[00:00.000 --> 00:02.740]  Some residents have already been evacuated.
[00:03.060 --> 00:08.500]  And approximately 380 people have made their way to shelters.
[00:09.060 --> 00:13.360]  Last year, sections of terrain have broken off from the high side.
[00:13.920 --> 00:18.540]  At that time, there was no official consideration of future catastrophes.
[00:18.940 --> 00:24.560]  For Free Speech Radio News, I'm Ricardo Martinez in the southern state of Tabasco.
[00:26.320 --> 00:28.940]  You've been listening to Free Speech Radio News.
[00:29.140 --> 00:31.420]  From Eugene, Oregon, I'm Jess Burns.
[00:34.300 --> 00:37.040]  And you're listening to radio station WBAI New York.
[00:37.200 --> 00:38.360]  The time is 7 o'clock.
[00:38.480 --> 00:39.880]  Time once again for Off the Hook.
[00:59.720 --> 01:00.680]  They could, they would.
[01:01.000 --> 01:01.700]  From Billy Bump.
[01:01.820 --> 01:03.600]  But the best is back from worst.
[01:04.420 --> 01:06.100]  I hope that's understood.
[01:06.300 --> 01:07.140]  From Billy Bump.
[01:59.100 --> 02:00.080]  And a good evening to everybody.
[02:00.180 --> 02:01.320]  The program is Off the Hook.
[02:01.420 --> 02:02.700]  Emmanuel Goldstein here with you.
[02:03.360 --> 02:05.300]  Joined tonight by Mike.
[02:05.680 --> 02:05.880]  Hello.
[02:06.380 --> 02:08.920]  And Redbird, we're not sure your mic is working.
[02:09.020 --> 02:09.660]  Let's see if it is.
[02:10.460 --> 02:11.260]  Try that again.
[02:11.720 --> 02:12.780]  No, your mic is definitely not working.
[02:12.820 --> 02:14.560]  You're going to have to share that microphone.
[02:14.560 --> 02:17.100]  So, yeah, use that one for now.
[02:18.220 --> 02:19.900]  Now, let's try it now.
[02:20.100 --> 02:20.460]  Good evening.
[02:20.500 --> 02:21.000]  That's better.
[02:21.060 --> 02:21.520]  Much better.
[02:22.160 --> 02:25.300]  Okay, yeah, we have two microphones out here in the studio tonight for some reason.
[02:25.480 --> 02:27.940]  And, of course, joining us from Philadelphia, Bernie S.
[02:28.380 --> 02:29.660]  How's my microphone sound?
[02:29.840 --> 02:30.440]  Well, you sound good.
[02:30.500 --> 02:31.580]  You're on a landline tonight, is that right?
[02:31.580 --> 02:34.520]  Yes, that's probably why it sounds better than Sprint PCS.
[02:34.700 --> 02:36.900]  Well, we've had bad luck with you on landlines in the past, too.
[02:36.980 --> 02:38.400]  For some reason, they get disconnected as well.
[02:38.460 --> 02:42.640]  Yeah, the landline phone is subject to zapping out from static electricity.
[02:43.280 --> 02:45.460]  But a brief word about Sprint PCS.
[02:45.640 --> 02:50.620]  They are now allowing you to unlock your cell phone after your contract expires.
[02:50.700 --> 02:51.320]  But we'll get into that.
[02:51.460 --> 02:54.160]  Well, Sprint PCS, of course, being the carrier that you usually use.
[02:54.280 --> 02:59.860]  In fact, I really know just about one other person who uses Sprint PCS, and they switched to Verizon this week.
[03:01.020 --> 03:02.700]  Yeah, well, I guess I'm the last customer.
[03:02.940 --> 03:05.720]  They found out they didn't have any contract with Sprint.
[03:05.780 --> 03:08.760]  They thought they did, and apparently they didn't, and Sprint didn't tell them.
[03:09.180 --> 03:11.020]  Mine expired about five years ago.
[03:11.020 --> 03:13.340]  Don't you have some kind of pioneer contract or something?
[03:13.520 --> 03:14.620]  Yeah, it was a pretty good deal.
[03:14.740 --> 03:18.940]  Actually, I've been a customer for about 10 years, but I've just been getting them to...
[03:19.480 --> 03:23.660]  I keep signing up for the same thing, and I haven't had to sign up for anything for like five years.
[03:23.840 --> 03:30.800]  Well, now, as long as we brought it up, the story about Sprint providing a code to unlock cell phone software, what's that all about?
[03:30.800 --> 03:49.000]  Well, there's a master unlock code that Sprint will give you, if you ask, once your contract has expired, and after which you've more than paid for the phone through service fees and so forth, which is subsidized when they give you a phone cheap to begin with,
[03:50.640 --> 03:59.560]  but once you unlock your phone, it will then, in most cases, work with another CDMA carrier, which in the U.S.
[03:59.600 --> 04:00.780]  is pretty much Verizon.
[04:00.780 --> 04:08.220]  There aren't a lot of CDMA carriers, other than... there's a lot of... there's a small independence, but there's a... the two big ones are Sprint and Verizon.
[04:08.460 --> 04:21.820]  And most of the phones will work on... most of the phones made by companies for Sprint and Verizon are designed to work on dual bands, both the 1900 megahertz PCS band and the 800 megahertz cellular band, which Verizon uses.
[04:23.460 --> 04:30.380]  So, it's a good chance your phone will work on Verizon if it has worked on Sprint, and you can talk to Verizon about that.
[04:30.780 --> 04:31.760]  Once you dump Sprint.
[04:32.060 --> 04:34.500]  And is your phone one of the ones that will qualify?
[04:34.720 --> 04:35.760]  Yes, mine will do that.
[04:35.860 --> 04:42.940]  Mine will even work on the analog phone service, known as AMPS, the Advanced Mobile Phone Service, which has been in effect since the early 80s in this country.
[04:43.080 --> 04:44.460]  How many people still use that?
[04:44.760 --> 04:47.720]  This is the unencrypted, where you can just tune a radio?
[04:47.720 --> 04:48.200]  You can listen to it.
[04:48.200 --> 04:49.400]  You can listen to it on any radio.
[04:49.400 --> 04:54.140]  You can even listen to it on old TV sets, the tune, like, between channels, like, 82 and 83.
[04:55.900 --> 05:00.140]  But it's still often used in rural areas where there's no digital cellular coverage.
[05:00.780 --> 05:08.620]  Like, where my mother lives in a good couple hundred miles from where I live, there's no digital carrier anywhere near there.
[05:08.740 --> 05:15.840]  But I can, if I stand up on the top of the driveway, I can get an analog cell phone signal.
[05:16.020 --> 05:18.680]  Well, I think those days might be drawing to a close.
[05:18.680 --> 05:27.660]  And maybe with it, the ridiculous regulation since 1986, that makes it illegal to listen to 800 megahertz?
[05:27.660 --> 05:29.200]  Well, it's the first time the U.S.
[05:29.280 --> 05:32.460]  government actually censored a part of the radio spectrum back in 1986.
[05:33.040 --> 05:49.940]  I think it was the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, or ECPA, made it an FCC violation, which is subject to fine, but not imprisonment, for simply listening to radio frequencies, which ironically could be tuned in by any of the older TV sets that tuned all the way up to channel 83.
[05:49.940 --> 05:56.240]  This was just pushed through by the cellular industry lobby, which had billions of dollars to bribe legislators with.
[05:56.500 --> 06:12.020]  And unfortunately, it set a very dangerous precedent for actually blacklisting a part of the electromagnetic spectrum that passes through all of our bodies, that we can't even listen to something that is in the air and passing through our homes and bodies and all kinds of things.
[06:12.200 --> 06:15.940]  And of course, many of us did listen anyway and listened to all kinds of interesting things on people's...
[06:15.940 --> 06:17.180]  We can't talk about that.
[06:17.260 --> 06:19.480]  Well, yeah, good luck proving that.
[06:19.940 --> 06:31.060]  So yes, next year, the FCC will allow cellular carriers to stop carrying AMPS calls.
[06:31.200 --> 06:34.540]  They're required to carry them up until sometime next year.
[06:34.720 --> 06:47.560]  And when that happens, when they finally allow that, then a lot of carriers will probably drop it like a hot potato, because they can use that spectrum more effectively for digital channels, which can fit up to 10 times as many signals as one analog channel.
[06:47.680 --> 06:48.720]  So it's all about the money.
[06:48.840 --> 06:59.920]  But once that happens, once there's no more analog cellular service, there's no compelling reason for the FCC to continue prohibiting people from listening to a part of the radio spectrum.
[07:00.100 --> 07:02.380]  It's like outlawing the color blue.
[07:03.180 --> 07:05.100]  It's like another part of the electronic spectrum.
[07:05.100 --> 07:06.600]  Don't give them any ideas, Brian.
