August 22, 2023 • 34 mins
At its best, architecture is a kind of poetry made tangible, frozen in time for generations to come. But, as it turns out, architecture can also be a tremendous avenue for all sorts of less cool emotions: pettiness, spite, vengeance -- you name it.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. This is part two two two two
two of Spiteful Architecture, featuring now our super producer mister
Max Williams to himself a font of spite.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Oh wow, I would maybe reserve that sobriquet for the
quist Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
I always think of Max as being pretty spite free.
I don't know. I can be quite spiteful, how about that?
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Huh?
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Yeah, I am.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
I am quite at holding a very powerful and useless resentment,
like very good at holding those resentments for way too long,
and they have no reason.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Sospite I could build.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
I could see myself building a massive stupid house to
piss somebody off. But that's that's just And then they
move away like three weeks later, and they were moving
away before I built the house.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Oh yes, yes, nice call back.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
How about we call you an architect instead of spiteful.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
The architect is a very good Actually, there was a
kind of a three to eleven adjacent band that was
a local band growing up called the riff Raff Kings,
and I believe the bassists. They all had like rap
names like the all of the Beastie Boys, and the
basis name was the Architect, which I thought was a
really cool, like you know, nickname, m M.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
I agree, and you are Noel, and they still this
is don't call it a comeback, or you may if
you wish, folks, because this is part of a somewhat
continuing series. Our pow research is so Jeff Bartlett hipped
us to something called spiite spiteful architecture, the architecture of spite,
(02:07):
which is funny because we're architecture fans and we always,
at least I always associate it with these noble things,
these pretentious thoughts like good architectures, frozen music. But it
turns out quite a lot of people have instead used
architecture as a way of making a permanent screw you
guys statement to any number of other people.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Are you guys familiar with Albert Speer s p e
e er correct?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, famous German architecture, very closely involved
with the Nazis and building out some of their you.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Know, typically foreboding structures.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
But in the in the podcast that I'm working on
with our dear friend Jordan Runtag the Stones Touring Party
about the Rolling Stones Exile Main Street album and tour.
He refers to Chipmunk, who is the guy that like
built the stages and also was like the MC at
Woodstock as the Albert Spear of rock.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
And I did not know who Albert Spear was.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
I had to look it up, but uh yeah, kind
of a dubious uh uh comparison there, but you know,
it's always good to learn new references. Chip Monk, chip
Albert something Beresford Monk the third and he was like
this this Yeah, he was the guy that told people
to lay off the brown acid at Woodstock and he
(03:26):
got hit. He was basically like the kind of you know, uh,
one of the first big like minds behind touring rock
music and like building elaborate stages and lighting setups. But
it was all very seat of your pants at the time.
But he kind of created the mold for that whole world.
Talk about him a lot in the pod. It's pretty
interesting stuff.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
So do check it out, folks. And no, what's the
name of that show? One more time?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Jone's Touring Party the podcast thank You and that was
an organic plug though you got to give me that.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
And well, I just want to make sure people know
their name and check it out. All the episodes are
free wherever you on your favorite shows. There is no
spiteful architecture. There just solid journalism and a hell of
an audible experience when we're talking, hey, thank you, when
we're talking about spiteful architecture. Man, I got to tell
(04:15):
you when we first got into part one, I thought,
how many can there be? But sure enough, this is
a part two that may end up being a two
parter itself. Not sure we're gonna I.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Know, two part part two, that's what is?
Speaker 1 (04:30):
It is idiomatic for the people.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Exactly No, because it does seem like a very specific
flex that would be reserved for like the money gentry,
you know, for the most part, like someone to have
enough money to throw around, they could like invest their
money in just pissing somebody else off.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
So you would think it might be rare.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
I think we've said in the last installment we reference
to the Spike Store, the coffee shop, and the Curb
your Enthusiasm. That was my first introduction to this concept,
but it's actually got a lot of historical precedent as
we will get into right now.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Oh yeah, we're going to talk about the Skinny House,
a place literally named the spite House, the Kavanaugh Building,
the Pie House. But you know where we wanted to
start we were talking off air. I want to start
someplace close to home for the Americans in the audience.
The Macy's department store in Times Square.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
This is nuts.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
I've walked past that place so many times in the
pass never had any idea about the story behind it.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
I didn't either.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
All I know is that it's just, you know, always considered,
been considered kind of the flagship Macy's. It was a
place to be and be seen, you know, in a
certain era.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Right.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Yeah, if you go over to the corner of thirty
fourth and Broadway in New York City, you'll see that
flagship store that you're just you just described.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
It's a Macy's. It's huge.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
It's taken up almost an entire city block since nineteen
oh two. But it doesn't quite form a complete rectangle.
It takes up almost the whole block except for one
little quarter notch.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Like a nook.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Huh, that's weird. What's the deal with that? I mean, Okay,
guys like Jerry Seinfeld, but I'm leaving it in. He
doesn't own that expression. In fact, I don't know if
he ever even said it. I think people just making
fun of him say it. I know it's more of
a rooney I think that's right. It's like it's like
beat me up, Scottie, yeah, or Luke.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
I am your father?
Speaker 1 (06:28):
You know?
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Well yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
But in any case, this little nook in question here,
it has to you know, we know real estate is
at a premium in New York, as is just space.
That's why everything's built on top of itself. So this
is obviously sported numerous non Macy's tenants over the years,
ranging from you know, fast food joints like Burger King
to the delightfully named sunglass Hut, which never really feels
(06:53):
much like a hut to me.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
I don't know the sunglasses that sunglass hut. I haven't.
I've never seen the point.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I did once because I had to. I was you know,
I'm not a day walker by nature, so when I'm
forced out in the sun, I need to protect my peepers.
And I picked up some sunglasses at a sunglass hut I.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Think it was.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Was it a Kiosk do they have kiosk for sunglass hut?
Speaker 2 (07:17):
They're always pretty small. I don't know they necessarily have kiosk.
But is it a sunglass hut owned by Luxodica at
this point?
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Yeah, ultimately yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
That's another story for another day.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Actually, if you want to hear about it, you can
check out our sister show stuff they don't want you
to know, or we go into the conspiracy behind why
I Wear is so damn expensive.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
And owned by one giant monopolistic company.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Weirdly enough out of Italy. But yeah, there's so there's
this huge building. It's amazing except for this very narrow
five story building. In a corner, in a nook, there
was a sunglass hut. There was a burger king. There's
a story behind this. It all goes back to the
eighteen hundred a guy named Roland H. Macy and a
(08:03):
dude he bitterly hated named Henry Siegel who was a
partner of a store called Siegel Cooper. They were beefed up.
