1 00:00:10,823 --> 00:00:12,783 [Lebowitz] My hatred of money is very profound. 2 00:00:12,867 --> 00:00:18,247 However, my problem in regard to this, not my only problem, 3 00:00:18,330 --> 00:00:20,416 is that I love things. 4 00:00:20,499 --> 00:00:23,753 So I hate money, but I love things, right? 5 00:00:23,836 --> 00:00:27,715 So I hate money, but I love furniture. I hate money, but I love cars. 6 00:00:27,798 --> 00:00:29,425 I hate money, but I love clothes. 7 00:00:29,508 --> 00:00:32,303 So hating money is okay if you also hate things, 8 00:00:32,386 --> 00:00:34,722 because then you're the Dalai Lama, you know? 9 00:00:34,805 --> 00:00:36,807 ["Money" playing] 10 00:00:42,938 --> 00:00:45,775 ♪ The best things in life are free ♪ 11 00:00:46,817 --> 00:00:49,528 ♪ But you can give them To the birds and bees ♪ 12 00:00:49,612 --> 00:00:51,280 ♪ I want money ♪ 13 00:00:53,491 --> 00:00:54,617 ♪ That's what I want ♪ 14 00:00:56,994 --> 00:00:58,245 ♪ That's what I want ♪ 15 00:01:00,623 --> 00:01:01,832 ♪ That's what I want ♪ 16 00:01:05,377 --> 00:01:08,172 ♪ Your love gives me such a thrill ♪ 17 00:01:09,048 --> 00:01:11,092 ♪ But your love won't pay my bills ♪ 18 00:01:11,175 --> 00:01:12,426 ♪ I want money ♪ 19 00:01:13,344 --> 00:01:15,304 -[man] Hi, friends. -Hey, what's happening? 20 00:01:15,387 --> 00:01:17,264 We're ready for you to come and take a seat. 21 00:01:17,348 --> 00:01:19,141 [song continues] 22 00:01:19,225 --> 00:01:20,726 ♪ That's what I want ♪ 23 00:01:22,978 --> 00:01:24,230 ♪ That's what I want ♪ 24 00:01:28,067 --> 00:01:30,069 [woman] What advice would you give to yourself 25 00:01:30,152 --> 00:01:32,613 as a 20-something coming to New York now? 26 00:01:32,696 --> 00:01:33,572 Bring money. 27 00:01:34,156 --> 00:01:36,325 [laughter] 28 00:01:37,284 --> 00:01:39,245 Bring money. That's what I would tell you. 29 00:01:39,328 --> 00:01:42,998 Advice to someone coming when I came, you don't need that much money. 30 00:01:43,082 --> 00:01:44,500 [song continues] 31 00:01:45,084 --> 00:01:47,336 ♪ Money don't get everything, it's true… ♪ 32 00:01:48,254 --> 00:01:49,421 [Scorsese] Here we are. 33 00:01:50,214 --> 00:01:51,132 -Okay. -[Griffin] Well… 34 00:01:51,632 --> 00:01:55,845 I don't wanna say anything, but these glasses get more and more mismatched. 35 00:01:55,928 --> 00:01:58,597 But I drink this coffee, and then it goes down and… 36 00:01:59,265 --> 00:02:01,225 [Scorsese] Then we have to redo everything. 37 00:02:01,308 --> 00:02:02,726 [laughs] 38 00:02:05,020 --> 00:02:08,858 It is true that women of my age, when we were children, 39 00:02:08,941 --> 00:02:12,153 were absolutely not raised with the idea that we ever had to think about money. 40 00:02:12,236 --> 00:02:16,574 So, you know, I believe, had I been a boy, 41 00:02:16,657 --> 00:02:22,746 I would not have had this incredible kind of slothful attitude toward money. 42 00:02:22,830 --> 00:02:24,665 Because I wouldn't have been allowed to, 43 00:02:24,748 --> 00:02:28,377 because my father would have been yelling, "Are you crazy? Don't you understand?" 44 00:02:28,460 --> 00:02:30,921 But people very often have said to me, 45 00:02:31,005 --> 00:02:33,549 "Did your parents want you to be a writer?" No. 46 00:02:33,632 --> 00:02:35,718 "Did they try to dissuade you?" No. 47 00:02:35,801 --> 00:02:39,638 "Really? What did they want you to be?" A wife. They wanted me to be a wife. 48 00:02:39,722 --> 00:02:42,433 They assumed I would be a wife. They wanted me to be a wife. 49 00:02:42,516 --> 00:02:44,602 So they never told me anything 50 00:02:44,685 --> 00:02:49,899 or instructed me in anything other than things that would make me be a wife. 51 00:02:49,982 --> 00:02:52,443 And you can see that it didn't work out for them. 52 00:02:52,526 --> 00:02:55,362 But I mean, I think, in a way, 53 00:02:55,446 --> 00:02:58,699 it was not a great thing to be a little girl in the '50s at all, 54 00:02:58,782 --> 00:03:01,410 uh, but the good thing about it 55 00:03:01,493 --> 00:03:05,247 was that they just didn't pay attention to you that much. 56 00:03:05,331 --> 00:03:11,003 I remember very vividly my best friend, uh, 57 00:03:11,086 --> 00:03:15,132 who I am still very close friends with, who lived up the street from me, 58 00:03:15,216 --> 00:03:18,677 I was at her house after school and her father called and said he got a raise 59 00:03:18,761 --> 00:03:21,597 and everyone was very excited, and her mother baked a cake. 60 00:03:21,680 --> 00:03:23,140 I didn't know what a raise was. 61 00:03:23,224 --> 00:03:25,851 So I came home, and I asked my mother, "What is a raise?" 62 00:03:25,935 --> 00:03:30,147 She said, "That's when you make more money each week," or whatever. 63 00:03:30,648 --> 00:03:34,693 And I said, "Well, so-and-so got a raise, and now he makes…" 64 00:03:35,444 --> 00:03:40,032 I remember the amount. $300 a week. It was much more than my father made. 65 00:03:40,115 --> 00:03:42,868 So I realize in retrospect. Um… 66 00:03:43,619 --> 00:03:46,872 I said, "How much does Daddy make?" My mother slapped me in the face. 67 00:03:46,956 --> 00:03:48,123 [Scorsese laughs] 68 00:03:48,207 --> 00:03:52,127 She was so… "Don't you ever talk about money. 