1 00:00:10,802 --> 00:00:12,762 [Lebowitz] My hatred of money is very profound. 2 00:00:12,846 --> 00:00:18,226 However, my problem in regard to this, not my only problem, 3 00:00:18,309 --> 00:00:20,399 is that I love things. 4 00:00:20,478 --> 00:00:23,728 So I hate money, but I love things, right? 5 00:00:23,815 --> 00:00:27,685 So I hate money, but I love furniture. I hate money, but I love cars. 6 00:00:27,777 --> 00:00:29,397 I hate money, but I love clothes. 7 00:00:29,487 --> 00:00:32,277 So hating money is okay if you also hate things, 8 00:00:32,365 --> 00:00:34,695 because then you're the Dalai Lama, you know? 9 00:00:34,784 --> 00:00:36,794 ["Money" playing] 10 00:00:42,917 --> 00:00:45,747 ♪ The best things in life are free ♪ 11 00:00:46,796 --> 00:00:49,506 ♪ But you can give them To the birds and bees ♪ 12 00:00:49,591 --> 00:00:51,261 ♪ I want money ♪ 13 00:00:53,470 --> 00:00:54,600 ♪ That's what I want ♪ 14 00:00:56,973 --> 00:00:58,223 ♪ That's what I want ♪ 15 00:01:00,602 --> 00:01:01,812 ♪ That's what I want ♪ 16 00:01:05,356 --> 00:01:08,146 ♪ Your love gives me such a thrill ♪ 17 00:01:09,027 --> 00:01:11,067 ♪ But your love won't pay my bills ♪ 18 00:01:11,154 --> 00:01:12,414 ♪ I want money ♪ 19 00:01:13,323 --> 00:01:15,283 -[man] Hi, friends. -Hey, what's happening? 20 00:01:15,366 --> 00:01:17,236 We're ready for you to come and take a seat. 21 00:01:17,327 --> 00:01:19,117 [song continues] 22 00:01:19,204 --> 00:01:20,714 ♪ That's what I want ♪ 23 00:01:22,957 --> 00:01:24,207 ♪ That's what I want ♪ 24 00:01:28,046 --> 00:01:30,046 [woman] What advice would you give to yourself 25 00:01:30,131 --> 00:01:32,591 as a 20-something coming to New York now? 26 00:01:32,675 --> 00:01:33,545 Bring money. 27 00:01:34,135 --> 00:01:36,295 [laughter] 28 00:01:37,263 --> 00:01:39,223 Bring money. That's what I would tell you. 29 00:01:39,307 --> 00:01:42,977 Advice to someone coming when I came, you don't need that much money. 30 00:01:43,061 --> 00:01:44,481 [song continues] 31 00:01:45,063 --> 00:01:47,323 ♪ Money don't get everything, it's true… ♪ 32 00:01:48,233 --> 00:01:49,403 [Scorsese] Here we are. 33 00:01:50,193 --> 00:01:51,113 -Okay. -[Griffin] Well… 34 00:01:51,611 --> 00:01:55,821 I don't wanna say anything, but these glasses get more and more mismatched. 35 00:01:55,907 --> 00:01:58,577 But I drink this coffee, and then it goes down and… 36 00:01:59,244 --> 00:02:01,204 [Scorsese] Then we have to redo everything. 37 00:02:01,287 --> 00:02:02,707 [laughs] 38 00:02:04,999 --> 00:02:08,839 It is true that women of my age, when we were children, 39 00:02:08,920 --> 00:02:12,130 were absolutely not raised with the idea that we ever had to think about money. 40 00:02:12,215 --> 00:02:16,545 So, you know, I believe, had I been a boy, 41 00:02:16,636 --> 00:02:22,726 I would not have had this incredible kind of slothful attitude toward money. 42 00:02:22,809 --> 00:02:24,639 Because I wouldn't have been allowed to, 43 00:02:24,727 --> 00:02:28,357 because my father would have been yelling, "Are you crazy? Don't you understand?" 44 00:02:28,439 --> 00:02:30,899 But people very often have said to me, 45 00:02:30,984 --> 00:02:33,534 "Did your parents want you to be a writer?" No. 46 00:02:33,611 --> 00:02:35,701 "Did they try to dissuade you?" No. 47 00:02:35,780 --> 00:02:39,620 "Really? What did they want you to be?" A wife. They wanted me to be a wife. 48 00:02:39,701 --> 00:02:42,411 They assumed I would be a wife. They wanted me to be a wife. 49 00:02:42,495 --> 00:02:44,575 So they never told me anything 50 00:02:44,664 --> 00:02:49,884 or instructed me in anything other than things that would make me be a wife. 51 00:02:49,961 --> 00:02:52,421 And you can see that it didn't work out for them. 52 00:02:52,505 --> 00:02:55,335 But I mean, I think, in a way, 53 00:02:55,425 --> 00:02:58,675 it was not a great thing to be a little girl in the '50s at all, 54 00:02:58,761 --> 00:03:01,391 uh, but the good thing about it 55 00:03:01,472 --> 00:03:05,232 was that they just didn't pay attention to you that much. 56 00:03:05,310 --> 00:03:10,980 I remember very vividly my best friend, uh, 57 00:03:11,065 --> 00:03:15,105 who I am still very close friends with, who lived up the street from me, 58 00:03:15,195 --> 00:03:18,655 I was at her house after school and her father called and said he got a raise 59 00:03:18,740 --> 00:03:21,580 and everyone was very excited, and her mother baked a cake. 60 00:03:21,659 --> 00:03:23,119 I didn't know what a raise was. 61 00:03:23,203 --> 00:03:25,833 So I came home, and I asked my mother, "What is a raise?" 62 00:03:25,914 --> 00:03:30,134 She said, "That's when you make more money each week," or whatever. 63 00:03:30,627 --> 00:03:34,667 And I said, "Well, so-and-so got a raise, and now he makes…" 64 00:03:35,423 --> 00:03:40,013 I remember the amount. $300 a week. It was much more than my father made. 65 00:03:40,094 --> 00:03:42,854 So I realize in retrospect. Um… 66 00:03:43,598 --> 00:03:46,848 I said, "How much does Daddy make?" My mother slapped me in the face. 67 00:03:46,935 --> 00:03:48,095 [Scorsese laughs] 68 00:03:48,186 --> 00:03:52,106 She was so… "Don't you ever talk about money. 