01x01 - Pretend It's a City

[bunniefuu]

[Alfred Newman's "New York" playing]

[woman 1] Yes?

[woman 2] …of people in the street,

does it bother you--

Yes.

-[audience laughs]

-[Fran laughs]

[woman 2] …when people stop

in the middle, in the flow of traffic,

and look at their maps or…

[audience laughs]

Unfortunately,

I'm not gonna have time to answer this.

[laughs]

Do people in the street bother me?

Absolutely, they bother me. Here is why.

I feel like I should write a manifesto.

I used to be a writer.

-Um…

-[audience laughs]

That would… The title of which would be,

and this is kind of an advisory

to these people that you're talking about,

Pretend It's a City.

Okay? Pretend It's a City.

I cannot stop for one second or stand

in front of a place, smoking a cigarette,

without ten people

instantly asking me directions.

And I'm surprised by this,

because I always think, "Really?"

"Do I look welcoming to you?"

[audience laughs]

[Alfred Newman's "Street Scene" playing]

[Fran] There are a lot of things

on the ground in New York.

You know, there are a lot of crosswalks,

not that anyone obeys them except me.

I always yell at cars.

"You're in the crosswalk!"

[man chuckles]

[Fran] You know, as if, like, they care.

There's graffiti on the ground.

There are ads on the ground.

But there are numerous places in New York

where there are plaques,

like, laid into the ground.

This is something that I just love,

because it means that they are hoping

that someone is gonna look at this.

I don't think they did this thinking,

"It's gonna just be Fran."

"Everyone else

is gonna be looking at their phone."

"It's only gonna be Fran,

but she's worth it."

"Let's put all these plaques for her."

["Street Scene" continues]

[Fran] Near the library,

there are different plaques for writers.

And then there are some quotes

from the writers.

I think it's pretty optimistic to imagine

people are gonna read the quotes.

["Qué Rico el Mambo"

by Pérez Prado playing]

[Fran] Yes? In the back.

[man] Hey, Fran.

Uh, I actually never heard of you before.

-That's a good way to break the ice.

-[audience laughs]

[Fran] Yes?

[woman] How would you

describe your lifestyle?

[Fran] How would I describe my lifestyle?

Let me I assure you,

I would never use the word "lifestyle."

[audience laughs, applauds]

[man] Bravo.

[Fran] That's pretty much

how I would describe it.

[mambo music continues]

[woman] What's keeping you in New York?

[Fran] People often ask me,

"Why are you still here?"

-Like, okay, where would you suggest?

-[audience laughs]

Okay, so here's the thing.

If there was another place that I could

think of, I would have gone there.

[man] Here you are.

[Martin] Okay.

What do you think? This is it.

-[man] Fine.

-[Martin] Let's do it.

[dishes breaking]

-[Martin] There you go.

-[man 2] God. Sorry.

[Martin] Do you remember, Fran,

I said never have anybody sh**t

-in your car or your apartment.

-You told me after they ruined my car.

-[Martin laughs]

-When I complained about the car.

[mambo music ends]

[vehicles honking]

-[siren wailing]

-[vehicles honking]

-[car alarm blaring]

-[machinery whirring]

[cash register dings]

[Martin] Does complaining change anything?

-[Fran] You mean, does it help?

-[Martin] Yeah.

[Fran] Um…

You mean, if I complain about the things

I complain about, will they change?

[Martin] Yeah.

Not so far.

I mean, of course, I'm a young woman.

I once met a psychiatrist at a party,

and I said to him… [clicks tongue]

…"I cannot think of a more boring job

than being a psychiatrist."

And he said, "You have no idea

what it is like

to go to school for 14 years

and sit all day long and listen to people

complain about noise."

[both laugh]

So, apparently, that's what it's like

being a psychiatrist in New York.

Everywhere else in the country, people

are talking about their mother, husband.

No, in New York, noise.

They go in. It's like $500.

They sit there and complain about noise.

New York is never boring.

In other words, if I'm sitting somewhere

waiting for something,

like, say, oh, I don't know, a subway,

or if I'm sitting on the subway waiting

for the subway to, I don't know, leave,

-um…

-[Martin chuckles]

Most people are on their phones.

A few people are reading,

but that's never been me. You know?

I'm sitting there,

and I am just looking at my fellow man.