69 00:03:52,211 --> 00:03:57,633 It is very rude, and don't you ever ask anyone how much money they make." 70 00:03:57,716 --> 00:04:01,428 And I never talked about money again. So, hence, I have none. 71 00:04:01,512 --> 00:04:04,682 And I was once in my accountant's office, 72 00:04:04,765 --> 00:04:09,186 and, finally, he looked at me and he said, "Let me explain something to you. 73 00:04:09,270 --> 00:04:11,939 You have to talk to me about money. I'm your accountant." 74 00:04:12,439 --> 00:04:15,776 Because I kept saying, "I don't think I should tell you that." 75 00:04:16,360 --> 00:04:18,445 He'd ask me, "How much are you getting for this?" 76 00:04:18,529 --> 00:04:21,824 I said, "I don't think that's something I feel like discussing with you." 77 00:04:22,324 --> 00:04:26,203 "Who are you?" And now, of course, people talk about money nonstop. 78 00:04:26,287 --> 00:04:29,123 -[Scorsese] Yeah. -But also, I still always say, you know, 79 00:04:29,206 --> 00:04:31,583 if I know how much money someone makes for something 80 00:04:31,667 --> 00:04:34,628 or how much their apartment costs, it's because they told me, 81 00:04:34,712 --> 00:04:37,423 which people do all the time. I would never ask anyone that. 82 00:04:37,506 --> 00:04:41,468 You know, but people talk about money all the time now, 83 00:04:41,552 --> 00:04:46,473 as if it was some riveting topic of conversation, which it is not. 84 00:04:48,976 --> 00:04:54,398 [in French] I want to say that I am taxed 74%, yes? 85 00:04:54,898 --> 00:04:56,650 I would like to show you what remains. 86 00:04:57,985 --> 00:05:00,738 -This is illegal, what I’m going to do. -[host] It’s illegal. 87 00:05:00,821 --> 00:05:05,367 If they throw me in jail, I don't care. At least I'll be on a diet. 88 00:05:05,451 --> 00:05:07,494 Here, I’ll show you what I have left. 89 00:05:09,204 --> 00:05:13,000 I’ll stop at 74%. 90 00:05:14,126 --> 00:05:16,086 Quit messing around. 91 00:05:16,628 --> 00:05:18,547 Because this is not for the poor. 92 00:05:18,630 --> 00:05:21,592 This is for the nuclear, and all the… 93 00:05:21,675 --> 00:05:23,635 [host] You realize you're provoking lots of people. 94 00:05:23,719 --> 00:05:25,888 [man] Listen, this is my money. I couldn't care less. 95 00:05:25,971 --> 00:05:28,974 When I first came to New York, my father gave me $200. 96 00:05:29,058 --> 00:05:30,851 Probably the most money I ever had in my life. 97 00:05:30,934 --> 00:05:33,645 I guess I thought, "$200, I guess I'm set for life." 98 00:05:33,729 --> 00:05:36,148 -[Scorsese laughs] -You know, um… 99 00:05:36,231 --> 00:05:38,108 I was a cab driver. 100 00:05:38,192 --> 00:05:41,070 I was a driver, a chauffeur for people. 101 00:05:41,153 --> 00:05:44,281 Um, I was a cleaning lady. I was a peddler. 102 00:05:44,823 --> 00:05:48,369 I sold belts in the street. I would get… 103 00:05:49,453 --> 00:05:53,707 The Village Voice. I would work at least five days a week and sometimes six. 104 00:05:53,791 --> 00:05:55,292 But I never worked on Wednesdays, 105 00:05:55,376 --> 00:05:58,003 because Wednesdays was the day The Village Voice came out. 106 00:05:58,504 --> 00:06:01,507 So I'd go to Sheridan Square and get The Village Voice, 107 00:06:01,590 --> 00:06:04,927 and The Village Voice had… All newspapers did, actually. 108 00:06:05,010 --> 00:06:07,262 But that's where all the help wanted ads were. 109 00:06:07,346 --> 00:06:08,680 And I would always think… 110 00:06:09,181 --> 00:06:11,100 Because I always hated whatever job I had. 111 00:06:11,183 --> 00:06:15,771 So I'd think, "Next week, I'm gonna get a better job that I don't hate as much." 112 00:06:16,730 --> 00:06:20,401 At some point, I realized, "Fran, you just don't like to work." 113 00:06:20,901 --> 00:06:22,861 You know? It's not just… 114 00:06:22,945 --> 00:06:25,447 This is a bad job, yes, anyone would think this is a bad job, 115 00:06:25,531 --> 00:06:28,117 but, I mean, frankly, I don't really like to work and so… 116 00:06:28,200 --> 00:06:32,663 I really like to lie on the sofa and read, which is not a profession. 117 00:06:32,746 --> 00:06:37,960 No one pays you for it. Because if they did, this would be my house. So… 118 00:06:38,043 --> 00:06:39,086 [Scorsese laughs] 119 00:06:39,670 --> 00:06:44,341 But I also very much avoided the job all of my friends had, 120 00:06:44,425 --> 00:06:45,884 which was waiting tables. 121 00:06:45,968 --> 00:06:49,555 So all of the girls I knew who had to work… I knew some girls who didn't. 122 00:06:49,638 --> 00:06:51,807 They waited tables and… 123 00:06:52,599 --> 00:06:54,393 Like 100%, I would say, did. 124 00:06:54,476 --> 00:06:59,690 And my friends would say to me, "Why are you cleaning apartments instead of… 125 00:06:59,773 --> 00:07:03,735 Come work where I'm working. You make more money, you know. 126 00:07:03,819 --> 00:07:07,781 It's less, you know, arduous physically, for sure." 127 00:07:07,865 --> 00:07:13,912 Um, and, you know, I would say… Let me put it to you this way. 128 00:07:13,996 --> 00:07:18,292 The people who hired waitresses were men. Okay? The managers were men. 129 00:07:18,375 --> 00:07:20,919 You could not get a shift as a waitress in a restaurant 130 00:07:21,003 --> 00:07:22,880 without sleeping with a manager, okay? 131 00:07:22,963 --> 00:07:25,466 That's what all this stuff is about. It's not about romance. 132 00:07:25,549 --> 00:07:26,550 It's not about dating. 133 00:07:26,633 --> 00:07:29,928 It's not about, you know, flirting or not flirting. 