Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's even here too, So this is a
Speaker 2: real deal episode of Stuff you Should Know. Let's go.
Speaker 1: That's right, another New York a dish.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're putting them out every week now, it's been
Speaker 2: a while, No it hasn't. We just did Studio fifty
Speaker 2: four a few weeks back. Oh yeah, that's pretty New York.
Speaker 1: No, I mean it's super New York, by the way,
Speaker 1: but I sent you pictures. But I went by Studio
Speaker 1: fifty four, I know.
Speaker 2: I saw that.
Speaker 1: It was kind of cool. They still have the doors
Speaker 1: that say Studio fifty four. They left a few iconic bits.
Speaker 1: I was on that sidewalk in front of it, trying
Speaker 1: to imagine people having sex on the sidewalk, and I
Speaker 1: got really grossed out.
Speaker 2: You could envision it.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, god, you should. I should have picked out
Speaker 1: a hotter couple maybe in my mind, but didn't do it.
Speaker 2: No, you got dan akright as a wild and crazy guy.
Speaker 1: I saw that movie too when I was there, By
Speaker 1: the way, what movie The Saturday Night Live movie about
Speaker 1: the first episode of Saturday Night Live.
Speaker 2: So you saw you're in your most recent New York trip.
Speaker 2: You saw there's a movie out, is what you're saying
Speaker 2: about Saturday Night Live.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's Jason Rightman's new movie. It's called Saturday Night Oh.
Speaker 2: Well, good for him. I like most of his stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you're a fan of SNL, the movie is
Speaker 1: good enough.
Speaker 2: I think did they portray chevy Chase like my dad
Speaker 2: taught me to think of him?
Speaker 1: The guy who played chevy Chase was great?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Was it chevy Chase?
Speaker 1: Chevy Chase Junior?
Speaker 2: Junior.
Speaker 1: It's like when Ice Cube got his son to play him,
Speaker 1: because he looks just like him. It was pretty perfect.
Speaker 2: The kid did really well until the hospital scene where
Speaker 2: Easy's dying. Up until that moment, I was like, this
Speaker 2: kid's pretty good for an amateur. Yeah, and even after
Speaker 2: that too. It's just like one brief moment and it
Speaker 2: can be forgiven.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, how do you think you would do
Speaker 1: in an Easy death scene? Huh, mister big shot?
Speaker 2: I would I'd be pretty over the top, I think easy, Yeah,
Speaker 2: pounding on the walls and sobbing. Yeah, we're both just
Speaker 2: decided at the same time. It's time to get on
Speaker 2: with the episode.
Speaker 1: Huh yeah, enough of that, So, Chuck, we're talking.
Speaker 2: About Tavern on the Green. And I know for a
Speaker 2: fact that we're talking about Tavern on the Green because
Speaker 2: you recently dined at Tavern on the Green and after
Speaker 2: reading all of this stuff, I actually am I'm curious
Speaker 2: to know what you thought of it, because I'm curious.
Speaker 2: That's why let's just leave it at that.
Speaker 1: Well, have you been did I ask you that you didn't?
Speaker 2: And no, so no to both of those.
Speaker 1: Okay, how about this, I'll save my review of the
Speaker 1: experience till the end. I think that's a great plan
Speaker 1: just to tantalize listeners.
Speaker 2: So let's go. We'll tell everybody if you're not familiar
Speaker 2: with Tavern on the Green, it's a legendary restaurant in
Speaker 2: part because of its location. It's in one of the
Speaker 2: better restaurant locations in the United States. It's on Central Park.
Speaker 2: It's actually a part of Central Park, so much so
Speaker 2: that the city's parks department actually owns the restaurant. They
Speaker 2: just lease it out to different operators who want to
Speaker 2: try their hand at making it like the premier dining
Speaker 2: establishment in Manhattan, and at multiple times it has been
Speaker 2: exactly that. But what a lot of people don't know,
Speaker 2: especially if you're not familiar with the restaurant, is that
Speaker 2: it actually started out as a sheep enclosure. Sheep used
Speaker 2: to sleep in tavern on the Green.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I think the fact that it's owned
Speaker 1: by the Parks Department is the fact of the episode.
Speaker 1: I had no idea until yesterday.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, it's definitely up there for sure in this one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but sheep Fold is a sheep enclosure, and for
Speaker 1: the first sixty years or so, that's what Taverner on
Speaker 1: the Green was, Like you said, just as a sort
Speaker 1: of a quick recap. If you want to listen to
Speaker 1: our Central Park episode about the history of Central Park,
Speaker 1: it's well worth a listen. But when Frederick law Olmsted
Speaker 1: and Calvert Vaux designed Central Park, they want a contest
Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty eight design contests for their Greensword plan.
Speaker 1: Part of the plan called for a parade ground and
Speaker 1: a very big playground right at sixty sixth Street on
Speaker 1: the west side of the park.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the thing took so long to build. I
Speaker 2: think they were awarded the contract for their plan in
Speaker 2: eighteen fifty eight, and by eighteen seventy they were still
Speaker 2: building this and they were like, parade grounds are so
Speaker 2: a eighteen fifties. We don't want one of those anymore. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we're gonna go We're going to turn it into a
Speaker 2: sheep meadow instead, because apparently sheep were all the rage
Speaker 2: at the time. And I think that actually goes to
Speaker 2: show even by the eighteen seventies, New York was so
Speaker 2: urbanized that people yearned for kind of a pastoral setting,
Speaker 2: so much so that they made a sheep meadow with
Speaker 2: sheep in the middle of Manhattan in Central Park so
Speaker 2: that people could come, you know, take in the sheep.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, not take them into visually. Yeah. We talked
Speaker 1: a lot about Boss Tweed obviously, anytime we're talking about
Speaker 1: this period, this era of New York. Boss Freed Tweed
Speaker 1: ran the city and his cronies got involved with the
Speaker 1: Central Park Planning Board and said, all right, we're going
Speaker 1: to do some upgrades six million dollars worth in fact,
Speaker 1: which is a ton of money back then and today.