And this is, most of the time,

excessively interesting.

Too interesting.

This is what you see

in streets of New York.

Not just people walking and texting

or standing in the middle of the sidewalk

when I'm trying to get through. Um…

but you also see people doing things that

I know would never have occurred to me.

In other words, I don't have a phone,

so I've never texted,

but I firmly believe

that if I did have a phone and I did text,

it would never have occurred to me

to do this whilst walking.

A few months ago…

I haven't seen this numerous times,

but this particular combination of things

stood out in my mind.

I saw a kid riding a bike

down Seventh Avenue.

He was, with one hand, texting,

with the other hand,

eating a piece of pizza,

-and was driving the bike with his elbows.

-Ooh.

He had his elbows on the thing.

And of course, I…

Of course he almost ran me over.

Not that he noticed.

That's why I noticed him.

And I thought,

"I am a person who believes, every day,

I have a very high chance

of being k*lled crossing the street."

"This is a person who believes

nothing will ever happen to him."

If you took away the texting

and the pizza, I still wouldn't--

-And the elbows used to ride the bike.

-[Martin laughs]

If you gave me a bike,

and I had nothing in my hands,

and I had my hands on the handlebars,

I wouldn't ride a bike on Seventh Avenue.

I know how to ride a bike.

Okay? So I wouldn't do that.

All these things,

and it's an astonishment to me that,

every day, tens of thousands of people

aren't slaughtered

in the streets of New York.

-[Martin] Yeah.

-I don't know why this happens.

It is an amazing thing,

because there are millions of people.

Uh-- The only person

looking where she's going is me.

I am the one person in the whole city

who is watching where I'm going.

One of the worst things, you know…

There's many things that are horrible,

but one of the worst things is how

New Yorkers have forgotten how to walk.

-[Martin] Mm.

-Okay?

One of the great things

about New York used to be,

yes, there were a billion awful people

in the street, but there was…

Every single person

in the street knew that,

as you're walking toward other people,

you move a little bit,

they move a little bit.

-That's right.

-Okay?

That's why everyone was still alive

at the end of the day.

[laughing]

Now, people don't do it.

Okay, so what I do now…

They don't do it

because either they're on their phones

-or because they live in a world of one.

-Mm-hmm.

And sometimes… I bumped into someone

because they were not paying attention,

and I thought,

"I'm gonna let 'em walk right into me."

Um, and they looked up,

like, annoyed, and I said,

"Other people in a hotel lobby.

Isn't that astonishing?"

-[Martin laughs]

-Like, you know, what…

And that's why I feel like,

pretend it's a city,

you know, where there are other people.

And pretend it's a city where there are

people who are not here just sightseeing.

-[Martin] Mm. Yeah.

-You know? Who have to go places.

To their appointments, so they can pay

for all this junk that you come to see.

[Martin laughs]

[Richard Rodgers's

"Carousel Waltz" playing]

[Fran] That neighborhood is horrible.

Times Square, the worst neighborhood.

But you rarely have to go to Times Square.

So if you have to go to Times Square,

usually because you have to see a play,

you think, like, "I have to go

see the play, and it's in Times Square,

and so I'm gonna try

to arrive at the theater

without having gotten into 75 fights

with people, because…"

Sometimes I will, like, figure out,

if I have to go

to a theater in Times Square,

how can I get there

walking through Times Square the least?

And I will do this even if it means

walking all the way around.

I think, "Let's see. What if I walked up

to 125th Street, then all the way down?"

"Then I can pretty much miss this.

That's long, but it would be worth it."

[soft orchestral music continues]

The opening of Phantom of the Opera

was a big benefit, an A*DS benefit,

and I was on the committee of this,

but I don't remember what thing it was.

Um, so I had these tickets

to the opening of it,

and so I invited my mother to come.

And so we had these, like,

you know, fantastic seats.

What people think are.

In the orchestra, in the middle.

My idea of a fantastic seat

is in the back, on the aisle,

-so you can get out, you know.

-[Martin laughs]

So the second I get into the theater,

I'm plotting to get out. Uh…

And I must have been

the only person in New York

who had not been reading about this,

you know, because it was such a big deal.

So when the chandelier

fell from the ceiling,

I thought the chandelier

was falling on us.

-[Martin] Oh, Fran, no. Oh…

-And I screamed. I created such…

If there was internet then,

you would still be able to see this.

