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

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

[00:31] Meg: And where we are podcasting about New York City in the 80s. I do ‘ripped from the headlines.’

[00:35] Jessica: And I do pop culture. So Meg

[00:38]Meg: yes.

[00:39] Jessice: What do you have today?

[00:41] Meg: Oh, I want to surprise you, but I will say this, I'll give you a hint. No, no, I'm not going to give you a hint. Never mind.

[00:47] Jessica: Is it a trigger warning?

[00:49] Meg: Definitely a trigger warning, but we'll just leave it there.

[00:52] Jessica: Okay.

[01:03] Meg: So my engagement question for you, Jessica, is when you would get up in the morning, when you were, like, in middle school and high school, what was your breakfast situation?

[01:17] Jessica: Cereal.

[01:18] Meg: Yeah?

[01:19] Jessica: Yes. It was usually cereal.

[01:20] Meg: What was your favorite cereal?

[01:22] Jessica: Well, there were two situations going on there. There was what we had normally, and my mother allowed us to have one box of crap sugar cereal a month.

[01:37] Meg: My goodness. How regulated.

[01:41] Jessica: Are you kidding me? That was Casa del O-C-D. I mean, give me a break. So Captain Crunch original.

[01:51] Meg: Oh my god! That is my absolute favorite.

[01:53] Jessica: 100% favorite. It is golden. And even the shredding of your palate is of no consequence. It's an enhancement. When you cut up your palate, you can get more sugar into your system, into your bloodstream. It's like people who have, what was it like, fiberglass in chewing tobacco because it would mess up your gums so you could get nicotine into your body.

[02:19] Meg: I did not know that. That is a wild fact.

[02:23] Jessica: Yes. Well, that is my Captain Crunch corollary.

[02:26] Meg: And what was your regular?

[02:29] Jessica: Funny that you should ask this because it has been discontinued. And I have been on a search to see if there's any way to get some old box of it online, and I have not found the answer yet, but it was discontinued maybe like, a couple of years ago. Kellogg's Product 19.

[02:50] Meg: It was really good.

[02:51] Jessica: It was great.

[02:53] Meg: Yeah, it was even better than Special K, but in that same category.

[02:57] Jessica: Special K was the backup. Yeah, but yeah, Product 19 was awesome. And, I mean, just the name was so weird.

[03:05] Meg: What is that about? Yeah, we got to look that up. That I definitely want to look up.

[03:10] Jessica: All right. And then the eggs killed everybody in the town.

[03:16] Meg: This is definitely going to be a rough one. But it was requested by your very good friend Nick. So I'm doing my job.

[03:26] Jessica: All right, well, Nick, I will send you the therapist's bill.

[03:30] Meg: Yes. My sources. The Atlantic 2017, Associated Press, 1985, New York Times 1979 and New York Post.

[03:43] Jessica: Oh, I know what this is already. Go ahead.

[03:45] Meg: In September 1984, the family owned Anderson Erickson Dairy in Des Moines, Iowa, had an out of the box idea. In the past two years, two local boys had gone missing while delivering the Des Moines Register on their respective paper routes. Johnny Gosch. I think that's how or Gosch, maybe, who was twelve and Eugene Martin, who was 13, disappeared without a trace delivering papers in the predawn hours. And there were zero leads in either case. So the good milk people of Anderson Erickson Dairy decided to print the boys photos on the side of their milk cartons with the word missing in bold letters, their date of birth, height, weight, hair color, et cetera, and a number to call. In the early 80s, long before Amber Alerts and Megan's Law, missing children were treated the same as missing adults. Usually, the local police wouldn't consider someone a missing person until after 48 hours, which in the case of a child seems particularly shocking, but the whole concept of stranger danger, which just feels like second nature to us now, was in its infancy. The missing children on the milk cartons changed that. What started as a local initiative soon went national and more than 100 dairies signed up. Each of twelve cartons featured two photos for a total of 24 children in circulation at any given time. School size milk cartons featured only one child. They cycled in a new group of 24 missing children each month. Among the benefits of using milk cartons was their short shelf life. Everyone was buying milk every day so that's valuable ad space. The dairies sent milk across the country, which would help if a child had been taken across state lines. And kids ate their Cheerios with milk at the kitchen table every morning and might recognize someone they saw in the playground. So they were meeting their demographic.