[07:06.880 --> 07:07.480]  Don't give them that.
[07:07.560 --> 07:09.440]  Blue has caused a lot of trouble in recent years.
[07:10.100 --> 07:12.400]  But at the same time, they have no reason to reverse that.
[07:13.920 --> 07:17.760]  Now you can start, you know, making continuous scanners, you know?
[07:18.020 --> 07:18.860]  Well, there'd be no...
[07:18.860 --> 07:21.860]  I don't think the cellular industry would lobby anymore, like, because...
[07:22.440 --> 07:23.100]  I don't know.
[07:23.180 --> 07:23.800]  It's a good question.
[07:24.020 --> 07:25.920]  There is an industry...
[07:26.740 --> 07:28.600]  There are companies that make receivers.
[07:28.800 --> 07:33.880]  There's a lot of companies that make radio receivers that would prefer to not have to spend extra money to block these frequencies.
[07:33.880 --> 07:35.540]  It costs them extra money to do that.
[07:36.500 --> 07:38.220]  Well, it doesn't cost them anything extra.
[07:38.220 --> 07:39.240]  The consumer pays that.
[07:43.920 --> 07:53.880]  But the manufacturers of radios would much rather not sell radios that are censored, because they also sell versions for law enforcement and export that do receive those frequencies.
[07:53.980 --> 07:57.660]  And they'd rather just have one model that's cheaper for them than an assembly line just to make one model.
[07:58.100 --> 08:05.260]  So there is a financial incentive for the manufacturers to not make censored receivers under the thumb of the federal government.
[08:05.260 --> 08:07.340]  And hopefully that time will come next year.
[08:07.340 --> 08:09.400]  Well, interesting points.
[08:09.840 --> 08:16.120]  And it just shows you how much you can talk about cellular phones and history and all sorts of things like that.
[08:16.220 --> 08:16.880]  There's a lot to learn.
[08:17.940 --> 08:19.940]  And thanks, Bernie, for the insight there.
[08:20.500 --> 08:31.680]  Of course, the issue that many people have been writing us about and that we're going to discuss a little bit tonight is the condition of our colleague Jim, who we reported a couple of weeks ago.
[08:31.780 --> 08:33.680]  Actually, it was three weeks ago we were on last.
[08:34.180 --> 08:35.160]  Was it three weeks ago?
[08:35.160 --> 08:40.560]  Okay, that the week prior he had suffered a stroke and was in the ICU.
[08:41.080 --> 08:43.040]  I was able to visit him on Sunday.
[08:43.040 --> 08:45.720]  I found out that, in fact, he was able to have visitors.
[08:46.140 --> 08:49.940]  And so I went down to Brooklyn and saw him.
[08:50.460 --> 08:56.240]  And I have to say, I was initially surprised because I didn't know what to expect when I went over there.
[08:57.260 --> 09:07.060]  The reports that we got, refresh my memory, Bernie, they were pretty, I don't know, kind of pessimistic, right?
[09:07.460 --> 09:10.840]  Yeah, his sister, well, he apparently did some major improvement.
[09:11.020 --> 09:26.700]  But for the first couple, three weeks of his ordeal, he was virtually unable to speak or move in a way he wanted to move.
[09:26.700 --> 09:27.000]  Right.
[09:27.240 --> 09:30.800]  It was like, I think you described it, that things just got rewired.
[09:30.820 --> 09:34.260]  If you wanted to say a word, you wound up moving your hand instead.
[09:34.420 --> 09:37.200]  There's all kinds of things that happen to you in a situation like that.
[09:37.300 --> 09:42.140]  So when I went in there on Sunday, I wasn't sure what I would see or what to expect.
[09:42.140 --> 09:45.720]  But visiting him was a very important thing to do.
[09:47.320 --> 09:50.400]  And I was pleasantly surprised when I arrived there.
[09:50.620 --> 09:57.880]  He was actually in a public area having dinner or what passed for dinner in a hospital.
[09:58.100 --> 10:00.240]  And he actually called out to me.
[10:00.880 --> 10:02.280]  I wasn't expecting that.
[10:02.360 --> 10:12.740]  I was expecting to see somebody lying in bed that maybe even unable to communicate or acknowledge my presence, but he was incredibly quick in acknowledging me and seeing...
[10:12.740 --> 10:17.300]  At first, when I saw him, he seemed completely normal.
[10:17.540 --> 10:18.220]  He seemed completely...
[10:18.220 --> 10:19.380]  He was sitting in a wheelchair.
[10:20.660 --> 10:23.720]  And it seemed like he was able to converse.
[10:23.940 --> 10:27.320]  He certainly was able to understand who I was and various other things.
[10:27.740 --> 10:32.940]  After talking to him for a while, though, it became apparent that he was having great difficulty coming up with words.
[10:32.940 --> 10:38.420]  He would basically start to say something and then try and say a word.
[10:38.420 --> 10:39.900]  And he kept saying different words.
[10:40.000 --> 10:44.120]  And oftentimes, he would just not be able to complete the sentence.
[10:44.440 --> 10:55.020]  But what I found to be very interesting was that oftentimes when this was happening, he would just finish the sentence by saying something like, Well, you know what I mean.
[10:55.140 --> 10:56.640]  And he'd say that incredibly fast.
[10:57.460 --> 11:05.080]  Or he just would say something that, when he wasn't trying to say it, it came out in a natural way.
[11:06.060 --> 11:11.500]  So I see that as optimistic, a positive development.
[11:11.720 --> 11:15.020]  And he also, he seems to know exactly what happened to him.
[11:15.020 --> 11:18.560]  Because I was, I was talking to him, and I could tell by his expressions.
[11:19.060 --> 11:23.200]  I was saying things like, I know that you know what, what you want to say.
[11:23.440 --> 11:25.760]  And you're having great difficulty saying that.
[11:25.920 --> 11:29.100]  And his, his eyes would, you know, agree.
[11:29.280 --> 11:32.460]  And he'd nod his head, or he'd roll his eyes in exasperation.
[11:33.120 --> 11:38.600]  So I, I definitely got the sense that Jim is, is in there, completely in there.
[11:38.600 --> 11:42.580]  And he's just having difficulty expressing himself, getting out.
[11:42.980 --> 11:46.740]  So that's, that's what I found by, by seeing him that time.
[11:46.840 --> 11:47.740]  I stayed for a while.
[11:47.900 --> 11:50.320]  Very interesting thing that happened while I was there.
[11:50.780 --> 11:54.160]  The hospital had some kind of fire emergency.
[11:54.400 --> 11:55.640]  They, they called it a fire drill.
[11:55.800 --> 11:56.920]  But it really wasn't a fire drill.
[11:57.040 --> 12:06.380]  Because I don't think in fire drills, you have PA announcements that say, can a team with equipment report to the sixth floor stairwell immediately.
[12:06.480 --> 12:07.680]  That's not part of the drill.
[12:07.680 --> 12:13.660]  Meanwhile, there's this crazy, like, foghorn thing going off every two seconds for at least 25 minutes.
[12:14.060 --> 12:19.180]  The nurses and the staff of the hospital did not even move at all.
[12:19.340 --> 12:22.380]  They, they completely did not acknowledge the situation that was going on around them.
[12:22.480 --> 12:23.420]  Everything was just normal.
[12:23.760 --> 12:29.060]  Meanwhile, you have this incredibly loud, annoying, abrasive sound that's interrupting everything.
[12:30.260 --> 12:32.000]  And occasionally it would stop.
[12:32.000 --> 12:34.620]  And I'd, I'd start to speak and say, oh, it's over.
[12:34.720 --> 12:36.380]  And as soon as I did that, it would start again.
[12:36.380 --> 12:37.900]  And Jim laughed at that.
[12:38.200 --> 12:39.160]  Jim thought that was hilarious.
[12:39.380 --> 12:40.860]  So that, that to me was a very good thing.
[12:41.000 --> 12:43.100]  Because I saw that he understood the situation around him.
[12:43.280 --> 12:48.920]  And I said to him, Jim, you know, you're a lot more aware of what's going on around you than the nurses here.
[12:49.080 --> 12:50.580]  Because they apparently don't even hear this thing.
[12:50.820 --> 12:52.660]  And he, he appreciated that as well.
[12:53.600 --> 12:55.740]  And it was, it was weird because the building was in lockdown.
[12:55.940 --> 12:56.700]  I wasn't able to leave.
[12:56.880 --> 12:58.740]  And people weren't able to go in.
[12:58.900 --> 12:59.740]  I don't know what happened.
[12:59.760 --> 13:01.940]  But in the end, I spent a couple of hours there.
[13:02.140 --> 13:04.240]  And it was, it was strange.
[13:04.240 --> 13:06.040]  But I think it was, it was a good thing.
[13:06.140 --> 13:10.460]  And I think interacting with people is probably the best thing that, that can happen.
