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

[00:19] Jessica: And I'm Jessica. Meg and I have been friends since 1982. We got through middle school and high school together here in New York City where we still live.

[00:26] Meg: And where we are podcasting about New York City in the 80s. I do ripped from the headlines, and.

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

[00:35] Meg: Hey, Jessica.

[00:36] Jessica: Yes, Meg.

[00:38] Meg: I'm going to share with you something very delightful that happens to me every few days. My friend, who I think you've met, Sauda

[00:47] Jessica: Yes.

[00:48] Meg: She sends me voice memos of her responses to our podcast.

[00:53] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[00:55] Meg: And it is so fun. And I am going to share one of them with you right now because I think you will appreciate it, and hopefully our listeners will appreciate it, too.

[01:06] Jessica: I can't wait. Thank you.

[01:07] Sauda: I'm obviously washing out of order. If you hate these notes, please tell me, because I found out some people don't like voice notes. I now want to go back to camp because I'm watching out of Order Camp Pinewood, Twin Lakes, Michigan. Summer 87. Summer 88. Some of the best summers ever in my life, ever. And it was a huge get because my mother would not let me go to sleep away camp until I was, like, 13, and I'll be able to tell her something went wrong. I miss it so much. I did my last year as a camper because I was so old, and then the next year, I was like, a leader in training. That rocked! God, I love these fucking podcasts of yours.

[01:55] Meg: Isn't that fun? Can you imagine? I get those, like, every few days. It's like the best thing ever.

[02:04] Jessica: I am so I don't even have the word. Delighted doesn't do it. Astonished doesn't do it. It's so sweet. And I'm just saying, the power of camp.

[02:20] Meg: No doubt about it.

[02:22] Jessica: Power of camp.

[02:23] Meg: All right, are you ready for your engagement question?

[02:25] Jessica: I am never ready for my engagement question.

[02:28] Meg: Moving forward. It's not a quiz. It really is about just getting your head in the space that my head is in. Okay, wait.

[02:36] Jessica: I'm going to ask you my special question. Always.

[02:38] Meg: What?

[02:39] Jessica: Is there a trigger warning?

[02:40] Meg: No.

[02:42] Jessica: Very good. All right, then I'm probably ready for the engagement question.

[02:46] Meg: Well, you know how we've talked a lot about how Central Park was pretty dangerous when we were growing up?

[02:52] Jessica: Why, yes.

[02:53] Meg: But when we were in high school, we did go hang out at Sheep Meadow.

[02:58] Jessica: We sure did.

[03:00] Meg: And I was wondering and Alice does that, too, actually.

[03:03] Jessica: Really?

[03:03] Meg: Yeah, every generation. And I was wondering if there was another park in the city or if you had another sort of park experience that you would like to share.

[03:12] Jessica: Absolutely. Cool. When I was little, so I grew up very near the East River. I grew up on York Avenue, and Carl Schurz Park was my park. And it's a great park. There's a promenade right on the East River. And it's very pretty and it's small, but when I was a kid, of course, it seemed like it was enormous. It had the best playground and of course, in the true style of the 70s and 80s there were no rubber mats. It was concrete, so you could bang your head open, but great playground. And there was a basketball court where the big kids were, and that was both titillating and terrifying. And it's also the park where Gracie Mansion is.

[03:59] Meg: Yeah, they're on the water, which is

[04:01] Jessica: A very beautiful house and always sort of captivated me. I thought it was gorgeous.

[04:06] Meg: And now there's a ferry stop there. So when I come to visit you, when I take the ferry from my place to your place, the ferry lets me off right at that park.

[04:15] Jessica: And all spring and summer and even into the fall, there was always a Mr. Softee truck right parked directly in front of the entrance and a hot dog cart. So that was like part of the ritual, was, what are you going to get from Mr. Softee?

[04:32] Meg: Cool.

[04:33] Jessica: And it was lovely. It was great. And all of my little friends who lived on the East Side congregated there.

[04:39] Meg: Excellent.

[04:40] Jessica: So there you go. That's my park.

[04:41] Meg: Okay, well, I'm going to tell you today about another park in the city.