[05:58] Jessica: Wow. That is crazy and brilliant.

[06:01] Meg: When the milk carton program went national, Etan Patz.

[06:06] Jessica: I knew it. I knew it.

[06:08] Meg: Yeah.

[06:09] Jessica: Sorry, go ahead.

[06:10] Meg: Was one of the first children featured. He had been missing for six years when his picture first appeared in 1985. On Friday, May 25, 1979, the last day of school before Memorial Day weekend, six year old Etan asked his mom if he could walk by himself to the bus stop. He lived at 113 Prince Street near Green and went to the Independence Plaza annex of P. S. Three in Greenwich Village. The Patz’ had paid $7,500 for their empty shell of a loft in 1965 and had gradually renovated it, adding plumbing, floors and walls. They had three children Shira, eight, Ari, two and Etan. Etan's school bus stop was at Prince and West Broadway, just two blocks away from his loft. He was too short to reach the lock on the apartment door, so his mom had to turn it before he could head out that morning.

[07:12] Jessica: I'm dead now.

[07:15] Meg: He was carrying his lunch in a small blue tote bag with cartoon red and white elephants. He also had a white cardboard roller like that you put posters in which held his dinosaur and racing car shaped erasers, a ruler and pencils. His black cap, said Eastern Airlines Junior Pilot. He was wearing a blue corduroy jacket, blue jeans and blue sneakers with fluorescent stripes. His mom had given him a dollar to buy a drink to go with his lunch. It was the first time he had ever been allowed to go out by himself. Usually Julie, his mom, asked Susan, a neighbor, to walk him to the corner. And there had been a bus strike recently, and so Susan had been walking him for like the last couple of weeks. But he insisted he was grown up enough to handle himself. Julie watched him from her loft third floor fire escape as he walked past Wooster Street to the bus stop at Prince and West Broadway. She lost sight of him half a block from the bus stop in the bustle of the wholesale bakery delivery trucks. A citywide bus strike that I was just talking about had just ended and there was a new bus driver on Etan's route. The new bus driver left at 08:00, a.m.; Ten minutes early, with only six kids on the bus, not realizing he should have had 24. And there were all these parents with their kids standing there. So there was sort of a group of people who were like, hey, where'd the bus go? But Etan wasn't there in the classroom. Etan's teacher noticed he wasn't there, but didn't alert anyone. By 3:30 that afternoon, he hadn't returned home from school and Julie started to panic. She called her neighbor Karen and asked if Etan was at her place. Karen turned to her daughter Chelsea, who was in Etan's class, to ask her if she'd seen him after school. “Etan wasn't in school today,” said Chelsea.

[09:23] Jessica: Oh my God.

[09:25] Meg: Julie immediately called the police, and to their credit, the police responded in force, deploying nearly 100 officers and bloodhounds. Etan's dad, Stanley, was a professional photographer and had beautiful high quality photos of Etan that he printed on flyers, which were then distributed all over the city. The flyers, and eventually the milk cartons resulted in national publicity for the case, but no good leads. There were some suspects. A local Jamaican superintendent who was friendly with Etan was suspected because he worked at a building that housed the city's first gay erotic art gallery.

[10:07] Jessica: Oh, for God's sakes.

[10:09] Meg: And the janitor of the building that housed the Earth Room. Do you know about the Earth Room? It's exactly what it sounds. I just went there, like right before the pandemic.

[10:21] Jessica: I knew what it was, but I didn't realize it has been around since then.

[10:25] Meg: It is so friggin cool the Earth Room. But yeah.

[10:28] Jessica: It’s been there for 42 years?

[10:31] Meg: Yeah, I think it's like 1976, I'm guessing, but I will look that up. It was there in the is crazy. On Wooster between West Broadway and Prince. And I should just say that the Earth Room is a huge loft filled with, I'm going to say maybe 6ft of earth. And it's just been sitting there as an installation since the 70s and it's very cool. So this janitor of the Earth Room turned out to be a convicted pedophile and had said something about Etan's body being buried inside the 280,000 pounds of dirt of the art installation. But both this guy and the superintendent, both these men were cleared. He was just being an asshole, being a jackass.

[11:23] Jessica: Wow. In 1982 read the Earth room, man. Sorry. Go ahead. We'll cut that out. Go ahead.