-[Martin] Didn't you see the movies?

-I didn't.

-I thought…

-The whole--

-It goes right over.

-Yeah.

But my mother, of course, knew,

'cause she was like…

My mother said, "This kid, she's always

been a problem. She's still a problem."

And I was hysterical.

'Cause it came like this.

I thought it was falling down.

-[coughs] Um…

-[Martin laughs]

So that's mostly what I remember

about Phantom of the Opera,

except, like, thinking

it was unbelievably horrible.

You know, "This is unbelievably horrible."

This is exactly

the kind of thing that I hate.

You know, um, it's like Evita.

Robert Stigwood, um, had this thing.

Um, he in-- He was a producer of Evita.

And he invited a few people,

like 25 people,

to the Plaza Hotel,

which was still the Plaza Hotel then,

not like now,

which had a little theater in it.

So I went to this, I saw this,

and afterwards, Stigwood asked me

what I think, and I said,

"Are you out of your mind?

A musical about Eva Perón?"

-"You'll be laughed out of New York!"

-[Martin laughs]

"Don't do it!" I said.

So this is why I would never

make a lot of money in the theater.

-[Martin] Exactly.

-And…

But from the point of view

of a musical about Eva Perón,

I was completely correct.

I was completely correct.

And then I went to see it one night

with two guys who were Argentinian,

and they were laughing so hard that

we almost got kicked out of the theater.

You know? Um…

-I think Evita's not playing anymore.

-[Martin] Nah.

But it did play for a long time.

I'm sure that every time

I saw Stigwood after that, I said,

-"I still think I'm right."

-[Martin laughs]

You know? It was making

like a million dollars a minute.

[Martin]

Do you tend to look down at people?

[Fran] Do I tend to look down at people?

You mean, am I a snob?

There are certain kinds of snobberies

that I think are bad.

Of course, those are not

the kind of snobberies I have. Okay?

[chuckles] The kind of snobberies I have

have nothing to do with,

you know, "Who is your father?"

"Where'd you go to school?

Where'd you grow up?"

It has to do with,

"Do you agree with me about this?"

That's what it has to do with.

Or, "You think that? No."

Even though I know that people

very frequently are very…

Not irritated. It's too mild of a word.

…infuriated by me.

Um, it does somewhat surprise me,

because so what?

Like, who am I?

Am I making decisions for you?

I'm not in charge of anything.

I understand being angry at me when I say

things like, "People should do this,"

or, "This should happen,"

if people thought that I could change it.

But if I could change it,

I wouldn't be so angry.

The anger is, I have no power,

but I'm filled with opinions.

[upbeat funk music plays]

[woman 1] The subways are crummy,

and they're dangerous.

You get pushed. You get shoved.

Sometimes, you get mugged

in the subway during the daylight.

[woman 2] I can remember

when public transportation

was one of the prides of New York.

What happened?

Is New York better or worse today

than when you first arrived?

Well, what you always hear about New York

in the '70s was how horrible it was.

-Right.

-New York was going bankrupt.

I had no idea this was happening.

-Right.

-Okay? Because--

You were having fun. Seeing rats,

shattered benches in the park, graffiti.

-That was New York.

-You were like, "I'm having a great time."

-Because--

-"I'm drunk. I'm getting on that bus."

"I don't care about graffiti.

It's taking me where I wanna go."

That's what New York looked like when

you got there. You thought that was NY.

There are people

who arrive here now and think,

"New York, lawn chairs in Times Square."

When they take them out,

then people now will say,

"What happened to the lawn chairs?"

"That was the real New York."

[horns honking]

[Martin] Do you think they will still have

the, uh, Times Square Café

in the middle of the street?

[Fran] I don't know if you're aware

of this, Marty, because I know you've--

[Martin] No. I don't go down below 57, no.

[Fran] All right, so up until, like,

five minutes ago, 24 hours a day,

they were repaving these, whatever

they call them, these cement things.

-[Martin] Islands.

-Yes, in the middle of Times Square.

And then right before

he was thrown out of office, finally,

I saw Bloomberg, uh, like, saying,

"And now these are permanent!"

And I thought, "Permanent? You hick."

-What's permanent in New York?

-[laughing]

-[laughs]

-Really? Permanent! They're not permanent.