[13:10.700 --> 13:15.300]  And it's really amazing on, on the off the hook list, actually, the amount of feedback that Jim is getting.
[13:15.300 --> 13:16.940]  We've gotten so many emails.
[13:16.940 --> 13:19.860]  And it's really great because we're making sure that they're getting read.
[13:19.920 --> 13:20.640]  You brought a bunch, right?
[13:20.760 --> 13:22.080]  I brought a printout to him.
[13:22.100 --> 13:23.080]  He wasn't aware of this, apparently.
[13:23.100 --> 13:25.000]  I brought the printout to him.
[13:25.120 --> 13:27.160]  And he was, he was stunned.
[13:27.420 --> 13:28.420]  He just kept saying, wow.
[13:28.820 --> 13:32.940]  He could not believe so many people, first of all, even more aware of what happened to him.
[13:33.000 --> 13:35.060]  I think he thought that everyone just kind of forgot about him.
[13:35.520 --> 13:40.620]  I told him about the, the card we passed around at the 2600 meeting and how everybody was asking about him.
[13:40.700 --> 13:42.440]  And he just, he was, he was floored.
[13:42.440 --> 13:46.060]  He was, he, he just did not expect that.
[13:46.180 --> 13:49.320]  And, and he could see it in his expression and the words he was able to, to get out.
[13:49.980 --> 13:52.400]  So it's, it's making a difference, the letters you're sending.
[13:52.860 --> 13:53.960]  So, you know, keep sending them.
[13:54.080 --> 13:54.260]  Yeah.
[13:54.500 --> 13:57.360]  OTH at 2600.com is a way to send it to us.
[13:57.520 --> 14:00.220]  We'll print them out and, and bring it to him and read it to him.
[14:00.740 --> 14:03.600]  And so many, so many great letters from all around the world.
[14:04.280 --> 14:07.100]  We've seen them all and they're very moving.
[14:07.440 --> 14:11.840]  And, and they, they just tell how much, how much you guys care about him.
[14:12.440 --> 14:16.080]  Um, now Bernie, you have, you have the actual physical address, right?
[14:16.520 --> 14:16.660]  Yeah.
[14:16.740 --> 14:20.280]  If people want to mail cards to Jim, I'm sure he'd really appreciate that.
[14:20.540 --> 14:24.220]  Um, maybe put a note in there, just expressing, just say something funny.
[14:24.400 --> 14:28.200]  So give him something to read that isn't a, in a magazine or something.
[14:28.200 --> 14:29.900]  Here's his mailing address.
[14:30.180 --> 14:32.080]  It's, uh, James Vichenz.
[14:32.180 --> 14:35.160]  That's V-I-C-H-E-N-C-H.
[14:35.640 --> 14:39.560]  Care of Lutheran Medical Center.
[14:40.460 --> 14:43.960]  At 150 55th Street.
[14:46.800 --> 14:47.960]  Room 3220.
[14:49.300 --> 14:50.860]  Brooklyn, New York.
[14:51.420 --> 14:53.240]  1-1-2-2-0.
[14:53.720 --> 14:56.960]  Um, I'll read that one more time for listeners who might not have caught it the first time.
[14:56.960 --> 15:00.120]  It's, uh, um, maybe a different word at this time.
[15:00.340 --> 15:01.500]  Lutheran Medical Center.
[15:02.100 --> 15:02.540]  Attention.
[15:03.900 --> 15:04.780]  James Vichenz.
[15:04.920 --> 15:06.560]  V-I-C-H-E-N-C-H.
[15:06.740 --> 15:09.640]  At 150 55th Street.
[15:10.260 --> 15:11.420]  Brooklyn, New York.
[15:11.780 --> 15:13.200]  1-1-2-2-0.
[15:13.840 --> 15:22.900]  Cards, letters, uh, anything you want to send him, uh, that, that he'd get a kick out of, I'm sure would, uh, would really cheer him up and, uh, speed him towards recovery.
[15:22.900 --> 15:28.320]  Now, I, I should point out, I am not 100% sure what his reading ability is right now.
[15:28.480 --> 15:36.400]  Uh, he was, he was trying to write something to me, um, and, uh, I don't think he was able to, uh, to put out the right letters.
[15:36.500 --> 15:41.580]  The letters he was writing were letters, but he wasn't able to, to form the right words when he was trying to write that.
[15:41.580 --> 15:44.600]  So, I'm not sure what his reading ability is, um, so...
[15:44.600 --> 15:45.680]  But they will be read to him.
[15:45.760 --> 15:46.720]  Yes, they will be read to him.
[15:46.840 --> 15:48.060]  So, don't, don't let that discourage you.
[15:48.360 --> 15:57.840]  Either send it to the address Bernie gave, and we'll give it again at the end of the program, uh, or to OTH at 2600.com, and, uh, we'll be happy to print those out and, and read them to him as well.
[15:58.160 --> 16:03.940]  And if, um, if you want to visit, um, um, Jim, um, right now it's, it's Friends and Family.
[16:04.480 --> 16:06.340]  However, if, um, if, if, if you're...
[16:06.340 --> 16:07.260]  It's not MCI Friends and Family.
[16:07.280 --> 16:08.200]  No, definitely not.
[16:08.320 --> 16:08.520]  Good.
[16:11.580 --> 16:19.060]  For whatever reason, I, I, I should probably, uh, stress that, uh, at this stage, it, it's probably good for Jim to see people he, he knows, not complete strangers.
[16:19.420 --> 16:22.520]  It might, I don't know, it might be confusing, might be bewildering, who knows.
[16:22.980 --> 16:28.980]  Uh, but there obviously can be exceptions to that if, um, if people can, uh, can help out in various ways.
[16:29.460 --> 16:31.460]  Mail us, OTH at 2600.com.
[16:31.600 --> 16:35.440]  We'll see if we can get you added and, uh, and have you, uh, see him in that way.
[16:35.500 --> 16:41.760]  But in the meantime, uh, people who are friends and family hopefully will visit him often because I think that makes all the difference.
[16:42.000 --> 16:48.240]  I'd like to read a letter that we got, um, this actual physical mail that came to us from, uh, Mark.
[16:48.420 --> 16:50.360]  It goes by the name Fig Newton in Ontario.
[16:51.100 --> 16:52.940]  Uh, I'm going to try to pronounce this town.
[16:53.340 --> 16:55.000]  Uh, Mississauga?
[16:55.420 --> 16:55.860]  Mississauga?
[16:56.180 --> 16:56.620]  Mississauga?
[16:57.540 --> 17:00.340]  You're looking like any of us might have any clue.
[17:00.720 --> 17:02.240]  Well, you know, we should know these things.
[17:02.380 --> 17:03.660]  We should know how to pronounce words.
[17:03.840 --> 17:04.580]  But, um, okay.
[17:04.680 --> 17:06.200]  Here's, here's a nice handwritten letter we got.
[17:06.200 --> 17:08.620]  Um, dear Emmanuel, I hope this reaches you well.
[17:08.700 --> 17:12.020]  Today I was listening to the Off the Hook show where you told us that Jim had a stroke.
[17:12.200 --> 17:13.220]  It got me thinking.
[17:13.400 --> 17:15.860]  As a kid, the world changes very predictably.
[17:16.020 --> 17:20.120]  Weekends, school days, birthdays, seasons, they all come and go as expected.
[17:20.400 --> 17:28.720]  Friends and family may move away, but there's always time and, uh, notice enough to hug and shake hands and say our see you soons and catch you laters.
[17:29.240 --> 17:37.740]  Then we grow older through our teens, twenties, and thirties, and we shed our nativity and start to see how much and how quickly the world changes around us.
[17:37.840 --> 17:47.220]  But there's always that sliver of youth that remains and makes us act in our childish ways in that we move from day to day as if we're guaranteed another one just like the last.
[17:47.640 --> 17:53.260]  One week I'm listening to Jim's voice booming out and sarcasm over the airwaves, and the next he's in the hospital.
[17:53.460 --> 17:57.100]  It's hard to imagine Off the Hook without him, and I don't intend to give it much effort.
[17:57.100 --> 18:03.520]  Today I will enjoy that sliver of childhood in me and wait for Jim to come back and make things just as they were yesterday for me.
[18:04.120 --> 18:06.200]  Until then, pass on my thoughts and best wishes.
[18:06.300 --> 18:07.880]  Signed, uh, Mark Fig Newton.
[18:08.420 --> 18:11.200]  And, uh, look what he went and did.
[18:11.340 --> 18:18.300]  He printed out all these Get Well Jim stickers to, uh, to pass out and, uh...
[18:18.300 --> 18:19.200]  Oh, wow, that's pretty neat.
[18:19.260 --> 18:20.020]  Isn't this amazing?
[18:20.140 --> 18:21.240]  It's got 2,600 on it.
[18:21.340 --> 18:23.060]  There's, uh, red, green, yellow...