69 00:03:52,190 --> 00:03:57,610 It is very rude, and don't you ever ask anyone how much money they make." 70 00:03:57,695 --> 00:04:01,405 And I never talked about money again. So, hence, I have none. 71 00:04:01,491 --> 00:04:04,661 And I was once in my accountant's office, 72 00:04:04,744 --> 00:04:09,174 and, finally, he looked at me and he said, "Let me explain something to you. 73 00:04:09,249 --> 00:04:11,919 You have to talk to me about money. I'm your accountant." 74 00:04:12,418 --> 00:04:15,758 Because I kept saying, "I don't think I should tell you that." 75 00:04:16,339 --> 00:04:18,419 He'd ask me, "How much are you getting for this?" 76 00:04:18,508 --> 00:04:21,798 I said, "I don't think that's something I feel like discussing with you." 77 00:04:22,303 --> 00:04:26,183 "Who are you?" And now, of course, people talk about money nonstop. 78 00:04:26,266 --> 00:04:29,096 -[Scorsese] Yeah. -But also, I still always say, you know, 79 00:04:29,185 --> 00:04:31,555 if I know how much money someone makes for something 80 00:04:31,646 --> 00:04:34,606 or how much their apartment costs, it's because they told me, 81 00:04:34,691 --> 00:04:37,401 which people do all the time. I would never ask anyone that. 82 00:04:37,485 --> 00:04:41,445 You know, but people talk about money all the time now, 83 00:04:41,531 --> 00:04:46,451 as if it was some riveting topic of conversation, which it is not. 84 00:04:48,955 --> 00:04:54,375 [in French] I want to say that I am taxed 74%, yes? 85 00:04:54,877 --> 00:04:56,627 I would like to show you what remains. 86 00:04:57,964 --> 00:05:00,724 -This is illegal, what I’m going to do. -[host] It’s illegal. 87 00:05:00,800 --> 00:05:05,350 If they throw me in jail, I don't care. At least I'll be on a diet. 88 00:05:05,430 --> 00:05:07,470 Here, I’ll show you what I have left. 89 00:05:09,183 --> 00:05:12,983 I’ll stop at 74%. 90 00:05:14,105 --> 00:05:16,065 Quit messing around. 91 00:05:16,607 --> 00:05:18,527 Because this is not for the poor. 92 00:05:18,609 --> 00:05:21,569 This is for the nuclear, and all the… 93 00:05:21,654 --> 00:05:23,614 [host] You realize you're provoking lots of people. 94 00:05:23,698 --> 00:05:25,868 [man] Listen, this is my money. I couldn't care less. 95 00:05:25,950 --> 00:05:28,950 When I first came to New York, my father gave me $200. 96 00:05:29,037 --> 00:05:30,827 Probably the most money I ever had in my life. 97 00:05:30,913 --> 00:05:33,623 I guess I thought, "$200, I guess I'm set for life." 98 00:05:33,708 --> 00:05:36,128 -[Scorsese laughs] -You know, um… 99 00:05:36,210 --> 00:05:38,090 I was a cab driver. 100 00:05:38,171 --> 00:05:41,051 I was a driver, a chauffeur for people. 101 00:05:41,132 --> 00:05:44,262 Um, I was a cleaning lady. I was a peddler. 102 00:05:44,802 --> 00:05:48,352 I sold belts in the street. I would get… 103 00:05:49,432 --> 00:05:53,692 The Village Voice. I would work at least five days a week and sometimes six. 104 00:05:53,770 --> 00:05:55,270 But I never worked on Wednesdays, 105 00:05:55,355 --> 00:05:57,975 because Wednesdays was the day The Village Voice came out. 106 00:05:58,483 --> 00:06:01,493 So I'd go to Sheridan Square and get The Village Voice, 107 00:06:01,569 --> 00:06:04,909 and The Village Voice had… All newspapers did, actually. 108 00:06:04,989 --> 00:06:07,239 But that's where all the help wanted ads were. 109 00:06:07,325 --> 00:06:08,655 And I would always think… 110 00:06:09,160 --> 00:06:11,080 Because I always hated whatever job I had. 111 00:06:11,162 --> 00:06:15,752 So I'd think, "Next week, I'm gonna get a better job that I don't hate as much." 112 00:06:16,709 --> 00:06:20,379 At some point, I realized, "Fran, you just don't like to work." 113 00:06:20,880 --> 00:06:22,840 You know? It's not just… 114 00:06:22,924 --> 00:06:25,434 This is a bad job, yes, anyone would think this is a bad job, 115 00:06:25,510 --> 00:06:28,100 but, I mean, frankly, I don't really like to work and so… 116 00:06:28,179 --> 00:06:32,639 I really like to lie on the sofa and read, which is not a profession. 117 00:06:32,725 --> 00:06:37,935 No one pays you for it. Because if they did, this would be my house. So… 118 00:06:38,022 --> 00:06:39,072 [Scorsese laughs] 119 00:06:39,649 --> 00:06:44,319 But I also very much avoided the job all of my friends had, 120 00:06:44,404 --> 00:06:45,864 which was waiting tables. 121 00:06:45,947 --> 00:06:49,527 So all of the girls I knew who had to work… I knew some girls who didn't. 122 00:06:49,617 --> 00:06:51,787 They waited tables and… 123 00:06:52,578 --> 00:06:54,368 Like 100%, I would say, did. 124 00:06:54,455 --> 00:06:59,665 And my friends would say to me, "Why are you cleaning apartments instead of… 125 00:06:59,752 --> 00:07:03,712 Come work where I'm working. You make more money, you know. 126 00:07:03,798 --> 00:07:07,758 It's less, you know, arduous physically, for sure." 127 00:07:07,844 --> 00:07:13,894 Um, and, you know, I would say… Let me put it to you this way. 128 00:07:13,975 --> 00:07:18,265 The people who hired waitresses were men. Okay? The managers were men. 129 00:07:18,354 --> 00:07:20,904 You could not get a shift as a waitress in a restaurant 130 00:07:20,982 --> 00:07:22,862 without sleeping with a manager, okay? 131 00:07:22,942 --> 00:07:25,452 That's what all this stuff is about. It's not about romance. 132 00:07:25,528 --> 00:07:26,528 It's not about dating. 133 00:07:26,612 --> 00:07:29,912 It's not about, you know, flirting or not flirting. 