However, that's the day I found out…

What did that cost? $40 million.

-[Martin] Oh!

-$40 million.

It wasn't Bloomberg's treat either,

by the way.

-Okay? $40 million, taxpayer money.

-[Martin laughs]

$40 million for that. Okay?

Because so many New Yorkers have said,

"You know what I hate? Not enough places

to lie down in Times Square."

-[Martin] Oh, sure. Hate that.

-[audience laughs]

-"It's unbearable!"

-Yeah, yeah, yeah.

"We're leaving. We can't take it anymore."

[Martin] Yeah, yeah. [laughs loudly]

So the streets are completely packed

with these horrible, I don't know

what you'd call 'em, planters,

with fake plants, or they may be

real plants. I don't know what they are.

Real plants, fake plants, I have no idea.

What are plants doing in Times Square?

[audience laughs]

And not just Times Square.

I mean, The Bowery. It's the whole city.

They're all over the place.

Plants, lawn chairs. You know, trinkets.

Really, it looks like

my grandmother's apartment.

[Martin laughs]

I mean, you expect to see

little photographs of grandchildren and…

[audience laughs]

…little dishes of sour ba*ls and…

[chuckles]

When New Yorkers hear

about these budget cuts,

they're gonna wanna know

if New York City is going down the drain.

-Is it safe to say that New York--

-New York City isn't going down the drain.

Is it safe to say that New York City

government will be less efficient,

the streets dirtier, citizens will have

less protection from fire and criminals?

I said New York City

is not going down the drain.

New York City is here to stay.

And it's still the greatest city

in the world

and giving, even after this,

more services than any city

in the world to its people.

[Fran] I would really like to be

like the Mayor of New York,

but one of the bad things

about mayoralty in New York,

which is a really hard job…

Mayor of New York

is the second hardest job in the country.

-It starts early in the morning.

-[Martin] Mm.

It should be split in two,

and I would be the night mayor.

[Martin laughs]

I am volunteering for this.

Someone else can be the day mayor.

I'll be the night mayor.

Uh, you know, I'll start around 4:00

and I'll go all night if you want.

I mean, the thing about New York is

that a lot of things happen late at night.

[man] What would you change

about New York at night

while, uh, the day mayor slept?

The first thing I would change

about New York, and not just me,

is the subway system.

Okay? This is the first thing

I would change about New York.

A few weeks ago, I turn on the radio,

which I listen to. WNS News.

And they said, "The L train…"

which is a train that goes from Brooklyn,

"The L train is closed today because

there is a foul odor on the L train."

This was all day long.

Every ten minutes, they kept saying,

"There's a horrible smell on the L train.

It's closed."

And I thought to myself, "The subway's

closed because it smells horrible?"

-What does that even mean? Okay?

-[Martin laughs]

Like, how much worse could it smell

than it usually smells?

Like, what could they…

They don't know what this is.

And I thought, "Who even noticed this?"

In other words, the train smells horrible.

Did someone say, "You know,

the train smells even worse than usual"?

I mean, they act like,

"Before this, you know,

the smell was wisteria,

there was an alpine village."

I thought… And all day long,

"We can't find out what this smell is."

And then as the day went on…

Now the L train is closed for five hours.

…they said, "Well…"

They went down, whoever tests this,

and said,

"It doesn't smell as bad as it did."

I thought, "Of course not.

It's been empty for five hours."

Let me tell you what smells horrible

on the L train. The passengers!

-[Martin laughs]

-Okay?

Finally, they came down and said

it was some kind of leaking motor oil.

[Martin] There was a…

There was a comment on the news, too,

about the fact that they had tested it

and it wasn't harmful.

No. It was the good motor oil

they could smell.

It's like, after September 11th,

like one hour later,

when Christine Whitman,

who was at that time the head of the EPA,

went there, and she said, "It's fine."

-Yeah.

-"The air is fine."

I remember saying to people,

"How could that possibly be?"

"Of course that's a lie."

And that wasn't…

I mean, George Bush was president,

so we were accustomed

to a certain kind of lying,

but I said, "That's impossible."

You know, you could smell what everyone

called "the dust" for, like, 80 blocks.

You know? And, uh…

But she said it was fine.

And now, of course,

thousands of people are…

-[Martin] People have cancer

-Have cancer,

because it wasn't dust, first of all,

um, and it was not fine.

