody. Gosh, so
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: delightful to hear from her. All right, so wow, let's
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  Speaker 1: just get through this then, kind of in Central Park.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Central Park. It's huge, it's a New York year. It's square,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: it's rectangular, Charles, all right, So let's talk about New York.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: In between eight and eighteen fifty five, the population of
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: New York grew four times its size over that thirty
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: four year period, from people to sixty and they were
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: crowded and people started moving further and further worth like
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: like that was a funny joke I just made. But
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: you just said that the population of New York quadruple
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: over thirty years. Thirty four years, and you know, New
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: York started at the south as far as people living there,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: and kept going further and further north. And Manhattan wise, sure, sure,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: yeah about New York State. Come on, no, no, but
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: I mean there's Brooklyn too, and Poughkeepsie No, no, sure,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: all the boroughs. Yeah, we're talking about the island of Manhattan. Uh,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: and things got so crowded that people would gather in
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: cemeteries to socialize. Yeah, that was really weird. So we've
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: talked about that before. We were like, I don't remember
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: what episode it was, but we saw this stuff. It
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: might have been the subways or something, park or pizza.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: It might have been tombstones or something. Because we talked
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: about the cemeteries being designed to be park like because
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: people would go have picnics and stuff. All the material
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: that has to do with Central Park makes it sound
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: like that's all they had available, were cemeteries if they
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: wanted to go hang out and have picnics in green space.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: So I'm not sure if it was involuntary or if
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: it was designed that way. You're both, but they it
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: was either a tenement or a commercial district or the
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: cemetery that was what you had if you were outdoors. Yeah,
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: and I think I think it's not necessarily that's all
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: you had, but like maybe all you had that was
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: close and accessible, like the cemetery is, you know, six
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: blocks from my apartment. Um. And also, as you will learn,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: much of not Northern Manhattan, but yeah, County, Northern Manhattan,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Central Manhattan, where Central Park now is was gross swampland
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: swampy rocky. You're not You're not hanging out there anyway. Yeah,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: forget the twenties. Let's go back two point six million
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: years ago. Chuco. There was an ice sheet over New
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: York State um that was two miles thick, and it
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: just so happened to terminate the termination edge that that
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: the well, the edge of it went right through the
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: bottom of Manhattan, went through Brooklyn and actually like all
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: the heights and hills and in Brooklyn, that's because that's
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: actual hills, right, because a glacier pushed the ground up there,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: because that's where it stopped growing forward. But as these
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: glaciers were moving down south from the north, they were
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: pushing boulders and rocks and stones everywhere and where they
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: ended up and then finally retreated from they left all
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: that stuff, which is why they're boulders in Central Park.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: There used to be a lot more boulders there, so
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  Speaker 1: much so that the land was just basically considered virtually unusable.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah they weren't. That area was not being developed anyway,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: which made it made it a um a difficult task,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: but it made it sort of the only place if
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  Speaker 1: you wanted to build a seven hundred plus acre park,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: that was kind of the place to go, right, And
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: so they did want to build a park because again,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: if you wanted to go outside and hang out and
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  Speaker 1: have a picnic, you had to go to Greenwood Cemetery
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  Speaker 1: in Brooklyn. That was basically it. So the people who
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: were living in New York wanted this, but then also
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: the um upper society, I guess, the super wealthy. We're like, yeah, yeah,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: this will put our town on the map. Man, London's
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: got Hyde Park, Paris has one. All the great cities
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  Speaker 1: have a great park, but there's not one in the
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: United States. Let's build it in New York. Yeah, you
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: know that was was later Like initially they there was
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: no call for a park. I mean, it took forty
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: or fifty years of lots of inhabitants to get this idea.
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  Speaker 1: Um the original city plan in eighteen eleven had no
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: mention of any park. But for you city planning nerds,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: I know you know this already if you're a city
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: planning nerd. But John Randall Jr. He was the man
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: who laid out that the grid for New York City
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: very famously. I saw a documentary on it. Yeah, it's amazing.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: He drove these iron I believe iron bolts into the
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: ground with his fingers, his bare hands. It was a
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: surveying bolt and it was to map out that that grid,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: like every block. Can't you see one? Still there's one
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  Speaker 1: in Central Park that they found it. Don't think they
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: found any other ones in Central Park. But it has
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: nothing to do with Central Park because this is like
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: a good fifty sixty years before they even thought of
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: forty years before they even thought of Central part. It
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: was like maybe this is part of the grid, the
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: street grid. So there's one in a boulder that Um,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not gonna say where it is. You
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: gotta go find it. Huh. Well, that that's they try
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: to keep it on the download as far as the
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: actual GPS coordinate, like these people that hunted it down
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: and found it. It's like a speakeasy, but sort of
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: just a bolt in this it's a bolt in the stone,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: and you will become the king of New York if
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: you can pull it out. Oh you should not, dare,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: nothing should be there for eternity. But there's there's supposedly
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: more of them. Uh, And there are people that go
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: around and try and find these is kind of neat. Yeah,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: it is neat, So I guess I'm a city planning
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  Speaker 1: at heart. I have to say, Um, I came across
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: the great site called the Femeral New York that documents
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: like all the New York that's been lost and built
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: over and changed over the time. They have a great website.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Go check it out because we got some of some
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: good stuff from them for this episode. All right, So
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: where we left off before my nerdy segue was you
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: were talking about wealthy New York are saying we want
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: to park. Um, there's a more cynical view that was
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: we want to park and that would also greatly increase
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: increase the land value around the park. Um, where we
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  Speaker 1: own houses. Yeah, because just like today, the area around
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  Speaker 1: Central Park was very well healed um well in some places,
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: in other places not at all. In the place where
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: this where what Central Park is now, there was a
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  Speaker 1: lot of, um, very low income people living there. So
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  Speaker 1: you have very rich people surrounding very low income people,
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  Speaker 1: which I'm guessing made the low income people very nervous
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  Speaker 1: and eventually justifiably so, because the low income people are
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  Speaker 1: the ones who had to move to make the park
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  Speaker 1: initially for the rich people. Should we go and talk
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  Speaker 1: about that, Why not Seneca Village? Yeah, and well they're
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  Speaker 1: Seneca Village and then they're largely Irish and German immigrants
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  Speaker 1: in Seneca Village. Uh, well, and all over Seneca Village
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  Speaker 1: is only one small part of this immigrant housing that
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: was sort of around the park that. Uh. Of course,
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  Speaker 1: when you know, you know what imminent domain is. If
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  Speaker 1: the city wants to build the park there, they're going
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  Speaker 1: to get that land one way or the other. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: the New York legislature, the state legislature said, yep, New
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  Speaker 1: York City, you can exercise eminent domain over that and
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  Speaker 1: take whatever land you want. You got to pay them
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  Speaker 1: fair market value, which is up for debate if it
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  Speaker 1: was actually fair. But those people have to move, whether
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  Speaker 1: they like it or not. Right. So Seneca Village was
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: founded in eighteen twenty five. There was a couple in
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: eighteen twenty four named John Elizabeth Whitehead who bought Now
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: they owned farmland. Oh that okay, all right, I did.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: I thought they'd in the land for a long time. Now.
