Meg: Welcome to Desperately Seeking the '80s. I am Meg.

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

Meg: And where we podcast about New York City in the 80's. I do ripped from the headlines and

Jessica: I do Pop Culture.

Meg: Jessica, we took a week off. It feels like a year ago.

Jessica: I know, but, you know, I feel refreshed. I feel, like, a little more invigorated and ready to dive back into what we do cool

Meg: Cool and we are n the middle of the holiday season.

Jessica: So it's remarkable to feel refreshed in any way, shape, or form.

Meg: But what I wanted to say is that after your story last week or two weeks ago about the Supreme Team, I saw that documentary. I mean, I was just going to dive in to do some fact checking because just in case.

Jessica: Are you saying I'm not thorough in my journalistic approach?

Meg: I just wanted to double check, and it's in three parts, this documentary. And I watched the first part, and I was like, I have to go to bed, but I can't. So I watched the second part, and then I watched the third part.

Jessica: You watched 3 hours straight.

Meg: I watched 3 hours straight. It is fan friggin-tastic.

Jessica: Oh, how marvelous we are.

Meg: Netflix recommended Netflix Supreme Team.

Jessica: Great.

Meg: You will very much enjoy it.

Jessica: I am so looking forward to that. I have to say that the person who I said I was doing it for Mark, did you hear? Was beside himself with joy and amusement. Oh, good. That that happened. And I got a few other personal messages from friends who were in stitches that that was the subject matter that I chose. And they were like, whether or not you got it right, it doesn't even matter. The fact that you did this is like, you know, a horse playing tennis.

Meg: I did hear from Alex Smith, who said Murder Inc. was actually in the 90's.

Jessica: Oh, yes, he said the same thing to me. Alex, we know that you know how things really are. Thank you for your fact checking. Yeah, but yeah, whatever.

Meg: Well, I justified it with what Murder Inc. was doing was referencing things from the 80's.

Jessica: If that was a problem, wait till you hear today's broadcast from me, Alex.

Meg: Okay.

Jessica: Jessica, do you?

Jessica: Is this your engagement question?

Meg: Yes.

Jessica: Okay.

Meg: Do you remember The Plaza from the old days?

Jessica: Oh before Trump sprayed it with a gold hose of ****?

Meg: Yes. Do you have any fond Plaza memories?

Jessica: For sure. Of course. I mean, as a child, I was taken to tea at The Palm Court.

Meg: Absolutely.

Jessica: When it was still all dainty and little wicker chairs.

Meg: And that's a very special thing to happen for a little girl to go to The Plaza for tea.

Jessica: I don't know if they still do the Eloise shoes. Do they still do that?

Meg: I don't know. And Eloise is such a big deal.

Jessica: Her portrait hanging there, but the doorman or at the reception desk, I can't remember. If little girls or boys would ask about Eloise, they'd say, well, she just left, but she left her shoes to be cleaned, and they would produce a little pair of Mary Janes.

Meg: That is so special. I'm almost tearing up.

Jessica: It's really lovely.

Meg: And I've got a memory that's a little bit more adult.

Jessica: But, I mean, there was also the Gold and Silver Ball, was there.

Meg: That was at The Waldorf Astoria.

Jessica: Then what was at The Plaza. Which charity thing was at The Plaza?

Meg: Went to a charity event. I don't know what the name of it was, but Khashoggi was there.

Jessica: Get out. Where?

Meg: Swear on my life. It was weird, but I was going to tell another story.

Jessica: Okay. Yes. I remember it fondly, and I remember it before it got this tacky. Although, do you want to hear something interesting? Just because we're talking about The Palm Court.

Meg: Sure.

Jessica: That now, I hope I get this right. I know I'm going to get this at least half right, but I remember reading something about The Plaza Hotel, like, one of these big, beautiful like the history of The Plaza Hotel books. And The Palm Court had a regular ceiling, which was not how it originally was. It originally had a glass ceiling, and it had been covered up during World War II because of fear of bombings.

Meg: Oh, that would be awful.

Jessica: Right?

Meg: Shattered glass all over the people having tea?

Jessica: It was boarded over and then forgotten about. And then during the renovations, at some point, it was uncovered again.

Meg: Cool. My story is not the story that I'm about to tell you, but my personal story about The Plaza was underage drinking, Menaz and I if we wanted to feel fancy, we would go to The Oak Room. And we were always served at The Oak Room.