Speaker 1: But one of the new additions was a really fancy
Speaker 1: sheep fold at sixty seventh in Central Park West that
Speaker 1: was really beautiful. It was designed by Jacob Ray Mold,
Speaker 1: one of the guys who designed a lot of the
Speaker 1: actual buildings there in Central Park, of which there are
Speaker 1: not a ton of, but they all have a distinct
Speaker 1: sort of They're all sort of like made of stone,
Speaker 1: and they all are really kind of classy and old
Speaker 1: school looking. Neo Gothic, Yeah, neo Gothic. He was really
Speaker 1: into that Gothic revival stuff. So Mold designed this beautiful
Speaker 1: sheep fold and people would, like you said, they would come.
Speaker 1: It was almost like an interactive little museum. They could
Speaker 1: come and look at the sheep. They could come and
Speaker 1: touch different varieties of wool. They would shear those sheep
Speaker 1: and sell that wool in a big event every year.
Speaker 1: And it was like, like you said, it was like, Hey,
Speaker 1: you're tired of the city, you can go watch those
Speaker 1: beautiful Dorset sheep and touch they're almost at first their will.
Speaker 2: Right, good catch. Yeah. New York loves its unofficial mascots.
Speaker 2: It loves adopting mascots. And I get the impression that
Speaker 2: that flock of sheep was worn of them at the time.
Speaker 2: So they lived there from the eighteen seventies up until
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty four and they were moved to the Prospect
Speaker 2: Park in Brooklyn. I read somewhere that one of the
Speaker 2: rumors about that move was that Hooverville basically a tenement
Speaker 2: camp that was set up by people during the depression
Speaker 2: to survive in They were worried that they were going
Speaker 2: to start poaching sheep, so they moved them from Central
Speaker 2: Park to Prospect Park to protect the sheep.
Speaker 1: I believe that.
Speaker 2: But there was a couple of things about that sheep
Speaker 2: enclosure that became Tavern on the Green. One of the
Speaker 2: things was that the Central Park zoos sometimes they would
Speaker 2: have extra animals I guess, more than they could care for,
Speaker 2: so they would put them in the sheep closure temporarily
Speaker 2: until they could find someone to sell it to. And
Speaker 2: at one point there was a puma in there with
Speaker 2: the sheep, and I'm quite sure the sheep did not
Speaker 2: like that at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that probably wasn't a good move. They did enjoy
Speaker 1: their home, because this thing in eighteen seventy one cost
Speaker 1: seventy thousand dollars to build, and like I said, it
Speaker 1: was a beautiful building. They had these pavilions built for
Speaker 1: people to sit in to watch and these pavilions had
Speaker 1: these boucolic pastoral murals and it was just a lovely
Speaker 1: little scene there. They even had, of course, a shepherd,
Speaker 1: the last one to work there, worked there for the
Speaker 1: final two decades until nineteen thirty four. His name was
Speaker 1: Frank Hoey, and he watched over the herd and lived
Speaker 1: there in nineteen thirty four. That's like you said when
Speaker 1: everything changed, when Parks Commissioner Robert Moses, very famous New
Speaker 1: York figure, said you know what, this sheep fold should
Speaker 1: be a restaurant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and should be is a weird way to put it,
Speaker 2: because when he announced it, they'd already started construction on
Speaker 2: converting it, Yeah, to a restaurant. That was like a
Speaker 2: tried and true Robert Moses trick where he's well known,
Speaker 2: by the way as over developing and paving New York City,
Speaker 2: often through vital neighborhoods. But that was just that was
Speaker 2: standard Robert Moses stuff, like well, we've already started. If
Speaker 2: you don't like the idea, sorry, we've already started and
Speaker 2: spent money on it. What are we going to do now?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think his big slogan was, by the way,
Speaker 1: exactly did I mention, Yeah, did I mention?
