Pretend It's a City

Yes?

…of people in the street, does it bother you--

Yes.

- -

…when people stop in the middle, in the flow of traffic,

and look at their maps or…

Unfortunately, I'm not gonna have time to answer this.

Do people in the street bother me? Absolutely, they bother me. Here is why.

I feel like I should write a manifesto. I used to be a writer.

-Um… -

That would… The title of which would be,

and this is kind of an advisory to these people that you're talking about,

Pretend It's a City.

Okay? Pretend It's a City.

I cannot stop for one second or stand in front of a place, smoking a cigarette,

without ten people instantly asking me directions.

And I'm surprised by this, because I always think, "Really?"

"Do I look welcoming to you?"

There are a lot of things on the ground in New York.

You know, there are a lot of crosswalks, not that anyone obeys them except me.

I always yell at cars. "You're in the crosswalk!"

You know, as if, like, they care.

There's graffiti on the ground. There are ads on the ground.

But there are numerous places in New York

where there are plaques, like, laid into the ground.

This is something that I just love,

because it means that they are hoping that someone is gonna look at this.

I don't think they did this thinking, "It's gonna just be Fran."

"Everyone else is gonna be looking at their phone."

"It's only gonna be Fran, but she's worth it."

"Let's put all these plaques for her."

Near the library, there are different plaques for writers.

And then there are some quotes from the writers.

I think it's pretty optimistic to imagine people are gonna read the quotes.

["Qué Rico el Mambo" by Pérez Prado playing]

Yes? In the back.

Hey, Fran. Uh, I actually never heard of you before.

-That's a good way to break the ice. -

Yes?

How would you describe your lifestyle?

How would I describe my lifestyle?

Let me I assure you, I would never use the word "lifestyle."

Bravo.

That's pretty much how I would describe it.

What's keeping you in New York?

People often ask me, "Why are you still here?"

-Like, okay, where would you suggest? -

Okay, so here's the thing.

If there was another place that I could think of, I would have gone there.

Here you are.

Okay. What do you think? This is it.

- Fine. - Let's do it.

- There you go. - God. Sorry.

Do you remember, Fran, I said never have anybody shoot

-in your car or your apartment. -You told me after they ruined my car.

- -When I complained about the car.

- -

- -

Does complaining change anything?

- You mean, does it help? - Yeah.

Um…

You mean, if I complain about the things I complain about, will they change?

Yeah.

Not so far. I mean, of course, I'm a young woman.

I once met a psychiatrist at a party,

and I said to him…

…"I cannot think of a more boring job than being a psychiatrist."

And he said, "You have no idea

what it is like to go to school for 14 years

and sit all day long and listen to people complain about noise."

So, apparently, that's what it's like being a psychiatrist in New York.

Everywhere else in the country, people are talking about their mother, husband.

No, in New York, noise. They go in. It's like $500.

They sit there and complain about noise.

New York is never boring.

In other words, if I'm sitting somewhere waiting for something,

like, say, oh, I don't know, a subway,

or if I'm sitting on the subway waiting for the subway to, I don't know, leave,

-um… -

Most people are on their phones.

A few people are reading, but that's never been me. You know?

I'm sitting there, and I am just looking at my fellow man.

And this is, most of the time, excessively interesting.

Too interesting.

This is what you see in streets of New York.

Not just people walking and texting

or standing in the middle of the sidewalk when I'm trying to get through. Um…

but you also see people doing things that I know would never have occurred to me.

In other words, I don't have a phone, so I've never texted,

but I firmly believe that if I did have a phone and I did text,

it would never have occurred to me to do this whilst walking.

A few months ago… I haven't seen this numerous times,

but this particular combination of things stood out in my mind.

I saw a kid riding a bike down Seventh Avenue.

He was, with one hand, texting,

with the other hand, eating a piece of pizza,

-and was driving the bike with his elbows. -Ooh.

He had his elbows on the thing.

And of course, I… Of course he almost ran me over.

Not that he noticed. That's why I noticed him.

And I thought, "I am a person who believes, every day,

I have a very high chance of being killed crossing the street."

"This is a person who believes nothing will ever happen to him."

If you took away the texting and the pizza, I still wouldn't--

-And the elbows used to ride the bike. -

If you gave me a bike, and I had nothing in my hands,

and I had my hands on the handlebars, I wouldn't ride a bike on Seventh Avenue.