134 00:07:29,991 --> 00:07:34,621 It's about, for instance, for Fran, as a young girl, it's just about working. 135 00:07:34,704 --> 00:07:37,374 Okay? And that's how you got a job as a waitress. 136 00:07:37,457 --> 00:07:41,917 There was a restaurant that people wanted to work in where the manager was gay. 137 00:07:42,003 --> 00:07:44,553 The guy was gay. The guy's gay! Everyone went to, like… 138 00:07:44,630 --> 00:07:45,970 -[Scorsese laughs] -[coughs] 139 00:07:46,048 --> 00:07:49,218 Of course, he only hired waiters, and they also had to sleep with him. 140 00:07:49,302 --> 00:07:50,602 So… You know? 141 00:07:51,429 --> 00:07:54,849 New York, everyone has this idea that New York used to be cheap, you know? 142 00:07:54,932 --> 00:07:58,392 It was always more expensive than any place else, you know. 143 00:07:58,478 --> 00:07:59,598 So if I tell someone, 144 00:07:59,687 --> 00:08:03,067 "This was my apartment on West Fourth Street in 1970. 145 00:08:03,149 --> 00:08:05,609 It was $121.78 a month," 146 00:08:05,693 --> 00:08:08,243 people go, "Ah! That's unbelievable!" 147 00:08:08,321 --> 00:08:10,361 It was expensive! 148 00:08:10,448 --> 00:08:12,908 In other words, most of my friends lived in the East Village. 149 00:08:12,992 --> 00:08:16,792 They would say, "You are crazy to spend all this money on one room. 150 00:08:16,871 --> 00:08:19,621 If you lived in my neighborhood on Avenue C, 151 00:08:19,707 --> 00:08:21,457 you could have four rooms for this." 152 00:08:21,542 --> 00:08:23,712 I would always say, "Yeah, but I don't get raped." 153 00:08:23,794 --> 00:08:25,844 -[laughter] -Okay? 154 00:08:25,922 --> 00:08:28,302 Which I always felt was worth the extra money. 155 00:08:28,382 --> 00:08:30,802 -It's worth it. It's worth it. -You know? 156 00:08:30,885 --> 00:08:33,675 I'm not a spendthrift, but there's certain things you pay for. 157 00:08:33,763 --> 00:08:37,683 And so it was overpriced. It was a horrible apartment. 158 00:08:37,767 --> 00:08:39,847 It was overpriced, but it was much safer. 159 00:08:39,936 --> 00:08:44,936 The first big check I ever got, I didn't have a bank account. 160 00:08:45,024 --> 00:08:49,364 I got this huge check, like $100,000. I didn't know what to do with it. 161 00:08:50,029 --> 00:08:52,109 I literally… Here's what I did with checks. 162 00:08:52,198 --> 00:08:57,408 I would get the check, which would be more along the lines of $100, 163 00:08:57,954 --> 00:09:00,674 and then I would go across the street to the delicatessen, 164 00:09:01,165 --> 00:09:02,875 and I would say to the guy, 165 00:09:02,959 --> 00:09:07,169 "Could you take a roast beef sandwich out of this and cash the check?" 166 00:09:07,255 --> 00:09:08,295 And they would. 167 00:09:08,381 --> 00:09:11,881 So I had this vision of myself walking in to the delicatessen, 168 00:09:11,968 --> 00:09:14,798 asking them to take a roast beef sandwich out of this. 169 00:09:15,263 --> 00:09:19,143 I actually, I would have to say, was frightened of this check. 170 00:09:19,809 --> 00:09:22,769 And I didn't have any sense of how much money this was, 171 00:09:22,853 --> 00:09:26,113 except it seemed to me like an insane amount of money. 172 00:09:26,190 --> 00:09:30,030 So I think that when I first made money, I was quite frightened by it. 173 00:09:30,528 --> 00:09:32,448 I mean quite frightened by it. 174 00:09:32,530 --> 00:09:36,910 I mean, it seemed like an amazing thing to me, but it also… 175 00:09:36,993 --> 00:09:39,123 There's never been a time in my life that I can think of 176 00:09:39,203 --> 00:09:41,003 when I was thrilled by money. 177 00:09:41,497 --> 00:09:43,077 It was not… I didn't think… [gasps] 178 00:09:43,165 --> 00:09:46,165 I never thought that. Money never does that for me. 179 00:09:46,252 --> 00:09:49,302 One of the things it takes to make a lot of money is loving money. 180 00:09:49,880 --> 00:09:53,220 You know, really loving it. Really caring about it. 181 00:09:53,301 --> 00:09:56,511 I always say the same thing. There's two kinds of people in the world. 182 00:09:56,596 --> 00:09:59,466 The kind of people who think there's such a thing as enough money 183 00:09:59,557 --> 00:10:01,267 and the kind of people who have money. 184 00:10:02,143 --> 00:10:03,393 And it's as simple as that. 185 00:10:03,477 --> 00:10:06,557 So, yes, for me, there is enough money. 186 00:10:06,647 --> 00:10:08,857 I've definitely had periods where there was enough money. 187 00:10:08,941 --> 00:10:12,361 And my idea of enough money was I could pay for everything that I had. 188 00:10:12,445 --> 00:10:13,275 [Scorsese] Mh-hmm. 189 00:10:13,362 --> 00:10:14,822 I was trying to get a mortgage once, 190 00:10:14,905 --> 00:10:19,075 and I was talking to the person at Merrill Lynch, the broker, 191 00:10:19,160 --> 00:10:21,830 who was looking at my stuff while I was on the phone, 192 00:10:21,912 --> 00:10:26,752 and she said, "May I ask you a question?" I said, "May you ask me a question? 193 00:10:26,834 --> 00:10:29,674 You're looking at my tax returns for the last five minutes. 194 00:10:29,754 --> 00:10:32,514 It's like you're in my sock drawer. You know? 195 00:10:32,590 --> 00:10:34,840 You know more about me than I do. 196 00:10:34,925 --> 00:10:36,715 Yes, you may ask me a question." 197 00:10:36,802 --> 00:10:39,182 She said, "Why is your income so erratic?" 