[04:46] Jessica: The park of death, the park where murders happen. Okay.

[05:00] Meg: My sources are a New York Times article from 1988, Clayton Patterson's video footage from August 6, 1988, Maureen Dowd's New York Times article from 1985, and this blog called Memo from Manhattan. Tompkins Square Park is in the East Village, bounded by East 10th and East 7th Street and Avenue A and Avenue B. So it's almost a perfect square, which is actually rather unusual for a park in the city. In the 80s, it was home to a children's playground, handball courts and swing sets and a band shell for concerts and rallies, protest rallies. Old men played chess on stone chess boards. Punks and drug dealers mingled with Hare Krishnas and drag queens. Lady Bunny famously gave birth to Wigstock, the annual drag festival, in 1984 when she and her friends stumbled out of the Pyramid Club one night and decided to put on a show in the park. The park was also a literal home for many who had nowhere else to sleep. By 1988, there was a substantial tent city in the center of the park, and Maureen Dowd's 1985 New York Times article called "Youth-Art-Hype: A Different Bohemia," describing the East Village art scene in downtown style, predicted the gentrification of the neighborhood. And indeed, people with money who ten years earlier would never have considered living off of Tompkins Square were willing and able to pay $500,000 for an apartment in the newly renovated Christodora House, a dormant highrise on the corner of Avenue B and 10th street facing the park. And that would be in today's money, $1,200,000.

[07:00] Jessica: Okay. Significant.

[07:02] Meg: Yes. Now, these new residents, the well to do ones, didn't even use the park because you couldn't even sit on benches because the wood had been torn off and used for fires by the people in the tent city. And other neighbors of the park included squatters and abandoned tenements like Adam Purple. Right, exactly. Yes. And featured in the musical Rent.

[07:26] Jessica: Indeed.

[07:28] Meg: And they were illegally siphoning water and electricity, like our Friend. And there were Hispanic families who had lived in the neighborhood for generations who just wanted relief from the panhandling and the drug pushing, and many wanted relief from the loud music that people performed in the band shell and nearby bars. So there are many groups here with competing interests. I mean, some of them have the same interests. In the summer of 1988, tensions were high. The noise from the concerts in the band shell, the raucous gatherings, and the growing tent city led the block association to petition the city for a curfew. Friends of Tompkins Square Park, an organization which represented the poorer East Side of the park, pushed back on the idea. They were like, no, that's okay. We're good. Without a curfew. Perhaps, the Friends of Tompkins Square Park realized that this was not a great idea. I don't know. But the Parks Department adopted a 01:00 A.m. Curfew. And on July 11, Captain Gerald McNamara of the Ninth Precinct. Do you know where the Ninth Precinct is? Did you ever watch NYPD Blue?

[08:42] Jessica: Did I watch?

[08:43] Meg: Okay, so that's Ninth precinct is NYPD blue, right? Okay. So Captain Gerald McNamara confined the homeless people in the park's southeast quadrant. So he just gathered them all together and stuck them in one corner, and he evicted everyone else from the park. That week the police began closing down the park every night at 01:00 A.m.. There was a protest on July 31.

[09:10] Jessica: Question.

[09:11] Meg: Yes.

[09:11] Jessica: So once the curfew was in full swing, were they still allowing the homeless to stay in that quadrant?

[09:17] Meg: If you were homeless, you could stay in this one. They were the one corner. Yeah, but they weren't allowed to stay in their own. Like, they had created a whole tent city. So they were evicted from their own tent city and stuck in a corner of the park. So they were unhoused, but they were allowed to stay. So there's a protest on July 31, and at that protest, six officers were treated for injuries, and four men were arrested for attempting to incite a riot. A bigger protest was scheduled for August 6, but this time, the police who were pissed off about the one on July 31 were not going to be caught flat footed. This is a quote from Captain McNamara "It's time to bring a little law and order back to the park and restore it to the legitimate members of the community. We don't want to get into a situation where we under police something like this, and it turns into a fiasco." The irony. What happened next was what the New York Times described as a bloody war zone. Around 11:30 p.m.. 200 protesters came through the St. Mark's Place entrance to the park holding banners proclaiming "Gentrification is class war." Allen Ginsberg lived nearby and witnessed what happened next. This is a quote from him. "The police panicked and were beating up bystanders who had done nothing wrong and were just observing. The police charged the crowd on horses and were clubbing people indiscriminately. It was like they stampeded them."