134 00:07:30,012 --> 00:07:34,641 It's about, for instance, for Fran, as a young girl, it's just about working. 135 00:07:34,725 --> 00:07:37,394 Okay? And that's how you got a job as a waitress. 136 00:07:37,478 --> 00:07:41,940 There was a restaurant that people wanted to work in where the manager was gay. 137 00:07:42,024 --> 00:07:44,568 The guy was gay. The guy's gay! Everyone went to, like… 138 00:07:44,651 --> 00:07:45,986 -[Scorsese laughs] -[coughs] 139 00:07:46,069 --> 00:07:49,239 Of course, he only hired waiters, and they also had to sleep with him. 140 00:07:49,323 --> 00:07:50,616 So… You know? 141 00:07:51,450 --> 00:07:54,870 New York, everyone has this idea that New York used to be cheap, you know? 142 00:07:54,953 --> 00:07:58,415 It was always more expensive than any place else, you know. 143 00:07:58,499 --> 00:07:59,625 So if I tell someone, 144 00:07:59,708 --> 00:08:03,086 "This was my apartment on West Fourth Street in 1970. 145 00:08:03,170 --> 00:08:05,631 It was $121.78 a month," 146 00:08:05,714 --> 00:08:08,258 people go, "Ah! That's unbelievable!" 147 00:08:08,342 --> 00:08:10,385 It was expensive! 148 00:08:10,469 --> 00:08:12,930 In other words, most of my friends lived in the East Village. 149 00:08:13,013 --> 00:08:16,808 They would say, "You are crazy to spend all this money on one room. 150 00:08:16,892 --> 00:08:19,645 If you lived in my neighborhood on Avenue C, 151 00:08:19,728 --> 00:08:21,480 you could have four rooms for this." 152 00:08:21,563 --> 00:08:23,732 I would always say, "Yeah, but I don't get raped." 153 00:08:23,815 --> 00:08:25,859 -[laughter] -Okay? 154 00:08:25,943 --> 00:08:28,320 Which I always felt was worth the extra money. 155 00:08:28,403 --> 00:08:30,822 -It's worth it. It's worth it. -You know? 156 00:08:30,906 --> 00:08:33,700 I'm not a spendthrift, but there's certain things you pay for. 157 00:08:33,784 --> 00:08:37,704 And so it was overpriced. It was a horrible apartment. 158 00:08:37,788 --> 00:08:39,873 It was overpriced, but it was much safer. 159 00:08:39,957 --> 00:08:44,962 The first big check I ever got, I didn't have a bank account. 160 00:08:45,045 --> 00:08:49,383 I got this huge check, like $100,000. I didn't know what to do with it. 161 00:08:50,050 --> 00:08:52,135 I literally… Here's what I did with checks. 162 00:08:52,219 --> 00:08:57,432 I would get the check, which would be more along the lines of $100, 163 00:08:57,975 --> 00:09:00,686 and then I would go across the street to the delicatessen, 164 00:09:01,186 --> 00:09:02,896 and I would say to the guy, 165 00:09:02,980 --> 00:09:07,192 "Could you take a roast beef sandwich out of this and cash the check?" 166 00:09:07,276 --> 00:09:08,318 And they would. 167 00:09:08,402 --> 00:09:11,905 So I had this vision of myself walking in to the delicatessen, 168 00:09:11,989 --> 00:09:14,825 asking them to take a roast beef sandwich out of this. 169 00:09:15,284 --> 00:09:19,162 I actually, I would have to say, was frightened of this check. 170 00:09:19,830 --> 00:09:22,791 And I didn't have any sense of how much money this was, 171 00:09:22,874 --> 00:09:26,128 except it seemed to me like an insane amount of money. 172 00:09:26,211 --> 00:09:30,048 So I think that when I first made money, I was quite frightened by it. 173 00:09:30,549 --> 00:09:32,467 I mean quite frightened by it. 174 00:09:32,551 --> 00:09:36,930 I mean, it seemed like an amazing thing to me, but it also… 175 00:09:37,014 --> 00:09:39,141 There's never been a time in my life that I can think of 176 00:09:39,224 --> 00:09:41,018 when I was thrilled by money. 177 00:09:41,518 --> 00:09:43,103 It was not… I didn't think… [gasps] 178 00:09:43,186 --> 00:09:46,189 I never thought that. Money never does that for me. 179 00:09:46,273 --> 00:09:49,318 One of the things it takes to make a lot of money is loving money. 180 00:09:49,901 --> 00:09:53,238 You know, really loving it. Really caring about it. 181 00:09:53,322 --> 00:09:56,533 I always say the same thing. There's two kinds of people in the world. 182 00:09:56,617 --> 00:09:59,494 The kind of people who think there's such a thing as enough money 183 00:09:59,578 --> 00:10:01,288 and the kind of people who have money. 184 00:10:02,164 --> 00:10:03,415 And it's as simple as that. 185 00:10:03,498 --> 00:10:06,585 So, yes, for me, there is enough money. 186 00:10:06,668 --> 00:10:08,879 I've definitely had periods where there was enough money. 187 00:10:08,962 --> 00:10:12,382 And my idea of enough money was I could pay for everything that I had. 188 00:10:12,466 --> 00:10:13,300 [Scorsese] Mh-hmm. 189 00:10:13,383 --> 00:10:14,843 I was trying to get a mortgage once, 190 00:10:14,926 --> 00:10:19,097 and I was talking to the person at Merrill Lynch, the broker, 191 00:10:19,181 --> 00:10:21,850 who was looking at my stuff while I was on the phone, 192 00:10:21,933 --> 00:10:26,772 and she said, "May I ask you a question?" I said, "May you ask me a question? 193 00:10:26,855 --> 00:10:29,691 You're looking at my tax returns for the last five minutes. 194 00:10:29,775 --> 00:10:32,527 It's like you're in my sock drawer. You know? 195 00:10:32,611 --> 00:10:34,863 You know more about me than I do. 196 00:10:34,946 --> 00:10:36,740 Yes, you may ask me a question." 197 00:10:36,823 --> 00:10:39,201 She said, "Why is your income so erratic?" 