198 00:10:39,764 --> 00:10:44,484 And I said, "Well, I'm a writer." She said, "A writer?" [scoffs] 199 00:10:44,560 --> 00:10:45,390 [Scorsese] Oh, God. 200 00:10:45,478 --> 00:10:47,398 That's why writers never get a mortgage. 201 00:10:47,480 --> 00:10:49,480 [dramatic music playing] 202 00:11:07,124 --> 00:11:10,714 There are apartments that cost $20 million in New York, or a lot more. 203 00:11:10,795 --> 00:11:11,915 That wasn't always true. 204 00:11:12,004 --> 00:11:15,684 Because when you think about it, how could an apartment cost $20 million? 205 00:11:15,758 --> 00:11:17,088 What does that even mean? 206 00:11:17,760 --> 00:11:20,470 What does it mean, an apartment costs $20 million? 207 00:11:20,554 --> 00:11:22,144 It's a ridiculous amount of money! 208 00:11:22,223 --> 00:11:25,023 These amounts of money are stupid and people get used to them. 209 00:11:25,101 --> 00:11:28,271 I thought, after a year of looking at apartments, 210 00:11:28,354 --> 00:11:33,484 during which the prices were going up by the hour… Okay? 211 00:11:33,567 --> 00:11:35,107 First of all, the prices were stupid. 212 00:11:35,194 --> 00:11:37,824 Then you would go Monday to look at an apartment. 213 00:11:38,322 --> 00:11:40,452 You would go to look at  the same apartment Wednesday. 214 00:11:40,533 --> 00:11:41,953 It was $50,000 more. 215 00:11:42,034 --> 00:11:45,664 I would say, "I looked at this apartment on Monday. Why is it $50,000 more?" 216 00:11:45,746 --> 00:11:48,246 "The market's going up. Better buy it now." 217 00:11:48,749 --> 00:11:51,539 "I don't really like it." "Doesn't mean you shouldn't buy it." 218 00:11:51,627 --> 00:11:55,417 You know, within a few apartments, 219 00:11:55,506 --> 00:11:59,046 the real estate agent will say, "Why do you need such a big apartment?" 220 00:11:59,135 --> 00:12:01,505 They will say, "Do you entertain a lot?" 221 00:12:01,595 --> 00:12:04,885 This is the first idea. "So you must give a lot of parties?" 222 00:12:05,391 --> 00:12:09,481 I would say, "No. No one gives fewer parties than me. No one. 223 00:12:10,521 --> 00:12:13,941 Really. The Ayatollah Khomeini gave more parties than I do. 224 00:12:14,024 --> 00:12:18,204 So, no, I don't entertain. Not only not a lot. At all." 225 00:12:18,279 --> 00:12:23,279 So, "What do you need all this room for?" "Well, I have 10,000 books." 226 00:12:24,493 --> 00:12:27,043 After a certain number of apartments, 227 00:12:28,038 --> 00:12:29,118 when I keep saying, 228 00:12:29,206 --> 00:12:31,536 "This is too expensive, this is too expensive," 229 00:12:31,625 --> 00:12:35,295 they say, "You can't afford an apartment big enough for your books," 230 00:12:35,379 --> 00:12:36,339 which I already knew. 231 00:12:36,839 --> 00:12:38,919 I knew before I called them. They didn't know. 232 00:12:39,008 --> 00:12:41,428 It took them a while to know it, but I already knew that. 233 00:12:41,510 --> 00:12:44,310 And so after, I believe, looking at 100 apartments, 234 00:12:44,388 --> 00:12:46,098 I looked at about 100 apartments, 235 00:12:46,182 --> 00:12:49,602 I guess I just felt like I'd put in enough suffering, 236 00:12:49,685 --> 00:12:50,845 "Give me an apartment." 237 00:12:50,936 --> 00:12:51,896 I bought an apartment 238 00:12:51,979 --> 00:12:55,069 approximately three times the price I could pay for an apartment. 239 00:12:55,149 --> 00:12:56,779 I would like to win the lottery. 240 00:12:57,276 --> 00:13:00,066 In fact, at this point, I actually need to win the lottery. 241 00:13:00,154 --> 00:13:04,664 So, I mean, it's gone past the point of just desire, 242 00:13:04,742 --> 00:13:08,082 and we're now at absolute need. 243 00:13:08,162 --> 00:13:10,792 Do you go to those places and get those forms or whatever? 244 00:13:10,873 --> 00:13:14,593 Um, I play the lottery every week, 245 00:13:14,668 --> 00:13:19,758 and one time, several years ago, I won $1,200 in the lottery. 246 00:13:20,341 --> 00:13:21,381 -Wow. -Right? 247 00:13:21,467 --> 00:13:24,257 If you win more than $600, you have to go to the lotto office, 248 00:13:24,345 --> 00:13:25,755 which, at the time that I won, 249 00:13:25,846 --> 00:13:31,226 is right in the neighborhood of that other big casino, the New York Stock Exchange. 250 00:13:31,310 --> 00:13:32,690 -[laughter] -[laughs] Oh, yes. 251 00:13:32,770 --> 00:13:35,690 So I get to this lotto office, 252 00:13:35,773 --> 00:13:39,653 and I'm standing in line, and there's other lotto winners. 253 00:13:39,735 --> 00:13:46,115 And the guy in front of me goes to the desk and gives in his ticket, 254 00:13:46,200 --> 00:13:49,080 and the woman behind the desk says to him, 255 00:13:49,161 --> 00:13:53,331 "All right, sir, we're gonna send you your check in about two weeks." 256 00:13:53,415 --> 00:13:55,665 And the guy goes, "No, no, I want it now." 257 00:13:56,585 --> 00:13:59,375 She said, "No, we're gonna send it to you in about two weeks." 258 00:13:59,463 --> 00:14:02,803 He said, "No, I don't want you to send it. I want you to give it to me now." 259 00:14:02,883 --> 00:14:07,143 She said, "That's not how we do it, and you'll get the check in about two weeks." 