[11:32] Meg: In 1982, police came across Jose Ramos, a pedophile and drifter, living in a drain pipe in Van Courtland Park in the Bronx. In his pipe home, they found

[11:49] Jessica: Is that bad? I don't think it's bad. I think it's hilarious. Look, he has a tarnished image to begin with, okay? He's a pedophile. We're allowed to call it his, what did you say? Pipe home.

[12:04] Meg: His pipe home. It's going to get somber again.

[12:09] Jessica: I know. I'm really trying to enjoy the hell out of this laugh. Okay, I'm ready.

[12:14] Meg: They found photographs of Ramos and young blonde boys with blue eyes very much like Etan, but not Etan. Ramos had also dated Susan, the neighbor who the Patz’s is hired to walk Etan to the bus stop.

[12:30] Jessica: Wait, timeout. Yes. So Susan is dating pipeman?

[12:35] Meg: Yes.

[12:36] Jessica: Does this strike you as completely insane that she's dating a drifter who lives in a pipe?

[12:43] Meg: I don't know if he lived in the pipe in ‘79.

[12:49] Jessica: Yes, time had passed. Maybe time had fallen on harder times. Yes.

[12:53] Meg: Right. But she is dating a pedophile, so.

[12:57] Jessica: We both know that none of this is normal. Please continue.

[13:02] Meg: No, none of this is good. And Ramos had even participated in the search for Etan. So that's a bad sign. But there wasn't enough evidence to hold him. Five months later, Ramos was caught soliciting sex from a group of small boys. And when I say small, I'm saying six, seven, eight. Small boys at Playland Arcade in Times Square.

[13:26] Jessica: Where we got our fake IDs.

[13:28] Meg: Exactly. But the boys and their parents didn't follow up with a DA or police, and the case was dropped. I mean, these are families whose very small boys were in an arcade in Times Square so.

[13:44] Jessica: Look, times were different, Meg.

[13:48] Meg: And families were different. I don't feel like there was a lot of parental supervision for these particular small boys.

[13:58] Jessica: I mean isn’t that the thing about Gen X. Really? Isn’t that like.

[14:00] Meg: I think it's more severe than that.

[14:02] Jessica: No, No, No, what I'm saying is that the number of memes about like I'm Gen X.

[14:10] Meg: No, I get what.

[14:11] Jessica: And I was left in the gutter to get my own self to school, right?

[14:16] Meg: Well, sure, but these are parents who didn't follow up when their children were sexually solicited, when they were in Times Square at an arcade. It's a different level of negligence. Okay, for sure.

[14:33] Jessica: Were they with the children at the time.

[14:36] Meg: No.

[14:36] Jessica: Oh, that's where we're having, like, a little disconnect here. I thought they had taken their children to play video games in Times Square.

[14:44] Meg: No, their children were hanging out in Times Square.

[14:49] Jessica: Oh

[14:51] Meg: Jessica. Okay, look, that's not Gen X. That's just not okay.

[14:55] Jessica: I retract the entire Gen X scenario. I really thought that they were with their parents.

[15:01] Meg: No. No parents to be seen. No parents got involved after the fact. No parents.

[15:06] Jessica: Okay, carry on.

[15:08] Meg: All right. I'm glad we cleared that up.

[15:10] Jessica: Well, it was a conundrum.

[15:12] Meg: Ramos alternated between rambling, contradictory, confession-like statements and denying he had anything to do with Etan's disappearance. Very frustrating guy. Stanley Patz was convinced Ramos was responsible. And once Ramos was finally incarcerated for child molestation in Pennsylvania, every year on Etan's birthday and on the anniversary of his disappearance. So, twice a year, Stanley sent Ramos a copy of Etan's missing child poster. On the back, he typed the same message; “What did you do to my little boy?” In 2001, Etan was declared legally dead, and the Patez’s won a $2 million civil suit against Ramos. Obviously, they never collected a dime. Pipe home.

[16:12] Jessica: You're injecting enough levity, because I'm on the verge of tears.

[16:18] Meg: In 2010, investigators excavated the basement of 127 prints, which had been under construction in 1979.

[16:29] Jessica: And that's where the Patez’s lived, nearby.

[16:33] Meg: They lived at 113.