Siegel Cooper back in the day was a store on
the between like the eighteenth and nineteenth streets on sixth Avenue,
and in their glory days, they were a neck and
(08:23):
neck rival with Macy's.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Bro Really quickly. I just had to google this and
I found a result. Really quickly. Turns out William H. Macy,
the actor, is third cousin four times removed.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Of Roland H. Macy, the founder of Macy's Departments.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Yeah. Can I tell you, guys, I'm an ancestor of
the Adams family.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
You're an ancestor.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
There's Adams Family. That's it's a television show, John Adams.
You're sorry.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
The Adams Family, in my mind, purely belongs to Gomez
and Martish.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Unless you have some time travel technology, of which I
am unaware.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
You're a descendant of same difference.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Oh oh good times of flat circle is potato kleimano.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
But what's the deal? It seems like there's a beef
of bruin. Mm.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Yeah, our buddy Roland starts his store named in a
burst of humility, Macy's in eighteen fifty eight. It's on
the southeast corner of fourteenth Street and sixth Avenue. There's
a big shopping district that's just coming into play on
fourteenth Street around this time. We want to give a
big shout out to Bloomberg the author Mimi Kirk, who
(09:35):
helped us out a lot with this story. It's the
so he starts in eighteen fifty eight, it's the eighteen nineties,
and Macy says, you know what, I'm gonna leap frog
over this shopping district. I'm gonna build a store on
thirty fourth and Broadway, and I'm gonna do it in secret,
so my competitors don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Okay, we've seen that happen before, or like the Florida
Project as an example, where the Walt Disney Company secretly
bought up all this land in Florida, in the Orlando
area under this name, the Florida Project, so that no
one would know what was coming. They were developing this massive,
you know, theme park resort situall would ultimately become resort
(10:20):
in multiple theme parks. But yeah, this kind of you know,
buying up real estate in secret is not uncommon.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Oh yeah, one hundred percent. And it makes sense as well.
I imagine for quite some time there's been a cottage
industry of people tracking down the actions of real estate
brokers right to try to figure this stuff out. I mean,
even now in twenty twenty three out in California by
Travis Air Force Base. There's a mysterious company buying hundreds
(10:48):
of acres of land Flannery associates. No one knows who
they are. So tales oldest time.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
So, as you said, Ben, late eighteen nineties, Macy's is
getting into this creative expansion project to build their flagship
store at thirty fourth and Broadway.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
And they started to.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Just buy up all of this, the blocks of property
from thirty fourth Street all the way to thirty fifth
Street a block, but you know, blocks.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Big, that's a big deal.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Packets parcels right, and Macy's as an organization had a
gentleman's agreement to pay hilarious when you think about it,
time a mere two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to
one Albert Dwayne Pell for that corner of thirty fourth Street.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
But someone leaked to the info. Maybe it was a PI.
Maybe was someone trading a hot tip for anything like
anything from cash to you know, I don't know, maybe
just the price of a few drinks at a happy hour.
(11:56):
Somewhat squealed. Someone stitched Macy's plays became public knowledge in
April of nineteen oh one, and this is before that
gentleman's agreement turned into paperwork. We're getting a lot of
this from a book called Holdouts with an exclamation Mark
by Andrew Albern and Seymour Durst from nineteen eighty four.
(12:18):
So when people know that Macy is conspiring to buy
up this block, his old rival Henry Siegel sends a
guy in kind of like Slugworth in Willie Wonka. And
this agent of Seagulls goes to Pell and says, hey, man,
(12:38):
we'll give you three hundred and seventy five thousand dollars
just for this little this little plot of land.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
What was it?
Speaker 2 (12:46):
What was it on?
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Like uh one thousand, one hundred and fifty four square
feet something like feet, not miles.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
They nailed it well, square a square feet. And this
was agreed to perhaps non gentlemanly, considering that there was
already a pre existing verbal agreement.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Right yeah, I think so he definitely Pell that is
definitely decided to chase the money instead of keeping to
his word. So he I mean, business can be dirty.
People are still kind of divided over this part. Did
Siegull want to buy that slice of land to embarrass
(13:24):
his competitor, and maybe have you know a picture a
big sign that says we got better prices, a seagulls.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Or just macy sucks.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
You know what, Right, Macy's blows. But he didn't do that.
He didn't make a bunch of anti Macy's propaganda. And
right now, if you look at the best records we have,
it seems there are two possible explanations for his motives here.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Yeah, I mean he had, I guess, an associate by
the name of Robert Smith, not of the cure of family,
but this gentleman had a dry goods business. He already
had a brick and mortar spot set up near Macy's
and wanted to expand and set up a news shop.
Smith then announced that he was planning on putting up
(14:16):
a twelve story building on the corner this location to
sell women's clothing, not dry goods at all. But this
was probably just a weird bit of flexing again because
remember the size is really odd. He couldn't really build
that upward, I don't think, right, it doesn't narrow, would
(14:38):
be weird building. It'd be like one of those half
floors and being John Malkovich.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Yeah, it would be like one of those weird buildings
in downtown Tokyo or in a European country. It would
look up to code. The staircase would be very strange.
It's just awkward all the way around. So there's another
account that feels a little more plausible, and the idea
(15:02):
is that Seagull himself wanted to build a new store
on the old Macy's site at fourteenth and sixth. Macy's
was moving from there, and they were thinking, you know,
people will still walk by, there will still be foot traffic,
so of course they're going to go shopping because they're
already there. And so what what he wanted to do
(15:25):
was have a have a hook in Macy's new plan
and seagulls. Seagull's own conspiracy apparently was that he would say, hey, Macy,
I own that little corner plot there and i'll give
it to you for a song, so long as you
agree to give up your lease on the old fourteenth
(15:47):
Street store bargaining chip a bargaining chip just so yeah,
that lease would run till nineteen oh three. So the
timeline works out, But it appears Macy's he didn't play.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Ball and just jump in here.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
It feels kind of spiteful, even on Macy's end a
little bit more because it's like they were leaving the
place already, the guys, like, hey, might just leaving the
least like two years earlier.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Like he's not like telling them that they have to
pay the least or anything. It's like it is a
little dirty of a tactic. Sure, but it's like, I
don't know, like Macy's is also prey picking a little
bit of a break, like they don't have to pay
two years of this lease.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
So I don't know, true, but at a certain level
of wealth and success, which I would argue that if he's,
you know, building this giant flagship store, he's probably all right,
probably more worth it to cut out the competition than
it is to get a little bit of a break.
