Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh and
Speaker 1: that's Chuck and we're flying solo today and that's okay
Speaker 1: because we've got something to say. Mostly this is short stuff.
Speaker 1: You really bailed on that one, didn't you. Uh. This
Speaker 1: is about selling the Brooklyn Bridge, which I I think
Speaker 1: I had heard that this was a thing in history
Speaker 1: at some point, but big thanks to the New York Times,
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works dot com and n y C Walks
Speaker 1: dot com to bring it's the story of George C. Parker,
Speaker 1: a man who sold the brook the Brooklyn Bledge many
Speaker 1: times over, as well as some other notable New York
Speaker 1: places you know yet see would be okay with mo Man,
Speaker 1: oh man, He's gonna become a regular part of the show,
Speaker 1: I think so. Yeah. George C. Parker was like a
Speaker 1: con man extraordinaire, like this guy. Supposedly he at least
Speaker 1: he claimed to have sold the Brooklyn Bridge multiple times
Speaker 1: a week, every week for years. That's how good he was,
Speaker 1: which is probably no, that is almost certainly not true.
Speaker 1: But it is documented that he did sell successfully sell
Speaker 1: the Brooklyn Bridge to a number of suckers over the years.
Speaker 1: Like it wasn't just a one time thing just once
Speaker 1: would have made a legion, but the fact that this
Speaker 1: guy did it over and over again is really something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and apparently this used to be a thing, and not
Speaker 1: just the Brooklyn Bridge. But you were in a situation
Speaker 1: in the you know, sort of latest eighteen hundreds in
Speaker 1: New York City where you had millions of immigrants coming
Speaker 1: through uh Ellis Island who were hopeful. Many of them
Speaker 1: were poor, but not all of them because you have
Speaker 1: to have some money to buy the Brooklyn Bridge, although
Speaker 1: sometimes they sold these things for like not very much money,
Speaker 1: which is even sadder. Uh. So they were they were targets.
Speaker 1: They were sort of greenhorn targets. And some of them
Speaker 1: did have money though, and they would use I think
Speaker 1: like um, I guess scouts or something. What would you
Speaker 1: call that, someone to kind of like informant informants at
Speaker 1: Ellis Island that could maybe be paid off to pass
Speaker 1: along information like, Hey, this immigrant came in. They think
Speaker 1: America is the land of opportunity. They're really excited and
Speaker 1: they got a little cash in their pocket. Right. So
Speaker 1: the whole jam was with Parker's Brooklyn Bridge scam was
Speaker 1: he would find one of these people a well, healed
Speaker 1: immigrant who just thought of America as the land of opportunity,
Speaker 1: and um, I thought that this was a golden opportunity.
Speaker 1: He would find them and show them, you know, some
Speaker 1: sort of deed that said that he owned the Brooklyn
Speaker 1: Bridge and he wanted to unload it, so he would
Speaker 1: sell it to somebody and and just basically tell them like,
Speaker 1: it's not just sown in the Brooklyn Bridge, which is
Speaker 1: amazing enough. You can charge a toll and you could
Speaker 1: make your money back in like a month and then
Speaker 1: just get rich from air. And that was how apparently
Speaker 1: he actually attracted people. Yeah, and all this stuff is
Speaker 1: so it's very easy in two to say, well, why
Speaker 1: didn't they say, well, why aren't you doing this? Weren't
Speaker 1: you making this money? Why aren't there tolls and things
Speaker 1: like that? And who knows the answer. I think it
Speaker 1: was just a different time period. Um. As far as
Speaker 1: tolls on the bridge, uh, they did used to charge
Speaker 1: when it first opened. It cost a penny to cross
Speaker 1: by to to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge by foot,
Speaker 1: uh and nicol if you had a horse uh and
Speaker 1: a rider ten cents for a horse and wagon and
Speaker 1: then uh extra money for farm animals if you were,
Speaker 1: you know, toting your farm animals, which is very funny
Speaker 1: to think about now, Uh, across across the brick, it's
Speaker 1: pretty funny. So there was there was at least a
Speaker 1: history where an immigrant may have heard that this was
Speaker 1: the case. Uh, they stopped doing this in and I
Speaker 1: think even the roadway tolls went away in nineteen eleven,
Speaker 1: so you know, they didn't stop it until eighteen ninety one.