[Martin] Isn't it nice

to see the city so calm and…

-[Fran] City's calm 'cause no one's in it.

-[Martin laughs]

[Fran] I mean, New York City this quiet?

Something happened.

I always remember,

on September 11th, how quiet the city was.

You know, I mean, after…

If you didn't live right there. You know?

The only other time

I heard New York City that quiet…

And I lived in Midtown.

It was never quiet.

…was when they were about to announce

the OJ Simpson verdict.

The entire city apparently

was watching television,

and the entire city went dead silent…

until they announced the verdict.

[man] What was the other thing?

[Martin] The other thing was

the rubber suit Godzilla

that we were gonna do. Okay. [laughs]

You know, Ishirō Honda!

We're gonna step all over the city.

Right, you stroll down the, uh…

Is that the Hudson?

That's the East River. Okay. Yeah.

So if anything strikes you…

I'm more worried that I will strike

something than anything will strike me.

[Martin] Is there a difference

between this model's representation

of New York as it is now?

Is there anything…

[Fran] When I was first here,

which was not that long ago,

I looked for my building where I live,

which, at the time this was built,

the building I live in

was three warehouses

made into an apartment building,

and I managed to locate them.

You know, and you feel

what you always feel.

-I should've bought a ten. You know?

-[Martin laughs]

I was trying to convince a friend's

daughter to move back to New York from LA.

She said, "I want to move

back to New York, but I can't afford it."

So I said, "Move back to New York.

Let me tell you something."

-"No one can afford to live in New York."

-[Martin] Right.

No one can afford to live in New York.

Yet, eight million people do.

[Martin, audience laugh]

How do we do this? We don't know!

[Martin laughs] We don't know.

It's a mystery to us.

[audience laughing]

We don't have a clue.

And that's just it too.

We don't know, but we're still here.

So you can come here without knowing

how you're gonna live here,

and somehow you will do

enough things to live here.

It's as simple as that.

-[audience applauding]

-Okay.

When you leave New York

or even if you stay for a little while

somewhere else,

you just can't get over

the ease of daily life.

Like, you know, first,

you move to an apartment, you think,

"Ugh! Where's the dry cleaner?

Am I gonna ever find a dry cleaner?"

Sometimes you never find one.

Sometimes there isn't one!

Or sometimes you go and…

I know it's gonna be three months

before I have such a fight,

-I won't be able to go in here ever again.

-[Martin laughs]

Then you think,

there are people who live in places

where they just take the dry cleaning,

they go to the dry cleaner.

It's like a little errand.

But everything in New York

is like the Ring Cycle.

You know, everything in New York

is an operatic thing.

It's… It's incredible problems.

So you realize

that it's just so hard to live in New York

that when people say,

"Why do you live in New York?"

you really can't answer them,

except you know that you have contempt

for people who don't have guts to do it.

"You live in a place

where things are just easily done,

where people are nice to you,

where no one's trying to cheat you

every five seconds."

"You call that grown-up life?"

[Martin laughs]

The surprising thing to me is how many

people who are in their twenties now

come up to me in the street and say,

"Fran, I wish that I'd lived

in New York in the '70s."

"It seems like it was so much fun."

Now, there's one thing I know for a fact,

that when I was in my twenties,

I wasn't going up to people my age,

saying, "I wish I'd lived

in New York in the '30s."

I never thought that.

-[Martin laughs]

-So, you know… So, like,

since they know that I was here then,

um, I'm like an eyewitness to this.

It's like, I guess,

if you were a Civil w*r buff, you know,

and you saw Abraham Lincoln, you would

think, "Oh! He was there. Let me ask him."

[woman speaks indistinctly]

[man 1] If you don't have reservations,

please wait outside.

[man 2] We're gonna do a song now

about a boy in New York City.

["Jet Boy" by New York Dolls plays]

[Fran] Most of the people I knew

who were financially more like me,

heat was a very big issue.

We discussed it a lot.

And I would go to Max's,

and I would pick people up,

-but, before, asking, "Do you have heat?"

-[Martin laughs]

And that would be something

I found incredibly alluring.

All of a sudden, the person

turned into a young Brigitte Bardot.

"You have heat? Let's go."