260 00:14:07,221 --> 00:14:10,811 And he said, "You don't understand. I need this money now." 261 00:14:10,891 --> 00:14:14,271 And she said, "You don't understand. You're not getting it now. Next." 262 00:14:14,353 --> 00:14:18,483 And he said, "You don't understand. I was counting on this money to pay my rent. 263 00:14:19,316 --> 00:14:20,856 What am I supposed to do now? 264 00:14:20,943 --> 00:14:23,323 She said, "Why don't you do whatever else you were gonna do 265 00:14:23,404 --> 00:14:25,364 on the off chance you didn't win the lottery." 266 00:14:25,447 --> 00:14:27,447 [laughter] 267 00:14:29,034 --> 00:14:31,664 -So now I'm this guy. -Yeah. Yeah. 268 00:14:31,745 --> 00:14:33,455 So I need to win the lottery. 269 00:14:33,998 --> 00:14:37,588 If I was asking myself, "What can you pay for an apartment?" 270 00:14:37,668 --> 00:14:40,878 I would have told you a third of what I paid for this apartment. 271 00:14:40,963 --> 00:14:43,633 People kept saying, "When are the prices gonna go down?" 272 00:14:43,716 --> 00:14:47,756 And I kept saying, "Just wait. Wait till I close on this apartment." 273 00:14:47,845 --> 00:14:48,675 [Scorsese laughs] 274 00:14:48,762 --> 00:14:53,432 Okay? And then I closed on the apartment, and the prices started going down. 275 00:14:53,517 --> 00:14:56,647 I am the harbinger of bad real estate decisions. 276 00:14:56,729 --> 00:14:58,559 [laughter] 277 00:14:58,647 --> 00:15:01,187 I am Buy High, Sell Low Lebowitz. 278 00:15:02,026 --> 00:15:04,776 So, I mean, there is… 279 00:15:04,862 --> 00:15:09,032 I'm the only person I know, truthfully, who's lived in New York as long as I have 280 00:15:09,116 --> 00:15:12,036 who has never made a correct real estate decision. 281 00:15:13,454 --> 00:15:14,504 Never. Not one time. 282 00:15:14,580 --> 00:15:19,710 And the only thing that calms me down at all about it is to remind myself 283 00:15:19,793 --> 00:15:23,093 that I did not come to New York at 18 to go into the real estate business. 284 00:15:23,172 --> 00:15:25,342 I think I've proven that I'm not going into it. 285 00:15:25,424 --> 00:15:29,264 So some young guy said to me last year, "I don't understand. 286 00:15:29,345 --> 00:15:32,215 Everyone your age already found their apartment years ago. They paid--" 287 00:15:32,306 --> 00:15:34,516 I said, "Yeah, everyone but me." 288 00:15:34,600 --> 00:15:36,520 [Scorsese] You were on 57th Street a long time. 289 00:15:36,602 --> 00:15:38,562 A long time. See, that apartment… 290 00:15:38,646 --> 00:15:40,766 I owned that apartment for a long time, and that was… 291 00:15:40,856 --> 00:15:42,436 -I lived there for-- -The one on-- 292 00:15:42,524 --> 00:15:44,994 The Osborne. I lived there for 26 years. 293 00:15:45,069 --> 00:15:50,069 When I was young, I mean like 21, I went to a party in that building. 294 00:15:51,158 --> 00:15:54,328 And I'd never been in the building. I'd never heard of it. 295 00:15:54,411 --> 00:15:55,961 I couldn't get over the apartment. 296 00:15:56,038 --> 00:15:58,498 And still, by the way, the apartment that I went to the party in 297 00:15:58,582 --> 00:16:01,382 was one of two or three apartments in the building like that. 298 00:16:01,460 --> 00:16:04,300 My apartment wasn't like that. And it was just… 299 00:16:04,797 --> 00:16:07,257 I mean, it was spectacular. 300 00:16:07,758 --> 00:16:11,508 It's a beautiful 19th century building. The oldest apartment building in New York. 301 00:16:11,595 --> 00:16:15,515 And I thought, "I would like to live in a place like this." 302 00:16:15,599 --> 00:16:18,479 It was a nightmare living there. There would be one problem after another. 303 00:16:18,560 --> 00:16:20,730 The building was falling apart because it was so old. 304 00:16:20,813 --> 00:16:24,903 There was always construction. There was one huge problem after another. 305 00:16:24,984 --> 00:16:26,824 I never left there, 306 00:16:26,902 --> 00:16:29,742 because I knew I would never have such a beautiful apartment again. 307 00:16:29,822 --> 00:16:32,952 And finally, one day, I actually said to myself, 308 00:16:33,033 --> 00:16:38,873 "Fran, you are like one of these women who's married to a guy who beats her up 309 00:16:38,956 --> 00:16:42,126 and her friends keep saying, 'You have to leave him. He beats you up,' 310 00:16:42,209 --> 00:16:44,129 and she says, 'But he's so handsome.' 311 00:16:44,211 --> 00:16:47,671 They say, 'But he beats you up,' and she says, 'But he's so handsome.'" 312 00:16:47,756 --> 00:16:50,296 And so finally I realized this was me with my apartment! 313 00:16:50,384 --> 00:16:53,054 That I kept saying, "Yes, he beats me up, but he's so handsome!" 314 00:16:53,137 --> 00:16:55,427 I finally thought, "You know what? He beats you up. Leave." 315 00:16:55,931 --> 00:17:01,651 So I've come to understand that my greed for apartments 316 00:17:01,729 --> 00:17:04,819 and furniture and things like that is so intense 317 00:17:04,898 --> 00:17:10,988 that, even though I feel very, very worried about having done this, 318 00:17:11,947 --> 00:17:16,037 I feel less worried than I do happy to be having this swell apartment. 319 00:17:16,118 --> 00:17:18,118 [all laugh] 320 00:17:18,746 --> 00:17:22,996 So this has made me feel the most American that I've ever felt in my life. 321 00:17:23,500 --> 00:17:25,750 I feel I've joined my fellow Americans 322 00:17:25,836 --> 00:17:30,716 in being in psychotic debt for no reason at all. 323 00:17:30,799 --> 00:17:32,129 In other words, I can't say, 324 00:17:32,217 --> 00:17:34,637 "What can I do? My daughter was very sick." Okay? 325 00:17:34,720 --> 00:17:37,720 Everyone is sympathetic to that. But who's sympathetic to this? 326 00:17:37,806 --> 00:17:41,516 "Why shouldn't I have a 20 million square foot apartment? You know? 327 00:17:41,602 --> 00:17:44,652 I'm tired of not having this!" Because that's really what it is. 328 00:17:54,323 --> 00:17:56,283 [Griffin] It looks like you're in another world. 