[10:55] Jessica: This is like a pogrom.

[10:57] Meg: And you can see these videos. They're on YouTube. There is a lot of video footage from journalists and from bystanders. The one that I watched the most was Clayton Patterson's footage. And they show officers who had covered their badges and they were beating the crap out of civilians. There's just no question. In the meantime, a mob rammed a police barricade through the glass door of the Christodora House. They overturned planters and tore a lamp out of the wall, threatened residents and staff with bodily harm and screamed and chanted "Die Yuppie Scum."

[11:36] Jessica: So is that the genesis of Die Yuppie Scum?

[11:39] Meg: I believe so.

[11:40] Jessica: Interesting. Well, that sounds terrifying.

[11:44] Meg: Yeah. By morning, the brutality complaints against the police ballooned to over 100, and the blame was placed squarely on the Ninth Precinct. When questioned about the brutality, Captain McNamara said, "It was a hot night. There was a lot of debris being thrown through the air. Obviously, tempers flared." At first, Mayor Ed Coch didn't seem to grasp the gravity of what happened.

[12:15] Jessica: That seems to be one of Ed's biggest problems. He's, like, a little slow to the show.

[12:18] Meg: He was out of town, as it turned out, and then they didn't let him know about it until a while. But, yeah, he didn't he didn't jump on this.

[12:26] Jessica: Okay.

[12:27] Meg: Hundreds of officers were called out on a steamy Saturday for the worst violence the city had seen in years. Yet Koch did not know about it until the next day and said he did not speak to Police Commissioner Ward about it until Monday. I guess he was having a nice weekend.

[12:45] Jessica: Well, let's hope he was.

[12:46] Meg: Koch called the park a cesspool, where, quote, oh, no.

[12:53] Jessica: Oh, Ed, I feel it already.

[12:55] Meg: Go "Sandboxes are soiled with feces and urine." He then had to admit that he had not, in fact, seen the feces and urine himself. So he responded with, "There are people, hundreds of them, I'm told, who park there 24 hours a day, and obviously there are bodily needs."

[13:15] Jessica: This is so utterly did no one get media training for this? This is unreal. Okay, so he's basically imagining all of the homeless people as like ferel cats, like ooh sandbox screechy scripty. All right, this is not good. Go ahead.

[13:37] Meg: And chances are the same thing had happened in your beautiful Carl Schurz Park. How do you pronounce it?

[13:44] Jessica: Carl Schurz Park. Yeah, close enough.

[13:47] Meg: All right. He probably would have responded differently, right?

[13:50] Jessica: Who, Carl?

[13:51] Meg: No, Ed.

[13:53] Jessica: Ed. Why would he have responded differently?

[13:55] Meg: Because it's next door to his house, Gracie Mansion, which he rarely stayed in.

[14:01] Jessica: If we want to go back.

[14:01] Meg: You see my point? It's an uptown park with people he actually cares about, and he had sort of dismissed this particular group of people. After all the video footage was released, he conceded that the event was indeed a police riot. And while a few officers were called to task, the government response to the police brutality was somewhat tepid, and the issue of affordable housing and gentrification was entirely eclipsed. Now, this is part one of my two part series. Next week, I will tell a story that could only happen in the Tompkins Square Park of the 80s, or at least I hope so. The Butcher of Tompkins Square oh, I.

[14:47] Jessica: Oh, I know what this is.

[14:48] Meg: Committed his deeds in the climate of drugs, homelessness, gentrification, counterculture, the occult, mental illness. Yay 80s.

[14:59] Jessica: So I had to set aside. This is the most moxy you could possibly have to just be like and don't worry, I'm just letting you know that this is a two part series. Wait for the good stuff, because there will be a trigger warning, and it's ugly. I remember this. You know about it vividly. Yes, I do, because you know me. You know the kinds of crimes that really stick with me.