[18:23.060 --> 18:25.480]  Somebody could do this so, uh, so incredibly quickly.
[18:25.480 --> 18:38.420]  Uh, so this is from, um, uh, 2600 Off the Hook fans in Toronto, and, uh, thanks so much for sending that, and, uh, thanks to everybody who sent in various thoughts and, and just good feelings.
[18:38.680 --> 18:40.000]  It really makes a big difference.
[18:40.780 --> 18:43.240]  Uh, okay, so that's, that's the latest on Jim.
[18:43.240 --> 18:50.020]  Of course, we'll keep people updated, um, in, in weeks to come, and hopefully, uh, we'll hear his voice again real soon.
[18:50.840 --> 18:52.720]  Uh, okay, what else has been going on?
[18:52.960 --> 18:55.220]  Uh, various, uh, crazy bits of news.
[18:55.660 --> 19:00.560]  All right, well, I guess we should cover this, uh, because we didn't get a chance to cover it a couple weeks ago, because we weren't on the air.
[19:00.940 --> 19:11.820]  Uh, but, um, some of you may have noticed, we haven't, we haven't really talked about this, because there hasn't really been an opportunity to, uh, but some of us, um, noticed that, um, that, that's that noise.
[19:11.840 --> 19:13.300]  I told you that noise was gonna happen.
[19:13.600 --> 19:24.160]  Bernie, you know, every time we have you on the landline, what, okay, you have to tell us, because, I don't know if our listeners can hear this, but, uh, there's that doo-doo-doo noise that, uh, the phone company makes that comes from you whenever you're on a landline.
[19:24.180 --> 19:24.760]  Why is that?
[19:25.380 --> 19:33.340]  Well, it's not intentional to, to mess with our listeners or with you folks in the studio, but, uh, it's, uh, it's, it's called the special information tone.
[19:33.560 --> 19:34.500]  Yeah, I know what it is.
[19:34.720 --> 19:40.560]  Well, for our listeners who don't know, the special information tone is used to denote, uh, your call cannot be completed as dialed.
[19:40.560 --> 19:48.640]  So, but I use that as, uh, as the audio alert when I get, uh, an incoming, uh, email message on my computer where I'm sitting right now.
[19:48.820 --> 19:53.420]  And, uh, I'm sure it's just, it is disconcerting to people I talk to on the phone all day.
[19:53.580 --> 20:02.500]  It's, it's funny that you should do that because I use the alert of, you know, the old AT&T bong, you know, that, that kind of fading dial tone they used to play when you had to enter your calling card number.
[20:02.640 --> 20:05.380]  That's the sound I use when I, to denote email coming to me.
[20:06.120 --> 20:09.920]  So, yeah, I guess we sort of think in the same way, which is a scary thing in and of itself.
[20:09.920 --> 20:19.520]  Okay, but getting back to what happened a couple of weeks ago, some of you, uh, may have noticed going to our webpage, uh, that instead of going to 2600.com, it went to a gay porn video.
[20:20.240 --> 20:26.240]  And I just would like to take the opportunity, uh, to point out that we had nothing at all to do with that.
[20:26.620 --> 20:36.140]  Uh, and in fact, it was a grievous security flaw, uh, that, um, um, was, uh, was basically taken advantage of.
[20:36.260 --> 20:39.480]  And that grievous security flaw was the fault of network solutions.
[20:39.480 --> 20:40.820]  Known as NetSol.
[20:41.000 --> 20:42.180]  Is that their official name now?
[20:42.240 --> 20:43.220]  Is it not NSI?
[20:43.340 --> 20:44.460]  They keep changing their name.
[20:44.620 --> 20:46.660]  Well, I think their official name is network solutions.
[20:46.880 --> 20:50.620]  Yeah, but beware of a company that keeps going by all different names because you never know who to blame.
[20:51.140 --> 20:55.840]  But basically what happened was, okay, I'll just say three letters and you'll know immediately.
[20:56.140 --> 20:56.840]  IRC, all right?
[20:56.900 --> 20:57.780]  Internet relay chat.
[20:58.200 --> 21:04.600]  People get into all sorts of, uh, of matches of various, how stupid can I possibly be?
[21:04.600 --> 21:06.000]  And apparently that happened.
[21:06.140 --> 21:07.960]  Somebody got angry and said, okay, that's it.
[21:08.000 --> 21:16.020]  I'm going to come after, come after the, uh, the, the domain that, um, uh, that hosts this IRC network, the IRC.2600.net network.
[21:16.140 --> 21:17.160]  Now, don't get me wrong.
[21:17.220 --> 21:18.460]  A lot of good people on that network.
[21:18.600 --> 21:18.820]  A lot of...
[21:18.820 --> 21:19.900]  They didn't even get the right domain.
[21:20.260 --> 21:21.140]  Well, that's the thing.
[21:21.380 --> 21:23.760]  Uh, they, they went after 2600.com.
[21:23.940 --> 21:25.220]  Yeah, they should have gone after 2600.net.
[21:25.320 --> 21:26.740]  It's us anyway, but regardless.
[21:27.160 --> 21:30.780]  What they did was they, they contacted network solutions.
[21:30.960 --> 21:33.900]  I haven't been able to find out exactly how they did this, but they contacted them.
[21:34.020 --> 21:38.040]  And according to what we've been able to find out so far, they were able to change.
[21:38.340 --> 21:38.560]  Okay.
[21:39.020 --> 21:49.500]  Just to, to clarify, when you make a change to a domain, domain being anything like, well, wbai.org or 2600.com or whitehouse.gov, those are all domains.
[21:49.900 --> 21:57.520]  Now, in order for you to make a change, point the domain somewhere else to a different computer, you have to prove that you're you, that you have the right to do that.
[21:58.480 --> 22:03.900]  Now, you need a password, you need an account, you need some way of verifying that you're the right person.
[22:04.020 --> 22:12.200]  So this, uh, this joker called up network solutions, knowing that they weren't the right person and said, um, they might as well have said, I'm not the right person.
[22:12.200 --> 22:16.280]  Uh, can you please change the, the challenge question?
[22:16.620 --> 22:23.840]  Now, the challenge question is something that if you forget your password, uh, you, you're asked a question and you answer the question the right way.
[22:23.940 --> 22:26.380]  And, and, and the computer says, oh, he got the question, right.
[22:26.440 --> 22:27.420]  So he must be the right person.
[22:27.500 --> 22:29.860]  I'm going to send him a new password now and we can start over again.
[22:30.380 --> 22:32.880]  Uh, now they didn't know the challenge answer either.
[22:32.960 --> 22:36.520]  So they, they changed either the challenge question or the challenge answer.
[22:36.640 --> 22:36.980]  I'm not sure.
[22:37.040 --> 22:39.660]  Some bozo over at network solutions allowed them to do this.
[22:39.660 --> 22:48.120]  Once they were able to do that, they were able to get in and change the owner of the network, of the domain, and where it pointed to.
[22:48.300 --> 22:51.880]  So what they were able to do was point our domain to a different place.
[22:52.300 --> 22:53.860]  Now, that's where the fun begins.
[22:53.860 --> 22:55.160]  I was in Brazil at the time.
[22:55.160 --> 22:56.080]  I had just arrived.
[22:56.300 --> 22:57.720]  I had just gotten off the plane.
[22:57.980 --> 22:59.540]  Literally, I was being driven to a hotel.
[22:59.780 --> 23:03.740]  When Mike called me, and what were the words you said, Mike?
[23:04.060 --> 23:07.240]  Something like, hey, are you aware that the domain's been stolen?
[23:08.320 --> 23:09.260]  Yeah, and I wasn't.
[23:09.340 --> 23:10.080]  I wasn't aware of that.
[23:10.120 --> 23:11.540]  I was actually quite unaware.
[23:11.760 --> 23:13.120]  And I said, oh, really?
[23:13.880 --> 23:15.140]  Or words to that effect.
[23:15.800 --> 23:19.440]  And then you got on the phone to Network Solutions, I believe.
[23:19.680 --> 23:20.320]  What happened from there?
[23:20.500 --> 23:21.340]  Well, I called them.
[23:21.460 --> 23:27.780]  And one of the interesting things about this is I just called sort of very angrily and said, I want this fixed.
[23:28.060 --> 23:33.600]  It's clear that this has been redirected to pornography, which is not what we normally have on our website.
[23:34.260 --> 23:35.220]  Not normally, no.
[23:35.220 --> 23:36.820]  Yeah, put it back, please.
[23:37.100 --> 23:44.420]  And they originally told me that it would take 24 to 48 hours for an investigation to take place.
[23:44.640 --> 23:45.920]  That takes 48 hours.
[23:46.040 --> 23:51.020]  It takes a second to actually get the thing to move over to gay porn, but 48 hours to fix it.
[23:51.140 --> 23:55.320]  Yeah, I advise that that was sort of a little bit long, in our opinion.