Who's so fly up in the sky ♪

Faster than any boy

Could ever describe? ♪

Who has got a love so deep ♪

With everything alive? ♪

I said Jet Boy's fly ♪

Jet Boy's gone ♪

Jet Boy stole my baby ♪

Flyin' around New York City so high ♪

Like he was my baby ♪

[Fran]

The New York Dolls, they were great,

and so few people saw them.

They used to perform

at the Mercer Arts Center, which one day…

[building crashes]

…just fell down.

That's how New York used to be.

The Mercer Arts Center,

we went all the time to see the Dolls,

and other people,

but especially the Dolls.

Um, and then, one day, it just fell down.

-[Martin] Mm-hmm.

-[Fran] The building just fell down.

That was the level of neglect.

When people said, "Did you hear

the Mercer Arts Center fell down?"

No one said, "What are you talking about?"

"Oh, it fell down."

[Martin] That was the third… There were

three buildings that fell down that year.

They fell down

because no one took care of them.

-[Martin] Nobody did.

-I mean, so…

It was just the way it was.

I never thought about it.

There were numerous things

I was thinking about,

but New York getting better was not one.

New York was great.

That's why I came here!

But, you know, I didn't come here

'cause it was clean.

I came from a clean place.

I didn't think, "Ah, I want

to go to New York. It's so spotless."

I didn't come here 'cause it was safe.

I came from a safe place.

I didn't come 'cause it was dangerous.

I wasn't happy to be, you know, in danger,

but I quickly acclimated.

I have all the habits

that I had in the '70s.

For instance, I sit on the subway,

I see people put their bag next to them

and they leave it there.

I think, "Are you out of your mind?"

It makes me want to steal it.

[Martin laughs] Yeah.

You know, no matter what I'm holding…

Really, it could be a pencil.

I have a death grip on it.

"You're not getting this pencil from me."

[audience laughs]

Like, I would never leave

anything next to me. Never!

And not because I think

people might think it was a b*mb,

but because someone's gonna take it!

Of course they will.

-[Martin] I've seen it.

-That's what happens.

I mean, in 1971 or something like that,

someone broke the windshield of my car,

which I still had my car from high school,

um, and took, from the dashboard,

an apple and a pack of cigarettes

that was on the dashboard.

Um, a pack of cigarettes

then cost 50 cents.

Uh… An apple, one apple, ten cents.

I call the police.

I call them over,

they were still on the street then,

I said, "Look."

"Someone smashed my windshield

and took from my dashboard."

The cop goes, "What did they steal?"

So I said,

"I had an apple, a pack of cigarettes."

And he goes, "Well, what do you expect?"

[audience laughing]

[Fran laughs]

"I mean,

if you leave these valuable things

in full view of people, they're gonna

break the windshield of your car!"

"Who wouldn't do that?"

"What are you, a moron?"

[Martin, audience laughing]

So, since he had a point,

I didn't argue with him.

I realized,

"Yeah, well, what do you expect?"

Apparently, there was

that headline that said, you know,

"President to New York: Go to hell,"

or whatever it was.

-"Ford to New York: Drop dead."

-"Ford to New York: Drop dead."

Meanwhile, who's dead?

Yeah. [laughs]

["New York's My Home"

by Ray Charles playing]

Listen all you New Yorkers

There's a rumor going around ♪

That some of you good people

Want to leave this town

But you better consult with me

Before you go ♪

[woman] Why?

'Cause I've been all these places

And I know ♪

[woman] What about Hollywood?

Hollywood's got movie stars ♪

And movie czars and c*ck bars

And shiny cars ♪

And a wonderful climate they say ♪

But it hasn't got

The handy subway train ♪

You seldom find a taxi when it rains ♪

That's why New York's my home ♪

Keep your California

New York's my home sweet home ♪

I also feel that, even though New York

is not what it used to be,

I really can't imagine

they'd let me live anywhere else.

[laughs]

I just think they would get together,

there'd be some sort of city council,

and they would say, "We've come

to tell you, you have to leave."

"You can't stay here."

-That's what they kind of do with me.

-"Sorry. Time for you to leave."

So save your time and trouble ♪

I said save your railroad fare ♪

I said you better

Save your time and trouble, brother ♪

Yeah, save your railroad fare ♪

'Cause when you leave New York ♪

Yeah, let me say

You ain't going nowhere ♪

[music ends]