[15:28] Meg: I did not know about it. So, dear listeners, buckle your seatbelts. Next week there's a doozy.

[15:34] Jessica: Yes. And no cheating, no looking it up online.

[15:37] Meg: I would like to share with you a couple of fun facts about Tompkins Square Park.

[15:41] Jessica: Before that, you could walk through it at night and hear someone go, smoke, smoke, smoke, shake, shake, smoke.

[15:48] Meg: Actually, some nice little facts.

[15:51] Jessica: Oh, okay.

[15:51] Meg: It was home of the first dog park in New York City, 1990. And it houses a tree where Hare Krishna was founded in the US.

[16:02] Jessica: Really, really interesting.

[16:04] Meg: Yeah. And Tim Murphy oh, Tim Murphy, our.

[16:09] Jessica: Ohh, our friend of the podcast Tim Murphy

[16:11] Meg: Wrote A novel called Christadora about neighbors who live in that building. And it starts 1981, and it addresses AIDS and drugs and mental illness and art, and it's incredibly remarkable, this book, and highly, highly recommended.

[16:28] Jessica: Yay. Tim Murphy.

[16:29] Meg: Yeah.

[16:30] Jessica: All right. Well, that's I think it's even more unsettling because I know there's going to be more unsettling information coming, so yay!

[16:40] Meg: At first, I thought I was going to put both of these stories in one, and then I realized, no, they each deserve their own moment.

[16:49] Jessica: The whole flavor, if you will, of Tompkins Square Park takes a little bit of doing, and you absolutely painted it quite well. I just wish that there was a way that we could really describe the smell of Tompkins Square Park to our listeners, because I remember that being the ultimate in do not go there. That's where you go because you're ready to die.

[17:17] Meg: I had no reason to be anywhere near there. When I was in high school. When I moved back to New York after grad school, I lived on 7th street. I lived just a couple of blocks away. And we would take sometimes we would take Hector to the dog run. But the dog run was it was.

[17:36] Jessica: Grody at the beginning.

[17:37] Meg: And the Hell's Kitchen? Not Hell's Kitchen. The Hells Angels.

[17:40] Jessica: Guys. Oh, they're on 3rd Street.

[17:42] Meg: They would take their dogs to the dog run.

[17:45] Jessica: They have a safe, actually.

[17:47] Meg: Well, they have a different dog philosophy, and I was uncomfortable with that.

[17:55] Jessica: Well, I wonder if the Hells Angels are still, if they still have their clubhouse there or if it's been it.

[18:01] Meg: It was there in the 90s, I haven't checked lately.

[18:03] Jessica: I know that it was even there within the last ten years. I just don't know if it is still there. But that was always a weird thing that you're walking around in artistsville and then there are, like, 40 hogs parked on East 3rd.

[18:17] Meg: Well, I had a friend who lived on that block and she said, zero crime.

[18:22] Jessica: Yes. You have to be a really sick, sick ticket to fuck with that crowd. I mean, just their bikes looked menacing. Forget them. Creepy. Actually, I just remembered something. So I'm sure you remember this. This will be a story for another day, but remember when I worked for that printing company and then found out they were Hare Krishnas?

[18:45] Meg: I don't think I know this story.

[18:47] Jessica: This story is called Hare Krishnas story. I worked for a cult and I didn't know it. Awesome. Yes.

[18:52] Meg: And where were they?

[18:54] Jessica: Well, they were in Marin County. But they would have people who were coming in from their California offices stay in this, like, Hare Krishna hostel that was right next door to the Hells Angels. And I remember during my brief time working there that there was, like, a little revolution and the people who the employees who were told to stay there said, absolutely no fucking way. I do not think so. It was too scary.

[19:26] Meg: I don't really know that much about Hare Krishnas. Maybe we should do a story on Hare Krishnas.

[19:31] Jessica: Well, we can do, like, a crossover, like JFK Airport and Hare Krishnas. Okay, sure. That could be our like how are they connected? Let's see. Well, that's just great. I cannot wait for next. Hi, Meg.

[19:52] Meg: Hi, Jessica. It's your turn.