[16:35] Jessica: Okay.

[16:36] Meg: But they didn't find anything. And then in 2012, Pedro Hernandez confessed to police that he had strangled Etan.

[16:48] Jessica: Wait, I'm sorry. We have to go back for a second. What is the significance of 127 being.

[16:52] Meg: It was just because it was under construction, and people were like, oh, well, maybe somebody just buried his body because the cement was being poured. I think the point is that no one's really given up on this. This is an incredibly well known story. And over the years, whenever a new DA steps into his position, he does his best to try and figure out what happened to poor Aeton. So now we're in 2012. Pedro Hernandez has confessed that he strangled Etan and that he disposed of him in the garbage. Now, let's go back to 1979. Hernandez, in 1979, was 18 and working at a bodega near the bus stop. Etan had been planning to buy a drink for his lunch that morning. So the story lines up, and Hernandez's brother in law and his priest said it was an open secret that Hernandez had murdered Etan. Apparently, he had confessed in the early 80s to some of the people in his church who didn't come forward until 2012. But there was no physical evidence at all. And Hernandez is schizophrenic and has an IQ of 70. Which is why there was a hung jury. Eleven to one at his 2015 trial for second degree murder and first degree kidnapping. Yes.

[18:34] Jessica: I'm still stuck on it being the concept of, oh, it's an open secret that he murdered a baby. Like, who the fuck what is that? What head is that? Are we to think that everyone every congregant at that church was also an IQ of 70? Like what? Dementia?

[18:57] Meg: I can't imagine. But the problem here is that he's schizophrenic and he has hallucinations.

[19:06] Jessica: I get why it's a hung jury. I'm just saying that.

[19:08] Meg: No, I get what you’re saying.

[19:10] Jessica: This isn't, for a moment, I'm not even commenting on him. I'm just commenting on, like ‘oh, it's an open secret, we all know.’

[19:19] Meg: No, incredibly, incredibly disturbing. The DA tried him again because it was hung jury, and on April 18, 2017, Hernandez was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years. And I will say that the Patez’s ended up believing that they originally thought that Ramos was the guy. Now they very much believe Hernandez is the guy. I'm kind of still with Ramos myself, for what it's worth.

[19:51] Jessica: Why is that?

[19:53] Meg: Well, for one thing, he was actually a pedophile. Hernandez has zero history of pedophilia, and he was interviewed for 6 hours before they recorded the confession. And he's weak in the mind. What?

[20:13] Jessica: That's the most Victorian phrase I've ever heard come out of you. He's got a weak mind. He's got the mind of a child.

[20:21] Meg: A not very bright child.

[20:23] Jessica: No, I don't think that what you're saying is hard to get behind. Was there any all they have is the confession.

[20:35] Meg: No physical evidence.

[20:36] Jessica: There's no physical evidence against Ramos.

[20:39] Meg: No. But I think if somebody's actually a pedophile and they knew this child, that's a little bit more.

[20:45] Jessica: It is definitely more likely. But if you have a real ‘Of Mice and Men’ moment and he's like.

[20:57] Meg: Well, actually, that's what he said happened. He didn’t say.

[20:59] Jessica: He was petting him and then he strangled him by accident.

[21:03] Meg: Yeah, without the petting. But yeah, he said he strangled him and just didn't stop. That's what he said happened. But he also said, and I threw his backpack behind the freezer of the bodega, and his backpack wasn't behind the freezer in the bodega. So does he believe he did it? I think he might believe he did it.

[21:24] Jessica: Well, there are also many, many years in between.

[21:27] Meg: No, I mean, obviously they searched the bodega at the time.

[21:32] Jessica: Oh, oh. I'm not making any assumptions here. Walk me through the thought process. Look, I think the biggest takeaway is that the Patez’s feel like they have closure.

[21:43] Meg: Absolutely.

[21:43] Jessica: And that is the most important thing. Yeah.

[21:45] Meg: He just disappeared into thin air. I mean, absolutely no sign. And in half a block. Half a block.