[23:55.540 --> 23:55.680]  Yeah.
[23:56.260 --> 24:02.880]  And they eventually decided that they could look into it within an hour or two, which is still not that fast, but much better.
[24:03.060 --> 24:07.280]  No, I demand instant satisfaction as far as this kind of thing goes.
[24:07.400 --> 24:11.740]  Okay, so then you contacted me, I guess, and said that that's the situation as it stands now?
[24:11.880 --> 24:12.080]  Yeah.
[24:12.080 --> 24:12.080]  Yeah.
[24:12.300 --> 24:16.720]  And eventually, someone's sort of competent at Network Solutions.
[24:17.460 --> 24:18.640]  Well, first, what they did...
[24:18.640 --> 24:18.840]  You're skipping.
[24:18.980 --> 24:19.660]  You're skipping something.
[24:19.860 --> 24:19.900]  I'm skipping.
[24:19.900 --> 24:20.020]  I'm sorry.
[24:20.220 --> 24:20.360]  Yeah.
[24:20.440 --> 24:24.840]  First, what they did is they put it on this sort of under construction page.
[24:25.420 --> 24:27.560]  Yeah, they did take the porn off.
[24:27.800 --> 24:27.920]  Yeah.
[24:28.120 --> 24:33.800]  But keep in mind, we still had a situation where our mail wasn't getting to us because 22kno.com was going someplace else.
[24:33.880 --> 24:39.600]  And we also were concerned that people might be trying to log into us and going to a different machine and sending their passwords to that other machine.
[24:39.640 --> 24:41.000]  That was a big concern as well.
[24:41.100 --> 24:44.520]  We had to have everybody change passwords, and it was affected at the time.
[24:45.540 --> 24:50.900]  But what happened was I was on the phone with somebody else, actually.
[24:51.060 --> 24:52.840]  We were three-waying two network solutions.
[24:52.840 --> 24:56.660]  They connected me from the States, and I was there in Brazil.
[24:57.740 --> 25:10.920]  And I got this guy at Network Solutions who basically, as soon as he heard that I was in Brazil, decided that I was the one that was up to something because it didn't correlate to what should be happening.
[25:11.020 --> 25:11.620]  Oh, you're in Brazil.
[25:11.680 --> 25:12.000]  Oh, really?
[25:12.080 --> 25:13.180]  So you want to change the domain.
[25:14.340 --> 25:17.100]  And I don't know why he didn't believe it was me.
[25:17.260 --> 25:17.680]  Oh, no.
[25:17.740 --> 25:18.920]  He wanted to send me email.
[25:19.160 --> 25:21.500]  Now, my email address is at 2600.com.
[25:21.500 --> 25:23.960]  That domain was not going someplace else.
[25:24.200 --> 25:28.060]  So how could he send me email to verify my identity if I wasn't going to get the email?
[25:28.160 --> 25:29.300]  The other person was going to get that.
[25:29.440 --> 25:30.960]  He didn't seem to really understand that.
[25:31.400 --> 25:41.680]  Then he didn't believe that it was me because I couldn't receive a phone call on, get this, the number that you, Mike, had called from only a few minutes earlier.
[25:41.680 --> 25:43.980]  Well, I had provided them with my phone number.
[25:44.020 --> 25:50.580]  Yeah, and somehow that number became the number that you had to call from to prove that you were me, even though we had never called from that number before.
[25:50.780 --> 25:51.800]  This is what's especially odd.
[25:51.900 --> 25:54.520]  I never proved that I work with 2600.
[25:54.520 --> 25:55.960]  I just called up and screamed.
[25:55.960 --> 25:57.920]  You know, I could have been anyone, I suppose.
[25:58.660 --> 26:06.060]  So if you ever do redirect your website to pornography, you can probably, anyone else can redirect it back.
[26:06.660 --> 26:08.620]  It's a very strange system that they had.
[26:08.660 --> 26:08.980]  It really was.
[26:09.100 --> 26:11.840]  And, you know, in the end, in the end, it got fixed.
[26:11.900 --> 26:13.080]  You found that competent person.
[26:13.200 --> 26:13.780]  They fixed it.
[26:14.020 --> 26:18.560]  It still took a couple of days for it to propagate through all the...
[26:18.560 --> 26:30.780]  They did, you know, screw up a bit because they changed the domain name servers back, but they didn't change the address of the name server, which is false to 2600.com.
[26:30.880 --> 26:31.160]  Yes.
[26:31.300 --> 26:33.140]  So that was screwed up for an extra day.
[26:33.260 --> 26:38.300]  And at some point, my cell phone number made its way into who is, which is not supposed to happen.
[26:39.400 --> 26:40.660]  And it's very strange.
[26:40.960 --> 26:42.660]  I mean, this is what these people do for a living.
[26:42.800 --> 26:44.640]  How could they get this so wrong?
[26:44.860 --> 26:46.320]  Now, don't get me wrong.
[26:46.960 --> 26:51.920]  I'm very disappointed and upset with the people that actually did this, the people that instigated it, okay?
[26:52.840 --> 26:56.700]  But the people who really should know better, they're the ones running this.
[26:56.740 --> 26:57.900]  These are the people we pay.
[26:59.060 --> 27:00.800]  And you know what the crazy thing is?
[27:00.800 --> 27:02.540]  I think our account is locked.
[27:02.700 --> 27:07.000]  They call this some kind of a security lock to prevent this from happening again.
[27:07.100 --> 27:08.680]  And we can't leave Network Solutions.
[27:08.680 --> 27:11.680]  We can't go to another company, which is what I'd really like to do now.
[27:11.820 --> 27:13.200]  So be careful, folks.
[27:13.200 --> 27:21.440]  You never know who's protecting your private information and your domains and things like that.
[27:21.560 --> 27:27.840]  Here's an article that's sort of related that showed up on a site called worsethanfailure.com.
[27:28.380 --> 27:31.620]  Security through obscurity is something we've all probably complained about.
[27:32.920 --> 27:35.620]  And now we have security by letterhead.
[27:36.440 --> 27:42.180]  John O'Rourke wrote in to say that as part of his job, he often has to help clients transfer domain names.
[27:42.400 --> 27:49.160]  He's had to jump through all kinds of crazy hoops to transfer domain names in the past, including just about everything except literally jumping through hoops.
[27:49.600 --> 27:54.980]  After faxing in a transfer request and receiving a rejection fax an hour later, he knew he was in for a fight.
[27:54.980 --> 27:59.760]  He called the number on the rejection letter to sort things out and said the following.
[27:59.920 --> 28:06.420]  Yes, I'm calling to find out why a request number, so-and-so, to transfer somedomain.com was rejected.
[28:06.980 --> 28:10.520]  Oh, it was rejected because the request wasn't submitted on company letterhead.
[28:11.340 --> 28:12.080]  Oh, sure.
[28:12.200 --> 28:16.380]  But just so we're on the same page, can you define exactly what you mean by company letterhead?
[28:16.780 --> 28:21.320]  Well, you know, it has the company's logo, maybe a phone number and website address, that sort of thing.
[28:21.320 --> 28:23.520]  I mean, your fax looks like it could have been typed by anyone.
[28:24.620 --> 28:26.980]  So, you know what my company letterhead looks like.
[28:27.740 --> 28:31.360]  Yeah, no, not specifically, but like, we'd know it if we saw it.
[28:32.800 --> 28:34.380]  And what if we don't have letterhead?
[28:34.480 --> 28:35.260]  What if we're a startup?
[28:35.480 --> 28:36.940]  What if we're redesigning our logo?
[28:37.600 --> 28:39.480]  Well, you'd have to speak to a customer.
[28:42.180 --> 28:48.560]  And that's where he said, I could probably just pick out a semi-professional looking MS Word template and paste my request in that and resubmit it, right?
[28:49.200 --> 28:50.140]  Look, our policy.
[28:50.260 --> 28:50.640]  Oh, it's okay.
[28:50.660 --> 28:52.600]  I just sent the request back in on letterhead.
[28:52.680 --> 28:53.620]  The transfer was approved.
[28:54.540 --> 28:56.680]  Well, letterhead is really useful for this sort of thing.
[28:56.760 --> 29:01.140]  Not for this specific sort of thing, but for making people think that you're official.
[29:01.340 --> 29:01.600]  I don't know.
[29:01.740 --> 29:02.440]  Yeah, but the point is here...
[29:02.440 --> 29:03.120]  It works often, though.
[29:03.300 --> 29:12.880]  As the site said, worsethanfailure.com, you can successfully circumvent the security armed with sophisticated hacking tools like MS Word templates and a crappy laser jet printer.
[29:13.380 --> 29:15.840]  I don't think my company even has letterhead.
[29:15.840 --> 29:18.660]  Well, then you can't do it, unless you do this.
[29:20.540 --> 29:21.940]  Okay, so that's funny.