Speaker 2: So this was I think In February nineteen thirty four,
Speaker 2: the announcement came out The New York Times read sheep
Speaker 2: fold In Park to become Tavern CWA workers converting old
Speaker 2: building into a picturesque, popular restaurant. Prices to be moderate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then they also said the remodel building will
Speaker 1: be known in the future as Tavern on the Green
Speaker 1: and and you know, within the average within reach of
Speaker 1: the average purse was sort of the working not slogan,
Speaker 1: but just you know, they wanted to make it affordable.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't turn out, you know, it would end up being,
Speaker 1: I guess for the time, a pretty expensive restaurant. I
Speaker 1: think once it hit the sixties and seventies. But we'll
Speaker 1: get there. Now. It's you know, it's a it's a
Speaker 1: New York restaurant, so it's not cheap, but it's not
Speaker 1: like some super super expensive place.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was surprised to see that. I read a
Speaker 2: twenty fourteen restaurant review when it opened up again in
Speaker 2: its current incarnation, and they were talking about like thirty
Speaker 2: dollars main dishes. Yeah, that is not bad. No, I mean,
Speaker 2: find a Barney City.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2: I was, yeah, surprised to hear that, but I found
Speaker 2: an old menu from maybe the fifties. They were selling
Speaker 2: martinis for like eighty five cents, not on sale. This
Speaker 2: was not a happy hour price, this was their regular menu. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I know. You imagine how much trouble we would get into.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. It's just get the change person out and
Speaker 1: live your life. So one part of the announcement then
Speaker 1: said this, the park Department will not undertake the management
Speaker 1: of the restaurant, but will let it, as in, lease
Speaker 1: it to an outside concessionaire by public bidding. And that
Speaker 1: started sort of a very unusual arrangement where in New
Speaker 1: York City we did the landlord of Tavern on the
Speaker 1: Green and people would you know, bid for the contracts
Speaker 1: and not only bid for the contracts, but pay a
Speaker 1: pretty hefty licensing fee to do so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a big one too. They would pay an
Speaker 2: incense like MRH and gold coin as tribute to the city.
Speaker 2: Didn't believe that one good, so they seemed to the
Speaker 2: City of New York also seems to have gotten some
Speaker 2: free labor out of the deal from the federal government
Speaker 2: because the civil Works Administration, which is a federal agency
Speaker 2: during the depression that put out of work Americans to
Speaker 2: work and like revamping infrastructure, you know, all the stuff
Speaker 2: we do today. They actually converted the sheep Fold to
Speaker 2: the Tavern on the Green. They paved the place where
Speaker 2: the sheep used to eat with flagstones, so it was
Speaker 2: converted to an outdoor dining area. You could also dance there.
Speaker 2: People wouldn't look at you weird if you did. And
Speaker 2: because it seems to have been an outdoor dining venue
Speaker 2: only in its first incarnation in the thirties, it was
Speaker 2: Dave helped us with this and he tried to do
Speaker 2: some digging, and I think he's right that it was
Speaker 2: open only during the summer because it was too cold
Speaker 2: to eat outside in the winter in New York.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And they called it Tavern on the Green because
Speaker 1: New York had a rich tradition of taverns in their past.
Speaker 1: In the seventeen hundreds, they had more taverns per capita
Speaker 1: than any city in the world. And something else called
Speaker 1: pleasure gardens were popular in the eighteenth century where you could,
Speaker 1: you know, have a drink and do some dancing in
Speaker 1: a very pastoral park like setting. And so tavern on
Speaker 1: the Green was kind of a throwback to like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, throwback to the to the days of the
Speaker 1: eighteenth century.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I read a little more on it, I
Speaker 2: think on Curved or I think it was Curved where
Speaker 2: they were talking about how those taverns were those pleasure
Speaker 2: gardens often sprouted from tavern So taverns played a really
Speaker 2: big role on creating green space even as far back
Speaker 2: as the eighteenth century. Like, that's how much New York
Speaker 2: was starving for green space that you would have to
Speaker 2: like hang out at a tavern to do it. So
Speaker 2: I thought that was pretty cool as a nod to
Speaker 2: that tradition.
Speaker 1: Well, their paved space was covered in horse crab, so
Speaker 1: I mentioned green space was a nice respite.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, and if you brought a horse to the tavern,
Speaker 2: people would get really mad.
Speaker 1: Oh man, can you imagine.
Speaker 2: You want to take a break?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great setup. And then we'll pick back
Speaker 1: up in the nineteen thirties, right up to this.
Speaker 2: Learn and stuff with Joshua John stuff fu Shine Up.
Speaker 2: So the whole thing started in the thirties when they
Speaker 2: converted the sheep fold into the tavern on the Green,
Speaker 2: and it was eventually like it didn't last for very
Speaker 2: long as a tavern, or maybe this was during the
Speaker 2: winter Chuck. It was taken over by the headquarters of
Speaker 2: the City Patrol Corps during the forties. During World War Two,
Speaker 2: a lot of the police officers around America went off
Speaker 2: to war. They still need police back in America, so
Speaker 2: they got volunteers actually from the people who were still
Speaker 2: in the country, and apparently they made their headquarters at
Speaker 2: Tavern on the Green And then in nineteen forty three
Speaker 2: things really started to swing. I think it was kind
Speaker 2: of an unusual, peculiar place up until this point. In
Speaker 2: nineteen forty three, it like really starts to become Tavern
Speaker 2: on the Green as we understand it today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you know, New York grew from the south
Speaker 1: upward and this was way up at sixty six sixty
Speaker 1: seventh Street, So yeah, it might have taken a while
Speaker 1: for that to become legitimized. But yeah, forty three is
Speaker 1: when it really kind of started the I was about
Speaker 1: to say NonStop operation as restaurant, but as we'll see,
Speaker 1: that would be interrupted later on as well. But it's
Speaker 1: at this point that it became year round open dancing, dining, cocktailing,
Speaker 1: drinking three shots of gin for eighty five cents, I guess.
Speaker 1: And it was doing pretty good. You know, it was
Speaker 1: one of the most popular restaurants in the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 1: They expanded it from ten thousand square feet to more
Speaker 1: than double to twenty one thousand, including the very famous
Speaker 1: Elm Tree Room, which you know, they built around one
Speaker 1: of the famous live elm trees, and including the indoor
Speaker 1: and outdoor space they had, they could see more than
Speaker 1: up to twelve hundred guests.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's a lot of people, a lot of folks.