He's thinking big picture. This is like high level spite,
you know.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
Yeah, I mean, this is the type of spite you
can do when you have more money than you know
what to do with.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Right, And there's there is a bigger picture, like you said,
a long term goal here. But also, these guys don't
like each other, you know what I mean. They wouldn't
cross the street to piss the other guy was on fire.
Can I say that on this show? Thank you?
Speaker 2 (17:03):
It's not one of the George Carlin words. I think
you say that on the radio. Yeah, you definitely can.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
And if you were. If you find yourself in a
survival situation, remember, piss is not the best thing to
use to put out a fire. Try to find another
source of non petroleum liquid.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
But if you're stung by a jellyfish, it's just a ticket.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
If you're stung by a jellyfish, you know what, depending
on the jellyfish, why not why not live a little
at the very end? See if it was nothing you were.
Speaker 4 (17:38):
Into Balsamic dressing also does it? You don't have to pee.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
On it.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Unless you're on a picnic lunch situation on the beach
and you happen to be making some sort of salad.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
You know.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
The piss comes with the with the human body. Enough
about this though.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Well well, yeah, so clearly Macy's and Seagull their their
main rival. He was urine based, but it bled over
into their department store businesses. Yeah, if you will, And
so now these guys are beefed up with this. Macy's
(18:18):
refuses to play ball with Seagull, and he says in
July of in July nineteen oh one, he says, we're
building a huge new store, a flagship store. It's nine
stories high. It's an entire city block. And then someone says,
is the entire city block mister Macy's.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
And he goes, I did everything right, and they indicted me.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Sorry, that was just the voice was hitting me on
that level. I love that sound bite, by the way.
But yeah, So Macy is employing the architectural services of
De Limos and Cordes, and they were able to complete
the structure that they had planned around the little enclave,
the little cutout, and they created a ground floor arcade
(19:06):
which is kind of like a lobby or is it
an open space that you can kind of like go
through between spaces.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Yeah, it's like that. It's almost a promenade. Yeah, you
can just walk, you can stroll through and take in
the sites.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
I love the idea of a promenade, and also the
action of promenading through the promenade.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
That always struck me as a real classy.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
So yeah, he builds this arcade, which unfortunately didn't have
any claw machines or gallica tables or anything like that
at least at this point. So this does create this
little cut through connecting Broadway in thirty fourth Street, and
the Macy's flagship store does have its grand opening in
nineteen o two.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
It sure does. And this is the structure that's still
there under those big macy signs. And here's a bit
more of spite of the old ultra respite for you.
Macy's paid to keep its old store vacant until its
(20:07):
lease went up, so they weren't doing business there. They
kept it as a ghost store, and then once the
lease expired, Seagull took over the property. He built a
ten story high structure he called the fourteenth Street Store.
His buddy Robert Smith, the women's clothier, brought bought Seagull's
(20:30):
interest in the thirty fourth Street corner in nineteen oh seven,
and in nineteen eleven, just a few years later, he
sold that structure for one million dollars. At the time,
this was a record breaking price for any property in Manhattan,
about eight hundred and sixty six dollars and fifty five
cents a square foot, And people wondered if Macy's was
(20:53):
the you know, the ultimate buyer of that property, but
they never were. And that's why even in modern times
there was a sunglass hut, a burger king, you name it. Oh. Also,
an arcade is just like a series of arches. Just
to correct myself there.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Yeah, I was thinking it was my columns got it,
But but it is.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
It's just a path, you know, it's meant to kind
of like connect two spaces, so you can like cut
through sort of like a bespoke alley.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Yeah, it can be freestanding or it can be attached
to a wall, but it can also be a promenade,
because a promenade is just a public place for walking
as a social activity. Life was weird before TV.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Oh god, yeah, yeah, what do people even do?
Speaker 2 (21:37):
I guess they just strolled, you know, just strolled strolled
around and have really really petty fights.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
I mean that's still oh well, that's that'd be twitter.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Yeah, that's just that's just part of the human condition.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
So moving on, and boy, you know these it's it's
you wouldn't I think there'd be so much spite to
talk about when it comes to architecture. But we just
filled up a proper half hour just about just talking about.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Macy's and these two fellas arguing over space.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
So we think we're gonna do another one here, and
then we're gonna take a pause and do a second
part of this episode for Thursday.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
But this is Ben.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
You teased it beautifully at the top of the show
about something called the skinny house.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
What's up with that? What's the skinny house?
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Oh? The skinny house. Yes, right, let's do this one.
This is definitely two part of now. So, speaking of
awkward architecture itself an awkward phrase, if you go to
Boston's North End in New England, you will see a
weird building tucked between two other brick buildings. It's four stories,
(22:48):
it's pale green, it is about thirty feet long, it's
only ten feet wide. It's the house at forty four
Whole Street. You can see pictures of it easily. It
has no front door. You can only get to it
through a side alley. First question would be, why the
heck would someone build that.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
House to what end? You might ask, right to what
North End? Yeah, well exactly.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
I love a good brotherly legend, and in this one,
these two brothers inherited a plot of land from their father,
and when one of the brothers returned from their time
serving in the Civil War. To his chagrin, he found
that his other brother from the same mother had built
a large home, presumably just for him and his family
(23:36):
on this shared piece of land. That's not cool, other brother, No.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
That is accurate.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
That has been documented multiple times. We pulled some of
this from Boston Magazine written by Madeline Billis And what
a dick move.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Yeah, and it is the stuff of legend. Though.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
That we we know of them is the brothers, you know,
one brother the other. This is like classic, you know,
fairy tale stuff. So the one who built the house
used pretty much the whole share of land, at the
very least, he took more than what was meant for him.
And presumably all this was demarketed in some form of paperwork.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
I would I would hope.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
But maybe it was just sort of like gentlemen's rules,
you know, where it's like, you know, we get this
inherited equally. We are two people that should be split
evenly right down the middle. But I guess that all
depends on the shape of the land and all of that.
We'll get into this. So when the second brother came
back and he saw what his other brother had done,
he was. He was very upset, and he decided to
take his revenge.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
To exact his revenge.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
We had a similar story to this in our last episode,
where I believe someone built an ugly monument or something
like that to where like you just would see this
annoying thing.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
I think he was in France. It was like some
sort of there was one sea. I'm getting the confused
because there was one with like a feature on a
fountain that was in that was in Vadic in the city. Yeah,
I can't remember.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
They're all running together for me so much Spie, so
much SPIKEE in the world of architecture. But he decided
to build what was referred to as historical writings as
a skinny house to block out the sun from his
brother's building. Yeah, and he obviously didn't intend on inhabiting
the spot because it didn't even have a door.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Yeah, only has that side entrance.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
If you if you look at that precisely.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Yeah, if you look at a picture of it, it's
not even the most impressive. It's not even the most
impressive house. It's it's four stories if you count that
window coming out of the roof. It's definitely a Spike house,
(25:51):
and it is clearly meant it's it's a budding the
other building. It's clearly meant to block out the view.