329 00:17:56,867 --> 00:17:58,787 [Lebowitz] I am. [chuckles] 330 00:18:01,371 --> 00:18:03,921 [Griffin] What makes a model citizen of New York? 331 00:18:03,999 --> 00:18:05,499 You have to oppose things 332 00:18:05,584 --> 00:18:10,384 that are promoted by many of the people who run New York, 333 00:18:10,464 --> 00:18:13,094 because you have to understand why they're promoting them. 334 00:18:13,175 --> 00:18:14,585 They're promoting them so that-- 335 00:18:14,676 --> 00:18:17,346 They always say it's so money comes into the city. 336 00:18:17,429 --> 00:18:21,599 Money comes into the city to whom? To whom does it come in the city? 337 00:18:21,683 --> 00:18:24,523 It doesn't come to me. It doesn't come to you. 338 00:18:24,603 --> 00:18:26,653 Because we don't own any of these things. 339 00:18:27,231 --> 00:18:29,151 There was a period, I think in the '80s, 340 00:18:29,233 --> 00:18:31,363 where they were trying to tear down Lever House 341 00:18:31,443 --> 00:18:33,953 and I was in a restaurant with Jerry Robbins, 342 00:18:34,029 --> 00:18:38,949 and a man came to our table and asked us to sign a petition. 343 00:18:39,034 --> 00:18:42,374 "Would you sign this petition to keep them from tearing down Lever House?" 344 00:18:42,454 --> 00:18:45,374 So I signed it. Jerry signed it. The man left. 345 00:18:45,457 --> 00:18:48,377 Jerry looked at me and goes, "You know, I'm pretty sure I signed a petition 346 00:18:48,460 --> 00:18:50,170 to keep them from putting up Lever House." 347 00:18:50,254 --> 00:18:51,174 [Scorsese laughs] 348 00:18:51,255 --> 00:18:53,545 To me, that is the story of New York. 349 00:18:54,800 --> 00:18:56,800 [upbeat music playing] 350 00:19:08,147 --> 00:19:11,727 I'm pretty sure that when they put up Lever House on Park Avenue after the war, 351 00:19:11,817 --> 00:19:15,947 there were a lot of houses on Park Avenue still, and so they took the houses down. 352 00:19:16,029 --> 00:19:17,569 [music continues] 353 00:19:21,076 --> 00:19:23,076 [tempo increases] 354 00:19:32,379 --> 00:19:34,549 [Lebowitz] The great thing about Grand Central Station, 355 00:19:34,631 --> 00:19:38,761 the reason it's so beautiful, is because one person built it. 356 00:19:39,428 --> 00:19:43,268 And that person, luckily, was someone who knew how to build a building. 357 00:19:43,348 --> 00:19:48,768 Because, I mean, a building that size now would never be built by a single person. 358 00:19:48,854 --> 00:19:50,524 There will not be a single sensibility. 359 00:19:50,606 --> 00:19:53,106 It was his money, and he just poured the money into it. 360 00:19:58,322 --> 00:20:02,202 What's amazing about the Chrysler Building is the detail and how beautiful it is. 361 00:20:02,284 --> 00:20:05,254 At the moment, apparently, it's for sale, I believe. 362 00:20:05,746 --> 00:20:07,246 Not that I'm about to buy it. 363 00:20:07,998 --> 00:20:10,878 To me, it's the perfect size for a house for one. 364 00:20:17,716 --> 00:20:19,376 The skyscraper was invented here. 365 00:20:19,885 --> 00:20:24,095 The world was completely awestruck by our skyscrapers. 366 00:20:24,181 --> 00:20:25,521 Empire State Building. 367 00:20:25,599 --> 00:20:28,439 Everyone loved the Empire State Building. 368 00:20:29,019 --> 00:20:31,979 But also some people envied the Empire State Building. 369 00:20:32,064 --> 00:20:35,864 Um, and so in certain parts of the world, 370 00:20:35,943 --> 00:20:38,453 like, for instance, the Gulf States, 371 00:20:38,528 --> 00:20:44,908 they built these horrible, tall buildings in the middle of deserts, 372 00:20:44,993 --> 00:20:48,003 and then we copied them! 373 00:20:48,914 --> 00:20:51,544 So now 57th Street looks… 374 00:20:52,042 --> 00:20:54,672 I mean, it doesn't look like the Gulf States, 375 00:20:54,753 --> 00:20:56,383 but, you know, those buildings. 376 00:20:56,463 --> 00:21:01,223 Now, I don't really believe that there's any profound aesthetic reason 377 00:21:01,301 --> 00:21:03,391 why a very tall building cannot also be beautiful. 378 00:21:03,470 --> 00:21:06,350 New York in general was never a particularly beautiful city. 379 00:21:06,431 --> 00:21:10,191 It was never Paris, you know. It was never Florence. 380 00:21:10,269 --> 00:21:16,649 But, um, it is now a city that… 381 00:21:17,150 --> 00:21:20,320 At least it was original, in other words. 382 00:21:20,404 --> 00:21:25,414 Now, 57th Street looks like one of these Gulf States, 383 00:21:25,492 --> 00:21:27,452 except it's a real place. 384 00:21:27,536 --> 00:21:28,576 It's 57th Street. 385 00:21:35,419 --> 00:21:38,379 It reminds me, in a way, of Ralph Lauren's clothes. 386 00:21:38,964 --> 00:21:40,384 When Ralph Lauren started, 387 00:21:40,465 --> 00:21:44,675 what he really did was he copied Brooks Brothers clothes. 388 00:21:45,846 --> 00:21:49,096 People who bought Brooks Brothers clothes were a certain kind of person. 389 00:21:49,182 --> 00:21:50,812 They were basically WASPs. 390 00:21:50,892 --> 00:21:53,402 And Fran, but basically WASPs. 