Jessica: I had some very illicit meetings at The Oak Room. Yes. That was not in the 80's, it was in my adulthood. Yes, I had some, The Oak Room was, the it was the perfect place because you could go there and feel like it was 1930 and you were having a Scotch and you were, you know, like, waiting for a foreign correspondent to come in. Or it was the best place to have an affair to remember. It was like whatever romanticized idea you wanted to project onto The Oak Room. It was possible. And funny enough, though, it was beautiful. Always in the spring and summer. My favorite view from The Oak Room was in the winter time when there was snow all over the fountain because The Oak Room was so cozy. And then you had this really perfect, chilly, blustery, ultimate New Yorkness right in front of you.

Meg: The clippety clop of the carriage horses. It's a wonderful place. Or has, was a wonderful place.

Jessica: I mean, The Oak Room is closed now.

Meg: Is it?

Jessica: I am 90% sure that there is no more Oak Room. I know. All right, so let's talk about your story.

Meg: My story. Sources are The Washington Post, The New Yorker, New York Daily News, New York Magazine. Oh, I should also say that BFF of the podcast, Kate, suggested this story to some degree a few months ago, and you will see why.

Jessica: Thank you, Kate.

Meg: In the 80s, Liz Smith, who had a regular gossip column in the New York Daily News and appeared on Live at Five, the local NBC news show, hung out a lot with Donald and Ivana Trump. The Trumps invited her to dinner and family vacations to Mar-a-Lago, which the Trumps bought in 1985 for $7 million after Donald decreased the value of the property by buying the land between the estate and the beach.

Jessica: Yeah.

Meg: Liz Smith was introduced to the Trumps in the mid 80s by Arnold Scaasi.

Jessica: Oh, the designer. Yes.

Meg: At the time. Scaasi said to Liz Smith, have you met the Donald Trumps? And Smith replied, what are the Donald Trumps? She soon found out and was credited with putting them on the social map.

Jessica: Bad Liz.

Meg: Yeah, she regretted it later.

Jessica: Oh, did she?

Meg: Oh, absolutely.

Jessica: Oh, good.

Meg: Spy magazine went so far as to print the Liz Smith Tote Board, which counted the times she mentioned the Trumps in her column. On average, five times a month.

Jessica: Creepy.

Meg: Other things going on in town, Liz. Weird.

Jessica: Yeah, but she was getting comped by them.

Meg: Exactly. So it made sense that Ivana would turn to Liz in her moment of crisis.

Jessica: Now I'm in love with this story.

Meg: In February 1990, Ivana invited Liz for lunch at The Plaza. Quote, this is from Liz Smith. "When I got there, she threw herself in my arms and told me that Donald didn't want her anymore. And I tried to give her some motherly advice. I said, get yourself a PR person who's respectable and defend yourself against him."

Jessica: Yes, because that's what every mother said. That's motherly advice already Liz is showing her.

Meg: I mean, it is good advice.

Jessica: Well, yes, for those creatures.

Meg: There had been speculation for a couple of years that Donald was losing interest in the mother of his three children. He'd been spotted carousing with Dynasty star Catherine Oxenberg.

Jessica: Catherine Oxenburg?

Meg: Yeah. I thought she had better taste.

Jessica: I thought she was normal. I mean, she did save her child from The Vow.

Meg: It's true.

Jessica: What's the...NXIVM.

Meg: NXIVM

Meg: Maybe she wasn't dating. I don't know. It's all murky murky. And what was actually happening versus what Donald was planting in the gossip columns? Who knows? But there were rumors and bizarrely ice skating legend Peggy Fleming.

Jessica: What?

Meg: It's a little random. He'd appeared on the cover of Playboy and in the accompanying article admitted he enjoyed flirting and dodged the question when asked if he was monogamous. But the **** really hit the fan on the slopes of Aspen in December 1989. That was where Ivana first heard of Marla Maples. The Trumps were an Aspen for a family vacation.

Jessica: So this is before she collapsed on Liz?

Meg: Yeah, she collapsed on Liz in February 1990. So this is the preceding December. The Trumps were in Aspen for a family vacation, and Ivana overheard Donald talking about someone named Mula, or at least that's the name she thought she heard. When she asked Donald who Mula was, he said she was some woman who had been chasing him for two years. Later, at Bonnie's, a popular restaurant on the slopes, Ivana went up to a woman she thought was Mula's friend and said, quote, and I will not do a check accent. "I understand from my husband that you have a friend which is after my husband for last two years. Will you give her the message that I love my husband very much." But Marla was right there and overheard the exchange and approached Ivana and said, "I'm Marla and I love your husband. Do you?"