Speaker 2: I looked all over for a picture of that Elm
Speaker 2: Tree room with Elm tree. There's a real dearth of
Speaker 2: like vintage photos of Tavern on the Green. You think
Speaker 2: they'd be all over the internet, but they're not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm sure you ran into what I did,
Speaker 1: which is tons of articles about that other elm right
Speaker 1: next to the outdoor dining that was recently cut down.
Speaker 2: I didn't see that. No, they cut down an elm tree. Huh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a one hundred and six year old elm.
Speaker 1: And I think that it was like this summer that
Speaker 1: had some kind of blight and that, you know, unfortunately
Speaker 1: they had to take it down. But that was not
Speaker 1: I don't think the Elm from the Elm Tree Room.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, good, pretty sure. So by nineteen fifty, the
Speaker 2: Tavern on the Green was enough on the map as
Speaker 2: far as like like nightlife in the United States went,
Speaker 2: like popular culture was well enough aware of Tavern on
Speaker 2: the Green that they were able to sell a live
Speaker 2: album called Dancing at the Tavern on the Green to
Speaker 2: Milt Saunders and his orchestra. And if you see did
Speaker 2: you see the cover of that thing, Oh man, it
Speaker 2: is they might as well just stamped the numbers nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty on the cover and left it at that. It's
Speaker 2: pretty great. But that was like they sold that record
Speaker 2: because people out who couldn't make a Tavern on the
Speaker 2: Green would want to buy that and impress their friends.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. This is where they first started wrapping the
Speaker 1: trees with the white lights, which is one of the
Speaker 1: sort of signature Tavern on the Green things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw they're up to ten miles of lights. Now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I will say this spoiler alert for
Speaker 1: my ultimate review. It is a very beautiful place to die.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I believe that.
Speaker 1: Still in fifty six, a very interesting thing happened in
Speaker 1: its history when Robert Moses found himself up against some
Speaker 1: Manhattan mommies when he said, Hey, I'm gonna I need
Speaker 1: a bigger parking lot, so I'm going to use this
Speaker 1: half acre over here that. Yeah, sure there are a
Speaker 1: lot of kids that like playing over there, but we
Speaker 1: need some parking. And the moms took it very seriously
Speaker 1: and they got their kids informed. A human barricade to
Speaker 1: block bulldozers got in a real fight with Moses. He
Speaker 1: built a fence to try and keep them out. The
Speaker 1: mom's got an injunction, and uncharacteristically Moses backed down and
Speaker 1: abandoned that and set aside fifty thousand dollars for a
Speaker 1: new playground that's still there today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the West sixty seventh Street to Venture Playground, which
Speaker 2: if you see like vintage photos of it from the sixties,
Speaker 2: they're like mounds made of stone that like I could
Speaker 2: just see a kid slipping on and cracking its head
Speaker 2: open with like they looked really dangerous, but I think
Speaker 2: they kind of converted them into something a little more
Speaker 2: safe today. But yeah, it's really neat that the tradition
Speaker 2: of playgrounds that generation after generation of kids had played
Speaker 2: on totally. So the first notable restaurant tour that took over,
Speaker 2: I think the first restaurant tours that took over was
Speaker 2: in the forties and they owned the Claremont Inn and
Speaker 2: it was a super stuffy, well heeled dining place on
Speaker 2: the Hudson. They're the first notable ones. But the first
Speaker 2: actual restaurant tour who people had already heard of. His
Speaker 2: name was Joe Baum and this is in the sixties
Speaker 2: that he took over the lease of Tavern on the
Speaker 2: Green and he was known as the cecil b de
Speaker 2: Mill of restaurant tours, which was really saying something in
Speaker 2: the sixties.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and for good reason. He ran not only Tavern
Speaker 1: on the Green, but the Windows of the World atop
Speaker 1: the World Trade Center, eventually the Rainbow Room, the world
Speaker 1: famous Rainbow Room, and the Four Seasons, which at the
Speaker 1: time when this dude, when Joe Baum was running these,
Speaker 1: they were the four highest grossing restaurants in Manhattan and
Speaker 1: they were all his. Yeah, it's remarkable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that's a cecil b de Mill type. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And if you don't know who that is, look him
Speaker 2: up right. Yeah, so he did a really good job
Speaker 2: of putting it on the map, and like we said,
Speaker 2: you know, by nineteen fifty it was already you know,
Speaker 2: part of popular culture. But I think this guy really
Speaker 2: turned it into something genuinely special for the first time.
Speaker 2: But I think most people who know about the history
Speaker 2: of Tavern on the Green would agree that it didn't
Speaker 2: really become like a gem of a restaurant bejeweled even
Speaker 2: until Warner Leroy came along in I think nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he came along at a good time because the
Speaker 1: through the sixties and seventies it was doing okay, but
Speaker 1: it started to feel a little bit dated. And then
Speaker 1: by the time the seventies rolled around, Central Park had
Speaker 1: become I don't know like how legitimately dangerous it was,
Speaker 1: but it became dangerous enough to where it was sort
Speaker 1: of part of the national punchline as far as like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I go to Central Park if you want to get mugged,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. And so, you know, the restaurant
Speaker 1: fell on harder times and Joe Baum was calling it
Speaker 1: the Tavern in the Red and in nineteen seventy four,
Speaker 1: like you said, Warner Leroy took over. He's a former
Speaker 1: theater director, and this guy had a to say. He
Speaker 1: had a flare sort of understating things. He ran a
Speaker 1: bar for a while called Maxwell's Plumb.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, it's seen pictures of that.