391 00:21:53,478 --> 00:21:56,398 When Ralph Lauren started making his clothes, 392 00:21:56,481 --> 00:22:00,491 he copied these clothes, but he made them a little different. 393 00:22:00,569 --> 00:22:01,899 Like, Brooks Brothers shirts, 394 00:22:01,987 --> 00:22:05,067 before they ruined the shirt department, which was many years ago, 395 00:22:05,157 --> 00:22:07,487 a Brooks Brothers shirt really didn't fit anyone. 396 00:22:07,576 --> 00:22:10,076 It's not that they just didn't fit me. They fit no one. 397 00:22:10,162 --> 00:22:12,712 Because those people didn't want their clothes to fit. 398 00:22:12,789 --> 00:22:15,039 Clothes that fit, they were for other people. 399 00:22:15,125 --> 00:22:18,085 There was something a little, mm… 400 00:22:19,046 --> 00:22:21,006 ambitious about clothes that fit. 401 00:22:21,089 --> 00:22:23,469 Ralph Lauren, not actually being one of those people, 402 00:22:23,550 --> 00:22:26,140 didn't realize that clothes aren't supposed to fit, 403 00:22:26,219 --> 00:22:32,599 by which I mean they were more like clothes that not-WASPs wore. 404 00:22:33,518 --> 00:22:37,608 To me, the amazing thing was that, after a while, 405 00:22:37,689 --> 00:22:40,479 the WASPs who always wore Brooks Brothers clothes 406 00:22:40,567 --> 00:22:42,317 started buying Ralph Lauren's clothes. 407 00:22:42,819 --> 00:22:46,279 The actual people that he was copying 408 00:22:46,365 --> 00:22:49,235 started buying them, despite knowing they weren't the real clothes. 409 00:22:49,326 --> 00:22:51,446 I don't know why they did this. 410 00:22:51,536 --> 00:22:53,706 I wasn't one of those WASPs or one of these WASPs. 411 00:22:53,789 --> 00:22:55,789 But, to me, I found this astonishing. 412 00:22:55,874 --> 00:22:58,794 To me, this is exactly the same thing 413 00:22:58,877 --> 00:23:02,207 as the skyscrapers that were copied by Dubai, 414 00:23:02,297 --> 00:23:03,837 and now we copied them back. 415 00:23:10,764 --> 00:23:15,144 I was born in 1950. At the end of 1950, so I'm younger than you think. 416 00:23:15,227 --> 00:23:20,227 Um, but I always felt that was lucky. Especially for a writer. 417 00:23:20,315 --> 00:23:22,815 There were very bad things about the '50s. 418 00:23:22,901 --> 00:23:25,491 There were horrible things about the '50s and the '60s. 419 00:23:25,570 --> 00:23:32,330 But it gave me a view of the entire last half of the 20th century, you know, 420 00:23:32,411 --> 00:23:34,251 which I always find to be a very lucky thing, 421 00:23:34,329 --> 00:23:37,169 even from just the point of the pleasure of observation. 422 00:23:37,666 --> 00:23:40,206 I mean my own pleasure in observing. 423 00:23:40,293 --> 00:23:44,463 I mean, there's certain things that I never expected to improve. 424 00:23:45,507 --> 00:23:47,967 That never would have occurred to me. Okay? 425 00:23:48,051 --> 00:23:50,551 Starting in the '70s, people started talking about gay rights. 426 00:23:50,637 --> 00:23:52,057 It seemed ridiculous to me. 427 00:23:52,139 --> 00:23:54,889 Ridiculous. Young people now often thank me. 428 00:23:55,392 --> 00:23:57,642 "I know you were such an activist for gay rights." 429 00:23:57,727 --> 00:24:00,607 I was not an activist for gay rights. I always tell them that. 430 00:24:00,689 --> 00:24:03,649 I say, "No, I wasn't." First of all, I've never been an activist. 431 00:24:03,733 --> 00:24:06,533 Second of all… Not what you really call an activist. 432 00:24:06,611 --> 00:24:08,821 I'm not that self-sacrificing, let me assure you. 433 00:24:09,322 --> 00:24:11,322 But I also never thought it would work. 434 00:24:11,408 --> 00:24:12,908 It's like the Me Too movement. 435 00:24:12,993 --> 00:24:14,873 I would never imagine this in a million years. 436 00:24:14,953 --> 00:24:16,083 Never in a million years. 437 00:24:16,163 --> 00:24:20,503 Being a woman was the same from Eve until, like, eight months ago. 438 00:24:22,169 --> 00:24:25,879 Okay? So, you know, it was the same. 439 00:24:25,964 --> 00:24:30,394 You could talk to anyone, any woman, you know, who's not… 440 00:24:31,011 --> 00:24:35,521 I mean, I suppose even if you're 18, it's changed, you know? 441 00:24:35,599 --> 00:24:37,729 Because it's changed from when you were 12! 442 00:24:38,310 --> 00:24:40,770 People go, "Don't you think there's gonna be backlash on this?" 443 00:24:40,854 --> 00:24:42,274 What do you mean, "going to be"? 444 00:24:43,190 --> 00:24:47,150 Yeah, of course there's a backlash. Yeah, there's definitely a backlash. 445 00:24:47,235 --> 00:24:50,405 "Don't you think maybe this woman is lying?" 446 00:24:50,489 --> 00:24:54,369 And my feeling basically about this is I believe every single woman. 447 00:24:54,451 --> 00:24:55,871 Prove to me she's lying. 448 00:24:56,620 --> 00:24:59,330 I'm sure some people are lying. I'm positive, of course. 449 00:24:59,414 --> 00:25:04,094 But you have to prove that to me, because I was a young woman. Okay? 450 00:25:04,169 --> 00:25:08,669 Anyone who was a girl, who was a young woman, knows what this is about. 451 00:25:08,757 --> 00:25:10,087 It's like what I said before. 452 00:25:10,175 --> 00:25:12,925 You couldn't get a shift as a waitress in a restaurant. 453 00:25:13,011 --> 00:25:14,551 That's what it's about. Okay? 454 00:25:14,638 --> 00:25:19,138 So, you know, I believe these women. 