I know how to ride a bike. Okay? So I wouldn't do that.

All these things,

and it's an astonishment to me that, every day, tens of thousands of people

aren't slaughtered in the streets of New York.

- Yeah. -I don't know why this happens.

It is an amazing thing, because there are millions of people.

Uh-- The only person looking where she's going is me.

I am the one person in the whole city who is watching where I'm going.

One of the worst things, you know… There's many things that are horrible,

but one of the worst things is how New Yorkers have forgotten how to walk.

- Mm. -Okay?

One of the great things about New York used to be,

yes, there were a billion awful people in the street, but there was…

Every single person in the street knew that,

as you're walking toward other people,

you move a little bit, they move a little bit.

-That's right. -Okay?

That's why everyone was still alive at the end of the day.

Now, people don't do it.

Okay, so what I do now…

They don't do it because either they're on their phones

-or because they live in a world of one. -Mm-hmm.

And sometimes… I bumped into someone because they were not paying attention,

and I thought, "I'm gonna let 'em walk right into me."

Um, and they looked up, like, annoyed, and I said,

"Other people in a hotel lobby. Isn't that astonishing?"

- -Like, you know, what…

And that's why I feel like, pretend it's a city,

you know, where there are other people.

And pretend it's a city where there are people who are not here just sightseeing.

- Mm. Yeah. -You know? Who have to go places.

To their appointments, so they can pay for all this junk that you come to see.

[Richard Rodgers's "Carousel Waltz" playing]

That neighborhood is horrible. Times Square, the worst neighborhood.

But you rarely have to go to Times Square.

So if you have to go to Times Square, usually because you have to see a play,

you think, like, "I have to go see the play, and it's in Times Square,

and so I'm gonna try to arrive at the theater

without having gotten into 75 fights with people, because…"

Sometimes I will, like, figure out,

if I have to go to a theater in Times Square,

how can I get there walking through Times Square the least?

And I will do this even if it means walking all the way around.

I think, "Let's see. What if I walked up to 125th Street, then all the way down?"

"Then I can pretty much miss this. That's long, but it would be worth it."

The opening of Phantom of the Opera was a big benefit, an AIDS benefit,

and I was on the committee of this, but I don't remember what thing it was.

Um, so I had these tickets to the opening of it,

and so I invited my mother to come.

And so we had these, like, you know, fantastic seats.

What people think are. In the orchestra, in the middle.

My idea of a fantastic seat is in the back, on the aisle,

-so you can get out, you know. -

So the second I get into the theater, I'm plotting to get out. Uh…

And I must have been the only person in New York

who had not been reading about this, you know, because it was such a big deal.

So when the chandelier fell from the ceiling,

I thought the chandelier was falling on us.

- Oh, Fran, no. Oh… -And I screamed. I created such…

If there was internet then, you would still be able to see this.

- Didn't you see the movies? -I didn't.

-I thought… -The whole--

-It goes right over. -Yeah.

But my mother, of course, knew, 'cause she was like…

My mother said, "This kid, she's always been a problem. She's still a problem."

And I was hysterical. 'Cause it came like this.

I thought it was falling down.

- Um… -

So that's mostly what I remember about Phantom of the Opera,

except, like, thinking it was unbelievably horrible.

You know, "This is unbelievably horrible."

This is exactly the kind of thing that I hate.

You know, um, it's like Evita.

Robert Stigwood, um, had this thing.

Um, he in-- He was a producer of Evita.

And he invited a few people, like 25 people,

to the Plaza Hotel, which was still the Plaza Hotel then,

not like now, which had a little theater in it.

So I went to this, I saw this,

and afterwards, Stigwood asked me what I think, and I said,

"Are you out of your mind? A musical about Eva Perón?"

-"You'll be laughed out of New York!" -

"Don't do it!" I said.

So this is why I would never make a lot of money in the theater.

- Exactly. -And…

But from the point of view of a musical about Eva Perón,

I was completely correct. I was completely correct.

And then I went to see it one night with two guys who were Argentinian,

and they were laughing so hard that we almost got kicked out of the theater.

You know? Um…

-I think Evita's not playing anymore. - Nah.