If if you look at the side door, and you
can find tours and stuff of this building online, the
side door looks like a window. It reminds me of
I've been to some hotels in Europe where they say
(26:12):
they have a terrace, and it took me a second
to find the terrace because it was a window that
happened to open big enough to be like a hobbit door.
So that's kind of what this door is like. And
people still live there, people enjoy it. It's kind of
a flex to own that piece of history in Boston.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
I believe it was.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Oh there's an interview that's been going around a while
back with the Semonic Semonic family, sim Nic and they
talked with the Boston Globe about how much fun they
had throwing a party in the Hull House for New
Year's Eve. I'm saying fun somewhat sarcastically. I think the
(26:58):
novelty wore off once someone had to use the restroom.
This is not a big place.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
No, it's it's I mean, it's you know, it's not
something when you look at it, it's not It looks
kind of like a condo, you know what I mean, Like, well,
you might see like a townhouse. Like here in Atlanta,
there's a couple of spots where there are these like
rows of these real skinny type houses that are you know,
you buy them and it's it's like a relatively affordable
(27:24):
human dwelling, but they are kind of weirdly skinny. And
you'll see places like this and you know, San Francisco
and in other spots.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
But this was not part of the urban planning.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Lets let's just say, right, this was like an afterthought
and it still stands to this day, and it looks odd,
but it doesn't look like crazy, you know.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
It's something that we definitely see stuff like it.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Yeah, it would make sense to see that in Philly,
or to see that in some older US towns. It
would make a lot of sense to see it in
places like Amsterdam too, write any densely populated place that
has some centuries to its past. If you want to
figure out what it looks like inside, do check out
(28:06):
the tours that are available on YouTube. You'll see walkthroughs
one of the seminent family members. Jennifer told The Boston
Globe this quote. We had a party of ten one
New Year's Eve, and when one person has to go
to the bathroom, everyone has to move.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
She said.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
There are only five doors in the house. The bathroom,
in the living room or one of the few rooms
actually separated by a door. And if you look on
the outside, each of those four floors is a different room.
That's how skinny it is.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
Yeah, no, exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
And the youngest daughter's bedroom actually shared the floor with
a closet.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Yeah, how does that work?
Speaker 1 (28:48):
That's all they had room for. They have a bedroom
on the third floor, a closet and stairs. So if
you want to go to the master bedroom on the
top floor, you got to walk through your daughter's room.
I'm sure every teenage girl would love that.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
There's no walls either. You just walk into that floor
and you're in the room. Am I right? Right?
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Yes? Yeah, yeah, I don't think there's a door. I
think it's just the stairs.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Got it.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Yeah, not particularly conducive to privacy, you know, So, like
you said, yeah, teenage girl would not be down with that.
So nine hundred and sixty four square feet is what
we're dealing with here, just to give you a clear
picture for folks out there that are into, you know, measuring.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
Stuff, and to add insults injury.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
I suppose with all this lack of privacy, the house
became something of a draw for tourists, so they would
pretty commonly find folks camped out, you know, in their
yard taking pictures.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
I wonder why they didn't build out the backyard at
least a little bit, you know, and put maybe put
a garden on the roof somewhere. Anyway, you know what,
it's a it's a piece of history now, so you
can't there's probably a law preventing them from doing too
much renovation to it. But that house was built entirely
(30:08):
despite the story, as you said, Noel, does seem a
bit apocryphal. There aren't a ton of really solid sources
on how it was constructed. I think the closest we
could find here is that if you go to the
Boston City Archives, you can see in the Hopkins Atlas
(30:30):
of eighteen seventy four the way the land was split
up into five lots in the eighteen eighties.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
And we have a good.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Friend of ours, Frank well Heron, who's appeared on Idiomatic
for the people. He's worked in this world before, and
he can attest how sketchy land deeds and titles can
get right when you go that far back, because at
that point, isn't it mainly handwriting?
Speaker 3 (30:59):
I think that's right.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Yeah, you have to definitely go to you know, physical
archives and records to pull these sort of chains of custody,
you know, for making sure that a title is quote
unquote clear.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
And I kind of want to go there. You know
what it reminds me of. It reminds me of the
tiny house movement. It's a little bit bigger than the
popular tiny houses. And oh, our Palchris Vrosiotis had owned
out tiny house. I always wanted to live in one,
But I'm wondering if I just liked the idea of
(31:30):
it more than the actual experience, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Sure, I mean the skinny house is I guess, kind
of ahead of its time in that way. And you know,
Ben my favorite, you know, if I'm paying for my
own hotel when I go to New York, I very
much love to stay in the Pod Hotel, which is
the tiny house of hotels. It's like a ship's cabin,
you know, with bunk beds and like the desk built
into the wall and stuff. But it's very ergonomic and
(31:54):
I stay there all the time. I couldn't recommend it more.
It's a fun experience, but maybe not for like all
the time.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
I mean one thing that's great about that, and this
is not a paid ad for for pot hotels, is
places like that also encourage you to go out and
explore the city, which I absolutely love about them. The
only place I've spent some time in there was a
little too small for me capsule hotels and I don't
have claustrophobia, but that's a that's a tight fit.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
I don't recommend it, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
I mean even after like you know, two or three
days in the pot hotel, if you're staying with somebody,
it's it's time to go, and right time to go
your separate ways. But it's still fun. I stayed there
with my kid recently actually only had a good old time.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
But yeah, it does.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
You're right about that, because at the end of the day,
a hotel is just a place to you know, hang
your hat and grab a little shut eye. If you're
spending all your time in the hotel room. What are
you even doing right?
Speaker 1 (32:50):
And speaking of time to go, it is time for
us to hit the hit the old dusty trail of
the in folks, we are returning, as my partner in
History Crime said earlier, we're going to be back on
Thursday with part two of Spiteful Architecture Part two, So
(33:11):
it's like two points, you know what, don't think about
it too much, just join us in giving a big
old thanks to mister Max Williams, our super producer, our
architect who has chosen a higher path than spite. Thank
you and congratulations Max.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Yeah, and don't call it a comeback, but do come
back for part two of Part two of spite Architecture.