[21:57] Jessica: We've been talking about; we've spent a lot of time on this show and obviously for our last double episode, talking about how the way that kids could run around the city really changed with the Levin murder. When Eton Patz was killed, we were ten. And I remember vividly when that happened and that there was a sense, even at the time, that everything was changing. And indeed, the way that parents looked after their children and watched over them became much more vigilant. And we were already a bit too old. We were four years older than him, so it wasn't exactly the same. But there was definitely, I remember that. I remember there being a shift and knowing it at the time. And now hearing this from you, some of the other stories that you've told, I'm horrified and grossed out and enraged and, yes, all of that's there for this one. But this one is so very particularly and profoundly heartbreaking. And perhaps it's your description of him about his little pencil case and his little book bag and his little lunch bag. And you can tell, like, what a little muppet? Thanks, Nick. I know you're listening.

[23:33] Meg: Let me close this out because I've got a couple of interesting things to say.

[23:37] Jessica: Oh, there's more. But wait.

[23:39] Meg: But wait. I'm just going to do a wrap up of the milk carton program.

[23:44] Jessica: Which I'm blown away by the pure altruism that's behind that.

[23:48] Meg: It's sweet, right?

[23:49] Jessica: Yes.

[23:50] Meg: And smart and just creative. It was not very effective, though. They didn't, in fact, find many of these children. But it did increase awareness. It was like a PR campaign, more than something that had an immediate effect in terms of finding the children. In 1983. May 25, the anniversary of Eton Patz's disappearance was designated National Missing Children's Day in the United States and the national center for Missing and Exploited Children was established in 1984. The milk carton program was abandoned as plastic jugs replaced cartons and the Amber Alert System, which came about in 1996, made it obsolete. And interestingly, I mean, just as far as Julie and Stanley Patz are concerned, in 2019, they sold their loft for $3,750,000 and moved to Hawaii to be closer to their grandchildren. But they stayed in that loft for many, many years and didn't change their phone number just on the hope and prayer that he might come home.

[25:02] Jessica: I'm unwell.

[25:07] Meg: Guess what Dr. Spock thought about the milk cartons.

[25:10] Jessica: There is very little I've heard about Dr. Spock that makes me feel very good about him.So I'm assuming that it's going to be something crappy.

[25:18] Meg: He hated them. He thought it would disturb children too much. I don't remember being disturbed by it. But obviously I have a high threshold for being disturbed.

[25:31] Jessica: You have the threshold of an Olympian. But I don't. And I don't remember ever being disturbed. I remember being fascinated and admittedly I was a morbid child. And I remember just being like and also feeling very much like those are other people.

[25:53] Meg: I'd be interested to hear if anyone else who remembers the missing children on the milk cartons really was disturbed. Because when I was reading what Dr. Spock was saying about it, I was like, that doesn't, I'm sorry. I don't think you know me.

[26:06] Jessica: When did he make that statement? At the time?

[26:09] Meg: Yeah, at the time.

[26:10] Jessica: Shut up.

[26:12] Meg: And pop culture references. Can you name a couple of milk carton pop culture references?

[26:19] Jessica: I'm too disturbed to remember my own name right now. Meg. What? No, I can't.

[26:24] Meg: Well, I mean, the deal. What was interesting is that it made such an impact. It didn't actually help in discovering where these missing children were, but it just glommed onto people's terrain.

[26:35] Jessica: Oh, yeah. Child on a milk carton became the symbol of missing children. But what is the pop culture reference that you're fishing for?

[26:46] Meg: Big.

[26:47] Jessica: Oh, yeah.

[26:48] Meg: He's on the side of the milk carton. And ‘Lost Boys’, one of my favorite films.

[26:53] Jessica: That I do remember. Yes. There was a little boy from the ‘Lost Boys.’ Star. Oh, my God. This memory, played by Jamie Gertz, looked at, his name was Laddie. Okay, I'm done now.

[27:10] Meg: I knew all I had to do was just sort of prod you and it would all come back.

[27:14] Jessica: It's rushing back. It's rushing back in a torrent of horror. Well, thank you for that.

[27:21] Meg: We did a ton.

[27:22] Jessica: We did a ton, Patz and I'm really glad that you didn't tell me ahead of time, because I would have run from the room screaming. Although I have to now say to you, the reason I kept saying, I know what it is, I know what it is, is because Nick had texted me, here are the things you need to do. And when Eton Patz came up all in caps, I quickly scrolled past it like, no, I can't. No, I'm not even going to tell Meg. Apparently he has your number. So I just want to address what you just said.