[29:22.060 --> 29:22.980]  Oh, Mike, I have something for you.
[29:23.960 --> 29:24.600]  For me?
[29:24.760 --> 29:29.600]  Yeah, this is the latest Verizon Extra, which really isn't much of an extra.
[29:29.700 --> 29:31.320]  It's a little piece of paper they send you with you, Bill.
[29:31.460 --> 29:31.560]  Thank you.
[29:31.640 --> 29:34.260]  I'm not a Verizon customer, so it's good for you to give it to me.
[29:34.260 --> 29:34.640]  I'm going to hand this to you.
[29:34.740 --> 29:38.600]  On page three, I've circled something, and this is just something that I think you would appreciate more than anybody.
[29:38.800 --> 29:39.340]  Go ahead, read it.
[29:40.380 --> 29:41.240]  That's page two.
[29:41.500 --> 29:42.340]  I'm sorry, page two.
[29:42.340 --> 29:42.980]  Ah, yes.
[29:43.780 --> 29:46.880]  Verizon files internet, America's fastest internet service.
[29:47.180 --> 29:52.360]  If your current connection, except your is spelled Y-O-U apostrophe R-E.
[29:52.560 --> 29:53.400]  Yes, yes.
[29:54.020 --> 29:55.400]  Can you believe they spelled that wrong?
[29:55.560 --> 29:56.540]  I can believe it, yes.
[29:56.540 --> 30:01.440]  That's almost equal to the thing you found on the New York Times overseas, which I saw overseas, too.
[30:01.680 --> 30:02.760]  Well, that's just shameful.
[30:02.840 --> 30:03.600]  That's the New York Times.
[30:03.800 --> 30:04.800]  What was that again, for euros?
[30:04.800 --> 30:09.940]  Yeah, the price in euros, but there's an apostrophe before the S in euros.
[30:10.440 --> 30:12.260]  And the price is something like 10 euros.
[30:12.260 --> 30:13.160]  That's offensive, too.
[30:13.280 --> 30:17.240]  It may seem petty to people out there, but believe it, literacy is an important thing.
[30:17.740 --> 30:20.380]  Okay, we're going to get into a major story in just a moment.
[30:20.660 --> 30:27.120]  First, a couple of things, thinking of Jim here, a couple of MTA things, including one that I think only he would be able to answer.
[30:27.120 --> 30:33.940]  I saw this story on New York One, on their webpage the other day, and I don't know, maybe you guys understand this, but I know Jim would.
[30:34.300 --> 30:38.440]  The headline was, Lawmakers Plan to Sue MTA Over Verrazano Bridge Construction.
[30:39.420 --> 30:51.140]  And the story goes, As construction on the Verrazano Bridge enters a new phase tonight, some Staten Island lawmakers are planning to sue the MTA to stop work on the bridge and consider ways to reduce traffic that construction has caused.
[30:51.240 --> 30:54.400]  Why is the MTA doing construction on a bridge?
[30:54.400 --> 30:58.360]  The MTA operates a lot of the bridges and tunnels around the city.
[30:58.440 --> 30:59.720]  I thought the Bridge and Tunnel Authority did that.
[31:00.600 --> 31:00.960]  No.
[31:01.980 --> 31:03.460]  MTA Bridges and Tunnels, that's the...
[31:03.460 --> 31:04.680]  No, it's not the MTA.
[31:04.680 --> 31:05.340]  Yes, it is.
[31:05.500 --> 31:07.020]  It's the Bridge and Tunnel.
[31:07.300 --> 31:09.560]  Maybe they got taken over by the MTA at some point.
[31:09.560 --> 31:10.420]  MTA, I thought it was just mass transit.
[31:10.480 --> 31:11.440]  I thought there were trains and buses.
[31:11.560 --> 31:12.540]  No, it's very complicated.
[31:12.860 --> 31:13.140]  All right.
[31:14.200 --> 31:16.140]  Well, then I guess you did fill in for Jim on that one.
[31:16.580 --> 31:18.020]  But I thought it was another entity.
[31:18.020 --> 31:18.540]  I really did.
[31:18.740 --> 31:19.780]  Okay, another MTA thing.
[31:19.820 --> 31:26.360]  The MTA may be able to combat spring showers next year with text messages, alerting strap hangers to transit emergencies.
[31:26.760 --> 31:33.080]  The MTA is requesting proposals for an e-alert system that would email and text transit outages as they arise.
[31:33.300 --> 31:36.640]  The agency hopes to have the service online by next spring.
[31:37.300 --> 31:44.640]  Better customer communication has been high on my priority list since I came to the MTA earlier this year, said MTA CEO Elliot Sander.
[31:45.100 --> 31:49.760]  Poor communication during transit-crippling storms in August highlighted the need for an alert system.
[31:49.900 --> 31:51.420]  That would be the largest one in the nation.
[31:51.420 --> 31:56.560]  The MTA needs a provider that can handle pushing out hundreds of thousands of timely alerts.
[31:56.900 --> 31:57.900]  More than that, right?
[31:58.000 --> 32:00.120]  There are like a million riders per day or something.
[32:00.120 --> 32:02.640]  Well, do you think all a million riders are going to have text messages?
[32:02.640 --> 32:04.600]  Yeah, but I'm sure there are different riders on different...
[32:04.600 --> 32:06.500]  I just figured it would be more than that.
[32:06.660 --> 32:11.640]  If the MTA tried to email the alerts in-house, it would require many servers and take hours to send out.
[32:11.640 --> 32:17.400]  So if you are a provider that can help the MTA send out millions of messages at once...
[32:17.400 --> 32:18.600]  Why are you advertising for that?
[32:18.600 --> 32:21.800]  Well, I just would like to see what kind of trouble starts as a result of this.
[32:21.800 --> 32:27.420]  As soon as somebody figures out how to do it without being the MTA, that ought to be fun as well.
[32:28.180 --> 32:29.760]  You know what the MTA needs?
[32:30.140 --> 32:31.640]  It's not an alert system.
[32:31.760 --> 32:33.800]  They need subways that work even when it rains.
[32:33.800 --> 32:39.260]  Oh, by the way, on the way down here on the subway, I found this is the last thing I'm going to say about the MTA.
[32:40.280 --> 32:42.880]  I heard something interesting at Brooklyn Bridge Station.
[32:43.020 --> 32:44.280]  You know where the number six train ends?
[32:44.620 --> 32:45.880]  Usually they kick you off the train.
[32:45.980 --> 32:48.020]  They say, this is the last stop on this train.
[32:48.160 --> 32:49.860]  This train is not accepting passengers.
[32:50.000 --> 32:53.880]  Now they say, this is the last downtown stop on this train.
[32:54.060 --> 32:57.560]  The next stop on this train will be Brooklyn Bridge Uptown Platform.
[32:57.720 --> 32:58.540]  What that means is...
[32:58.540 --> 32:59.920]  So you can actually stay on the City Hall.
[32:59.920 --> 33:04.040]  They are letting you stay on the train as it does the loop around the City Hall station.
[33:04.280 --> 33:04.660]  That is cool.
[33:04.800 --> 33:08.400]  The City Hall station, of course, is the first station ever built in New York.
[33:08.600 --> 33:11.620]  It's a little tiny station, and you see it as the train goes around.
[33:11.940 --> 33:16.660]  We used to stay on the train and kind of sneak on so we could show people from out of town what the station looked like.
[33:16.760 --> 33:20.660]  Apparently now, because of that announcement, I guess they're not kicking people off the train anymore.
[33:20.700 --> 33:23.540]  Because every once in a while, the conductor would walk down and be like, I got it off.
[33:23.740 --> 33:24.220]  Yeah, yeah.
[33:24.340 --> 33:27.380]  But did they have the pneumatic subway at City Hall, or was that somewhere else?
[33:27.500 --> 33:27.820]  I forget.
[33:27.960 --> 33:28.800]  You know, these are Jim questions.
[33:28.800 --> 33:32.660]  And this is something Jim would appreciate more than anybody, the fact that you can do this now legally.
[33:33.500 --> 33:34.040]  Okay.
[33:34.700 --> 33:41.860]  Speaking of history and things New York, the fight for the Hotel Pennsylvania continues.
[33:41.900 --> 33:45.340]  In fact, there is some rather good news.
[33:45.700 --> 34:00.340]  There was a hearing last week in front of Community Board 5, I believe, that basically was discussing whether to bring this to the full board as far as...
[34:00.340 --> 34:04.040]  So it was in front of a subcommittee of the Community Board 5.
[34:04.360 --> 34:08.060]  Now it will go, as I understand it, to Community Board 5 as a whole.
[34:08.060 --> 34:18.180]  The question as to whether or not to push for, I guess, historical preservation status for the Hotel Pennsylvania built in the early 1900s.
[34:18.260 --> 34:22.080]  And as we reported earlier on this program, slated for demolition.