Huge thanks to christophrasiotis here in spirit, who we mentioned
a tiny house trailblazer in his own right, Jonathan Strickland,
it truly is our spider architecture.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
I think we can all agree. And to you Ben, yeah,
that was fun.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
Yeah and also with.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
You, let's see you next out folks.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. This is part two two two two
two of Spiteful Architecture, featuring now our super producer mister
Max Williams to himself a font of spite.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Oh wow, I would maybe reserve that sobriquet for the
quist Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
I always think of Max as being pretty spite free.
I don't know. I can be quite spiteful, how about that?
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Huh?
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Yeah, I am.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
I am quite at holding a very powerful and useless resentment,
like very good at holding those resentments for way too long,
and they have no reason.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Sospite I could build.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
I could see myself building a massive stupid house to
piss somebody off. But that's that's just And then they
move away like three weeks later, and they were moving
away before I built the house.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Oh yes, yes, nice call back.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
How about we call you an architect instead of spiteful.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
The architect is a very good Actually, there was a
kind of a three to eleven adjacent band that was
a local band growing up called the riff Raff Kings,
and I believe the bassists. They all had like rap
names like the all of the Beastie Boys, and the
basis name was the Architect, which I thought was a
really cool, like you know, nickname, m M.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
I agree, and you are Noel, and they still this
is don't call it a comeback, or you may if
you wish, folks, because this is part of a somewhat
continuing series. Our pow research is so Jeff Bartlett hipped
us to something called spiite spiteful architecture, the architecture of spite,
(02:07):
which is funny because we're architecture fans and we always,
at least I always associate it with these noble things,
these pretentious thoughts like good architectures, frozen music. But it
turns out quite a lot of people have instead used
architecture as a way of making a permanent screw you
guys statement to any number of other people.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Are you guys familiar with Albert Speer s p e
e er correct?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, famous German architecture, very closely involved
with the Nazis and building out some of their you.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Know, typically foreboding structures.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
But in the in the podcast that I'm working on
with our dear friend Jordan Runtag the Stones Touring Party
about the Rolling Stones Exile Main Street album and tour.
He refers to Chipmunk, who is the guy that like
built the stages and also was like the MC at
Woodstock as the Albert Spear of rock.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
And I did not know who Albert Spear was.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
I had to look it up, but uh yeah, kind
of a dubious uh uh comparison there, but you know,
it's always good to learn new references. Chip Monk, chip
Albert something Beresford Monk the third and he was like
this this Yeah, he was the guy that told people
to lay off the brown acid at Woodstock and he
(03:26):
got hit. He was basically like the kind of you know, uh,
one of the first big like minds behind touring rock
music and like building elaborate stages and lighting setups. But
it was all very seat of your pants at the time.
But he kind of created the mold for that whole world.
Talk about him a lot in the pod. It's pretty
interesting stuff.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
So do check it out, folks. And no, what's the
name of that show? One more time?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Jone's Touring Party the podcast thank You and that was
an organic plug though you got to give me that.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
And well, I just want to make sure people know
their name and check it out. All the episodes are
free wherever you on your favorite shows. There is no
spiteful architecture. There just solid journalism and a hell of
an audible experience when we're talking, hey, thank you, when
we're talking about spiteful architecture. Man, I got to tell
(04:15):
you when we first got into part one, I thought,
how many can there be? But sure enough, this is
a part two that may end up being a two
parter itself. Not sure we're gonna I.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Know, two part part two, that's what is?
Speaker 1 (04:30):
It is idiomatic for the people.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Exactly No, because it does seem like a very specific
flex that would be reserved for like the money gentry,
you know, for the most part, like someone to have
enough money to throw around, they could like invest their
money in just pissing somebody else off.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
So you would think it might be rare.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
I think we've said in the last installment we reference
to the Spike Store, the coffee shop, and the Curb
your Enthusiasm. That was my first introduction to this concept,
but it's actually got a lot of historical precedent as
we will get into right now.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Oh yeah, we're going to talk about the Skinny House,
a place literally named the spite House, the Kavanaugh Building,
the Pie House. But you know where we wanted to
start we were talking off air. I want to start
someplace close to home for the Americans in the audience.
The Macy's department store in Times Square.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
This is nuts.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
I've walked past that place so many times in the
pass never had any idea about the story behind it.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
I didn't either.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
All I know is that it's just, you know, always considered,
been considered kind of the flagship Macy's. It was a
place to be and be seen, you know, in a
certain era.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Right.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Yeah, if you go over to the corner of thirty
fourth and Broadway in New York City, you'll see that
flagship store that you're just you just described.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
It's a Macy's. It's huge.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
It's taken up almost an entire city block since nineteen
oh two. But it doesn't quite form a complete rectangle.
It takes up almost the whole block except for one
little quarter notch.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Like a nook.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Huh, that's weird. What's the deal with that? I mean, Okay,
guys like Jerry Seinfeld, but I'm leaving it in. He
doesn't own that expression. In fact, I don't know if
he ever even said it. I think people just making
fun of him say it. I know it's more of
a rooney I think that's right. It's like it's like
beat me up, Scottie, yeah, or Luke.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
I am your father?
Speaker 1 (06:28):
You know?
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Well yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
But in any case, this little nook in question here,
it has to you know, we know real estate is
at a premium in New York, as is just space.
That's why everything's built on top of itself. So this
is obviously sported numerous non Macy's tenants over the years,
ranging from you know, fast food joints like Burger King
to the delightfully named sunglass Hut, which never really feels
(06:53):
much like a hut to me.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
I don't know the sunglasses that sunglass hut. I haven't.
I've never seen the point.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I did once because I had to. I was you know,
I'm not a day walker by nature, so when I'm
forced out in the sun, I need to protect my peepers.
And I picked up some sunglasses at a sunglass hut I.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Think it was.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Was it a Kiosk do they have kiosk for sunglass hut?
Speaker 2 (07:17):
They're always pretty small. I don't know they necessarily have kiosk.
But is it a sunglass hut owned by Luxodica at
this point?
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Yeah, ultimately yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
That's another story for another day.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Actually, if you want to hear about it, you can
check out our sister show stuff they don't want you
to know, or we go into the conspiracy behind why
I Wear is so damn expensive.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
And owned by one giant monopolistic company.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Weirdly enough out of Italy. But yeah, there's so there's
this huge building. It's amazing except for this very narrow
five story building. In a corner, in a nook, there
was a sunglass hut. There was a burger king. There's
a story behind this. It all goes back to the
eighteen hundred a guy named Roland H. Macy and a
(08:03):
dude he bitterly hated named Henry Siegel who was a
partner of a store called Siegel Cooper. They were beefed up.