198 00:10:39,785 --> 00:10:44,498 And I said, "Well, I'm a writer." She said, "A writer?" [scoffs] 199 00:10:44,581 --> 00:10:45,415 [Scorsese] Oh, God. 200 00:10:45,499 --> 00:10:47,417 That's why writers never get a mortgage. 201 00:10:47,501 --> 00:10:49,503 [dramatic music playing] 202 00:11:07,145 --> 00:11:10,732 There are apartments that cost $20 million in New York, or a lot more. 203 00:11:10,816 --> 00:11:11,942 That wasn't always true. 204 00:11:12,025 --> 00:11:15,696 Because when you think about it, how could an apartment cost $20 million? 205 00:11:15,779 --> 00:11:17,114 What does that even mean? 206 00:11:17,781 --> 00:11:20,492 What does it mean, an apartment costs $20 million? 207 00:11:20,575 --> 00:11:22,160 It's a ridiculous amount of money! 208 00:11:22,244 --> 00:11:25,038 These amounts of money are stupid and people get used to them. 209 00:11:25,122 --> 00:11:28,291 I thought, after a year of looking at apartments, 210 00:11:28,375 --> 00:11:33,505 during which the prices were going up by the hour… Okay? 211 00:11:33,588 --> 00:11:35,132 First of all, the prices were stupid. 212 00:11:35,215 --> 00:11:37,843 Then you would go Monday to look at an apartment. 213 00:11:38,343 --> 00:11:40,470 You would go to look at  the same apartment Wednesday. 214 00:11:40,554 --> 00:11:41,972 It was $50,000 more. 215 00:11:42,055 --> 00:11:45,684 I would say, "I looked at this apartment on Monday. Why is it $50,000 more?" 216 00:11:45,767 --> 00:11:48,270 "The market's going up. Better buy it now." 217 00:11:48,770 --> 00:11:51,565 "I don't really like it." "Doesn't mean you shouldn't buy it." 218 00:11:51,648 --> 00:11:55,444 You know, within a few apartments, 219 00:11:55,527 --> 00:11:59,072 the real estate agent will say, "Why do you need such a big apartment?" 220 00:11:59,156 --> 00:12:01,533 They will say, "Do you entertain a lot?" 221 00:12:01,616 --> 00:12:04,911 This is the first idea. "So you must give a lot of parties?" 222 00:12:05,412 --> 00:12:09,499 I would say, "No. No one gives fewer parties than me. No one. 223 00:12:10,542 --> 00:12:13,962 Really. The Ayatollah Khomeini gave more parties than I do. 224 00:12:14,045 --> 00:12:18,216 So, no, I don't entertain. Not only not a lot. At all." 225 00:12:18,300 --> 00:12:23,305 So, "What do you need all this room for?" "Well, I have 10,000 books." 226 00:12:24,514 --> 00:12:27,058 After a certain number of apartments, 227 00:12:28,059 --> 00:12:29,144 when I keep saying, 228 00:12:29,227 --> 00:12:31,563 "This is too expensive, this is too expensive," 229 00:12:31,646 --> 00:12:35,317 they say, "You can't afford an apartment big enough for your books," 230 00:12:35,400 --> 00:12:36,359 which I already knew. 231 00:12:36,860 --> 00:12:38,945 I knew before I called them. They didn't know. 232 00:12:39,029 --> 00:12:41,448 It took them a while to know it, but I already knew that. 233 00:12:41,531 --> 00:12:44,326 And so after, I believe, looking at 100 apartments, 234 00:12:44,409 --> 00:12:46,119 I looked at about 100 apartments, 235 00:12:46,203 --> 00:12:49,623 I guess I just felt like I'd put in enough suffering, 236 00:12:49,706 --> 00:12:50,874 "Give me an apartment." 237 00:12:50,957 --> 00:12:51,917 I bought an apartment 238 00:12:52,000 --> 00:12:55,086 approximately three times the price I could pay for an apartment. 239 00:12:55,170 --> 00:12:56,797 I would like to win the lottery. 240 00:12:57,297 --> 00:13:00,091 In fact, at this point, I actually need to win the lottery. 241 00:13:00,175 --> 00:13:04,679 So, I mean, it's gone past the point of just desire, 242 00:13:04,763 --> 00:13:08,099 and we're now at absolute need. 243 00:13:08,183 --> 00:13:10,811 Do you go to those places and get those forms or whatever? 244 00:13:10,894 --> 00:13:14,606 Um, I play the lottery every week, 245 00:13:14,689 --> 00:13:19,778 and one time, several years ago, I won $1,200 in the lottery. 246 00:13:20,362 --> 00:13:21,404 -Wow. -Right? 247 00:13:21,488 --> 00:13:24,282 If you win more than $600, you have to go to the lotto office, 248 00:13:24,366 --> 00:13:25,784 which, at the time that I won, 249 00:13:25,867 --> 00:13:31,248 is right in the neighborhood of that other big casino, the New York Stock Exchange. 250 00:13:31,331 --> 00:13:32,707 -[laughter] -[laughs] Oh, yes. 251 00:13:32,791 --> 00:13:35,710 So I get to this lotto office, 252 00:13:35,794 --> 00:13:39,673 and I'm standing in line, and there's other lotto winners. 253 00:13:39,756 --> 00:13:46,137 And the guy in front of me goes to the desk and gives in his ticket, 254 00:13:46,221 --> 00:13:49,099 and the woman behind the desk says to him, 255 00:13:49,182 --> 00:13:53,353 "All right, sir, we're gonna send you your check in about two weeks." 256 00:13:53,436 --> 00:13:55,689 And the guy goes, "No, no, I want it now." 257 00:13:56,606 --> 00:13:59,401 She said, "No, we're gonna send it to you in about two weeks." 258 00:13:59,484 --> 00:14:02,821 He said, "No, I don't want you to send it. I want you to give it to me now." 259 00:14:02,904 --> 00:14:07,158 She said, "That's not how we do it, and you'll get the check in about two weeks." 260 00:14:07,242 --> 00:14:10,829 And he said, "You don't understand. I need this money now." 261 00:14:10,912 --> 00:14:14,291 And she said, "You don't understand. You're not getting it now. Next." 262 00:14:14,374 --> 00:14:18,503 And he said, "You don't understand. I was counting on this money to pay my rent. 263 00:14:19,337 --> 00:14:20,881 What am I supposed to do now? 264 00:14:20,964 --> 00:14:23,341 She said, "Why don't you do whatever else you were gonna do 265 00:14:23,425 --> 00:14:25,385 on the off chance you didn't win the lottery." 