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  Speaker 1: They bought farmland between eighty two Street and then between
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  Speaker 1: eight and eighteen thirty two started selling it off, and
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  Speaker 1: they sold fifty parcels of that land, half of which
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  Speaker 1: went to UH people of African descent, which was very
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: unusual at the time to say the least. It was
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  Speaker 1: um and so like. Basically, out of this, out of
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  Speaker 1: this sale of lots, over this period of time, the
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Seneca Village started very quickly. Um. The people who lived
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: there built a house or school, UM, churches, a couple
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: of churches, houses, um and like, this village developed, this community.
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  Speaker 1: So there's a couple of things that was remarkable about
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Seneca Village. One, these were African American landowners, which was
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  Speaker 1: very unusual at the time because even at this time
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  Speaker 1: slavery was still on the books legal in New York.
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  Speaker 1: And these were um freed or unenslaved African Americans who
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: owned land, which meant if they owned two d and
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  Speaker 1: fifty dollars worth of land, they could vote, which would
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  Speaker 1: have made them um like like there were a hundred
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: African Americans who could vote at this time, because that's
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  Speaker 1: how that's how how few of them actually owned land.
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  Speaker 1: Ten percent of those people lived in Seneca Village. So
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  Speaker 1: this is a really unusual spot. But It was also
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: unusual because it was a place where African Americans and
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: European settlers or European immigrants lived together, like lived in
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: this community together. Yeah. Um, but should say you also
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: had to jump through certain other hoops to vote. Wasn't
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: quite as simple as owning land, because that would be, um,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: I guess too easy for them back then, which was
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: to say, not easy at all. But they still said, no,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: there's some other things you still got to do to vote.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: That we mentioned the other stuff too, uh And big
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: shout out to Andrew william He was the first man
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  Speaker 1: of African descent who bought land that would become Seneca
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: Village in September eight Um. But like you said, it
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: was Irish and German immigrants moved in there as well,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: and they were welcomed and it was by all accounts
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  Speaker 1: a multi cultural society that um got along well with
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  Speaker 1: one another, went to the same church. Yeah, that's enormous,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: pretty amazing, buried in the same graveyard. There was a
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: midwife there who lived in the village and she delivered
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: babies of any ethnicity or race. Yeah. No one knows
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: why it's called Seneca Village on most maps. It's known
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: as Yorkville. Oh, I thought that was a different place.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: That the Yorkville people moved up to Seneca Village after
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: they got moved out. Wow, Yorkville, there was another york
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: town that I'm thinking of. But this was on maps
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: as Yorkville. And no one knows if it was a
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: distortion of Senegal or if it might have been code
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: for the underground railroad. It's another theory. Another theory is
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: that it was derogatory somehow because areas where African immigrants
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: would live they would call bad names. Just whatever I see,
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  Speaker 1: So who knows. No one knows for sure where Seneca
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Village came from the name. At least it was interesting.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: So it sounds like Seneca Village is great. It was.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: It must have had fortune smiling on it throughout its time, right.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Not true? So Seneca Village was in the way of
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: this this proposed park, right, so let's get We'll just
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: go ahead and cut to the chase here. Seneca Village was.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: They had to move, which is sad because the community ended.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Then when the when the state and the city moved
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: in and said this is this is city land. Now
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: you guys will have to move here some money for
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: your land. Um, the community broke up, it didn't resettle
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: a reform elsewhere. Was like ephemeral, like that ephemeral New
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: York site. It was. It lasted for a few decades
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: and it was peaceful and harmonious, and then it was
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: gone because they had to move to make way for
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: Central Park. Yeah, it took a couple of years of
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: fighting the law, but eventually the law went out and
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: uh and it was a this called in this article
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: a violent clearing of Seneca Village. Um. Like they basically
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: sent cops in there with their batons and like physically
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: removed people. Yeah, and there was a a big kind
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: of um media blitz in favor of moving everybody out.