Siegel Cooper back in the day was a store on
the between like the eighteenth and nineteenth streets on sixth Avenue,
and in their glory days, they were a neck and
(08:23):
neck rival with Macy's.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Bro Really quickly. I just had to google this and
I found a result. Really quickly. Turns out William H. Macy,
the actor, is third cousin four times removed.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Of Roland H. Macy, the founder of Macy's Departments.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Yeah. Can I tell you, guys, I'm an ancestor of
the Adams family.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
You're an ancestor.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
There's Adams Family. That's it's a television show, John Adams.
You're sorry.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
The Adams Family, in my mind, purely belongs to Gomez
and Martish.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Unless you have some time travel technology, of which I
am unaware.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
You're a descendant of same difference.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Oh oh good times of flat circle is potato kleimano.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
But what's the deal? It seems like there's a beef
of bruin. Mm.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Yeah, our buddy Roland starts his store named in a
burst of humility, Macy's in eighteen fifty eight. It's on
the southeast corner of fourteenth Street and sixth Avenue. There's
a big shopping district that's just coming into play on
fourteenth Street around this time. We want to give a
big shout out to Bloomberg the author Mimi Kirk, who
(09:35):
helped us out a lot with this story. It's the
so he starts in eighteen fifty eight, it's the eighteen nineties,
and Macy says, you know what, I'm gonna leap frog
over this shopping district. I'm gonna build a store on
thirty fourth and Broadway, and I'm gonna do it in secret,
so my competitors don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Okay, we've seen that happen before, or like the Florida
Project as an example, where the Walt Disney Company secretly
bought up all this land in Florida, in the Orlando
area under this name, the Florida Project, so that no
one would know what was coming. They were developing this massive,
you know, theme park resort situall would ultimately become resort
(10:20):
in multiple theme parks. But yeah, this kind of you know,
buying up real estate in secret is not uncommon.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Oh yeah, one hundred percent. And it makes sense as well.
I imagine for quite some time there's been a cottage
industry of people tracking down the actions of real estate
brokers right to try to figure this stuff out. I mean,
even now in twenty twenty three out in California by
Travis Air Force Base. There's a mysterious company buying hundreds
(10:48):
of acres of land Flannery associates. No one knows who
they are. So tales oldest time.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
So, as you said, Ben, late eighteen nineties, Macy's is
getting into this creative expansion project to build their flagship
store at thirty fourth and Broadway.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
And they started to.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Just buy up all of this, the blocks of property
from thirty fourth Street all the way to thirty fifth
Street a block, but you know, blocks.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Big, that's a big deal.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Packets parcels right, and Macy's as an organization had a
gentleman's agreement to pay hilarious when you think about it,
time a mere two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to
one Albert Dwayne Pell for that corner of thirty fourth Street.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
But someone leaked to the info. Maybe it was a PI.
Maybe was someone trading a hot tip for anything like
anything from cash to you know, I don't know, maybe
just the price of a few drinks at a happy hour.
(11:56):
Somewhat squealed. Someone stitched Macy's plays became public knowledge in
April of nineteen oh one, and this is before that
gentleman's agreement turned into paperwork. We're getting a lot of
this from a book called Holdouts with an exclamation Mark
by Andrew Albern and Seymour Durst from nineteen eighty four.
(12:18):
So when people know that Macy is conspiring to buy
up this block, his old rival Henry Siegel sends a
guy in kind of like Slugworth in Willie Wonka. And
this agent of Seagulls goes to Pell and says, hey, man,
(12:38):
we'll give you three hundred and seventy five thousand dollars
just for this little this little plot of land.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
What was it?
Speaker 2 (12:46):
What was it on?
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Like uh one thousand, one hundred and fifty four square
feet something like feet, not miles.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
They nailed it well, square a square feet. And this
was agreed to perhaps non gentlemanly, considering that there was
already a pre existing verbal agreement.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Right yeah, I think so he definitely Pell that is
definitely decided to chase the money instead of keeping to
his word. So he I mean, business can be dirty.
People are still kind of divided over this part. Did
Siegull want to buy that slice of land to embarrass
(13:24):
his competitor, and maybe have you know a picture a
big sign that says we got better prices, a seagulls.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Or just macy sucks.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
You know what, Right, Macy's blows. But he didn't do that.
He didn't make a bunch of anti Macy's propaganda. And
right now, if you look at the best records we have,
it seems there are two possible explanations for his motives here.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Yeah, I mean he had, I guess, an associate by
the name of Robert Smith, not of the cure of family,
but this gentleman had a dry goods business. He already
had a brick and mortar spot set up near Macy's
and wanted to expand and set up a news shop.
Smith then announced that he was planning on putting up
(14:16):
a twelve story building on the corner this location to
sell women's clothing, not dry goods at all. But this
was probably just a weird bit of flexing again because
remember the size is really odd. He couldn't really build
that upward, I don't think, right, it doesn't narrow, would
(14:38):
be weird building. It'd be like one of those half
floors and being John Malkovich.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Yeah, it would be like one of those weird buildings
in downtown Tokyo or in a European country. It would
look up to code. The staircase would be very strange.
It's just awkward all the way around. So there's another
account that feels a little more plausible, and the idea
(15:02):
is that Seagull himself wanted to build a new store
on the old Macy's site at fourteenth and sixth. Macy's
was moving from there, and they were thinking, you know,
people will still walk by, there will still be foot traffic,
so of course they're going to go shopping because they're
already there. And so what what he wanted to do
(15:25):
was have a have a hook in Macy's new plan
and seagulls. Seagull's own conspiracy apparently was that he would say, hey, Macy,
I own that little corner plot there and i'll give
it to you for a song, so long as you
agree to give up your lease on the old fourteenth
(15:47):
Street store bargaining chip a bargaining chip just so yeah,
that lease would run till nineteen oh three. So the
timeline works out, But it appears Macy's he didn't play.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Ball and just jump in here.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
It feels kind of spiteful, even on Macy's end a
little bit more because it's like they were leaving the
place already, the guys, like, hey, might just leaving the
least like two years earlier.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Like he's not like telling them that they have to
pay the least or anything. It's like it is a
little dirty of a tactic. Sure, but it's like, I
don't know, like Macy's is also prey picking a little
bit of a break, like they don't have to pay
two years of this lease.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
So I don't know, true, but at a certain level
of wealth and success, which I would argue that if he's,
you know, building this giant flagship store, he's probably all right,
probably more worth it to cut out the competition than
it is to get a little bit of a break.
He's thinking big picture. This is like high level spite,
you know.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
Yeah, I mean, this is the type of spite you
can do when you have more money than you know
what to do with.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Right, And there's there is a bigger picture, like you said,
a long term goal here. But also, these guys don't
like each other, you know what I mean. They wouldn't
cross the street to piss the other guy was on fire.