Jessica: Right after Ivana just said, I love my husband very much.

Meg: Yeah.

Jessica: Oh, Marla.

Meg: And Ivana said, "Get lost. I love my husband very much. As I just said. And Donald was there, too, and he didn't say anything.

Jessica: Coward.

Meg: And that was at the beginning of the end of the Trump's 13 year marriage. On February 11, Donald returned from the Mike Tyson vs. Buster Douglas fight in Japan and told Ivana, quote, "It's not working out" and moved out of their 50 room triplex in Trump Tower.

Jessica: Wait, did you just say 50 rooms?

Meg: Yes, I did. The next day, Ivana called Liz Smith and told her everything. According to Liz, quote, "I asked her if she wanted me to write something, and she said no, she just wanted a sympathetic shoulder. So I told her she should see a psychiatrist. I said, It'll take you two years to get over it if you see an analyst and five years if you don't."

Jessica: Actually, that is the good motherly advice.

Meg: Donald Trump called Liz Smith from a plane and said, quote, "I like Ivana. I might get back with her."

Jessica: And that's when Liz said, okay sociopath.

Meg: Well, actually, a little bit. That was the moment when she was like, I can't believe you just said I like Ivana.

Jessica: As though she was an acquaintance.

Meg: Right. Bizarre, he did not get back with her. Ivana and Donald had been a very visible team for the past decade. When they first met at Maxwell's Plum, Donald was still working for Fred, his dad in Queens, and Ivana was a Czech model in town from Montreal. After they married, they worked hand in hand, rising up the nouveau riche social ladder and building his real estate company. When Trump built Trump Plaza and Casino in Atlantic City in 1985, he put Ivana in charge of managing it. Then when he bought The Plaza Hotel in 1988. I didn't realize it was so late.

Jessica: Yes, because it cast a pall for a very long time on either side of 1988.

Meg: He famously put Ivana in charge of its $50 million renovation, paying her, quote, "$1 a year plus all the dresses she can buy."

Jessica: Ick, so rude.

Meg: Rumor has it, that was about the time he decided to spend more time in Atlantic City with Marla (Mula). So he sent Ivana back to New York. In her first month at The Plaza, Ivana fired the food director, catering director, banquet head waiter, four banquet managers, beverage manager, guest services manager, Palm Court manager, housekeeping director, security director, and chef. She described The Plaza as, quote, "terribly tawdry looking," and ordered marble bathrooms, goose down comforters, and Chanel amenities for each room. When she finished at The Plaza in 1989, she was tasked with redesigning the flight attendants, uniforms and cabin interiors on the Trump Shuttle, which flew from Washington to New York to Boston. I remember being on that shuttle before Trump bought it. I remember the shuttle for Eastern Airlines owned it, and you could fly from New York to Boston for $100, flat fee. Yeah. And he was like, getting on a bus. It was like the easiest thing in the world. You just showed up and you flew to Boston.

Jessica: It's pretty cool. Yes.

Meg: But Ivana's professional accomplishments were diminished in the wake of the Trump's split, according to sources close to Donald, quote, "Ivana is like a figurehead. She makes no financial decisions. It's strictly PR. She's done the wallpaper in the suites at The Plaza. That's what she does."

Jessica: Is that definitely not true?

Meg: I mean, obviously she had her hands in more than just the wallpaper. I mean, for better or worse, she was very involved.

Jessica: If I were her, I'd be like, yes, I only did the wallpaper. I had nothing to do with gilding the entire joint.

Meg: I mean, she was working really, really hard, and for anyone to go like, oh, she's just a figurehead is complete bullshit.

Jessica: Yeah, I'm being snide about her taste.

Meg: Oh, no, she has horrible taste. I mean, truly appalling. I was thinking about all Trump and Ivana wanted to do was hang out at Mortimer's with those fancy society people.

Jessica: Who would never have them in a million years.

Meg: Never in a million years.

Jessica: It's not a surprise. Nor is it by accident that Patsy's hair in Ab Fab was based on Ivana's hair.

Meg: Yeah, I know.

Jessica: Yeah. The worst taste.

Meg: Their prenuptial agreement had been updated several times, most recently around the time Donald started seeing Marla.