[34:22.080 --> 34:31.240]  So a huge company named Vernado can build what is being described as Times Square Jr. Yes, right across the street from Penn Station.
[34:31.320 --> 34:32.780]  Now this is where we have our HOPE conferences.
[34:32.780 --> 34:35.600]  We've had them since 1994.
[34:35.600 --> 34:40.500]  It's a terrific location, but also it's a place just filled with history.
[34:41.020 --> 34:43.880]  And what this means is that there's a chance.
[34:43.960 --> 34:48.320]  There's a chance of saving the hotel on the preservation issue.
[34:48.340 --> 34:49.720]  And there's a hearing tomorrow.
[34:49.880 --> 34:52.840]  Joining us in the studio right now are Pyro.
[34:53.320 --> 34:53.840]  Hey.
[34:54.120 --> 34:55.060]  And Lexicon.
[34:55.240 --> 34:55.520]  Hello.
[34:55.980 --> 35:01.160]  And you guys have been instrumental in making this happen, for one thing.
[35:01.240 --> 35:03.060]  Well, Pyro, I know you've been at all the hearings.
[35:03.560 --> 35:04.020]  That's right.
[35:04.020 --> 35:09.000]  There have been a number of newspaper articles that you've featured prominently in.
[35:09.260 --> 35:10.960]  Tell us something about...
[35:10.960 --> 35:14.920]  Well, first of all, what motivates you as to why you want to preserve the hotel?
[35:15.100 --> 35:16.120]  Basically, history.
[35:16.800 --> 35:24.240]  Bottom line is that this hotel is going on 89 years old this January 2008.
[35:26.000 --> 35:33.440]  And I'm tired of seeing these big companies come in and just, like, take over historic areas.
[35:33.440 --> 35:35.160]  And just, you know, build whatever they want.
[35:35.380 --> 35:39.560]  We lost Coney Island, although technically we do have another year for it.
[35:40.440 --> 35:44.580]  You know, right now Coney Island is slated to be closed as we know it.
[35:45.480 --> 35:50.740]  And the cyclone, the parachute drop, and the Wonder Wheel will be somebody's toys in somebody's backyard.
[35:51.280 --> 35:51.840]  You know?
[35:52.100 --> 35:52.280]  All right.
[35:52.300 --> 35:52.980]  Well, that's another fight.
[35:53.100 --> 35:54.940]  Let's not get our listeners right up about that yet.
[35:54.940 --> 35:56.840]  But it's along the same vein.
[35:56.980 --> 35:57.680]  It's along the same vein.
[35:57.780 --> 35:57.880]  Right.
[35:58.620 --> 36:02.380]  You know, a lot of New Yorkers just pass by this hotel every day.
[36:02.380 --> 36:10.240]  And they don't really realize what is going on with this parent company that owns this hotel, Vernado Realty.
[36:10.540 --> 36:26.300]  And because Vernado owns not only the hotel, but they own the Manhattan Mall behind it, and a lot of property in that whole midtown area, they have this enormous capability of pretty much just bulldozing everything in sight.
[36:26.300 --> 36:30.960]  And then they have unrestricted airspace to do whatever they want, almost unrestricted airspace.
[36:30.960 --> 36:34.520]  No, it's funny because I had never heard of Vernado before this all started.
[36:34.880 --> 36:45.920]  It's just kind of creepy how a company like that can exist and start owning everything around the area, and then all of a sudden put wheels in motion, and before you know it, history is being destroyed in front of you.
[36:46.000 --> 36:50.600]  But yeah, it seems like that whole area of Vernado is somehow able to control.
[36:50.900 --> 36:51.200]  Yeah.
[36:51.500 --> 36:52.720]  It's truly scary.
[36:52.940 --> 36:59.980]  And they own a lot of the areas in mostly Times Square, but also the Herald Square area.
[36:59.980 --> 37:06.840]  They recently purchased, help me Alex, what was the, Virgin Megastores.
[37:07.040 --> 37:07.900]  Virgin Megastores.
[37:08.120 --> 37:11.880]  They were part, they're now part owners in Virgin Megastores.
[37:12.060 --> 37:20.980]  And the reason that they had done that was because the current property of Virgin Megastores in Times Square was getting about $100 a square foot.
[37:20.980 --> 37:32.260]  Well, they came in, bought, you know, almost the majority share of it, about 49%, partnered with another company, and they raised the rate eightfold.
[37:32.740 --> 37:33.220]  Eightfold.
[37:33.420 --> 37:35.480]  So now they're getting $800 a square foot.
[37:35.900 --> 37:36.380]  Unreal.
[37:36.740 --> 37:39.960]  And, you know, so it's all about money for this place.
[37:39.960 --> 37:42.180]  Well, I mean, that's Times Square.
[37:42.380 --> 37:44.400]  As far as I'm concerned, Times Square is a lost cause.
[37:44.560 --> 37:45.740]  Give that to the tourists.
[37:45.900 --> 37:47.360]  Let the big bright lights shine.
[37:47.660 --> 37:48.880]  Let it be Disney number two.
[37:48.960 --> 37:49.420]  I don't care.
[37:49.660 --> 37:50.860]  But this...
[37:50.860 --> 37:52.680]  Now, people talk about the hotel.
[37:53.080 --> 37:56.800]  Yeah, it's not the best hotel in the world.
[37:56.800 --> 37:58.900]  It's not the Waldorf Astoria.
[37:59.320 --> 38:05.740]  The rooms are tiny, and sometimes you don't have the best stay there because of various reasons.
[38:06.320 --> 38:09.940]  But the thing is, it really is a very popular place.
[38:10.100 --> 38:11.660]  People from all over the world go there.
[38:11.920 --> 38:13.120]  It's an affordable hotel.
[38:13.120 --> 38:14.540]  It's conveniently located.
[38:14.760 --> 38:16.340]  It's a great place to have conferences.
[38:16.660 --> 38:21.000]  When I was traveling this whole summer, it was the number one thing people would ask me.
[38:21.040 --> 38:21.980]  So what's the deal with the hotel?
[38:22.120 --> 38:24.000]  These are people in other cities, other continents.
[38:24.260 --> 38:26.620]  Because when they come to the States, that's where they stay.
[38:26.780 --> 38:27.400]  That's where they come.
[38:27.780 --> 38:33.480]  Now, I think it's kind of deceptive to think that because New Yorkers aren't jumping all over this, that it doesn't matter.
[38:33.540 --> 38:35.400]  It matters to people all over the world.
[38:35.740 --> 38:40.100]  And, of course, those people are the ones that stay in hotels when they come to New York.
[38:40.100 --> 38:41.700]  People who live here don't stay in hotels.
[38:42.440 --> 38:49.980]  Now, a lot of people have said that, yeah, there's much nicer looking buildings and that the inside of it has been changed over time.
[38:50.320 --> 38:55.300]  But I think that, and this is the point, that history is not always the prettiest of the buildings.
[38:55.460 --> 39:00.600]  History oftentimes is all sorts of changes that take place over decades.
[39:01.040 --> 39:10.720]  And you can walk through the hotel and just see different stages of history, renovations that took place in the 50s and in the 30s and in the 90s.
[39:11.000 --> 39:13.460]  I think you were walking around various places.
[39:14.020 --> 39:15.620]  Various places that I shouldn't have been walking around.
[39:15.620 --> 39:16.460]  Okay, maybe we shouldn't talk about that.
[39:16.460 --> 39:17.060]  We won't talk about that.
[39:17.060 --> 39:19.920]  But, yeah, I've been to different areas of this hotel.
[39:19.920 --> 39:29.780]  And you can see, you know, on the lower conference levels, the difference between, you know, what it is now and what it used to be.
[39:29.860 --> 39:36.240]  And there are massive, massive ballrooms on different sub-levels that are no longer in use.
[39:36.240 --> 39:47.000]  That if you look at the architectural drawings of the original hotel, you will see that these are hotels that, I'm sorry, these are conference rooms that used to be filled with people all the time.
[39:47.060 --> 39:51.220]  Well, I saw the blueprints, which, we must mention the website.
[39:51.580 --> 39:53.000]  That's savethehotel.org.
[39:53.080 --> 39:55.120]  www.savethehotel.org.
[39:55.220 --> 39:55.460]  Okay.
[39:55.680 --> 39:57.980]  And on there are the blueprints for the hotel.
[39:58.100 --> 40:01.320]  And just looking at those blueprints, you see the incredible history.
[40:01.480 --> 40:07.400]  You see all these rooms that were used for different purposes back when there were horse-drawn carriages and things like that.
[40:07.400 --> 40:11.660]  And you just get a sense of how much has gone on in that place.
[40:11.840 --> 40:18.920]  And to just think of bulldozing the whole place and replacing it with, I believe, Merrill Lynch headquarters.
[40:19.220 --> 40:28.200]  Now, that's the other part of the story is Merrill Lynch has expressed interest in moving up from downtown and taking over that space right across the street from Penn Station.