[19:53] Jessica: I know. I have an engagement question for you. When you think of luxury buildings, luxury residential buildings in New York, I got you think of well, I thought of.

[20:07] Meg: Well I thought of The Ansonia, but then, of course, it's The Dakota.

[20:10] Jessica: How interesting that that's what you would choose. I was expecting you to say something about Park Avenue, but you're right, The Dakota. I don't know if you know that.

[20:20] Meg: I mean, actually, like, super famous buildings are kind of on the West Side, aren't they?

[20:25] Jessica: Yes. Well, The Dakota was the very first luxury apartment building in New York City. And do you know why it was called The Dakota?

[20:34] Meg: I do want to say yes, please. Well, it was all farmland then, and it was on 72nd, on 72nd and Central Park West, even though there wasn't a Central Park yet. And most people lived downtown. And when people moved to The Dakota, people would say, oh, they live so far away. It's like they live in the Dakotas.

[20:59] Jessica: Indeed. And The Dakota, people who lived there, who had tons and tons of money, they were seen as being completely bonkers insane. They could have been building houses on Fifth Avenue. So why did they do this?

[21:15] Meg: Good question.

[21:16] Jessica: Well, among other things, it was, I suppose, the first full concierge building. They had all kinds of amenities and people looking after them.

[21:26] Meg: The ceilings are so high.

[21:28] Jessica: I went into one apartment there, and I thought I was going to weep.

[21:33] Meg: I've been in one, too.

[21:35] Jessica: Have you ever been in 43 5th Avenue? It's on the corner of 11th Street across from the church. It's very similar to it's a smaller building, much smaller, but it has the apartments are similar to those in The Dakota. Anyway. So The Dakota, because of its incredible history, has been a home for many, many celebrities. And there have even been great bits of pop culture that happen in The Dakota. And my two favorites are Time and Again.

[22:07] Meg: Yes.

[22:08] Jessica: Right. Oh, my God. That book that book is one of the best ever.

[22:12] Meg: I talk about that book all the time.

[22:14] Jessica: Really? How could I not know this about you? It's one of my all time favorite books ever. Ever. The author, Finney what's his first name? I keep thinking Albert Finney.

[22:25] Meg: I know, but that's not it.

[22:26] Jessica: It's Finney. Anyway, I'll post it. The Dakota winds up being the location where the time traveler involved in this book, it's like his portal. And there are all these beautiful descriptions in the book. It's a perfectly researched book about being able to look out and see people ice skating once the park was built. Being able to look at them in the park. So very, very cool. Love that. And my other favorite one is Rosemary's Baby. Oh, yeah. Rosemary's Baby happens in The Dakota, and her next door neighbors talk about a cult in New York. Her next door neighbors, who are the coven gosh, I forgot the old man. But it's Ruth Gordon. And here's a fun fact for my fellow Kenyon graduates. When the camera enters the apartment, Ruth Gordon's apartment. It's creepy as hell. And there's a photograph on the wall as you sort of pan down of a gothic looking building in flames. And that is actually a photograph of old Kenyon, the first main building, when it burned down in the 40s. Anyway, I always thought of The Dakota as this very magical place. It was like a fairy and it looks like a fairy tale castle, but when we were growing up, it was dirty as could be. Now it's beautiful and back to its old yellow brick, very shiny self, but it was gothic and creepy and blackened, and it always still has those gas lamps on the building. Anyway, point being, this is a special place, and among the celebrities who live there was John Lennon. Yes. So what we're going to talk about today is not what you think. You got nervous that I was going to talk about his murder.

[24:16] Meg: Yeah.

[24:17] Jessica: And I'm not. Okay. I'm going to touch on it very briefly, but then I'm going to talk about something else. And it's just about a little bit of compare and contrast about the 80s. You're going to see that we have another Pee-wee's Playhouse tie in word between the two of us.

[24:32] Meg: Yes.

[24:33] Jessica: So just wait. So John Lennon, famously, on December 8, was murdered by Mark David Chapman, who felt I didn't know this, felt that John Lennon was a phony and didn't like him. And that's why he killed him and waited to be picked up reading Catcher in the Rye sitting on the curb, demonstrating that he was that he identified with Holden Caulfield and, you know, this disaffected youth.