[28:07] Meg: I just noticed that Jessica doesn't have any notes in front of her, and I'm like, uh oh, she's just going to wing it today.

[28:14] Jessica: Today is a wing it. It is and sometimes my wing its are much more on point than when I have notes because I get so overwhelmed with the research I've done. Unlike you. You are perfect with that. I'm like facts uhh, multiple documents uhh. What's that?

[28:38] Meg: What are you winging today?

[28:40] Jessica: I'm just trying to come up with your engagement question. All right, I've got it.

[28:47] Meg: Okay.

[28:48] Jessica: Growing up, in the 80s here in New York City, what was an insult? What would be considered a major insult if someone thought you were this?

[29:01] Meg: Tryhard, I guess maybe.

[29:03] Jessica: I’m going to give you a second chance. Ready? Geographic.

[29:08] Meg: I don't know. Obviously, you're looking for one very particular answer.

[29:12] Jessica:Yes I am

[29:13] Meg: I don’t know what it is

[29:14] Jessica: Fine, fine, fine,fine. In the 80s, growing up in Manhattan, but even in all boroughs in New York City, the worst thing that you could be accused of is coming from New Jersey or Long Island, which was known as ‘bridge and tunnel.’ So I wanted to explore the bridge and tunnel concept and what we thought of it and how we viewed it at the time. What do you think?

[29:44] Meg: Okay, I'm a little nervous.

[29:45] Jessica: Why?

[29:45] Meg: I just don't want to insult anybody.

[29:47] Jessica: It's not about insulting them now. It's about insulting them. We were children.

[29:53] Meg: Okay because we were kind of jerks about it.

[29:56] Jessica: Well, it's not just that we were jerks. I think people say that New Yorkers are nasty and snotty. Snotty. Yes. And there have been many, many changes in the New York, in the perception of New Yorkers. And I think that after 911, there was a huge shift about, New Yorkers are great and they're helpful and they're banding together and all of that, but yes, there was not a good reputation. And we've talked about how when I arrived at Kenyan, by virtue of being from New York and my outfits, I was ostracized. Yes. People thought that I was an asshole.

[30:37] Meg: Why would they think that?

[30:38] Jessica: Before I before I opened my mouth. Okay. It was just from my photo in the baby book.

[30:48] Meg: Well, maybe that's sort of like what you were talking about last week with Spy Magazine. Spy Magazine was a bad influence on us or something.

[30:55] Jessica: I think it wasn't necessarily a bad influence. I think it was a bad reflection.

[30:59] Meg: Yeah, right.

[31:00] Jessica: And so I went after Gray and Carter and his very strange oompa loompa hairdo. Have you seen it? You know what I'm saying? If you don't know what he looks like, I highly recommend.

[31:12] Meg: But you're going to do a cartoon, aren't you?

[31:14] Jessica: Oh, Jesus. Yes, I will. I will do Gray and Carter as an Oompa Loompa.

[31:19] Meg: There you go.

[31:19] Jessica: It will be magnificent. And I was thinking, like, oh, we've talked about clubbing, and it's like, wait a minute. And for some reason, Limelight popped into my head, and I realized that it popped into my head because years ago, I was dating someone who lived on Long Island and spent a lot of time in Manhattan as a teenager. And then in our late teens, early 20s, he would go to the Limelight and hated it, but of course, would still go as one does. Like, oh, my friends are going, and it's supposed to be cool, but I'm actually having the worst time ever. This is terrible. So we were talking about it and I was like, oh, I would go to Limelight during that era. And he was like, you're one of those girls who never would have talked to me. And I was like, that's ridiculous. Don't be insane. And he was like, no, I was bridge and tunnel. I was like, you know what? I'm not going to lie. You're right.

[32:20] Meg: There was a different way that they dressed.

[32:23] Jessica: Okay, so let me engage you on that. Meg, what was the distinction? How could you tell someone was ‘bridge and tunnel’ versus a New Yorker?

[32:33] Meg: Oh, God. I don't know. I mean, there was definitely, like, people who shopped at a mall looked different.

[32:40] Jessica: I know. I'm inviting you to explore this concept.

[32:43] Meg: The hair was for girls and maybe for boys, too. It was just much bigger. There was an intention to make it large. I don't feel like we were trying to do that. I know we were not trying to do that.