Speaker 1: God, just gorgeous restaurant. Maybe over the top. I don't
Speaker 1: know about gaudy or not. I mean, I think it
Speaker 1: looks like an amazing place to have Artini, but it
Speaker 1: did get some like bad reviews for just how sort
Speaker 1: of kaleidoscopic and gaudy it was.
Speaker 2: Did you see the picture of the actual bar bar?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Oh my god, dude.
Speaker 2: It looked just amazing. But also the dining room it
Speaker 2: was just cool too, Like they had low ceilings with
Speaker 2: tiffany lit tiffany plated glass hanging down or covering them.
Speaker 2: It's just amazing. Yeah, I loved Maxwell's Plum. I would
Speaker 2: have loved it too. It turns out also carry Grant, Warren, Baty,
Speaker 2: Barber Streisan. They all loved Maxwell Plum. All the best people.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And one of the things that that Warner Leroy was
Speaker 2: known for that he made his name for at Maxwell's
Speaker 2: Plum was having a really eclectic menu that was also
Speaker 2: not exclusionary. He wanted to make sure that basically anybody
Speaker 2: could come and like enjoy a meal at his place.
Speaker 2: And he also didn't have a dress code either. That
Speaker 2: was a big one too. He wanted you to just
Speaker 2: feel comfortable. So he had Maxwell Plum's menu everything from
Speaker 2: Iranian caviar to hamburgers. I believe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a place in Atlanta, what is his name
Speaker 1: of it? Haven't been there, but the theme of the
Speaker 1: restaurant is that it's got like five or six different
Speaker 1: distinct cuisines, and that's like what it's known for. And
Speaker 1: it's even in the name of the restaurant. I can't
Speaker 1: remember what it's called.
Speaker 2: Oh, six cuisines over on West Peach Tree.
Speaker 1: That's a good one. Thanks, you got me. I can't
Speaker 1: remember anyway, I'll look it up and let you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, please do let me know.
Speaker 1: But you're right. So Maxwell's Plum was was kind of
Speaker 1: a wacky place. He took over tabern On the Green
Speaker 1: and he brought that same kind of flashiness there. He
Speaker 1: has a quote where he said, a restaurant is a
Speaker 1: fantasy kind of living theater in which diners are the
Speaker 1: most important members of the cast. It's one of the
Speaker 1: few creations that appeal to all of this senses and
Speaker 1: one with which I can create my own world. So
Speaker 1: he spent ten million bucks on a restaurant he doesn't own,
Speaker 1: renovating this thing to, you know, in his own sort
Speaker 1: of flashy style.
Speaker 2: So did you see that New Yorker review that I
Speaker 2: sent you?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Did you see them describing what they what they did
Speaker 2: on opening day in nineteen seventy six. Yeah, so I
Speaker 2: say take.
Speaker 1: It, man, Well, I don't have it in front of me,
Speaker 1: can you take it?
Speaker 2: Sure? So they had the world's largest Sunday seventy two
Speaker 2: and fifty pounds of Neapolitan ice cream. There was a
Speaker 2: nine liter bottle of champagne that had been flown over
Speaker 2: from France that had its own first class seat on
Speaker 2: Air France. And then there was a sixteen foot model
Speaker 2: of Central Park as a cake. This is what Warner
Speaker 2: Leroy did. Yeah. I also saw that he was known
Speaker 2: for wearing taffeta suits or sequin suits, So yeah, he
Speaker 2: was flashy to the nines. He was also the son
Speaker 2: of the legendary producer of the Wizard of oz Mervyn
Speaker 2: le Roi, which explains Warner LeRoy's daughter's name.
Speaker 1: Oh is it Dorothy?
Speaker 2: It'd be great. No, her name is Jennifer oz le Roi.
Speaker 1: Oh right, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2: Let's called family tradition right there.
Speaker 1: I really thought it would be Dorothy.
Speaker 2: It kind of should have been Dorothy Red Shoes Lroi.
Speaker 1: Or what's the witch in Wicked?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: We went and saw Wicked. Uphaba ufala uphaba.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: That's what Emily went as for Halloween. Anyway, the green
Speaker 1: Witch from Wicked. That would have been a good name too.
Speaker 2: That's the Wicked Witch of the West.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, but she had a name. Chandeliers were
Speaker 1: brought in. He brought in fifteen chefs from France. He
Speaker 1: brought the chandeliers in straight from India, and then built
Speaker 1: the very famous, some may say infamous Crystal Room, which
Speaker 1: was a very over the top room full of crystals.
Speaker 1: It was, you know, made of glass. That was the building.
Speaker 1: If you've seen the very first Ghostbusters when Rick moranis
Speaker 1: runs up and bangs on the window before getting attacked,
Speaker 1: that is the crystal room. And that's the part that
Speaker 1: I couldn't figure out. Like the room I ate in
Speaker 1: was all glass as well, and I think it was
Speaker 1: just a read sort of a different version of.
Speaker 2: What that was exactly. Yes, they completely altered it. Yeah
Speaker 2: for sure. It wasn't like it was in the eighties
Speaker 2: where it was like in its heyday. It was also
Speaker 2: in other movies, Arthur, one of my favorites. It was
Speaker 2: in Beaches, the scene where they win that dance contest
Speaker 2: against the gangsters that are chasing them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, ton of movies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really a well known dining room. But yeah,
Speaker 2: it's not there anymore. And one of the reasons why
Speaker 2: is because over the years warn of le Roy's taste
Speaker 2: started to kind of seem a little tech. Yeah. So yeah,
Speaker 2: but I think now if they had just preserved it,
Speaker 2: people I think more people would flock to it just
Speaker 2: because of the vintage thing.