266 00:14:25,468 --> 00:14:27,470 [laughter] 267 00:14:29,055 --> 00:14:31,683 -So now I'm this guy. -Yeah. Yeah. 268 00:14:31,766 --> 00:14:33,476 So I need to win the lottery. 269 00:14:34,019 --> 00:14:37,606 If I was asking myself, "What can you pay for an apartment?" 270 00:14:37,689 --> 00:14:40,901 I would have told you a third of what I paid for this apartment. 271 00:14:40,984 --> 00:14:43,653 People kept saying, "When are the prices gonna go down?" 272 00:14:43,737 --> 00:14:47,782 And I kept saying, "Just wait. Wait till I close on this apartment." 273 00:14:47,866 --> 00:14:48,700 [Scorsese laughs] 274 00:14:48,783 --> 00:14:53,455 Okay? And then I closed on the apartment, and the prices started going down. 275 00:14:53,538 --> 00:14:56,666 I am the harbinger of bad real estate decisions. 276 00:14:56,750 --> 00:14:58,585 [laughter] 277 00:14:58,668 --> 00:15:01,212 I am Buy High, Sell Low Lebowitz. 278 00:15:02,047 --> 00:15:04,799 So, I mean, there is… 279 00:15:04,883 --> 00:15:09,054 I'm the only person I know, truthfully, who's lived in New York as long as I have 280 00:15:09,137 --> 00:15:12,057 who has never made a correct real estate decision. 281 00:15:13,475 --> 00:15:14,517 Never. Not one time. 282 00:15:14,601 --> 00:15:19,731 And the only thing that calms me down at all about it is to remind myself 283 00:15:19,814 --> 00:15:23,109 that I did not come to New York at 18 to go into the real estate business. 284 00:15:23,193 --> 00:15:25,362 I think I've proven that I'm not going into it. 285 00:15:25,445 --> 00:15:29,282 So some young guy said to me last year, "I don't understand. 286 00:15:29,366 --> 00:15:32,243 Everyone your age already found their apartment years ago. They paid--" 287 00:15:32,327 --> 00:15:34,537 I said, "Yeah, everyone but me." 288 00:15:34,621 --> 00:15:36,539 [Scorsese] You were on 57th Street a long time. 289 00:15:36,623 --> 00:15:38,583 A long time. See, that apartment… 290 00:15:38,667 --> 00:15:40,794 I owned that apartment for a long time, and that was… 291 00:15:40,877 --> 00:15:42,462 -I lived there for-- -The one on-- 292 00:15:42,545 --> 00:15:45,006 The Osborne. I lived there for 26 years. 293 00:15:45,090 --> 00:15:50,095 When I was young, I mean like 21, I went to a party in that building. 294 00:15:51,179 --> 00:15:54,349 And I'd never been in the building. I'd never heard of it. 295 00:15:54,432 --> 00:15:55,976 I couldn't get over the apartment. 296 00:15:56,059 --> 00:15:58,520 And still, by the way, the apartment that I went to the party in 297 00:15:58,603 --> 00:16:01,398 was one of two or three apartments in the building like that. 298 00:16:01,481 --> 00:16:04,317 My apartment wasn't like that. And it was just… 299 00:16:04,818 --> 00:16:07,278 I mean, it was spectacular. 300 00:16:07,779 --> 00:16:11,533 It's a beautiful 19th century building. The oldest apartment building in New York. 301 00:16:11,616 --> 00:16:15,537 And I thought, "I would like to live in a place like this." 302 00:16:15,620 --> 00:16:18,498 It was a nightmare living there. There would be one problem after another. 303 00:16:18,581 --> 00:16:20,750 The building was falling apart because it was so old. 304 00:16:20,834 --> 00:16:24,921 There was always construction. There was one huge problem after another. 305 00:16:25,005 --> 00:16:26,840 I never left there, 306 00:16:26,923 --> 00:16:29,759 because I knew I would never have such a beautiful apartment again. 307 00:16:29,843 --> 00:16:32,971 And finally, one day, I actually said to myself, 308 00:16:33,054 --> 00:16:38,893 "Fran, you are like one of these women who's married to a guy who beats her up 309 00:16:38,977 --> 00:16:42,147 and her friends keep saying, 'You have to leave him. He beats you up,' 310 00:16:42,230 --> 00:16:44,149 and she says, 'But he's so handsome.' 311 00:16:44,232 --> 00:16:47,694 They say, 'But he beats you up,' and she says, 'But he's so handsome.'" 312 00:16:47,777 --> 00:16:50,321 And so finally I realized this was me with my apartment! 313 00:16:50,405 --> 00:16:53,074 That I kept saying, "Yes, he beats me up, but he's so handsome!" 314 00:16:53,158 --> 00:16:55,452 I finally thought, "You know what? He beats you up. Leave." 315 00:16:55,952 --> 00:17:01,666 So I've come to understand that my greed for apartments 316 00:17:01,750 --> 00:17:04,836 and furniture and things like that is so intense 317 00:17:04,919 --> 00:17:11,009 that, even though I feel very, very worried about having done this, 318 00:17:11,968 --> 00:17:16,056 I feel less worried than I do happy to be having this swell apartment. 319 00:17:16,139 --> 00:17:18,141 [all laugh] 320 00:17:18,767 --> 00:17:23,021 So this has made me feel the most American that I've ever felt in my life. 321 00:17:23,521 --> 00:17:25,774 I feel I've joined my fellow Americans 322 00:17:25,857 --> 00:17:30,737 in being in psychotic debt for no reason at all. 323 00:17:30,820 --> 00:17:32,155 In other words, I can't say, 324 00:17:32,238 --> 00:17:34,657 "What can I do? My daughter was very sick." Okay? 325 00:17:34,741 --> 00:17:37,744 Everyone is sympathetic to that. But who's sympathetic to this? 326 00:17:37,827 --> 00:17:41,539 "Why shouldn't I have a 20 million square foot apartment? You know? 327 00:17:41,623 --> 00:17:44,667 I'm tired of not having this!" Because that's really what it is. 328 00:17:54,344 --> 00:17:56,304 [Griffin] It looks like you're in another world. 