[32:57] Jessica: We were actively trying to make it smaller.

[33:00] Meg: Exactly.

[33:01] Jessica: As small as humanly possible.

[33:03] Meg: There was a wardrobe situation.

[33:06] Jessica: So what?

[33:08] Meg: Acid washed jeans.

[33:09] Jessica: Thank you.

[33:10] Meg: For the guys was a bad sign.

[33:12] Jessica: Do you remember how girls would wear those wrestling shoes? They would lace up. They're like little booties. Yeah, you could just you could tell. A gold chain here and there. An open collared shirt. Not good.

[33:28] Meg: My grandmother once set me up ‘ugg.’ With the grandson of one of her friends.

[33:37] Jessica: Okay, what story is wonderful and magical that ever begins with ‘my grandmother set me up with one of her friends grandchild?’

[33:45] Meg: Basically, her friend's grandson went to a school in Princeton, New Jersey, and he did not have a date for his prom.

[33:56] Jessica: No, you didn't.

[33:57] Meg: So she called my grandmother, and my grandmother called me, and I was like, Oh, my God, why are you making me do this? Going to his prom in Princeton, New Jersey. I'll go if I can bring Amanda.

[34:12] Jessica: That is hilarious.

[34:14] Meg: So Amanda and I went to a prom in Princeton, New Jersey. They picked us up in a white limo, which we almost did not get into because who gets into a white limo? Bad start. We looked so different from anyone else there. And all the girls like, the girls in his class were just, Oh, my God, stank eye. We were not welcomed.

[34:42] Jessica: Well, I have one for you.

[34:44] Meg: Okay.

[34:46] Jessica: I never knew that you had to do that. The fact that you went with Amanda, you have such a clear picture of the insanity of the errand because the two of you would have just been, like, not speaking to anyone, only speaking to each other and ignoring practically swatting the poor boy away.

[35:07] Meg: And we were wearing

[35:09] Jessica: Black

[35:10] Meg: black dresses.

[35:11] Jessica: Right.

[35:11] Meg: And they were not wearing they were not wearing black dresses.

[35:13] Jessica: Metallic, teal Princess Di dresses.

[35:17] Meg: Exactly.

[35:18] Jessica: Well, 1988. 1988. So it was the year after we graduated from high school. I had a friend who grew up in Pennsylvania and not far from Philadelphia. He asked me to be his prom date. So I was in college already, and I was like, god almighty, why? But there was no way I was going to say no. He was a really good friend, but I knew that he had some romantic inclination, which was never going to happen in a million years. So I was sort of do. I go and do. Okay, so, like you, I was wearing a black Betsy Johnson dress, and there was a white limousine. There was a wrist corsage, which I had never seen before in my life. I didn't even know what I was looking at. And it was in, like, the plastic clamshell thing that we now have at Deli's right. So I was just confused. I had no idea which end was up. I had never been to a suburban event of this variety. And so we show up, and the kids it was like, do you remember that movie ‘She's All that?’

[36:45] Meg: Yes.

[36:46] Jessica: Rachel Lee Cook. Her makeover. And it's all inside the gym or wherever they are. Like, it's all neon lights. And Usher is leading a line dance. Usher was not there. However, all of that shit was actually happening. And the number of boys they're wearing wait for it. Not only is it a white tuxedo, not only were there sunglasses on, but there was a top hat and a cane.

[37:20] Meg: No, no

[37:24] Jessica: A cane. And I was just like, do you go to school with Mr. Peanut? What is happening here? It was so beyond my comprehension that I just remember being like, okay, ill hands. He still got a cane. It was so bananas. So, yeah, they were not like us. No, that was news. So, okay. We both had these experiences. Mine was not a strictly ‘bridge and tunnel.’ Yours was. But, you know, I was thinking about it, and I actually think some of the best descriptions of what ‘bridge and tunnel’ is or was are actually in movies about clubbing..

[38:21] Meg: Well, In Desperately Seeking Susan. She's bridge and tunnel.

[38:23] Jessica: Yes, exactly. But even prior to that, you know what the ultimate bridge and tunnel movie is? 

[38:31] Meg: What? 

[38:32] Jessica: Saturday Night Fever. Because it all is happening. They're in Brooklyn.