Speaker 1: You know, Well now they would because yeah, that kind
Speaker 1: of campy, kitchy thing is appreciated, but at the time
Speaker 1: not everyone appreciated it. Semi recently, I guess when it
Speaker 1: reopened they kind of look back and I got named.
Speaker 1: Pete Wells, a former restaurant critic for The New York Times,
Speaker 1: described that original Crystal Room as a wedding cake palace
Speaker 1: as imagined by a six year old princess with a
Speaker 1: high fever.
Speaker 2: That is great, man. If you want to read great
Speaker 2: turns of phrase, just read restaurant reviews. They are so
Speaker 2: cruel but in the funniest ways. And that whole that
Speaker 2: whole review from twenty fourteen is just hilarious but also
Speaker 2: like you just feel bad at the same time for
Speaker 2: laughing at it. Yeah, totally, so under warn of le
Speaker 2: Roy's steerage like this. When Tavern on the Green became
Speaker 2: like the place where Patrick Bateman would want like a seat,
Speaker 2: and apparently the managers made pretty good money on the side,
Speaker 2: accepting bribes to see people in the crystal room. It
Speaker 2: was like the place to be, and not just the
Speaker 2: eighties but also through the nineties too, so the whole
Speaker 2: place was riding high. As a matter of fact, I
Speaker 2: think in the nineties it was the highest grossing independent
Speaker 2: restaurant in the United States. Tavern on the Green was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they had revenues annually of more than forty million bucks,
Speaker 1: seating more than six hundred thousand diners a year, which
Speaker 1: is a staggering number of people. He got a pretty
Speaker 1: good deal. It was one of these things where when
Speaker 1: he came in the Central Park, was kind of dangerous,
Speaker 1: and like I said, the restaurant was on hard times.
Speaker 1: So he was really in the driver's seat as far
Speaker 1: as sort of saying, like, hey, give me a pretty
Speaker 1: good deal. Mayor ed Koch and he was pretty desperate.
Speaker 1: The mayor was and the city was. So they let
Speaker 1: him build that crystal crystal room without you know, getting
Speaker 1: the necessary permit, which was apparently pretty expensive. And they
Speaker 1: said you only have to pay one point two million
Speaker 1: for the license fee, which apparently is a lot cheaper
Speaker 1: than the arrangement he had with Boum.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and also apparently the crystal room expansion was illegal
Speaker 2: under municipal codes, and they did they look the other
Speaker 2: way without with them not getting a building permit to
Speaker 2: build it. Yeah, like they really were sinking a lot
Speaker 2: of faith into Tavern on the Green, bringing in a
Speaker 2: lot of revenue for the city, not just through the
Speaker 2: licensing fees, but you know, people traveling to New York
Speaker 2: in part to go dining at Tavern on the Green.
Speaker 2: That was like the way that it was viewed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, should we take another break? Yeah, all right, we'll
Speaker 1: take another break and we'll come back and continue through
Speaker 1: the eighties and nineties.
Speaker 2: Right after this learn and stuff with Joshua John stuff
Speaker 2: fu Shine up.
Speaker 1: So another fact of Tavern on the Green at the
Speaker 1: time was that Leroy had a staff that was not unionized,
Speaker 1: so he paid pretty low wages for a long long time.
Speaker 1: It took a walk out in nineteen eighty nine over
Speaker 1: that low pay for the workers to finally get with
Speaker 1: the union the New York Hotel and Motel's Trade Council.
Speaker 1: But they were rolling in dough at the time, so
Speaker 1: they could afford those wages, and they were doing pretty
Speaker 1: well until two thousand and one. First of all, Warner
Speaker 1: Leroy died very sadly in February of that year. Then
Speaker 1: nine to eleven happened, which put a dent on New
Speaker 1: York City as a whole. Yeah, and that's when Jennifer
Speaker 1: Oz Learoy Oz Dorothy Greenwitch Learoy had taken over. But
Speaker 1: it just wasn't happening. They just could not recapture that magic.
Speaker 1: The restaurant was never very well reviewed for the food,
Speaker 1: and it was starting to kind of matter because people
Speaker 1: weren't going just for the experience and food was just
Speaker 1: a much bigger deal. And there were plenty of great
Speaker 1: restaurants by then, So the restaurant just kind of fell
Speaker 1: off by the mid two thousands.
Speaker 2: I saw in Town and Country magazine, the go to
Speaker 2: source for facts about New York night life. Yeah, they
Speaker 2: said that the New York Times reviewed over like twenty
Speaker 2: three years or something like that. The New York Times
Speaker 2: reviewed tevern On the Green five times, and it never
Speaker 2: got more than one out of four stars. Yes, mean
Speaker 2: like that sounds like a vendetta almost.
Speaker 1: You know, I do think it was had a bit
Speaker 1: of a bulls eye on it. I'm not saying like
Speaker 1: the food was ever like great, and it was just
Speaker 1: really unfairly reviewed, But I do think it was definitely
Speaker 1: a restaurant that critics wanted to kind of poke a
Speaker 1: hole in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. So.