[24:58] Meg: And what year?

[25:01] Jessica: 1980. And the one little factoid that I will bring up is that that murder and that particular murderer got a group of psychiatrists and psychologists to start to study the behavior of assassins and why they kill famous people and how to prevent it and they learned that it's because of this that the research switched from being about how do we catch the killer ahead of time, instead saying, let's look at the most likely scenarios where someone might be targeted.

[25:41] Meg: Interesting.

[25:42] Jessica: Anyway, so that happened there. The city I don't know if you remember, but the city was in a total standstill. What do you remember about that day?

[25:52] Meg: I remember walking down the hallway at school where we had lockers and everybody was talking about it. So this must have been the next day. And I loved The Beatles, and at first I thought they were saying George Harrison had been murdered. So I was confused. I didn't realize that it was John Lennon. And so I spent a good part of the day going, oh, George Harrison, and thinking about his songs. And then when I realized it was John Lennon but, yeah, I have very, very vivid memory.

[26:28] Jessica: I remember being slightly confused because I had the second one of the first albums I ever had was the second, like, compilation, Best of The Beatles. And, you know, it's the one with the red border on it, the double album. It was such a that album was so important to me. And The Beatles were so huge in my mind, the idea that they were actually people and that one of them not only had become a New Yorker, but that he could be killed was so was shocking to me. I don't know why. It was a very I mean, I was ten, but that was really scary. And I remember being even more scared seeing the just unbelievable crowds of people with this vigil outside of The Dakota. From all terrible things comes something decent, we hope, in this world. So what I'm actually talking about today is the creation of Strawberry Fields in Central Park.

[27:28] Meg: Park connection. Park.

[27:30] Jessica: So our Pee-wee Herman, what is it? Word of the day is park. I was casting around trying to figure out what I was going to talk about today, because truth be told, the last two weeks at work have been taxing. Yeah, it's a little much. So I was not at my most creative and I just was admittedly lying in bed thinking, what means something to me in the city? Like, what do I care about? And to your point, your opening question was, what parks means something to you? I immediately thought of Central Park and how lucky I am to live right off Central Park now on the East Side, but that there are these pockets within the park that people feel like they are their own. So you talked about Sheep Meadow, which when we were teenagers, that's where everyone went to drink beer illegally and smoke weed and hook up and get sun and play Frisbee while doing other things and meet boys. Meet boys. And when I was at my first school before Nightingale, we were on 62nd street, right off Fifth Avenue. We would enter where the entrance to the zoo used to be. And so that remember there's a clock and it's all the animals. Absolutely.

[28:58] Meg: I love that clock.

[28:59] Jessica: And then I was trying to think of, like, what else? And and I thought about Imagine and I thought about Strawberry Fields. And I was thinking about how all of these celebrities got slammed at the beginning of COVID for their really dorky singing of Imagine and recording it and saying, we're going to help COVID by singing this song.

[29:24] Meg: Oh, my God. I missed that entirely, I'm glad to say, because that sounds insufferable.

[29:29] Jessica: It was not good and it made people very, very, very, very angry. But it's also another thing that I associate with that song is I think it was Darryl McDaniels from Run DMC who said that that's the song that saved his life and that he was feeling that he was suicidal. He was really at the end of his rope at a particular point in his life and that of all places, he was in the grocery store and the song came on over the PA system and he sat, he stood and really listened to the lyrics for the first time. And he realized what it was saying and that it gave him this enormous hope and sort of saved his life. And so going back to the assassination of John Lennon, it is now understood and accepted that Yoko Ono actually wrote the words to Imagine.

[30:24] Meg: I did not know that.

[30:27] Jessica: Yes. She finally got her writing credit in 2017. Wow.

[30:31] Meg: Yes. Oh, by the way yes? I ran into Yoko Ono in The Dakota.

[30:36] Jessica: Okay.

[30:36] Meg: Well, I had to throw that in.

[30:38] Jessica: I no, no, that's that's a high brush with high fame.

[30:42] Meg: Thank you. This was after the assassination. This was, like, in 1987.