Speaker 1: So if it's EWO or three, then you could sort
Speaker 1: of forgive someone for believing it. Yeah. Plus they were
Speaker 1: still charging those roadway tolls for for decades longer. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the very presence of tolls on the Brooklyn
Speaker 1: Bridge made people think like, Okay, yeah, this is the thing.
Speaker 1: This guy owns this bridge. I'm going to take over
Speaker 1: this enterprise from it. Yeah. And another thing you have
Speaker 1: to think about is the Brooklyn Bridge is very large,
Speaker 1: and it would be very easy to walk someone up
Speaker 1: there and maybe even show them a toll booth without
Speaker 1: arousing suspicion, without getting caught, without uh you know, them
Speaker 1: necessarily thinking they needed to go over and verify anything
Speaker 1: with the toll bridge. Yeah. Imagine also if you had
Speaker 1: an inn with one of the toll booth operators you
Speaker 1: can introduce as your employee. You know, I'm bringing in money.
Speaker 1: Hand about fist here right. The other thing about the
Speaker 1: Brooklyn Bridge too, And and like you said, people sold
Speaker 1: other stuff, monuments, plots of land and parks in New
Speaker 1: York City, basically anything you can imagine that they didn't own.
Speaker 1: But the Brooklyn Bridge in particular was like the scam
Speaker 1: because it was such a monument in America at the
Speaker 1: time of the turn of the twentieth century. Like there
Speaker 1: was the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge, and
Speaker 1: that was like the two big symbols of America. So
Speaker 1: people wanted to own it as well. The idea of
Speaker 1: owning this huge symbol of America. I just got off
Speaker 1: the boat from Croatia and now I'm I own one
Speaker 1: of two symbols of America. Um, you could imagine how
Speaker 1: somebody would jump at that opportunity if they if they
Speaker 1: really thought that this guy was legit. Sure, and I
Speaker 1: think a lot of times he would just do it
Speaker 1: to make a few hundred bucks at a time to
Speaker 1: some real greenhorn. But apparently it's legend, has it he
Speaker 1: got up to fifty tho dollars, which I did not
Speaker 1: fail to do the calculation. Did you happen to do that? Shamefully? Now,
Speaker 1: I don't know why we didn't do that. Let's let's
Speaker 1: just say it's ten million dollar. Yeah, it's a lot
Speaker 1: of money today. Yeah, I'll bet I'm right. Should we
Speaker 1: take a break, Yes, let's take a break and figure
Speaker 1: out how much they are? If you want to know,
Speaker 1: then you're in luck. Just Chuck Shore. So we're back, Chuck,
Speaker 1: And I was essentially right, Oh well, how much was it? Uh?
Speaker 1: So I said ten million? Right, you said ten million. Uh,
Speaker 1: it turns out it's um, it looks like it's about
Speaker 1: fifty million. Now no, no, I'm sorry. Let's see one,
Speaker 1: two three, it's five million zero five million. That's a jeez.
Speaker 1: He really took somebody then. Yeah, imagine Lucy five million
Speaker 1: dollars buying the Brooklyn Bridge. Because again, like you're an immigrant,
Speaker 1: you're not really kind of hip to how things work here.
Speaker 1: Yet imagine going to the cops and then being like
Speaker 1: you're you're joking, like you just gave somebody five million
Speaker 1: dollars to buy the Brooklyn Bridge. Like that had to hurt.