Can I say that on this show? Thank you?
Speaker 2 (17:03):
It's not one of the George Carlin words. I think
you say that on the radio. Yeah, you definitely can.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
And if you were. If you find yourself in a
survival situation, remember, piss is not the best thing to
use to put out a fire. Try to find another
source of non petroleum liquid.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
But if you're stung by a jellyfish, it's just a ticket.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
If you're stung by a jellyfish, you know what, depending
on the jellyfish, why not why not live a little
at the very end? See if it was nothing you were.
Speaker 4 (17:38):
Into Balsamic dressing also does it? You don't have to pee.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
On it.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Unless you're on a picnic lunch situation on the beach
and you happen to be making some sort of salad.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
You know.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
The piss comes with the with the human body. Enough
about this though.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Well well, yeah, so clearly Macy's and Seagull their their
main rival. He was urine based, but it bled over
into their department store businesses. Yeah, if you will, And
so now these guys are beefed up with this. Macy's
(18:18):
refuses to play ball with Seagull, and he says in
July of in July nineteen oh one, he says, we're
building a huge new store, a flagship store. It's nine
stories high. It's an entire city block. And then someone says,
is the entire city block mister Macy's.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
And he goes, I did everything right, and they indicted me.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Sorry, that was just the voice was hitting me on
that level. I love that sound bite, by the way.
But yeah, So Macy is employing the architectural services of
De Limos and Cordes, and they were able to complete
the structure that they had planned around the little enclave,
the little cutout, and they created a ground floor arcade
(19:06):
which is kind of like a lobby or is it
an open space that you can kind of like go
through between spaces.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Yeah, it's like that. It's almost a promenade. Yeah, you
can just walk, you can stroll through and take in
the sites.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
I love the idea of a promenade, and also the
action of promenading through the promenade.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
That always struck me as a real classy.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
So yeah, he builds this arcade, which unfortunately didn't have
any claw machines or gallica tables or anything like that
at least at this point. So this does create this
little cut through connecting Broadway in thirty fourth Street, and
the Macy's flagship store does have its grand opening in
nineteen o two.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
It sure does. And this is the structure that's still
there under those big macy signs. And here's a bit
more of spite of the old ultra respite for you.
Macy's paid to keep its old store vacant until its
(20:07):
lease went up, so they weren't doing business there. They
kept it as a ghost store, and then once the
lease expired, Seagull took over the property. He built a
ten story high structure he called the fourteenth Street Store.
His buddy Robert Smith, the women's clothier, brought bought Seagull's
(20:30):
interest in the thirty fourth Street corner in nineteen oh seven,
and in nineteen eleven, just a few years later, he
sold that structure for one million dollars. At the time,
this was a record breaking price for any property in Manhattan,
about eight hundred and sixty six dollars and fifty five
cents a square foot, And people wondered if Macy's was
(20:53):
the you know, the ultimate buyer of that property, but
they never were. And that's why even in modern times
there was a sunglass hut, a burger king, you name it. Oh. Also,
an arcade is just like a series of arches. Just
to correct myself there.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Yeah, I was thinking it was my columns got it,
But but it is.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
It's just a path, you know, it's meant to kind
of like connect two spaces, so you can like cut
through sort of like a bespoke alley.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Yeah, it can be freestanding or it can be attached
to a wall, but it can also be a promenade,
because a promenade is just a public place for walking
as a social activity. Life was weird before TV.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Oh god, yeah, yeah, what do people even do?
Speaker 2 (21:37):
I guess they just strolled, you know, just strolled strolled
around and have really really petty fights.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
I mean that's still oh well, that's that'd be twitter.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Yeah, that's just that's just part of the human condition.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
So moving on, and boy, you know these it's it's
you wouldn't I think there'd be so much spite to
talk about when it comes to architecture. But we just
filled up a proper half hour just about just talking about.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Macy's and these two fellas arguing over space.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
So we think we're gonna do another one here, and
then we're gonna take a pause and do a second
part of this episode for Thursday.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
But this is Ben.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
You teased it beautifully at the top of the show
about something called the skinny house.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
What's up with that? What's the skinny house?
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Oh? The skinny house. Yes, right, let's do this one.
This is definitely two part of now. So, speaking of
awkward architecture itself an awkward phrase, if you go to
Boston's North End in New England, you will see a
weird building tucked between two other brick buildings. It's four stories,
(22:48):
it's pale green, it is about thirty feet long, it's
only ten feet wide. It's the house at forty four
Whole Street. You can see pictures of it easily. It
has no front door. You can only get to it
through a side alley. First question would be, why the
heck would someone build that.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
House to what end? You might ask, right to what
North End? Yeah, well exactly.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
I love a good brotherly legend, and in this one,
these two brothers inherited a plot of land from their father,
and when one of the brothers returned from their time
serving in the Civil War. To his chagrin, he found
that his other brother from the same mother had built
a large home, presumably just for him and his family
(23:36):
on this shared piece of land. That's not cool, other brother, No.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
That is accurate.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
That has been documented multiple times. We pulled some of
this from Boston Magazine written by Madeline Billis And what
a dick move.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Yeah, and it is the stuff of legend. Though.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
That we we know of them is the brothers, you know,
one brother the other. This is like classic, you know,
fairy tale stuff. So the one who built the house
used pretty much the whole share of land, at the
very least, he took more than what was meant for him.
And presumably all this was demarketed in some form of paperwork.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
I would I would hope.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
But maybe it was just sort of like gentlemen's rules,
you know, where it's like, you know, we get this
inherited equally. We are two people that should be split
evenly right down the middle. But I guess that all
depends on the shape of the land and all of that.
We'll get into this. So when the second brother came
back and he saw what his other brother had done,
he was. He was very upset, and he decided to
take his revenge.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
To exact his revenge.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
We had a similar story to this in our last episode,
where I believe someone built an ugly monument or something
like that to where like you just would see this
annoying thing.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
I think he was in France. It was like some
sort of there was one sea. I'm getting the confused
because there was one with like a feature on a
fountain that was in that was in Vadic in the city. Yeah,
I can't remember.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
They're all running together for me so much Spie, so
much SPIKEE in the world of architecture. But he decided
to build what was referred to as historical writings as
a skinny house to block out the sun from his
brother's building. Yeah, and he obviously didn't intend on inhabiting
the spot because it didn't even have a door.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Yeah, only has that side entrance.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
If you if you look at that precisely.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Yeah, if you look at a picture of it, it's
not even the most impressive. It's not even the most
impressive house. It's it's four stories if you count that
window coming out of the roof. It's definitely a Spike house,
(25:51):
and it is clearly meant it's it's a budding the
other building. It's clearly meant to block out the view.