Jessica: Please call her Mula. If you really love me, you'll call her Mula.

Meg: The prenup provided Ivana with $14 million, their 45 room mansion in Greenwich, and custody of the children.

Jessica: Full custody.

Meg: Yeah. Such a gift. Donald Jr. who was twelve, Ivanka, who spelled her name at that point, I-V-A-N-C-K-A. Interesting.

Jessica: I thought you were going to say Q-U-A. Ivan Qua.

Meg: She was eight and Eric was six. Oh, and part of the prenup, a nondisclosure agreement that left Donald with Mar-a-Lago, Trump Tower Penthouse, Trump Shuttle, Trump Castle, Trump Plaza, Trump Taj Mahal, Trump Princess Yacht, Tour de Trump and

Jessica: What the hell is Tour de Trump?

Meg: I don't know. And a proposed TV game show called Trump Card. I think the funny thing is, at least half of those properties were about to go bankrupt within a year. Their very public split and divorce settlement dispute was on the cover of the New York City tabloids for eleven days straight. With Liz Smith and the Daily News taking Ivana side and the Post speaking up for Donald. the Post famously reported that Marla said he was, quote "the best sex I've ever had." A quote which was years later attributed.

Jessica: To Donald himself, unsurprising.

Meg: It's just so gross.

Jessica: It's so pathetic. That's really what it is.

Meg: Isn't he embarrassed about it? No. I know he isn't. Never mind. Stupid question.

Jessica: No, of course.

Meg: Thanks to thanks to Liz Smith's campaign, Ivana won the media war.

Jessica: Yay.

Meg: People really started to hate Trump based on how horribly he had treated her, and she became, quote, "a media goddess on par with Princess Di, Madonna, and Elizabeth Taylor."

Jessica: Well, that's a little much, according to Liz Smith. Yeah, Liz Smith got a little ahead of herself there.

Meg: But I love those three women put in that. It's just such an 80s threesome, Princess Di, Madonna and Elizabeth Taylor.

Jessica: Yes, but just for total clarity for the youngens. Incorrect. Not true.

Meg: And then the deposition was leaked. The nondisclosure agreement silenced Ivana, buut in her divorce deposition, taken under oath, Ivana stated that in 1989, Donald had raped her in a fit of rage. He was suffering the after effects of a scalp reduction operation he'd undergone to take care of a bald spot, and blamed Ivana, who had recommended the plastic surgeon. In retaliation, he yanked out a handful of her hair and then raped her. She spent the night locked in a bedroom, crying. And in the morning, Trump asked her, quote, with menacing casualness, "does it hurt?" Ivana later claimed she had misspoke in her deposition. She didn't misspeak. And by all accounts, she and Donald made up years later and were on good terms for the last two decades of her life. Ivana married twice more.

Jessica: I didn't know that.

Meg: In 2008, Donald hosted her wedding to an Italian actor/model, Rosanno Rubicondi, who was 36, 23 years younger than Ivana.

Jessica: Go, Ivana.

Meg: They divorced less than a year later, but continued to date on and off again until he died of cancer in 2021.

Jessica: OOH.

Meg: When he got sick in 2020, Ivana brought him from Italy to New York, got him an apartment near her house on 10 East 64th street so he could get treatment, but then he died. And then on July 14, 2022, Ivana was found at the bottom of the stairs of her home, dead from, quote, "blunt impact injuries from the fall." This is a quote from her friend Nikki Haskell. "I was more concerned about her falling down those stairs than anything else, and she adamantly refused to move. There are all these pictures of her on that stairway. When you think about how you are going to end your life, did she ever once think that is how it's going to happen?" And Ivana is buried at the Trump Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

Jessica: Yeah. Look, this is not...okay, I have to compose myself. Is it really her in there? Is it more documents? Oh, my is she in there? Like you?

Meg: Let's take the conspiracy theory. That is crazy.

Jessica: Okay, let me ask you this, then. What's crazier? Getting buried at your ex husband's golf course?

Meg: So weird.

Jessica: On the green. Yeah. Her children had her cremated and whatever, and that coffin is filled with evidence. I'm not saying that that's what happened. What I'm saying is they're equally weird theories or facts or whatever they are. They're equally bananas.

Meg: Bananas.

Jessica: Off the hook bananas. It's why I can't fully let go of the conspiracy theory, because what's being provided as the unvarnished truth is less plausible. That's it.