329 00:17:56,888 --> 00:17:58,807 [Lebowitz] I am. [chuckles] 330 00:18:01,392 --> 00:18:03,937 [Griffin] What makes a model citizen of New York? 331 00:18:04,020 --> 00:18:05,522 You have to oppose things 332 00:18:05,605 --> 00:18:10,401 that are promoted by many of the people who run New York, 333 00:18:10,485 --> 00:18:13,113 because you have to understand why they're promoting them. 334 00:18:13,196 --> 00:18:14,614 They're promoting them so that-- 335 00:18:14,697 --> 00:18:17,367 They always say it's so money comes into the city. 336 00:18:17,450 --> 00:18:21,621 Money comes into the city to whom? To whom does it come in the city? 337 00:18:21,704 --> 00:18:24,541 It doesn't come to me. It doesn't come to you. 338 00:18:24,624 --> 00:18:26,668 Because we don't own any of these things. 339 00:18:27,252 --> 00:18:29,170 There was a period, I think in the '80s, 340 00:18:29,254 --> 00:18:31,381 where they were trying to tear down Lever House 341 00:18:31,464 --> 00:18:33,967 and I was in a restaurant with Jerry Robbins, 342 00:18:34,050 --> 00:18:38,972 and a man came to our table and asked us to sign a petition. 343 00:18:39,055 --> 00:18:42,392 "Would you sign this petition to keep them from tearing down Lever House?" 344 00:18:42,475 --> 00:18:45,395 So I signed it. Jerry signed it. The man left. 345 00:18:45,478 --> 00:18:48,398 Jerry looked at me and goes, "You know, I'm pretty sure I signed a petition 346 00:18:48,481 --> 00:18:50,191 to keep them from putting up Lever House." 347 00:18:50,275 --> 00:18:51,192 [Scorsese laughs] 348 00:18:51,276 --> 00:18:53,570 To me, that is the story of New York. 349 00:18:54,821 --> 00:18:56,823 [upbeat music playing] 350 00:19:08,168 --> 00:19:11,754 I'm pretty sure that when they put up Lever House on Park Avenue after the war, 351 00:19:11,838 --> 00:19:15,967 there were a lot of houses on Park Avenue still, and so they took the houses down. 352 00:19:16,050 --> 00:19:17,594 [music continues] 353 00:19:21,097 --> 00:19:23,099 [tempo increases] 354 00:19:32,400 --> 00:19:34,569 [Lebowitz] The great thing about Grand Central Station, 355 00:19:34,652 --> 00:19:38,781 the reason it's so beautiful, is because one person built it. 356 00:19:39,449 --> 00:19:43,286 And that person, luckily, was someone who knew how to build a building. 357 00:19:43,369 --> 00:19:48,791 Because, I mean, a building that size now would never be built by a single person. 358 00:19:48,875 --> 00:19:50,543 There will not be a single sensibility. 359 00:19:50,627 --> 00:19:53,129 It was his money, and he just poured the money into it. 360 00:19:58,343 --> 00:20:02,222 What's amazing about the Chrysler Building is the detail and how beautiful it is. 361 00:20:02,305 --> 00:20:05,266 At the moment, apparently, it's for sale, I believe. 362 00:20:05,767 --> 00:20:07,268 Not that I'm about to buy it. 363 00:20:08,019 --> 00:20:10,897 To me, it's the perfect size for a house for one. 364 00:20:17,737 --> 00:20:19,405 The skyscraper was invented here. 365 00:20:19,906 --> 00:20:24,118 The world was completely awestruck by our skyscrapers. 366 00:20:24,202 --> 00:20:25,536 Empire State Building. 367 00:20:25,620 --> 00:20:28,456 Everyone loved the Empire State Building. 368 00:20:29,040 --> 00:20:32,001 But also some people envied the Empire State Building. 369 00:20:32,085 --> 00:20:35,880 Um, and so in certain parts of the world, 370 00:20:35,964 --> 00:20:38,466 like, for instance, the Gulf States, 371 00:20:38,549 --> 00:20:44,931 they built these horrible, tall buildings in the middle of deserts, 372 00:20:45,014 --> 00:20:48,017 and then we copied them! 373 00:20:48,935 --> 00:20:51,562 So now 57th Street looks… 374 00:20:52,063 --> 00:20:54,691 I mean, it doesn't look like the Gulf States, 375 00:20:54,774 --> 00:20:56,401 but, you know, those buildings. 376 00:20:56,484 --> 00:21:01,239 Now, I don't really believe that there's any profound aesthetic reason 377 00:21:01,322 --> 00:21:03,408 why a very tall building cannot also be beautiful. 378 00:21:03,491 --> 00:21:06,369 New York in general was never a particularly beautiful city. 379 00:21:06,452 --> 00:21:10,206 It was never Paris, you know. It was never Florence. 380 00:21:10,290 --> 00:21:16,671 But, um, it is now a city that… 381 00:21:17,171 --> 00:21:20,341 At least it was original, in other words. 382 00:21:20,425 --> 00:21:25,430 Now, 57th Street looks like one of these Gulf States, 383 00:21:25,513 --> 00:21:27,473 except it's a real place. 384 00:21:27,557 --> 00:21:28,599 It's 57th Street. 385 00:21:35,440 --> 00:21:38,401 It reminds me, in a way, of Ralph Lauren's clothes. 386 00:21:38,985 --> 00:21:40,403 When Ralph Lauren started, 387 00:21:40,486 --> 00:21:44,699 what he really did was he copied Brooks Brothers clothes. 388 00:21:45,867 --> 00:21:49,120 People who bought Brooks Brothers clothes were a certain kind of person. 389 00:21:49,203 --> 00:21:50,830 They were basically WASPs. 390 00:21:50,913 --> 00:21:53,416 And Fran, but basically WASPs. 