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  Speaker 1: They were, you know, derided as a shanty town of
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: squatters and stuff like that, despite the fact that most
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: of the people who lived there are a lot of
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: people who lived their own their land in their houses
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: and had for decades. Then, Um, they were they had
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: just as much right to be there as anybody else.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: But the popular opinion of the public at the time
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: was they were just squatting and they should be forced
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: to move. And it was totally justifiable to come in
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: with police batons to clear them off the land. Uh.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: In two thousand eleven, the sort of weird silver lining
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: is the Institute for the Exploration of Seneca Village History
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: got permission after ten years of trying from the Central
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Park Conservancy to excavate a couple of sites in the village.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: And they went in there and excavated, excavated two different
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: home sites, and on one they found some artifacts, but
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: it was clear that it had been already buried under
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: Central Park. Um, whatever we've been when they built Central Park, right,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: they had already dug it up when they did. The
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: other one, though, was original, and they found the original
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: soil of Seneca Village at the former yard of Nancy Moore.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Pretty neat and they have two fifty bags of material
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: to analyze now and soil samples and some artifacts to
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: see what life was really like back then. So pretty cool.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: So they better get to it, that's right, Um, all right,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: why don't we take a break and then come back
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: and talk about the park? Is it in Boston? Now? Yeah?
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: What happened there? All right? Chuck? So um, I think
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: by eighteen fifty three their head. I think in the
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: eighteen fifties there is like this drumbeat to have a park.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: Everybody wanted a park. Yeah. William Cullen Bryant was one
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: of the big names who edited the Evening Post, which
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: is now the New York Post. UM and he was
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: a well known poet at the time and a beloved figure,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: but he definitely used the Post as a platform to
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: advocate for this green space. Now again, there's a lot
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: of um understanding in this day and age that the
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: wealthiest New Yorkers wanted this park for themselves. Basically, they
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: wanted their new city that they had built to to
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: rival Paris or London, and it needed a park. They
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: wanted to go show off their carriages in the park,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: but they also advocated publicly for the park for the
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: working classes, the middle class. They should have a place
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: to to come and hang out. And this is you know,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: this is America. Of course everyone will be welcome. It's
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: a public park. It will be America's first landscape public park.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: And so people really kind of got on board with this,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: and by eighteens, even though that was kind of a lie,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: it was at least at first um. But by eighteen
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: fifty three I believe work started. There was a central
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: park that had been designated land had been designated for
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: the Central Park by then, that's right. And they had
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: a contest. Uh. I believe it was the first design
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: contest in the country. A lot of first that said,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: designer park, you gotta have a parade ground, you gotta
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: have a principal fountain, you gotta have a lookout tower,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: you gotta have a skating arena. You gotta have four
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: cross streets because people still got to get through there somehow. Uh.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: In a in a palace, I'm sorry, a place for
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: or a palace, why not for an exhibition or a
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: concert hall? Very specific rules for this design contest that
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: that was one by two gentlemen, very famous now gentleman
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: named Frederick law Olmstead and Calvert vote or vour vote
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: but definitely not vox vox x is always silent um. Yeah,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: those two submitted something called the Green's Word Plan and
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: they won. I like that name. And they won for
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: a couple of reasons. One um uh uh. Frederick law
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Olmstead was the superintendent of Central Park at the time.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Probably didn't hurt no, um, but he wasn't a shoe
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: and I believe his boss I can't remember like what
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: position his boss would have had his boss submitted a
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: plan too. Apparently he and vow um they're playing this
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: greenswere plan that they submitted was just so obviously head
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: and shoulders above every other design that was submitted that
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: it was just clear like from the outset, Yes, these
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: guys should win, and it was. It's considered a work
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: of art still to this day, although they actually went
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: on to design Prospect Park in Brooklyn. That's supposedly their
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: masterpiece over Central Park is Prospect Park. I mean, I
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: love them both. Yeah, they're both great. I've never been
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: to either of them. That's not true. No, I swear
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: to God, I've never I mean I must have before.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: But I mean what we were so okay, I walked
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: like fifteen paces in Central Park, right, it was just
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: like we weren't in there for long, right, That's that's
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: that's really the only thing. Yes, And I've never been
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: in Prospect Park. Boy, I have explored there's so much
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: of it, But I bet you I've explored of the
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: bottom of Central Park. I haven't been over like Street
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: a lot north of that, but that's where it gets
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: a little more wild anyway, Um, and not wild like
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: the parties coyotes, but a little more, a little more
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: wild as far as the design goes, well, very purposefully, yes, right, Okay,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you said purposely because supposedly the bottom half
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: of Central Park, so the part of the park itself
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: is meant to evoke New York State. The bottom half
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: is much more urban refined. Um uh, trimmed, I don't know,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: And it's meant to reflect New York City. And then
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: as you get further up in the park, it's a
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: little more wild. There's parties and coyotes all. Uh, you know, Poughkeepsie.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: You've never been to Bethesda Fountain. I don't believe I have.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: I've seen never been skating, drink so many episodes of
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: Order there I can't distinguish reality from fantasy. Man, I'm like,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: so like, I'm going into my memory. I'm like, okay, turn,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: You're right. Is Lenny Briscoe standing there from TV? Well,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: I've never seen an episode of that, so I guess
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: we're even what Yeah, you've never seen an episode of
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: the ten thousand episodes of Law and Order. Oh you're
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: missing out, Chris North and um, what was Briscoe's name?