Meg: Yeah.

Jessica: I'm going to go with the Sherlock Holmes, Occam'ss razor. Like, no matter how improbable it seems, then if it is the only answer, it is the only answer.

Meg: And I got to say, I mean Trump discussions. Who's interested anymore? I'm certainly not.

Jessica: You just did an entire thing. Are you interested in?

Meg: I'm interested in her, in Ivana. And look, we have to admit that they were here. They did walk amongst us in the 80s in a very visible

Jessica: No, you are..you're completely right. But that was that was so priceless. Thank you. All right.

Meg: And if only to just say, I swear to God, New Yorkers knew he was gross.

Jessica: Well, that's the thing about about the 2016 election. That was, New Yorkers were so clear about what a garbage dump he was.

Meg: We was because we had been living up close and personal.

Jessica: Exactly. That we and that's why it was such a shock that he won, I feel particularly to New Yorkers, because it was, it seemed like, impossible. It was as bananas as, you know, like, oh, there's this donkey that we have put up as the Republican candidate. Yeah, sure, that donkey is going to win whatever. Or elephant, actually would be more accurate. But like, what? So, yeah. Piece of garbage. And I don't think that back to Ivana, this is the story of Ivana. I think that it will history will, or rather the future will reveal that it's not her.

Meg: Oh, my gosh.

Jessica: At the golf course, according to Jessica, according to you heard it here first people.

Meg: The wind. I wonder if people can hear the blustering wind outside.

Jessica: I swear to you you have to get out of my head because I was just going to say the same thing.

Meg: I have a feeling the mics aren't picking it up, but trust me, it's like we are in, like, a horror movie.

Jessica: We're always in a horror movie, Meg. Come on. No, it's it's whistling outside or it's.

Meg: You know what it is? It's from the scene and It's a Wonderful Life when he comes back off of the bridge. The bridge, and it's storming and yeah, that's the sound that we hear right now.

Jessica: It's like that lonely whistle, the blackness of night and the whistle of the wind. Well, funny that you should mention that, because I am going to talk about something that happened in the 80s regarding the weather.

Meg: Okay.

Jessica: But it's the 1880s to begin with, okay? Don't give me that look.

Meg: Good. Just trying to keep us on brand.

Jessica: It's getting there.

Meg: Oh, I believe you. I can't wait, jeez, 100 years.

Jessica: Don't even don't try to suck up now. That ship sailed. Okay. I was so excited about my my thing, and now I'm feeling now I don't know, I don't think I'm going to talk about my topic now. So how's by you tell me, tell.

Meg: Tell we about weather in the 1880s

Jessica: Well, what I think is really fun about New York City and by fun, I also mean ridiculous and absurd, is that we seem to have the collective memory of a gnat, meaning that every time the weather is anything other than perfect, which PS. it never is in New York, everyone's like, oh my God, how is this happening? What are we going to do about this? How do we deal with it? Oh, my God. Everyone's always hysterical about, like, it's not the way New York used to be. And it's like, yes, it changes literally every day. Like, this is the most changeable city, and it's what makes it so exciting. If it was a stagnating lump, who would want to be here? Nobody. So the excitement of the city is its mutability. That's a fancy word.

Meg: I'm with you.

Jessica: Thank you. It's a dynamic city, and that really covers every aspect of it. And so the weather is something that is..Chicago, I think, and New York have this in common, that it's sort of if you don't like the weather, you wait a minute. But in 1888, it was recorded, what was recorded was the worst snowstorm in recorded history of weather in New York City, and 21 plus inches were dumped on the city and 200 people died.

Meg: Oh, my God.

Jessica: From the cold. And the cold in New York is no joke. And I think the weird thing for me and tell me what you think is that, you know, I always think when we were kids, it was colder and snowier than it is now. And maybe that's just because we played in the snow and cared about the snow and weren't like, oh, my God, why do I have to walk my dog in this **** snow? But it gets **** cold, right?

Meg: We probably had I mean, I remember I didn't have the right footwear.

Jessica: My mother was on it.

Meg: Good. I'm jealous.