391 00:21:53,499 --> 00:21:56,419 When Ralph Lauren started making his clothes, 392 00:21:56,502 --> 00:22:00,506 he copied these clothes, but he made them a little different. 393 00:22:00,590 --> 00:22:01,924 Like, Brooks Brothers shirts, 394 00:22:02,008 --> 00:22:05,094 before they ruined the shirt department, which was many years ago, 395 00:22:05,178 --> 00:22:07,513 a Brooks Brothers shirt really didn't fit anyone. 396 00:22:07,597 --> 00:22:10,099 It's not that they just didn't fit me. They fit no one. 397 00:22:10,183 --> 00:22:12,727 Because those people didn't want their clothes to fit. 398 00:22:12,810 --> 00:22:15,063 Clothes that fit, they were for other people. 399 00:22:15,146 --> 00:22:18,107 There was something a little, mm… 400 00:22:19,067 --> 00:22:21,027 ambitious about clothes that fit. 401 00:22:21,110 --> 00:22:23,488 Ralph Lauren, not actually being one of those people, 402 00:22:23,571 --> 00:22:26,157 didn't realize that clothes aren't supposed to fit, 403 00:22:26,240 --> 00:22:32,622 by which I mean they were more like clothes that not-WASPs wore. 404 00:22:33,539 --> 00:22:37,627 To me, the amazing thing was that, after a while, 405 00:22:37,710 --> 00:22:40,505 the WASPs who always wore Brooks Brothers clothes 406 00:22:40,588 --> 00:22:42,340 started buying Ralph Lauren's clothes. 407 00:22:42,840 --> 00:22:46,302 The actual people that he was copying 408 00:22:46,386 --> 00:22:49,263 started buying them, despite knowing they weren't the real clothes. 409 00:22:49,347 --> 00:22:51,474 I don't know why they did this. 410 00:22:51,557 --> 00:22:53,726 I wasn't one of those WASPs or one of these WASPs. 411 00:22:53,810 --> 00:22:55,812 But, to me, I found this astonishing. 412 00:22:55,895 --> 00:22:58,815 To me, this is exactly the same thing 413 00:22:58,898 --> 00:23:02,235 as the skyscrapers that were copied by Dubai, 414 00:23:02,318 --> 00:23:03,861 and now we copied them back. 415 00:23:10,785 --> 00:23:15,164 I was born in 1950. At the end of 1950, so I'm younger than you think. 416 00:23:15,248 --> 00:23:20,253 Um, but I always felt that was lucky. Especially for a writer. 417 00:23:20,336 --> 00:23:22,839 There were very bad things about the '50s. 418 00:23:22,922 --> 00:23:25,508 There were horrible things about the '50s and the '60s. 419 00:23:25,591 --> 00:23:32,348 But it gave me a view of the entire last half of the 20th century, you know, 420 00:23:32,432 --> 00:23:34,267 which I always find to be a very lucky thing, 421 00:23:34,350 --> 00:23:37,186 even from just the point of the pleasure of observation. 422 00:23:37,687 --> 00:23:40,231 I mean my own pleasure in observing. 423 00:23:40,314 --> 00:23:44,485 I mean, there's certain things that I never expected to improve. 424 00:23:45,528 --> 00:23:47,989 That never would have occurred to me. Okay? 425 00:23:48,072 --> 00:23:50,575 Starting in the '70s, people started talking about gay rights. 426 00:23:50,658 --> 00:23:52,076 It seemed ridiculous to me. 427 00:23:52,160 --> 00:23:54,912 Ridiculous. Young people now often thank me. 428 00:23:55,413 --> 00:23:57,665 "I know you were such an activist for gay rights." 429 00:23:57,748 --> 00:24:00,626 I was not an activist for gay rights. I always tell them that. 430 00:24:00,710 --> 00:24:03,671 I say, "No, I wasn't." First of all, I've never been an activist. 431 00:24:03,754 --> 00:24:06,549 Second of all… Not what you really call an activist. 432 00:24:06,632 --> 00:24:08,843 I'm not that self-sacrificing, let me assure you. 433 00:24:09,343 --> 00:24:11,345 But I also never thought it would work. 434 00:24:11,429 --> 00:24:12,930 It's like the Me Too movement. 435 00:24:13,014 --> 00:24:14,891 I would never imagine this in a million years. 436 00:24:14,974 --> 00:24:16,100 Never in a million years. 437 00:24:16,184 --> 00:24:20,521 Being a woman was the same from Eve until, like, eight months ago. 438 00:24:22,190 --> 00:24:25,902 Okay? So, you know, it was the same. 439 00:24:25,985 --> 00:24:30,406 You could talk to anyone, any woman, you know, who's not… 440 00:24:31,032 --> 00:24:35,536 I mean, I suppose even if you're 18, it's changed, you know? 441 00:24:35,620 --> 00:24:37,747 Because it's changed from when you were 12! 442 00:24:38,331 --> 00:24:40,791 People go, "Don't you think there's gonna be backlash on this?" 443 00:24:40,875 --> 00:24:42,293 What do you mean, "going to be"? 444 00:24:43,211 --> 00:24:47,173 Yeah, of course there's a backlash. Yeah, there's definitely a backlash. 445 00:24:47,256 --> 00:24:50,426 "Don't you think maybe this woman is lying?" 446 00:24:50,510 --> 00:24:54,388 And my feeling basically about this is I believe every single woman. 447 00:24:54,472 --> 00:24:55,890 Prove to me she's lying. 448 00:24:56,641 --> 00:24:59,352 I'm sure some people are lying. I'm positive, of course. 449 00:24:59,435 --> 00:25:04,106 But you have to prove that to me, because I was a young woman. Okay? 450 00:25:04,190 --> 00:25:08,694 Anyone who was a girl, who was a young woman, knows what this is about. 451 00:25:08,778 --> 00:25:10,112 It's like what I said before. 452 00:25:10,196 --> 00:25:12,949 You couldn't get a shift as a waitress in a restaurant. 453 00:25:13,032 --> 00:25:14,575 That's what it's about. Okay? 454 00:25:14,659 --> 00:25:19,163 So, you know, I believe these women. 