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Jerry or Bach those two together. Ye, Benjamin Bratt was
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: a close second to the Chris North Jerry or Bach thing.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: And then it just keeps going on like they were
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: so good at all of them were just amazing. But yeah,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: a lot of stuff took place in Central Park. So
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: I feel like I've been there. Here's what you do, man,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: next time we go to New York. I know that
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: we typically stay downtown. Um, stay up by the park.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: Well let's stay then, just like get out in it.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: I've developed a taste for the Upper west Side, but
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: but not the park, like the right You're so close,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: I will go out. I'll take a helicopter, I will
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: go out of my way. I like Lower east Side
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: and Upper west Side are my two favorites in New
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: York in Manhattan. Interesting, Yeah, what what you like? Lower
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: east Side? I like it? Oh man, Well, I mean,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: my very favorite part of New York is the West
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Village for sure, But I like the Lower east Side.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: I like it in the East Village still a little grungy.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Is there such a thing as the Lower west Side?
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: That wall street? No? Like? Well, I mean wall streets
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: all the way down. But I would say, like if
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: I mean I don't think it's called the Lower west Side,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: but like the meatpacking district okay, yeah, like like the
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: high Line that's probably Lower west Side. There's some really
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: great art galleries in the meat package. Oh man, boy.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: When I first started going to New York, that was
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: when it was still shady over there, and like you
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: would walk through like blocks and blocks of industrial meatpacking
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: plants to get to like the one bar was open
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: that knowing had heard of, and then Juliani came in
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: clean the place up. Well, just thank god for him, right, Um,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: So the design of Central Park, the Greensward, Oh yeah,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: like if you have so much information to go over,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: I know, should this be a two parter? I don't know.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Let me ask you. Has our podcast gotten more conversational
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: this question aside, hasn't it? I don't know. Okay, I
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: think I think we've always been conversational. Yeah, but I mean,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: like this seems like a binnacle of conversation. Well, let
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: me say this. I think episodes one through four fifty
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: we're less conversations than But what about what about I
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: don't know? All right, Uh, the Greensword plan. If you
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: didn't know anything about Central Park, you may be under
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: the misconception that they just sort of squared it off
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: and rake some things around and that, and it was
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: like there's the park and like, let's just protect this
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: green space. But it was highly highly, highly designed, and
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: apparently they used as much explosives as would later be
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: used at the Battle of Gettysburg. You supposedly more to
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: blast away rock and move that rock, because I remember
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: the glacier that moved all that rock down. That's a
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: big problem when you're trying to build a park, like
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: planted hundreds of thousands of trees, swamps that they couldn't drain.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: They just building further to build likes. Yeah, so it
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: was and I don't think anyone really thinks that like, oh,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: they just walled it up and said, now we have
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: a park. But I don't think I even realized how
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: highly it was designed because and which is probably a
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: testament to their design, because when you walk around, you're
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: just like it all fits right, that's I mean, that's
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: the thing. Like there, they went to a lot of
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: trouble to make it look so naturalistic that you just
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: assume that that's what the land always looked like in
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: Central Park is actually highly managed, highly designed green space
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: that exists in a rectangle that when you're in the
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: center of it. From my from what I've seen, i'm
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: all in order. You can't tell that you're you're like
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: in the middle of the city and like that, Like
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: the roads none of them are straight, they're all meant
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: to curve. Um. There's meadows that kind of like go
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: out of sight, and there's woods, the ramble, like the
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: whole wood walk and all that. Um, all of it's
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: designed to just completely take you out of the city
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: and PLoP you into this this world. But it's just
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: so well done and so natural that it seems like
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: that's just what this patch of land always looked like.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Well and cool that like even in an era today
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: where that land is the most valuable land on the planet,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: maybe that they have protected those uh eight hundred plus
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: acres now and said, you're not I don't care how
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: much money you have, you're not gonna lop off. Just no,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: why don't we started at nine Street instead? And like,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: what's it gonna hurt because we could really use that area,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: but no, it is protected. Um, did you hear? Like
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: the dude bought a two eight million dollar penthouse in
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Central Park. So yeah, I can't imagine what some infensive
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: house right ever sold in America. So Bethesta Mountain before
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: we before we leave that beautiful, beautiful um work of art. Yeah,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: Bethesta terris Uh. It is a two tiered um that's
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: kind of one of the cool things. It's like it
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: sits low and you can walk from from the top
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: half of it and just kind of gaze out upon
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: that in the pond right behind it, and then walk
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: down the stairs and hear live music almost every day
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: of the week, it feels like. But that was designed
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: um uh by Emma Stebbins, an America artist was called
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: the Angel of the Waters, and she was awarded that
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: commission a very famous sculptor, and we gotta gotta acknowledge her.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: It's beautiful. One of one of my favorite places in
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: the world. I've seen it. They found a body there
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: one of the episodes of Long So I feel like
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: I've been to the John Lennon Memorial you or was
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: it with you me? Because I'm almost certain that I've
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: been to that. I don't know because the only time
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: I definitely was in Central Park with you. I will
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: um we went with a former co worker who kind
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: of baby sat us on an early marketing trip. Remember
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: that person. Yeah, that's the only time it was with us,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: which would explain why you tried to block it from
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: your memory. Did we go to Strawberry Field? I don't remember. Well,
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: then I believe I have been another time and it
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: would have been with you me. Then I think we
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: did not, because if I remember correctly, it was more
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: like this other person was just like, where can we
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: get a pretzel? That kind of thing. All right, So
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: back to the design, before we get to the building,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: they needed those four roads. Yeah, this is a big one,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: which was huge because Olmstead and vow Uh. They sank
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: their roads eight ft below the surface of the park,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: which really, um, I mean doesn't completely hide them, but
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: they use trees and things to sort of obscure these
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: roads so it wouldn't just be like this another just
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: straight you know, cross street. Uh. And it really blends
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: in nicely with the park, and in fact, one of
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: the lovelier things you can do is drive through the park.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: I saw that. I didn't even know that you could,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: but I went on a Google street view of the
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: road and I was like, oh, yeah, totally. I get
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: it now, like I I got it from reading it.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: But then I was like, am I understanding this correctly?