Jessica: Well, tell me if you had this. And for those of you guys listening who are in our age group, I'm interested to know who else had this? Whose mom did this? So my brother and I, when we were little, wore, like, these galoshes that were boots over our shoes. But to get your shoe into the boot was such a hassle that the trick was to use a plastic bag over your foot. Oh, yeah, right. And so then you got like the double hit of protection for your little tiny sneaker foot that was in there. Right. But it also meant that you were sweating unbelievably. Your mother would take your foot out of your sneaker and it was practically like you had to get wrung out because they were these little, sweaty, lump child feet. Yes. And snowsuits. What happened to snowsuits? Do you see kids in snowsuits anymore? Did you have your children in snow suits or snow pants? Yeah. I feel like these are things that I just don't see anymore. Maybe it's that they look cooler because we like in that movie Christmas Story, we couldn't get our arms down. It was like we were little Michelin Men. I remember once, and this is in the 70's, I was a very little kid recognizing early on why snowsuits were bad because I was on the slopes and I could not get it off fast enough to pee. It was not a good moment. Yes. Thank you. I mean, the fact that it has stayed with me is really news. Exactly. But weather in New York. And so I thought it would be appropriate because everyone is right now in a kerfuffle over the fact that there's this big bad weather going on right now, like, literally as we speak, and that it's happening around the country and how different cities deal with the snow and the cold really differently. So at our Christmas table, our early Christmas table, your Aunt Laura was talking about how she and your Uncle David were off to Minnesota and how once they arrived there, it would be no big deal because in Minnesota, they basically work on a system of tunnels. They're like the mole people because they know the snow is coming. There's like a whole infrastructure.

Meg: They have it figured out.

Jessica: They know what they're up to. And what makes me laugh about New York is New Yorks hubris. That it's every year. It's like, we know how to handle this. Oh, my God, we have no way to handle this. So the subway is flooded. We can't do this, we can't do that. When I think about the snow, I was thinking about our growing up experiences and bad storms. So I know that I really disappointed you by starting off with 1888, but you know that I love context.

Meg: That's true. No, it's wonderful. I love it. 21 inches whoa.

Jessica: And in fact, there's a fantastic photograph that you can find online, it's easy to find, of a skating pond in Central Park that in this photograph, you can see The Dakota apartment building looming above.

Meg: I know exactly what you're talking about.

Jessica: It's in Time and Again. Yes, exactly. And I've seen it many times. But it is in that marvelous book that was at about that time. That photograph was taken then. So I was thinking about how living in New York City, which is filled with unpredictable weather and predictably unpredictable and snow is so much part of our lives but our childhood and before I get to the 80s, do you remember the snowstorm of 1978?

Meg: Not offhand.

Jessica: So 1977 and 1978 were very intense years in the city because '77 was the Son of Sam. It was the blackout and the heat wave. So in one summer, it was just death a palooza

Meg: I was in Atlanta with my grandparents that particular summer.

Jessica: I was at day camp. No, I wasn't. I am a total fib teller. That was my very first summer at sleep away camp. Oh, no, that was '78. '77 I was at day camp. So, yes, I was in town for that. And I remember for the blackout, taking the stairs with my mother. And as a little kid, going up to the 7th floor was like Everest. It was like, oh, my God, are we going to have to leave the apartment again. I can't do it.

Meg: What floor did you live on? 7. Sorry, I was picturing it. And.

Jessica: I'm not upset. I'm not upset. So, '77, we're not angry with you. Don't look straight at me.

Meg: Tis' the season. We are in the middle of the holiday season.

Jessica: Yes, we are volatile. I'm not volatile.

Meg: Other people.

Jessica: Other people are crazy, but we're normal. It's bad out there. That summer of '77 was insane. Followed six months later by the winter of '78, with one of the worst snowstorms of the century, actually, and it was 24 inches dumped on the city with more deaths than 1988. But you know what? I remember how much fun it was as a kid that we had so much snow in the city. And I feel like I've mentioned this on another one of our podcasts, but my friend Nina and I, because the snow drifts, they were massive because of the snow, was being moved to the curbs.

Meg: Right? So it's like you're in a tunnel of snow.

Jessica: And we would build caves and tunnels together. And it was so much fun and being

Meg: And everything was so beautiful in.

Jessica: The park, was sleds. And those were the days of genuine sleds. Did you have a sled or a saucer?

Meg: Okay. My brother and I had neither. We just used cardboard boxes. You are looking at me.

Jessica: Wait.

Meg: Yeah. You just cut up a cardboard box.

Jessica: Who told you to do that?

Meg: I think we just figured it out because we wanted to go sledding.

Jessica: Sledden? Okay, that brings me to my next question, which is, is this like, because your parents are from the south or something that they didn't understand sledding?