[30:47] Jessica: This was the wrap around shades era, and so she donated. So now we're going to focus on, you know, Yoko's not so bad people.

[30:58] Meg: No, not at all. She's been rehabilitated.

[31:02] Jessica: She donated a million dollars to the park and said that she wanted to have some kind of memorial for John Lennon. And she was amazingly, really open to suggestions, and what could it be? And there are a couple of things that I learned, and I couldn't believe that I never knew them before, but I will share them with you. First thing is, did you know that Strawberry Fields is in the shape of a tear?

[31:24] Meg: No.

[31:24] Jessica: Yeah, it's in the shape of a teardrop. You know how there's the famous mosaic that marks the entryway to it?

[31:29] Meg: Yeah, I'll post it on the Instagram

[31:34] Jessica: Well, that was not the only contender. People from around the world were so affected by this murder. So, like, there was a mosaic bench from Morocco.

[31:45] Meg: Oh, gosh.

[31:46] Jessica: And there was oh, God, what was it? There was something from France that I can't remember. And then from Naples was this suggestion of this mosaic, and she liked it. She said that she didn't want a statue of him. She wanted something that would really be for people to congregate and be able to be contemplative and think about themselves and have genuine peace and almost a childish moment in a childlike wonder. And you don't really have that when there's a statue of a person looming over you. So that's what she chose. And the artisans came from Naples and installed it themselves right here in Central Park. And because of that message, Strawberry Fields has been the location of many peaceful protests, unlike Tompkins Square Park. So here's another tie in, peaceful protests. The mosaic is frequently covered in flowers in the shape of a peace sign, and people still come in the summertime to congregate and play music and during times of struggle in the city, randomly having nothing to do with anything, with John Lennon specifically or The Beatles, people will congregate and sing John Lennon songs right there in Strawberry Fields.

[33:04] Meg: What I love about it, I've never been to any of those gatherings, but I come across it unexpectedly whenever I'm crossing the park. Sometimes I go out this exit, sometimes I go out that exit, and when I just happen upon it, it's always a special moment.

[33:20] Jessica: Agreed. And I think also, the way that it's situated, Yoko Ono can see it from her apartment. This is one of those things that you grow up with, it's always there. And then you think, well, why did this happen? What is this about?

[33:34] Meg: And you did say, right, that it's very close to The Dakota.

[33:39] Jessica: Yes. She could see it.

[33:40] Meg: I didn't know if you had described the geography.

[33:42] Jessica: I did not. The entrance to Strawberry Fields is directly across the street from The Dakota. So in places that I love in New York, that's one of them. And I'll discuss this at another time, but another one is The Frick Collection, and we will talk about that. There are very special Frick details to be shared. Anyway.

[34:06] Meg: Wonderful. Thank you, Jessica.

[34:08] Jessica: Yes. See, that was very sweet and, like, not crazy this time.

[34:13] Meg: Lovely.

[34:14] Jessica: I hate to do something yes. I should just use my NPR voice. Hey, Meg, guesses what? I'm not completely decrepit in the brain. I remembered who wrote time and again oh, share. Jack Finney.

[34:31] Meg: Jack Finney. I am so happy that you mentioned that book, because that means I can post about it on Instagram, and that is going to give me so much joy.

[34:41] Jessica: It's amazing.

[34:43] Meg: Now I want to read it again, but I also want to read Tim Murphy's book again. We have a reading list.

[34:49] Jessica: Yeah. We could have, like, the Desperately Seeking the 80s list, because we already have Tama Janowitz and Bret Easton Ellis and Jay McInerney. Now we've got this. We're on our way kid

[35:04] Jessica: This is pretty cool.

[35:05] Meg: And dear listeners, if you are enjoying this podcast, if you would take a moment and share it with a friend, we would so appreciate it. Spread the word.

[35:19] Jessica: Yes, that would be really great. What?

[35:22] Meg: Does that sound weird?

[35:23] Jessica: No, not at all. I'm laughing at how bad I am at marketing and publicity and that your instincts are always so good. And you're right there with the ask, and I'm like, Hi, guys, we're still here. How are you doing?.