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: And yes there are sunken roads through the park, which
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: was another reason why Olmstead and vow one because like
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: so a couple of other designs that I saw. One was, um,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: all the continents in meadow form interesting okay, interesting, but
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: also terrible. And then somebody just draw drew a pyramid
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: on a piece of paper, and apparently it was like boom,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: there's my there's my submission. So like they didn't have
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: the most competition. But when they again, when they were
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: like sunken roads, meadows and stuff like that, it was
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: it was very clear that they had the right vision.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: Uh you know the movie Arthur, the Dudley Moore movie. Yeah,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: they drive through the park. And at the beginning of
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: that movie, because he says, drive through the park a bitman.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: You know I love Jerry's laughing. You know, I love
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: the park. So do you mean Russell brand? God, you
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: know Hodgman was in that one. That's right. I never
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: saw that it couldn't do it. I saw the Hodgman Park.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Just cue that up. No, I just went to the
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: movies waited went in watching Hodgeman. Uh. Twenty thousand workers
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: UM worked on Central Park. UM, Irish laborers, German gardeners. Uh,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: stone native stone cutters, native born stone cutters. And uh
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: what do I say? How many two and trees and
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: shrubs were planted? Yep, they moved at the beginning, they
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: moved like a six million cubic feet of earth in
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: and out. Um. Yeah, just the the number of trees
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: and shrubs that were planted is just mind boggling. And UM,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: it was extremely expensive to UM. There was something like
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: a five million dollar price tag just to acquire the land.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: Supposedly that's three times higher than what they projected the
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: actual park was going to cost. Yeah, so that's like
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty million dollars today. This is at
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: a time when you know that was that was a
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: bunch of money to back then. UM, But it was
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: also I believe there's a financial panic that really made
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: people say, like, what's this is a crazy amount of money,
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: what are we doing? But they pressed on. UM. The
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Civil War broke out during during this the construction, and
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: so construction kind of tapered off a while, and they
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: went and fought the war, and then everybody came back,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: and when they came back, they brought with them uh
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: an understanding of explosives, so that they were able to
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: blow away rock a lot more easily than they were
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: before the war. Yeah, for sure. And there is a
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: false uh rumor or a myth that is that what
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: bridge is it? One of them was supposedly made of cannonballs. Yeah,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: the heart Bridge, I can't remember what it was. Something
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: bow Bridge, the bow Bridge, the bow Bridge? Is it?
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: The bow Bridge? Yeah, it was supposedly up until like
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four, like every book you could read said
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: they had giant cannonballs. That has found as as its foundation. Yeah,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: it's like ball bearings because it was like expanded and
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: contracted so much because of the winters. No cannonballs. They
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: did a renovation on it, so they're building this thing. Uh.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: They finally in eighteen fifty nine, in the winter of
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: eighteen fifty nine is when it first opened for public use,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: and by eight that park received more than seven million
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: visitors a year. There's a lot, but like you said
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: that we need to follow up on. At first, they
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: had a bunch of rules in place that kind of
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: kept it for the wealthier New Yorkers for sure. So
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: like the history of Central Park is actually a history
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: of class struggle in New York big time. And when
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: it when it opened, initially it was kind of like
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: thanks for the park, chumps, appreciate the taxpayer money. Um.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: And it was like if there was any kind of
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: event or orchestra or band or anything like that, it
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: took place from Monday to Saturday, because if you were
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: a labor if you were part of the working class,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: the only day of the week you had off was Sunday. Um.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Carriages were very much welcomed and they made up something like, um,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: fifty or sixty percent of the visitors arrived in carriages
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: in the first decade were in carriages, but like five
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: percent of New Yorkers were wealthy enough to afford carriage
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: at all, right, exactly. Um. So basically it was just
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: kind of like a stay out kind of thing. They
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: had a ban on group picnics. Yeah, that was a
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: big one. So like all these you know, big immigrant
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: families that love to get together in large groups, none
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: of that couldn't do it. I go to the cemetery.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: You couldn't ride around in a work card, so like yeah,
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: like if you had an ice truck, yeah, sorry, Like
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: you want to just put your family in it to
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: take him out for a Sunday drive. Nope, none of those.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: You had to have a nice carriage. So there were
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: always all these rules, um that were enforced for a
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: little while. And then finally, um, the rest of New York,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: the other New Yorkers said this is b s. Yeah,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: let's let's loosen these up a little bit, and they
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: finally petitioned for some changes in Central Park. Finally, in
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: the eighteen seventies became a true public park. Yeah, Like
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: little by little, that's when it started ease on some
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: of these rules. Um. Apparently Olmstead was not a fan
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: of children trapesing all over the grass, so he would
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: have been none too pleased with family picnics and all
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: of it on the Great Lawn. Um. Obviously that changed
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: over the years as well. Uh. And since you know,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: mid eighteen seventy five and on, it's been a series
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: of um, progressive minded people that have opened up the
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: park and democratized it over decades and decades. But it's
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: also been kind of this push and pull, like, okay,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: how much for the people, should we add some like
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: a swimming pool, yeah yeah, or like some like should
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: we put the baseball stadium here? That was a proposal
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: at one point in time, and they're like, no, let's
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: not do let's not go that far towards the people.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: It's fields, and they said, okay, maybe one or two
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: of those, and then it would kind of go back,
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: you know, like, um, you know, the people have screwed
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: it up a little bit, so let's take it over
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: and make up some more rules. And it just keeps
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: going back and between too much for the people, and