Meg: Maybe. I don't know. But I'll tell you, we didn't have the hardware. Well, we improvised.

Jessica: My dad was really and you know him well enough to know how correct this is, that he was always very big on, like, you have to have the right equipment, and it has to look nice, and it has to be something that was in some way connected to his own childhood. So my brother and I had the most glamorous Flexible Flyer.

Meg: Oh, my God. I'm so jealous.

Jessica: With, like, wood and the red thing, and you sit on it and your feet are you hold it with a rope and your feet are steering. I, of course, because this is my lot in life. John was doing it, so I wanted to do it, but I was terrified of it. But it didn't matter. I was on that sled.

Meg: Those slopes in Central Park, they are no joke. You will break your leg easily. Also, you could ram right into a tree if you don't maneuver your sled properly.

Jessica: Right. Which is why it was always good that John was driving. To this day, as you know, I have no driver's license. John does. But, yeah, it was magical. It was idyllic. And all snowstorms for me, have had to measure up to the snowstorm of 1978. So every year for the last couple of years, there's been in the news, like, oh, my God, it's snowmageddon. And then it's like a wet rain. A wet rain, yes. As opposed to all the dry rains that happen around here. The metaphysical rains.

Meg: We're with you.

Jessica: Thank you. The wet snow, which is less idyllic. It's gross, and everything gets dank, slushy. It's just dank. It's in your bones. Anyway, so now we're getting to the 80's I'm wondering if you recall that there was a giant snowstorm in 1983. So we were in 9th grade. No, we were in 8th grade. We were in 8th grade.

Meg: I think I actually have a picture of me and Kathy and Amanda and Crystal in our puffer jackets. And yeah, it's very snowy. I don't know if it was exactly that storm, but it would be that age.

Jessica: The way that I think about winter in New York is so much about playing and the fun that's to be had and how weird it is that for the last it feels like the last 15 years, like, we haven't had that solid snow. Solid snow. Isn't that just, am I making that up? I'm not sure.

Meg: I'm so bad with time. I know that we've had some snow storm when my mom just, like, pulled out the skis and was skiing on Park Avenue to get from one place to another.

Jessica: Do you have any memories of New York's beauty being connected to the snow fall?

Meg: Absolutely. When you are in a cab around Christmas time going uptown on Park Avenue and it's snowing and the streetlights are making halos in the snow, I mean, there's nothing like it.

Jessica: And what is it that makes it so perfect to you? What is the quality of it?

Meg: London is like this too, at Christmas time. I think London and New York are just this sort of wintry wonderland of nostalgia.

Jessica: Well, the reason that I brought up 1988, I think that was either well, I'm making this up. It was either '87 or '88. We had huge snowstorms and that was when I got mono. We were freshmen in college and I insisted on going out clubbing with Nick wearing what one wore at the time, which was a tiny little black cocktail dress and black stockings and black high heeled pumps and like some ridiculous non jacket and remember just being like, no Mom, I'm going to be fine. And then five days later, I'm like, my spleen is too big. I feel sick. No, but in 1996, I was living in the Village. And for those of you who are not New Yorkers live, the Village really is the most picturesque part of, one of the most picturesque parts of Manhattan. And it retains a lot of its pre war architecture, including a lot of single family houses. It was that moment in the blizzard where there was easily more than a foot of snow. So what happens in the city is everything goes quiet and you have this muffled hush and you don't hear the voices, you don't hear the clanging, the sound of cars going over, we have these metal plates that are always covering up whatever Con Ed is doing, like the sound of cars clanging over those plates constantly. We don't hear it as specific noises, but it's all part of this din and the din stops and you have this beautiful hush. And it was that moment where the snow in any storm, you get this for at least a couple of minutes where the snow is really just floating down. So back to your It's a Wonderful Life. It seems like it's just magically floating like feathers down and there's no wind and it's just this quiet. And I remember being on Fifth Avenue and 11th Street where there is a gorgeous church, this 19th century church and these 19th century buildings and the haloed old lamps, gas lamps, total silence, and one person shushing down Fifth Avenue in the middle of the road on their cross country skis. And it was so much snow that you could barely like you could see the outline of the person. So why is that my favorite moment of snow in New York City? Because that was the moment that I went back to 1888. And that's why I think we love our snowstorms, is that we lose our sense of time so completely. And New York is such a modern city. It is such an aggressively modern city, no matter how much history we are constantly steeped in and it's why I get so excited about sharing our history because New York is the land of what next? But we are steeped in so much beauty and so much history that is not just cool and interesting and informative, but genuinely beautiful. Everyone in New York who comes here for the first time is instructed, look up. Because even the ornamentation on the buildings, you miss it. But there's tile work and art deco. Like everything is beautiful, but you don't see it. But anyway, so these these moments of total quiet allow you to see the city as it could have been 25 years ago, 50 years ago, 100 years ago, 150, and so on and so forth. So I am hoping that for this storm we get a few minutes of being able to go back to I guess I think there was a storm in 1913. So that's close enough to where we are in time right now that we can have a little moment of pretend too.