Speaker 1: Like to add insult to injury. Yeah, and you know
Speaker 1: there was some wife in that decision that was going,
Speaker 1: you idiot, that's every penny we have, and some husband
Speaker 1: going it'll be worth it, right. I also just bought
Speaker 1: some magic beans. Right. Uh. Here's one thing that's pretty
Speaker 1: interesting is this became so common because it wasn't just
Speaker 1: George Parker doing this. Um. There's one story that we
Speaker 1: couldn't quite get to the bottom of that there was
Speaker 1: someone named William mcclownde a k a I O U
Speaker 1: O'Brien who did this. But then other people have said no,
Speaker 1: that was actually an alias Parker. But there were definitely people.
Speaker 1: This was a not the most common thing, but it
Speaker 1: was a grift that other people did to the extent
Speaker 1: that eventually on Ellis Island they had signage up and
Speaker 1: pamphlets that said, like, these things are not for sale.
Speaker 1: Welcome to America, do not try and buy the Statue
Speaker 1: of Liberty. Yeah. The thing I've seen bandied about is
Speaker 1: you can't buy public buildings or streets. And I was like,
Speaker 1: is it is that true? And I looked it up
Speaker 1: and I don't know if it's true. Chuck, Well, what
Speaker 1: do you mean? But which one. Public buildings are streets
Speaker 1: that they handed out pamphlets Llis Island. Don't you think
Speaker 1: that somebody would have saved that pamphlet and there'd be
Speaker 1: an image of it on the internet somewhere. I don't know.
Speaker 1: That's your reasoning, that's part of it. It also appears
Speaker 1: in one book in one New York Times article. In
Speaker 1: the New York Times article prints it from a quote
Speaker 1: from somebody else who also wrote a book about But
Speaker 1: did the Paper of Record? Yeah, but I mean New
Speaker 1: York Times. It's also Friday at five the New York Times. Sometimes. Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, well, who knows it makes for a good story,
Speaker 1: though it is a good story. But aren't those the
Speaker 1: most fun? To just be sure? I know that it
Speaker 1: did get harder to sell these public buildings. I think
Speaker 1: they were trying to do that up through like the
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties. But um, you know, people became a little
Speaker 1: more wise to this thing over the years. Even though
Speaker 1: Parker I believe, in his day sold uh the Statue
Speaker 1: of Liberty, Madison Square, Garden, Grant's tomb Uh in the
Speaker 1: met not bad amazing. No, imagine buying the met too.
Speaker 1: You get all the art inside too, you're not going
Speaker 1: to move the art no arts included. Oh no. What
Speaker 1: I would have said is no, you know, you don't
Speaker 1: own the art, but you can you get a lot
Speaker 1: of money for charging for the art to be there. Right,
Speaker 1: that's true. What happened to him though he got caught right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he finally didn't. Apparently there was a four strikes in
Speaker 1: your out law in New York at the time called
Speaker 1: the Bomb's Law, and um, they said that if you
Speaker 1: were convicted of a fourth felony, that judge had no
Speaker 1: choice but to give you life in prison. And that's
Speaker 1: what happened to uh to mr Parker. He passed a
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty dollar check that bounced supposedly, the only
Speaker 1: in Evening Times said that it bounced back with startling elasticity,
Speaker 1: which is hilarious. Um, and he served the rest of
Speaker 1: his life in Sing Sing Sings prison as a result.
Speaker 1: After all of those griffs and scams, he got life
Speaker 1: in jail for a hundred and fifty dollar bounced check.
Speaker 1: You know, there are four strikes in baseball at the time,
Speaker 1: so that all makes sense. Okay, now it makes sense.
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. Wait a minute, is that true? Wouldn't
Speaker 1: that be funny if that's how the judicial system worked? Like, Wow,
Speaker 1: what's baseball doing? Right? What's baseball I have to say about?
Speaker 1: Is the three strikes or four? That's what we'll do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can steal first I guess. Oh wait, you couldn't
Speaker 1: steal figures. I think this one ended, uh in just
Speaker 1: the best way possible. I think it ended about thirty
Speaker 1: seconds too late. Uh as short stuff is out, everybody.
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