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: the people are taking it for granted, too too strict,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: and we need to kind of loosen it up a
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: little bit. Just kind of went back and forth like that,
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: and it's still doing that today. Yeah. And also I think, um,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: like the greensword plan was so revered. It was sort
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: of like the Constitution. It was like for decades and
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: decades they would go back to that original plan and
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: think about, like, well, this isn't what they intended. Yeah,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: until Progressive sort of got on board and we're like,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: well we can actually alter this, keep the spirit of
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: the park and just make it more accessible because softball
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: fields are great there's a really good um example of
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: all of this in uh, the Casino story. Yeah, so
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: there was this thing called the Ladies Refreshment Saloon. I
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: think there was an original Calvert Vo building, one of
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: the buildings he built. It looked like, um, an upstate
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: New York cottage, a very like a wealthy person's cottage
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: house in New York. Is beautiful little house. And originally,
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: if you were a woman who was unescorted by a
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: man to Central Park, this was the place you could
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: go and like get a drink and relax and chill
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: out because no men were allowed. It was just the
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: Ladies Refreshment Saloon, right, And then over time men started
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: to be allowed and it became like an actual restaurant.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: And then in the twenties, I think New York got
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: a mayor who was basically a gangster named Jimmy Walker,
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: gentleman Jimmy Walker, and he was not Jimmy Walker, different
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: Jimmy Walker, um. And he was super in favor of
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: speakeasies and like gambling and all this stuff. And he
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: helped make the casino or the this refreshment saloon into
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: what was known as the Casino. There wasn't actual gambling there.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: But it was like the hottest nightclub in New York
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: was in this original eighteen sixties building UM in Central Park. Yeah,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: he said, let's take the Ladies refreshment salon and make
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: it the opposite of that, right exact. And so during
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: the day it was a restaurant that was open to all,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: but it was basically like a Neiman Marcus cafe, where
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: like the prices were so outrageously high that the average
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: person couldn't afford this stuff. It was like coffee for
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: forty cents a cup at a time when coffee was
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: like a nickel everywhere else. So, you know, eight times
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: the normal rate for just a cup of coffee, which
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: is kind of like what's not good for a public park.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: But it was open everybody until night came, and then
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: it was an exclusive nightclub, like you could not get
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: in unless you were on the list. And there was
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: like partying like this for years throughout the Roaring twenties,
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: and then finally when Jimmy Walker was no longer mayor
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: he was toppled for corruption, the casino became a symbol
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: for the people taking back New York and their park,
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: and so UM Mayor LaGuardia appointed a guy named Robert
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: Moses who became the parks commissioner for decades, and Robert
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: Moses lobbied to tear the casino down. Yeah, he did
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: a lot, Robert Moses. He built twenty playgrounds on the periphery.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: He renovated the zoo that I think had been around
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: since eighteen seventy one, and it was and still is
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: very popular. Um he was the first one to accommodate automobiles.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: He had an athletic fields, UM benefactors private benefactors in
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: the fifties and sixties, which was during his tenure. Um
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: helped contribute to the skating rank, the woman rank, Alaska
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: ranking pool, the boat houses, the chess and Checker's house,
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: ball fields on the Great Lawn. Like he really made
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: a lot of changes for like the people, right, So, yeah,
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: they took the park back and he actually he was
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: a huge UM advocate for the park and it had
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: kind of started to fall into decay around the turn
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: of the twentieth century, and when he came in in
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: nineteen thirty four, he just completely turned it around, like
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: you said, added all this stuff, but also renovated it
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: and Sally restored it back to its original glory. And
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: so Robert Moses was great. He saved Central Park the
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: first time, the first time, but when he left in
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: what did you say, Um, the park really sorry to
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: follow the pieces because there was no champion there like
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: Robert Moses. But there's also no plan in place, and
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: there was also no money. New York. Basically, the way
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: that I saw it, New York abdicated its stewardship of
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Central Park. It basically said this is whatever, We're not
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: paying attention to this anymore. And it went to poop
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: very quickly. All right, well, let's take a break there, uh,
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: and we'll come back and finish up from ninety to today,
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: don't alright, so the park is going downhill in the nineties, sixties,
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: and seventies. Um, we mentioned a few reasons. Another big
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: reason was that there was no no ownership. No one
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: had ultimate responsibility. Like I feel like the buck was
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: being passed all over the city. No one was happy
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: about it, but there was no body in place to say, no,
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: this is we gotta fix this now. And if you
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: look up pictures of Central Park in the seventies, man,
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: and I mean it was like all of New York.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: It wouldn't looked like a waste land. It was like
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: the warriors in there. Yeah, like these classic places like
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: the boat House and the Skating Rinker, like graffitied and
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: likes everywhere. It's just hard to believe broken all the place,
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: the being vandalized. It's like it is, it's it's so sad.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: It is. It's sad to see, but it's also unbelievable
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: to see now that you know what Central Park looks like,
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: just how bad it was in the seventies and eighties
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: and the sixties. It was actually there wasn't like a
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: Robert Moses champion and it was starting to go downhill,
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: but it was nothing like it was when they finally
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: in the seventies were just like whatever, forget it and
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: um it was kind of like that broken windows theory
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: of like policing, where once once you once you reach
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: this tipping point, as it were, um, it just kind
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: of all just turns to garbage. And that's Central Park
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: in the seventies and eighties was a great example of that.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: And it was considered like a really dangerous place that
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: you did not want to be after dark. And there
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: was that very famous Central Park five case, and everybody