Meg: I was also thinking while you were talking about the West Village, about all those little restaurants that have fireplaces. I mean, you really can just kind of huddle up.

Jessica: Well, that's the thing. I think that if you have a.

Meg: French onion soup yes.

Jessica: So much of New York City is lived outside, and in the summertime we're out and about and doing stuff, and in the wintertime you can really choose what era you want to live in by which restaurants and which libraries or clubs or whatever you want to go to. And one of my other wintertime favorites is The New York Society Library on 79th and Madison, which is the oldest private library in New York City. It only costs $200 to become a member as an individual. And it's this unbelievably beautiful, I think the building was probably built in around 1900. And it's just glorious. You can be and they have fireplaces and all that. And you can be in another time, in another place.

Meg: My friend Kate, who I mentioned earlier, I know because I just saw her this afternoon, that she's spent this week going to The Metropolitan Museum to see the tree there and to the New York Public Library, doing the New York.

Jessica: Oh, and The Morgan Library, too.

Meg: The Morgan Library is one of those places too.

Jessica: And just as we speak of this, the howling has started up again outside.

Meg: Like Wuthering Heights out there.

Jessica: There you go.

Meg: But also Time and Again, remember that's how he goes back in time because it's winter and when the snow falls, it might as well be 100 years ago. So exactly what you're saying.

Jessica: There you go. So, yeah, so that's why I like winter in New York. And I wish that we had The Oak Room because I think, by the way, just to cut to the chase. That's our crossover.

Meg: So we need to find an Oak Room replacement.

Jessica: I know.

Meg: We just need wood paneling somewhere and a really good cocktail. You know, it's out there. Let's do it. Let's figure it out over the next week between Christmas and New Year.

Jessica: Maybe our field trip can be a New Year's field trip at our replacement. Although I do want to say that our JG Mellon, JG Mellon is one of those places that is as much a wintertime retreat as a summertime place. You know what would have been great.

Meg: Old Town Bar, where we met Alex Smith.

Jessica: Yes, that's true. You know what would have been fabulous? As our replacement? And it was, of course, on its own, an amazing place. God, I can't believe it doesn't exist anymore, but Chumley's was the end all, be all, you know, Chumley's? Oh, my God. So Chumley's was on Bedford and Barrow and it was, I think Bedford Street, might have been 86 Barrow. Anyway, so you know the term to 86 someone? The story is that that comes from Chumley's. So Chumley's was a speakeasy in the 20's and it had an entrance on the street, but it also had a courtyard. And when the police would come, everyone would skedaddle into this courtyard and then you could go out a different way, like onto whatever the street was, that's caddy corner, and it had not changed. And it was a place where writers would hang out and all of that. So it was just wooden benches and a smoky fireplace and everyone from Kenyon, for whatever reason. I remember every winter, like, you could just go there and it would be filled with Kenyon students, which is weird, but I suppose it was just another haunt of the preppies. But it was a magical place. And then it was redone, it closed and then reopened as sort of like a Waverly Inn-ish kind of trying to be upscale restaurant. And it was very nice, but it wasn't Chumley's. And then the building, I think, was so unstable that everything closed down. But Chumley's would have been the place.

Meg: Well, also, listeners, if you know of a place that exists that is what we are describing, please write into the Instagram, let us know all the different ways that you can get in touch with us, website, whatever, because we want to go there. We need suggestions, we need ideas.

Jessica: Have you ever been to The Dove? I don't even know if it still exists. It's on like MacDougal. It was on MacDougal, I think, and you stepped down a few steps. All wood. Very Victorian. I bet you anything there is a Time Out New York article that came out when The Oak Room closed, that was like where The Oak Room refugees could go.