Speaker 2: I think in two thousand and nine. There was a
Speaker 2: lawsuit in two thousand and eight against the management for
Speaker 2: sexual and racial harassment of female, black and Hispanic employees.
Speaker 2: It's not a good look for your restaurant. And then
Speaker 2: the next year the Parks Department said, we're kind of
Speaker 2: done with the Leroy family. I think you guys have
Speaker 2: run your course, and they decided not to renew their
Speaker 2: twenty year license with the family, and so they announced
Speaker 2: that they would be taking bids and probably assumed that
Speaker 2: this was going to be the revamping, regeneration, a revitalization
Speaker 2: of Tavern on the Green, and it turns out that
Speaker 2: no one would go near it. They were like, I
Speaker 2: don't know, man, the place has a pretty bad reputation
Speaker 2: and it's going to cost a lot to bring it
Speaker 2: back to its glory. And it set unused for five years.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, from twenty ten to twenty fourteen. It
Speaker 1: was five years not a restaurant, And like you said,
Speaker 1: it was just it was a big risk because it
Speaker 1: was a big expensive undertaking. It had never had a
Speaker 1: great reputation. I think it was always the target of critics,
Speaker 1: and so no one would go in. I think they
Speaker 1: tried a couple of times. It was a guy named
Speaker 1: Dean Pole who ran the Central park Boatthouse restaurant. He
Speaker 1: tried to negotiate a good deal with the trade union,
Speaker 1: couldn't do it for six months, so he backed out.
Speaker 1: Other bidders were scared away, and so while it was vacant,
Speaker 1: Mayor Bloomberg said, well, let's make it a gift shop.
Speaker 1: So it was an information center and a center and
Speaker 1: tourist shop, and you know, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: people that are like just this once, you know, sort
Speaker 1: of at least great. I don't know if a great restaurant,
Speaker 1: but great New York City landmark has now been turned
Speaker 1: into a chotchke shop or some of the complaints. So finally,
Speaker 1: in twenty twelve, the city said, all right, Philly, step in,
Speaker 1: we love you down there, New York City Light. What
Speaker 1: if you got for us? And Jim Cayola and David
Speaker 1: Salama from Philly got the bid to reopen the tavern
Speaker 1: by investing ten million dollars to sort of get rid
Speaker 1: of Laroy's flashy thing and say, let's make let's take
Speaker 1: it back to the old school, nineteenth century tavern look.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they really did the actual like bar tavern area.
Speaker 2: They did a great job with Apparently they brought in
Speaker 2: architects who were good with discovering the actual historic part
Speaker 2: of any structure, and they did that. They stripped it
Speaker 2: down to its cathedral beams, the original ones in the ceiling.
Speaker 2: So I'll bet that looked pretty cool.
Speaker 1: It does.
Speaker 2: The bar was like studded with like brass nail heads
Speaker 2: is that correct.
Speaker 1: Yep, I saw brass nailheads.
Speaker 2: It's just like in the original stone fireplace, the original
Speaker 2: copper gutters, like they were all like just like they
Speaker 2: were just brought to the four and so the tavern
Speaker 2: vibe of the tavern itself. From what I read, they
Speaker 2: just nailed it. It was the crystal room revamp that
Speaker 2: I saw the most criticized. Really, I don't remember who
Speaker 2: said it. It might have been Pete Wells who said
Speaker 2: that it resembles an all day casual dining option at
Speaker 2: a family friendly resort in Florida. Disagree, Okay, Well you're
Speaker 2: disagreeing with Pete Wells, not me. I'm just reading a quote.
Speaker 2: You know, I found pithy.
Speaker 1: No, I know it is. It's that is pithy because
Speaker 1: because that room it is a it is a glass
Speaker 1: room with that that looks out onto the courtyard with
Speaker 1: those lights. It's a wonderful room to dine in.
Speaker 2: Gotcha. Maybe it was because the serving staff has to
Speaker 2: wear Bermuda shorts and golf shirts tucked in.
Speaker 1: Yeah the flamingo kid. Yeah, that bar area is gorgeous.
Speaker 1: Though the two guys for Phillykola and Salama, were some
Speaker 1: say cronies. The City suiteened the deal a bit. They
Speaker 1: Bloomberg put a lot of pressure on the trade unions
Speaker 1: to give them a two year break from having to
Speaker 1: sign a labor contract and to defer that licensing fee
Speaker 1: for five years, which is a lot of money. And
Speaker 1: it turns out that Cayola's sister was married to and
Speaker 1: I think still is to a goy named Kevin Chicky,
Speaker 1: who was Bloomberg's former deputy mayor and an executive at
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Software Company. But he was like, that's that's all
Speaker 1: just coincidence.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, I mean that's a couple of coincidences layered
Speaker 2: on top of each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's New York for you.
Speaker 2: So one of the big one of the big parts
Speaker 2: about the reopening in twenty fourteen, which New York was
Speaker 2: excited about. I mean, this was an icon that had
Speaker 2: been shut down and no one was sure when or
Speaker 2: if it was going to come back. One of the
Speaker 2: things they did was they went through and took all
Speaker 2: of those amazing decorations that Warner Leroy had installed and
Speaker 2: they auctioned him off. Like you could get silverware, dinnerware,
Speaker 2: you could get some of the original copper weather veins.
Speaker 2: They auctioned off for some reason, those chandeliers from the
Speaker 2: Indian Maharaja. You could buy those two. It sounded like
Speaker 2: it was a heck of an auction and they actually
Speaker 2: held it in the crystal room.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would have liked to have known about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd buy a fork for sure, for sure.