[38:36] Meg: Brooklyn.

[38:37] Jessica: Right but there are people who come into their club who are not okay, but it shows the strata, because those guys in a million years, would never have been okay in Manhattan. And in the movie, Tony is trying to get himself elevated out of there, and that's why he picks up with, god, what was her name?

[39:02] Meg: I've never seen the movie.

[39:03] Jessica: Stephanie, the one who is. What?

[39:07] Meg: I had to admit it because I was sitting here nodding, and I was like, I've just got to, I have to give up. I've never seen the movie. I've just heard so many disturbing things about it. I don't want to see it.

[39:18] Jessica: Wait, excuse me. Excuse me. Child murder reporter you're disturbed by Saturday Night Fever.

[39:27] Meg: Yes, there's a rape in it. Okay, fine. I don't want to see it, though. I love the album.

[39:33] Jessica: I'm going to make you watch it. I'm going to make you watch it because you know what? You can't really be our generation. Yes, but not I don't think that you can fully participate in the life of our generation 

[39:53] Meg: I could have continued to fake it. Jessica 

[39:55] Jessica: Well, to your infinite credit, you fessed up. But you know what? I'm also excited for you, because it is one of the best movies ever. Oh, my God. Every movie that ever had Studio 54 in it, there's always something with someone who wants to get in, and they're told they're never going to get in. ‘Bridge and tunnel.’ Anyway, so all of this is it was brought on by this memory of talking to this boy who, in fact, I'm now going to come clean. Not only did I date, I was mad for him. Now, he's not a boy, grown up man, okay? This was several years ago, and I do not and I don't have a pipe home. It was a grown man who I was I was mad for him. I thought he was, like, the sexiest thing on the planet. Whether he was or not, who knows? Eye of the beholder, A++. And in his mind, he was still ‘B and T’ and I was still Manhattan.

[40:59] Meg: Oh, even though so many years later.

[41:01] Jessica: So many years later, it still stuck. It clung to his soul. And I have to admit that when he told me that, I had a little moment of amusement of like, oh, you’re one of them, and then quickly got over it because I was mad for him.

[41:19] Meg: I don't think it exists anymore. I don't think there's that stigma anymore. I mean, Alice has friends who are from all over the tristate area.

[41:29] Jessica: You've become very accepting.

[41:32] Meg: Are you being sarcastic?

[41:34] Jessica: Well, you know what I think it is?

[41:36] Meg: I don't think there's a location, snobbery.

[41:39] Jessica: Things are more homogenous than they were back then. I think that culture in and out of cities and suburbs has blended much more, and that's because of the Internet. So I don't think it's as clearly delineated. Yeah.

[41:57] Meg: Like, Amanda and I did not know we were going to stand out the way that we did. We did not anticipate that. That was a bit of a surprise.

[42:04] Jessica: Mr. Peanut. Yes.

[42:10] Meg: Somehow the communication did not happen across the ‘bridges and the tunnels,’ so that we were just not doing the same thing.

[42:20] Jessica: And in fact, there was another sort of cultural divide of this type that we've talked about on this podcast already, at my camp. Hey, English. Yeah. It was a real growing up in New York thing. There was this very profound sense of otherness for a very short distance.

[42:44] Meg: Right. I'll ask Alice. I'm interested if she's even heard of the term.

[42:48] Jessica: Who knows?

[42:49] Meg: Well, thank you, Jessica. This was a geographical segment.

[42:53] Jessica: Yes, it was. And it was surprisingly lucid and cogent, so look at that.

[43:13] Meg: What's our tie in?

[43:15] Jessica: You beat me to it. I was about to say the same thing. What's the tie in?

[43:21] Meg: Bridge and Tunnel and EtaFn Patz. Milk cartons.

[43:27] Jessica: Milk cartons? How is that? Well, they connect it. We would know if a child was missing in New Jersey because of the milk carton. Okay, I don't know. I don't know if we have a tie in today. Oh. Bridge, Tunnel and pipe home. 

[43:53] Meg: Oh, my God, 

[43:56] Jessica: I'm never going to get over pipe-home. I just want you to know that. We were talking about what the, you know, if we do a T-shirt. What some of our T-shirts might be. And I know I'm going to do a Grayden Carter cartoon, but I think I have to do pipe-home.