If if you look at the side door, and you
can find tours and stuff of this building online, the
side door looks like a window. It reminds me of
I've been to some hotels in Europe where they say
(26:12):
they have a terrace, and it took me a second
to find the terrace because it was a window that
happened to open big enough to be like a hobbit door.
So that's kind of what this door is like. And
people still live there, people enjoy it. It's kind of
a flex to own that piece of history in Boston.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
I believe it was.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Oh there's an interview that's been going around a while
back with the Semonic Semonic family, sim Nic and they
talked with the Boston Globe about how much fun they
had throwing a party in the Hull House for New
Year's Eve. I'm saying fun somewhat sarcastically. I think the
(26:58):
novelty wore off once someone had to use the restroom.
This is not a big place.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
No, it's it's I mean, it's you know, it's not
something when you look at it, it's not It looks
kind of like a condo, you know what I mean, Like, well,
you might see like a townhouse. Like here in Atlanta,
there's a couple of spots where there are these like
rows of these real skinny type houses that are you know,
you buy them and it's it's like a relatively affordable
(27:24):
human dwelling, but they are kind of weirdly skinny. And
you'll see places like this and you know, San Francisco
and in other spots.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
But this was not part of the urban planning.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Lets let's just say, right, this was like an afterthought
and it still stands to this day, and it looks odd,
but it doesn't look like crazy, you know.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
It's something that we definitely see stuff like it.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Yeah, it would make sense to see that in Philly,
or to see that in some older US towns. It
would make a lot of sense to see it in
places like Amsterdam too, write any densely populated place that
has some centuries to its past. If you want to
figure out what it looks like inside, do check out
(28:06):
the tours that are available on YouTube. You'll see walkthroughs
one of the seminent family members. Jennifer told The Boston
Globe this quote. We had a party of ten one
New Year's Eve, and when one person has to go
to the bathroom, everyone has to move.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
She said.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
There are only five doors in the house. The bathroom,
in the living room or one of the few rooms
actually separated by a door. And if you look on
the outside, each of those four floors is a different room.
That's how skinny it is.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
Yeah, no, exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
And the youngest daughter's bedroom actually shared the floor with
a closet.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Yeah, how does that work?
Speaker 1 (28:48):
That's all they had room for. They have a bedroom
on the third floor, a closet and stairs. So if
you want to go to the master bedroom on the
top floor, you got to walk through your daughter's room.
I'm sure every teenage girl would love that.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
There's no walls either. You just walk into that floor
and you're in the room. Am I right? Right?
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Yes? Yeah, yeah, I don't think there's a door. I
think it's just the stairs.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Got it.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Yeah, not particularly conducive to privacy, you know, So, like
you said, yeah, teenage girl would not be down with that.
So nine hundred and sixty four square feet is what
we're dealing with here, just to give you a clear
picture for folks out there that are into, you know, measuring.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
Stuff, and to add insults injury.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
I suppose with all this lack of privacy, the house
became something of a draw for tourists, so they would
pretty commonly find folks camped out, you know, in their
yard taking pictures.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
I wonder why they didn't build out the backyard at
least a little bit, you know, and put maybe put
a garden on the roof somewhere. Anyway, you know what,
it's a it's a piece of history now, so you
can't there's probably a law preventing them from doing too
much renovation to it. But that house was built entirely
(30:08):
despite the story, as you said, Noel, does seem a
bit apocryphal. There aren't a ton of really solid sources
on how it was constructed. I think the closest we
could find here is that if you go to the
Boston City Archives, you can see in the Hopkins Atlas
(30:30):
of eighteen seventy four the way the land was split
up into five lots in the eighteen eighties.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
And we have a good.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Friend of ours, Frank well Heron, who's appeared on Idiomatic
for the people. He's worked in this world before, and
he can attest how sketchy land deeds and titles can
get right when you go that far back, because at
that point, isn't it mainly handwriting?
Speaker 3 (30:59):
I think that's right.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Yeah, you have to definitely go to you know, physical
archives and records to pull these sort of chains of custody,
you know, for making sure that a title is quote
unquote clear.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
And I kind of want to go there. You know
what it reminds me of. It reminds me of the
tiny house movement. It's a little bit bigger than the
popular tiny houses. And oh, our Palchris Vrosiotis had owned
out tiny house. I always wanted to live in one,
But I'm wondering if I just liked the idea of
(31:30):
it more than the actual experience, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Sure, I mean the skinny house is I guess, kind
of ahead of its time in that way. And you know,
Ben my favorite, you know, if I'm paying for my
own hotel when I go to New York, I very
much love to stay in the Pod Hotel, which is
the tiny house of hotels. It's like a ship's cabin,
you know, with bunk beds and like the desk built
into the wall and stuff. But it's very ergonomic and
(31:54):
I stay there all the time. I couldn't recommend it more.
It's a fun experience, but maybe not for like all
the time.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
I mean one thing that's great about that, and this
is not a paid ad for for pot hotels, is
places like that also encourage you to go out and
explore the city, which I absolutely love about them. The
only place I've spent some time in there was a
little too small for me capsule hotels and I don't
have claustrophobia, but that's a that's a tight fit.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
I don't recommend it, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
I mean even after like you know, two or three
days in the pot hotel, if you're staying with somebody,
it's it's time to go, and right time to go
your separate ways. But it's still fun. I stayed there
with my kid recently actually only had a good old time.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
But yeah, it does.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
You're right about that, because at the end of the day,
a hotel is just a place to you know, hang
your hat and grab a little shut eye. If you're
spending all your time in the hotel room. What are
you even doing right?
Speaker 1 (32:50):
And speaking of time to go, it is time for
us to hit the hit the old dusty trail of
the in folks, we are returning, as my partner in
History Crime said earlier, we're going to be back on
Thursday with part two of Spiteful Architecture Part two, So
(33:11):
it's like two points, you know what, don't think about
it too much, just join us in giving a big
old thanks to mister Max Williams, our super producer, our
architect who has chosen a higher path than spite. Thank
you and congratulations Max.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Yeah, and don't call it a comeback, but do come
back for part two of Part two of spite Architecture.
Huge thanks to christophrasiotis here in spirit, who we mentioned
a tiny house trailblazer in his own right, Jonathan Strickland,
it truly is our spider architecture.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
I think we can all agree. And to you Ben, yeah,
that was fun.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
Yeah and also with.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
You, let's see you next out folks.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.