455 00:25:19,226 --> 00:25:22,766 A lot of these guys who got caught, especially at the beginning, 456 00:25:22,854 --> 00:25:24,364 I knew every single one of them! 457 00:25:25,065 --> 00:25:26,645 Personally, I knew them. 458 00:25:26,733 --> 00:25:28,823 I knew a million stories about all these guys, 459 00:25:28,902 --> 00:25:31,742 but not the stories that they got caught with. 460 00:25:31,821 --> 00:25:35,451 Like, there are men accused of violence and rape. 461 00:25:35,534 --> 00:25:36,954 I never heard those stories. 462 00:25:37,035 --> 00:25:40,905 Those are not the kind of stories you hear, as much as, like… 463 00:25:40,997 --> 00:25:45,667 Because even stupid guys don't brag about that kind of stuff, 464 00:25:45,752 --> 00:25:49,172 because even somewhere they know this is a crime. Okay? 465 00:25:49,256 --> 00:25:52,426 There is a difference between a crime and the movie business. 466 00:25:52,926 --> 00:25:55,176 Okay? You could say, "Well, this is the movie business. 467 00:25:55,262 --> 00:25:56,972 This has always been the movie business!" 468 00:25:57,055 --> 00:26:01,345 And my feeling about this always was, "You don't have to be a movie star." 469 00:26:02,435 --> 00:26:05,605 If you want to be a movie star or be a waitress at that restaurant, 470 00:26:05,689 --> 00:26:06,859 that's what you gotta do. 471 00:26:06,940 --> 00:26:10,690 Luckily, I don't want to be a movie star, so, you know, um… 472 00:26:10,777 --> 00:26:12,987 So I believe their stories about those guys 473 00:26:13,071 --> 00:26:17,581 and about the women who wanted to be a movie star so much they did it. 474 00:26:17,659 --> 00:26:21,959 That's not the same thing as rape. It's wrong. It's bad. Okay? 475 00:26:22,038 --> 00:26:24,168 So if that's the movie business, that's one thing, 476 00:26:24,249 --> 00:26:26,249 but if you make beds in a hotel 477 00:26:28,169 --> 00:26:29,299 at $6 an hour, 478 00:26:30,547 --> 00:26:33,127 and the person in charge of your… 479 00:26:33,216 --> 00:26:36,216 not only your life, but the fact that you're probably undocumented. 480 00:26:36,303 --> 00:26:39,223 That person is, like, the janitor on that floor. 481 00:26:41,016 --> 00:26:42,766 That's what the problem is. 482 00:26:42,851 --> 00:26:44,601 Not who's a movie star or not a movie star, 483 00:26:44,686 --> 00:26:46,476 who's a model, who's not a model. 484 00:26:47,147 --> 00:26:50,687 I mean, yes, those things are wrong. Absolutely, they're wrong. 485 00:26:50,775 --> 00:26:54,065 I think, if we hadn't started with that, no one would pay attention. 486 00:26:54,154 --> 00:26:57,284 People pay attention because those people are movie stars. 487 00:26:57,365 --> 00:27:01,325 No one's gonna pay attention to the person who makes beds in hotels. 488 00:27:01,411 --> 00:27:04,411 Of course, there's millions and millions of women in that position, 489 00:27:04,497 --> 00:27:07,037 and, basically, they're hostages, you know? 490 00:27:07,125 --> 00:27:11,375 Um, no, you don't have to be a movie star, but you have to earn a living, you know? 491 00:27:11,463 --> 00:27:13,303 So that is what it's really about. 492 00:27:25,060 --> 00:27:29,770 [Lebowitz] Truthfully, during this entire very dangerous period in the '70s, 493 00:27:30,398 --> 00:27:32,688 nothing really ever happened to me. 494 00:27:33,360 --> 00:27:36,280 You know, once, I got robbed in the street. 495 00:27:37,447 --> 00:27:40,577 I got robbed in the street. You know, I was on Beekman Place. 496 00:27:40,659 --> 00:27:42,239 You know, like, where… 497 00:27:42,327 --> 00:27:44,697 And I tried to talk the guy out of it. 498 00:27:45,413 --> 00:27:48,333 Which now I would think, "That is crazy." 499 00:27:48,416 --> 00:27:50,586 And I had a lot of cash on me. I never did. 500 00:27:50,669 --> 00:27:53,419 Because I borrowed it from a girl who lived on Beekman Place. 501 00:27:53,505 --> 00:27:54,505 I had to pay my rent. 502 00:27:54,589 --> 00:27:57,219 So I never had cash on me. I don't have any now. 503 00:27:57,300 --> 00:28:02,100 Um, and I went to her apartment, she gave it to me so I could pay my rent. 504 00:28:02,180 --> 00:28:06,310 And I go out and this kid stopped me in the street and goes, "Give me your money." 505 00:28:06,851 --> 00:28:10,191 I said, "I don't really have any money." "Give me your money!" So… 506 00:28:10,855 --> 00:28:14,315 I could tell that he was a junkie and so I said, 507 00:28:14,401 --> 00:28:17,991 "Look, I have a lot of money." I thought, "Why am I telling him this?" 508 00:28:18,071 --> 00:28:20,031 "I have a lot of money, but I need the money." 509 00:28:20,532 --> 00:28:22,452 And I'm sure he's thinking… 510 00:28:22,534 --> 00:28:29,044 Like, somehow I imagined that he chose me because he chose Beekman Place 511 00:28:29,124 --> 00:28:31,134 and he thought I lived on Beekman Place. 512 00:28:31,209 --> 00:28:32,539 And I said, "Well… 513 00:28:33,253 --> 00:28:37,473 Could you just take enough to fix with and let me have the rest, because I need…" 514 00:28:37,549 --> 00:28:38,929 And he took the knife out. 515 00:28:39,551 --> 00:28:40,891 And I gave him the money. 516 00:28:41,469 --> 00:28:42,799 You tried to reason with him. 517 00:28:42,887 --> 00:28:45,517 I was trying to retain as much money as possible 518 00:28:45,598 --> 00:28:47,768 since it was not even my money. 519 00:28:47,851 --> 00:28:51,401 He took a knife out, I stopped arguing. That's the only thing that happened to me.