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: just found it so easy to believe that some teenagers
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: had brutally attacked a woman and left her for dead
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: because it was Central Park. Yeah, I mean, you can't
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: even be in there at certain hours now, like they
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: cleared the park out. Uh. And I know this because
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: I spent the night in the park for Shakespeare in
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: the Park tickets and you you line up, you hang
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: out and party with people in line until I can't
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: remember what time it was, but something like two am,
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: and the cops come around and they say, everybody get up,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: and they walk you in order out onto the sidewalk
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: right there on. I don't know if it was the
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: east or west side, but they basically moved the entire
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: line out of the park. And then then you're sleeping
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: on the sidewalk all night, and then in the morning
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: they come back and they move you all back into
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: the park in line, and everyone just does it must
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: have been a hell of a Shakespeare play. It was
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: the most legendary. What was it, the Seagull? I never
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: told you about that, The seagull. That's like Chekhov or something. Yeah,
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: it doesn't mean everything is Shakespeare. It's just Shakespeare in
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: the Park kind of makes it sound like it would
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: be No, that's just the name of the program, but
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: it's uh this Yeah, And it was The Seagull with
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: Kevin Klein and Meryl Streep and John Goodman and Christopher Walking,
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: Philip Seymour Hoffman, George the Call, Natalie Portman Wow, and
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: there was like two more directed by Mike Nichols. It
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: was like one of the most legendary performances ever. And
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: that's the one where I saw James Lipton wearing a
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: inside the actor's studio jacket. It's like, you don't need
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: to wear that. It's like Glenn Danzig walks around wearing
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: Danzig shirts. Did you know that? Oh, I'm sure sleepless
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: Danzing shirts. So anyway, that's what happens. They move you
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: out at night, so it's kind of fun. I highly
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: recommend everyone doing that at some point in their life.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: That's a heck of a play man. Yeah, it was.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: It was really something else. So, uh, Central Park is
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: in Decay And in nineteen seventy four, UM a man
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: named George Soros who was saved the day the devil
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: to some people in this country. George Soros and Richard
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: gilder Um under working with a Central Park Community fund,
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: underwrote a management study in nineteen seventy four by E. S. Savas,
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: who was a professor of public systems management at Columbia.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: And this was a big study that basically came away
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: with two big clear initiatives. One was like, we need
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: a CEO essentially like one person, one person in charge
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: so everyone can't go like I thought, he was gonna
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: fix the thing. One person who who has like not
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: unchecked authority, but just basically like their their boss, their
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: decision is final. Yeah. So that was the first thing.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: And then the second thing was a central park board
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: of guardians to oversee all this stuff. Um the guy
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: suggested the Guardian Angels, but was shouted down, Oh man,
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: we should do one of those guys. Uh. Nine. Though,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Betsy Barlow, who is now UM Rogers was a
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: Yale educated urban planner and writer, became that central park administrator,
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: which was essentially the de facto CEO that they were
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: looking for. UM. And then she is the one. So
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: many people did so much great work over the years,
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: but she really did. She was the first one to
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: create a public private partnership. UM too get well healed
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: New Yorkers involved. Yeah, and they apparently were um bolstered
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: by early successes. Like they went in and one of
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: the first things they did was they created a zero
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: tolerance policy for graffiti, garbage, anything broken. If the if
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: anybody saw anything wrong with the park, you were supposed
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: to phone it in. And they just responded immediately and
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: fixed it, like literally phone it in, not just phone
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: it in right right, right, yeah, I'll be right there. Um.
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: They and they would fix it, and they they very quickly.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: It was that kind of thing where like, if the
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: park's already clean, you're probably going to be less likely
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: to litter or less likely to spray paint. But if
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: it's already spray painting, there's already some garbage, you maybe
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: a little and then you hit that like snowball thing.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: They kept the snowball from ever growing by being just
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: completely vigilant and they attracted a lot of attention, improved like, oh,
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: this actually will work, and so it's more money started
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: coming in to kind of resurrect the park. Yeah, And
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty um she uh brought together a couple
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: of groups, the Central Park Task Force in the Central
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Park Community Fund to finally merge and create the Central
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: Park Conservancy, which was that citizen based board of guardians
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: that they called for with that initial study. So they
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: have a plan in place. Now things are getting way
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: way better. UH. And then in n UH an arrangement
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: between the Conservancy and the City of New York UM
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: formalized that public private partnership. UH. And there was a
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: man named Douglas Blonch Blonsky, the blons who assumed her
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: title of administrator, and he was the one that created
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: this really innovative management. Innovative in its simplicity, I think,
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: because he was like, here's what you need to do,
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: is we need to make it smaller. So he divided
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: Central Park up into forty nine zones, and every single
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: zone had its own gardener and its own staff. And
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: if you look at the size of Central Park, it
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: that's like probably a few two or three square blocks
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: maybe per team. Anybody can handle that. But that's the
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: way to do it, you know, you make it smaller. Well,
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: there's also accountability, to have the accountability at the top.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: And then ever since then it's been humming. There's a UM.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: The big thing moving forward is a three hundred million dollar. Um,
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: what do you call it, like a like a fund
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: to keep it going in definitely, Yeah, which is funny
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: because that's double the original price in adjusted for inflation.
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: That is funny. And in March of last year, uh,
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Betsy another Betsy Betsy Elizabeth Betsy Winberg Smith became
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: president CEO of the Conservancy. And all of these people
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: that do us do it because they love the park.