Speaker 2: So they opened in twenty fourteen, and immediately every single
Speaker 2: outlet in New York panned the like, just panned it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, here they go again. Some quotes comatose potato salad,
Speaker 1: roasted quail, that's as dry as a week old English muffin.
Speaker 1: They're all just so pithy.
Speaker 2: Yeah. New York Magazine said that the salad is the
Speaker 2: kind that you would get a third rate country club,
Speaker 2: which Tavern on the Green pretty much is.
Speaker 1: That's a man, I know, it's pretty bad.
Speaker 2: Not even just a country club, a third rate country club.
Speaker 2: I mean, they're just being mean. I haven't seen any
Speaker 2: recent reviews. I know that the executive chef who was
Speaker 2: running the place when it opened, Katie Sparks, She laughed
Speaker 2: after I think like six months or something like that.
Speaker 2: And from the restaurant reviews I read, they were saying
Speaker 2: like it's kind of understandable, Like they're creating these really
Speaker 2: extravagant dishes, at least on paper for seedings of like
Speaker 2: seven hundred people, and it's really hard to get well
Speaker 2: made hot food out to tables when you're serving seven
Speaker 2: one hundred people at a seating. So they were at
Speaker 2: least a little bit understanding. But I haven't read a
Speaker 2: recent review of Tavern on the Green and its food. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so we're gonna have to rely on you. I guess
Speaker 2: as what you're saying.
Speaker 1: Well, here's my review. It was fine. It wasn't like
Speaker 1: the food was It wasn't like the food was bad.
Speaker 1: It was like, oh, this is gross, but it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's just I mean, I'm looking at the menu here.
Speaker 1: We can read through some of these things. Appetizers. There's
Speaker 1: a crab cake, there's a calamari salad. There's a country salad,
Speaker 1: honey roasted figs that sounds pretty good.
Speaker 2: Sure, steak of Dorset sheep, oh.
Speaker 1: Man burrata with hearth roasted grape tomatoes. It's all pretty
Speaker 1: standard stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then if you move on to the mains, you've
Speaker 1: got some diversity. Scallops Scottish salmon for thirty eight bucks,
Speaker 1: grilled whole fish for forty six bucks, wrack of lamb,
Speaker 1: you know, fairly pedestrian, I think if I'm not miss Taken.
Speaker 1: I had the lemon thyme chicken under a brick.
Speaker 2: Did you get to keep the brick?
Speaker 1: Didn't get to keep the brick. It was a real
Speaker 1: tavern on the Green brick from the old sheeps Fold
Speaker 1: or sheeps hold that came with blistered green beans, smashed potatoes,
Speaker 1: and a jew for thirty five bucks. And it was
Speaker 1: like it was pretty good chicken. Okay, but you know,
Speaker 1: trefle fries, shrimp cocktail.
Speaker 2: It's the menu.
Speaker 1: Is not not Third Rake Country Club. But I didn't
Speaker 1: go in there expecting like New York's finest meal. I
Speaker 1: went there for the experience. We were in Central Park
Speaker 1: and that you know, you can walk right over there.
Speaker 1: I'd always wanted to go as a bucket list thing,
Speaker 1: and now I can say I've been, and I would
Speaker 1: very much recommend to have that experience. If it's something
Speaker 1: that like piques your interests, if it's like I've always
Speaker 1: wanted to try tavern on Green, like, go try it
Speaker 1: for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that's how New York magazine concluded their review,
Speaker 2: They're like, it's a once in a lifetime thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, go go once.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's pretty much what they said. And they even
Speaker 2: said if that so, yeah, hopefully it's gotten a little better.
Speaker 2: It sounds like it's gotten better. Was the food warm?
Speaker 1: The food was warm, The service was good.
Speaker 2: Okay, those are two things that definitely got called out
Speaker 2: in those twenty fourteen reviews.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my martini was good.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 1: It's definitely touristy, Like I didn't expect the ghost of
Speaker 1: John Lennon and Warren Baty to come wandering in, so
Speaker 1: it feels a little touristy. But it was. It was good,
Speaker 1: It was fine. I recommend if you've never been to
Speaker 1: New York and you think and you're into the touristy thing,
Speaker 1: go for sure. If you go to New York a
Speaker 1: ton and you've never been, like, give it a shot.
Speaker 1: Your for one, ap your meals. You can always go
Speaker 1: eat somewhere better the next night. Okay, but it's cool,
Speaker 1: it's worth going to. It's kind of like a Russian
Speaker 1: team room. I've never been there, but I want to
Speaker 1: try it. Just haven't you been there?
Speaker 2: No, I've never been I think that was also a
Speaker 2: warner of the.
Speaker 1: Okay, I thought you had been there for some reason,
Speaker 1: but like, I want to try that out just to
Speaker 1: sort of say that I've been there and know what
Speaker 1: that experience is like.
Speaker 2: Same here, I've got some dining to do. Yeah, okay, well,
Speaker 2: you got anything else about Tavern on the Green?
Speaker 1: I do not.
Speaker 2: Well, thanks for sharing, Chuck, that was very nice. Sure,
Speaker 2: And since Chuck said sure, as everyone knows that, just
Speaker 2: unlock listener mail.
Speaker 1: You know, in lieu of listener mail, We're going to
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Speaker 1: run the nonprofit down in Guatemala to help break the
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