455 00:25:19,247 --> 00:25:22,792 A lot of these guys who got caught, especially at the beginning, 456 00:25:22,875 --> 00:25:24,377 I knew every single one of them! 457 00:25:25,086 --> 00:25:26,671 Personally, I knew them. 458 00:25:26,754 --> 00:25:28,839 I knew a million stories about all these guys, 459 00:25:28,923 --> 00:25:31,759 but not the stories that they got caught with. 460 00:25:31,842 --> 00:25:35,471 Like, there are men accused of violence and rape. 461 00:25:35,555 --> 00:25:36,973 I never heard those stories. 462 00:25:37,056 --> 00:25:40,935 Those are not the kind of stories you hear, as much as, like… 463 00:25:41,018 --> 00:25:45,690 Because even stupid guys don't brag about that kind of stuff, 464 00:25:45,773 --> 00:25:49,193 because even somewhere they know this is a crime. Okay? 465 00:25:49,277 --> 00:25:52,446 There is a difference between a crime and the movie business. 466 00:25:52,947 --> 00:25:55,199 Okay? You could say, "Well, this is the movie business. 467 00:25:55,283 --> 00:25:56,993 This has always been the movie business!" 468 00:25:57,076 --> 00:26:01,372 And my feeling about this always was, "You don't have to be a movie star." 469 00:26:02,456 --> 00:26:05,626 If you want to be a movie star or be a waitress at that restaurant, 470 00:26:05,710 --> 00:26:06,877 that's what you gotta do. 471 00:26:06,961 --> 00:26:10,715 Luckily, I don't want to be a movie star, so, you know, um… 472 00:26:10,798 --> 00:26:13,009 So I believe their stories about those guys 473 00:26:13,092 --> 00:26:17,597 and about the women who wanted to be a movie star so much they did it. 474 00:26:17,680 --> 00:26:21,976 That's not the same thing as rape. It's wrong. It's bad. Okay? 475 00:26:22,059 --> 00:26:24,186 So if that's the movie business, that's one thing, 476 00:26:24,270 --> 00:26:26,272 but if you make beds in a hotel 477 00:26:28,190 --> 00:26:29,317 at $6 an hour, 478 00:26:30,568 --> 00:26:33,154 and the person in charge of your… 479 00:26:33,237 --> 00:26:36,240 not only your life, but the fact that you're probably undocumented. 480 00:26:36,324 --> 00:26:39,243 That person is, like, the janitor on that floor. 481 00:26:41,037 --> 00:26:42,788 That's what the problem is. 482 00:26:42,872 --> 00:26:44,624 Not who's a movie star or not a movie star, 483 00:26:44,707 --> 00:26:46,500 who's a model, who's not a model. 484 00:26:47,168 --> 00:26:50,713 I mean, yes, those things are wrong. Absolutely, they're wrong. 485 00:26:50,796 --> 00:26:54,091 I think, if we hadn't started with that, no one would pay attention. 486 00:26:54,175 --> 00:26:57,303 People pay attention because those people are movie stars. 487 00:26:57,386 --> 00:27:01,349 No one's gonna pay attention to the person who makes beds in hotels. 488 00:27:01,432 --> 00:27:04,435 Of course, there's millions and millions of women in that position, 489 00:27:04,518 --> 00:27:07,063 and, basically, they're hostages, you know? 490 00:27:07,146 --> 00:27:11,400 Um, no, you don't have to be a movie star, but you have to earn a living, you know? 491 00:27:11,484 --> 00:27:13,319 So that is what it's really about. 492 00:27:25,081 --> 00:27:29,794 [Lebowitz] Truthfully, during this entire very dangerous period in the '70s, 493 00:27:30,419 --> 00:27:32,713 nothing really ever happened to me. 494 00:27:33,381 --> 00:27:36,300 You know, once, I got robbed in the street. 495 00:27:37,468 --> 00:27:40,596 I got robbed in the street. You know, I was on Beekman Place. 496 00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:42,264 You know, like, where… 497 00:27:42,348 --> 00:27:44,725 And I tried to talk the guy out of it. 498 00:27:45,434 --> 00:27:48,354 Which now I would think, "That is crazy." 499 00:27:48,437 --> 00:27:50,606 And I had a lot of cash on me. I never did. 500 00:27:50,690 --> 00:27:53,442 Because I borrowed it from a girl who lived on Beekman Place. 501 00:27:53,526 --> 00:27:54,527 I had to pay my rent. 502 00:27:54,610 --> 00:27:57,238 So I never had cash on me. I don't have any now. 503 00:27:57,321 --> 00:28:02,118 Um, and I went to her apartment, she gave it to me so I could pay my rent. 504 00:28:02,201 --> 00:28:06,330 And I go out and this kid stopped me in the street and goes, "Give me your money." 505 00:28:06,872 --> 00:28:10,209 I said, "I don't really have any money." "Give me your money!" So… 506 00:28:10,876 --> 00:28:14,338 I could tell that he was a junkie and so I said, 507 00:28:14,422 --> 00:28:18,008 "Look, I have a lot of money." I thought, "Why am I telling him this?" 508 00:28:18,092 --> 00:28:20,052 "I have a lot of money, but I need the money." 509 00:28:20,553 --> 00:28:22,471 And I'm sure he's thinking… 510 00:28:22,555 --> 00:28:29,061 Like, somehow I imagined that he chose me because he chose Beekman Place 511 00:28:29,145 --> 00:28:31,147 and he thought I lived on Beekman Place. 512 00:28:31,230 --> 00:28:32,565 And I said, "Well… 513 00:28:33,274 --> 00:28:37,486 Could you just take enough to fix with and let me have the rest, because I need…" 514 00:28:37,570 --> 00:28:38,946 And he took the knife out. 515 00:28:39,572 --> 00:28:40,906 And I gave him the money. 516 00:28:41,490 --> 00:28:42,825 You tried to reason with him. 517 00:28:42,908 --> 00:28:45,536 I was trying to retain as much money as possible 518 00:28:45,619 --> 00:28:47,788 since it was not even my money. 519 00:28:47,872 --> 00:28:51,417 He took a knife out, I stopped arguing. That's the only thing that happened to me.