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure she's paid and stuff, but they're
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: not volunteers. But it's not like uh, I mean, it's
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: a good position to be in if you want to
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: be among the elite of New York. But all of
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: these people were nature lovers and like park advocates. Yeah,
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, clearly, that's kind of the proof is in
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: the pudding, because I mean they've they've done a pretty
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: great job in bringing Central Park back, especially if you
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: go look at those pictures from the seventies and eighties
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: and then think about it today. Yeah. Man, Yeah, you
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: see a picture from five, you see a law in
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: order from totally different. I just got one more thing.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: Sheep Meadow used to have sheep. Yeah, the tavern on
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: the Green, the restaurant used to be where they housed
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: the sheep, and they were put there very purposely by
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: Olmstead to keep the grass cut, but also for aesthetics. Yeah,
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: he said, all this green everywhere, bring in white and
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: black sheep. They're like as opposed to you know what's
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: funny he he made his his arc is a master
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: landscape designer. He was like a journalist and a farmer.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: That's what his background was. He became the Central Park
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: superintendent because he needed a job. Amazing, that was it.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: I have one last one. The Central Park Zoo started
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: out as an animal menagerie because people would take unwanted
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: exotic pets to the arsenal and they just ended up
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: starting accumulating pets. I think it started with some swans
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: and a black bear cub is how the whole thing started.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: If you want to know more about Central Park, there's
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: a ton of stuff. It's so much. This could have
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: been a three parter easily. You could do a lot
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: worse than going to ephemeral New York and looking or
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: go to the park. Yeah, I guess you could do that. Um.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: And since I said ephemeral New York, it's time for
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: a very very special listener mail. Yeah, this is long,
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: and I'm gonna make it shorter, even though I've already
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: made it shorter. But you might remember, many years ago
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: we had Sarah, the amazing eleven year old super fan.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: We got a lot of letters from read some of
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: them money air. Then Sarah disappeared from us, and uh,
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: in those ten years, we would remark occasionally like whatever
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: happened to Sarah? She got in touch last week and
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: it was literally one of the more exciting emails I've
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: ever gotten. Uh. She says, Hey, guys, listen to can
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: you can your Grandfather's Diet Short in your Life? And
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: this was from a while ago. It's like ten Yeah,
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: but that was a select episode. She heard it as
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: a select and said, and heard the thirteen year old
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: version of myself get a shout out. Well, guys, I'm
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: now twenty one. It's been entirely too long, and I
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: owe you an explanation. Um. She said, her iPod broke
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: way back then, a likely story, that's like the modern Yeah,
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: I broke, so her iPod broke. Um. It took a
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: while to get back to get the smart phone. Once
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: she got the smartphone, she listened here and there, but
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: she said she was really busy with school. She's like,
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: I lost my self proclaimed title of super fan, even
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: though I dearly loved it admired you uh the entire time. Um.
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: The fun facts I learned throughout the years also came
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: incredibly handy during my quiz Bowl career and throughout high school.
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: So yes, I am very much a nerd ha U.
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: Currently I'm a senior in college, which is even crazy
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: for me to say back to being a regular listener.
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: And boy did I miss you guys. I am so
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: sorry we lost touch, um, she said, I just want
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: to sincerely thank you for continuing this podcast and consistently
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: bringing new topics to light. You were also kind to
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: that a little eleven year old version of myself. Uh.
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: You inspired me to pursue every opportunity I was given
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: to learn. You showed me that there is always a
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: story behind everything, and then I should always ask questions
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: and she she got it. Man. Uh. That has always
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: stuck with me and greatly shaped the person I am today.
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: It's been amazing to watch you all achieve what you have. Um.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: So she graduated in two thousand fifteen, went on to
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: study English and psychology at a small private liberal arts school.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: She traveled to Ghana. She traveled to Scotland to study literature.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: The Scotland Ghana you want she set. Aside from travel,
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: I had a chance to lead on our campus. Was
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: elected student government president. This is all leading to a like, Hey,
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: this is what happens when you listen stuff. You should know.
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: This is advice for kids. Um, weirdly have to thank
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: you for spurring the beginning of that leadership. It might
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: seem like a weird thing to attribute to your podcast,
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: but I truly have to thank you for helping develop
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: my critical thinking skills early on in my education. You
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: guys truly fostered uh a mentality within me. The education
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: is always a strength. So how about that man that's
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: she's going to grad school now? She doesn't know where.
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: She's applied all over the map, and she says it's
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: a little scary. She'll do great. She says, I feel
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: like you're all old friends that I've lost connection with
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: and I'd love to fix that. Sarah, twenty one year
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: old super fan, thank you so much for getting back
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: in touch. She gave a little picture, she said, a
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: picture like this is me now, just adorable, adorable. Thank
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: you very much. For writing in Sarah, And I would say,
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: if you're like Sarah and you want to get in touch,
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: but nobody's really like Sarah, but the original eleven year
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: old super fan now turned twenty one year old successful
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: um fan. Yeah, it just goes as well. One day
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: we will read an email called Sarah the middle aged
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: super fan and I will be like a million close
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: to sixty. Yeah, which is so weird. I won't be
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: sixty now, you'll be just a few years behind me. Well,
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: thank you against Sarah. And if you want to get
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: in touch with us, so let us know how we
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: impact your life. We'd love hearing that. Stuff. You can
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: go on to Stuff you Should Know dot com. Check
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: out our social links. I'm at the Josh Clark Way
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: dot com. You can send us an email the Stuff
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: podcast how stuff Works dot com for more on this
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is that how stuff works
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: dot com? Hm, hm,