[40:28.320 --> 40:36.560]  First of all, it's got people downtown up in arms because it's supposed to be the whole restoration of the downtown area when the Freedom Tower gets built and all that.
[40:37.400 --> 40:42.560]  But it also is replacing this building that is filled with people all the time.
[40:43.080 --> 40:44.600]  There are 1,700 rooms in this place.
[40:44.720 --> 40:51.160]  And it's always a busy crossroads for travelers from around the world to meet up and to explore the city.
[40:51.560 --> 41:01.260]  And to replace that with an ice-cold office building that no doubt will be surrounded by security guards all the time to keep us out, that alone is obscene.
[41:01.380 --> 41:03.680]  And I hope people would be upset enough about that.
[41:03.900 --> 41:05.660]  Now, let's mention the meeting.
[41:05.660 --> 41:09.400]  There's a meeting tomorrow night, an important meeting, and we hope to get a lot of people there.
[41:09.480 --> 41:10.580]  You want to give us the details on that?
[41:10.620 --> 41:14.080]  There is the full board meeting of the Community Five.
[41:14.760 --> 41:23.780]  And basically, Community Five is the representatives of the area that are on a...
[41:23.780 --> 41:26.820]  Basically, they're a political committee, but they have no political power.
[41:27.020 --> 41:29.400]  They're more lobbyists than anything else.
[41:29.700 --> 41:43.660]  And there's a full board meeting to agree or disagree whether we should bring this hotel to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission to give it its proper status recognition that it needs.
[41:43.660 --> 41:48.380]  The meeting is at FIT, Building C...
[41:48.380 --> 41:49.700]  That's Fashion Institute of Technology.
[41:49.820 --> 41:53.460]  Fashion Institute of Technology at 227 West 27th Street at 7th Avenue.
[41:53.740 --> 41:57.360]  And it is in the Haft Auditorium on the second floor.
[41:58.020 --> 42:03.460]  Anybody wishing to come down and speak, please stop by, register.
[42:03.620 --> 42:06.120]  You'll have three minutes to speak on each topic.
[42:06.120 --> 42:17.440]  Once all the speaking by the public has been done, the board will deliberate and make their decision as to whether or not this gets passed on to New York City.
[42:17.540 --> 42:18.660]  And it starts at 6 p.m.
[42:18.700 --> 42:18.900]  tomorrow.
[42:19.080 --> 42:19.480]  6 p.m.
[42:19.740 --> 42:19.960]  tomorrow night.
[42:20.440 --> 42:20.700]  Okay.
[42:20.800 --> 42:25.480]  And I can't stress enough the importance of showing up at a hearing like this.
[42:25.720 --> 42:29.860]  As you're showing up at the meeting before that, I think that had a lot to do with this meeting even happening.
[42:30.260 --> 42:35.140]  And I imagine if a lot of people show up to this, we can see the power of the people.
[42:35.140 --> 42:38.600]  Now, Lex, I know you got involved in this fight as well.
[42:38.700 --> 42:39.600]  What drives you?
[42:40.100 --> 42:42.420]  Well, I just think it's...
[42:43.100 --> 42:57.140]  The hotel itself is interesting because of its place in history with the trains and the ships and New York being kind of the center of how people traveled at the turn of the century in 19...
[42:57.980 --> 42:59.540]  Was it 18 or 19 when it was built?
[42:59.980 --> 43:00.460]  19...
[43:00.460 --> 43:01.080]  19, 19.
[43:01.320 --> 43:01.780]  19, 19.
[43:01.780 --> 43:07.800]  And because it's the people that pass through that are interesting to me.
[43:08.220 --> 43:20.180]  And Pyro's done a lot of research here with finding out that when Charlie Chaplin was being investigated as a communist, it was in the Hotel Pennsylvania where he was being investigated.
[43:20.320 --> 43:20.720]  Oh, really?
[43:20.720 --> 43:21.180]  Yes.
[43:22.380 --> 43:22.700]  And...
[43:22.700 --> 43:24.280]  You mean they questioned him in there?
[43:24.600 --> 43:27.400]  Yes, they were questioning him in the Hotel Pennsylvania.
[43:27.660 --> 43:30.360]  See, all those little tidbits, things that you don't even know happened in there.
[43:30.440 --> 43:30.560]  Yeah, yeah.
[43:30.680 --> 43:32.580]  You know the Maury Povich show tapes in there?
[43:32.920 --> 43:34.740]  They tape in the Grand Ballroom.
[43:34.880 --> 43:36.140]  Yeah, so these little things.
[43:36.240 --> 43:38.800]  Some of them good, some of them bad, but they're bits of history.
[43:38.800 --> 43:52.760]  And he also found out that William Faulkner, when he had won the Nobel Prize for Literature, stayed at the hotel on his way home and was writing...
[43:52.760 --> 43:58.080]  I mean, there is just so much history that happens even in the present.
[43:58.420 --> 44:02.160]  The RNC, Hotel Pennsylvania, played a pivotal role in that as well.
[44:02.160 --> 44:04.960]  All kinds of things happened in there in 2004.
[44:05.820 --> 44:08.800]  And, of course, we have the big man things of Glenn Miller.
[44:08.920 --> 44:10.880]  The song, Pennsylvania 65,000.
[44:11.040 --> 44:12.060]  That's the hotel.
[44:12.060 --> 44:13.740]  That's the hotel's phone number.
[44:13.860 --> 44:14.800]  Still rings to this day.
[44:14.980 --> 44:19.940]  Now, people say, naysayers, they say that that's not enough.
[44:20.120 --> 44:20.820]  That's not enough.
[44:20.940 --> 44:26.880]  Having a song and having all these disjointed bits of history isn't enough to save a building.
[44:27.000 --> 44:28.080]  I ask, what is?
[44:28.200 --> 44:28.860]  What is enough?
[44:28.860 --> 44:33.120]  Do you have to have some incredibly rich and posh structure?
[44:33.340 --> 44:35.000]  Is that the only thing that you understand?
[44:35.280 --> 44:39.340]  Or can you understand that maybe history is a little bit more real than that?
[44:39.480 --> 44:41.580]  I mean, Stonehenge is just a pile of rocks.
[44:41.840 --> 44:48.940]  The Colosseum in Rome looks like garbage, you know, if you compare it to the new city field that's going to be built in Queens.
[44:49.620 --> 44:55.260]  So, you know, the history is not always the way you want it to look.
[44:55.260 --> 44:59.040]  Well, certainly the history is apparent because of the Hotel Pennsylvania.
[44:59.260 --> 45:11.940]  As you come out of the Hotel Pennsylvania, you face Pennsylvania Station, which is now an underground station under the Madison Square Garden and a very ugly office tower.
[45:12.080 --> 45:21.940]  And what used to be there was a magnificent railroad station that was the most magnificent railroad station in the country and perhaps the world at the time.
[45:21.940 --> 45:23.240]  Same architects as Hotel Penn.
[45:23.320 --> 45:33.280]  Same architects as the Hotel Penn and same architects as that redid the inside of the White House at the time and same architects that designed the Waldorf Astoria.
[45:34.040 --> 45:43.680]  And when you walk out of the Hotel Pennsylvania and you look at its facade behind you, you can sort of picture what used to be across the street from it that was destroyed.
[45:43.940 --> 45:55.100]  And when the original Penn Station was destroyed, that's when historical preservation started to become a big thing in the country because people sort of woke up and said, wait, where did Penn Station go?
[45:55.100 --> 46:07.440]  And so it's noteworthy because it's almost a ghost image of what was absolutely gorgeous across the street and was destroyed.
[46:07.440 --> 46:16.360]  And if you now destroy this, then we lose some little bit of record reminder of what's missing.
[46:16.720 --> 46:19.820]  You're not just taking away what's missing.
[46:19.820 --> 46:21.840]  You're taking away the reminder of what's missing.
[46:21.840 --> 46:22.520]  Well said.
[46:22.700 --> 46:23.300]  Very well said.
[46:23.720 --> 46:27.120]  We're going to take a couple of phone calls, 212-209-2900.
[46:27.340 --> 46:33.780]  I'd like for people who are interested in the hotel in any way, who are local, do two things.
[46:34.140 --> 46:35.680]  Number one, go to the hotel.
[46:35.680 --> 46:39.920]  It's on 7th Avenue between 32nd and 33rd Street.
[46:40.720 --> 46:41.200]  No?
[46:41.620 --> 46:42.540]  31st and 32nd.
[46:42.580 --> 46:43.460]  31st and 32nd.
[46:43.540 --> 46:43.680]  Okay.
[46:44.120 --> 46:47.180]  And just stand in front of it for a half hour.
[46:47.320 --> 46:50.420]  Just lean against the wall and just watch what goes by.
[46:50.420 --> 46:51.300]  Watch what happens.
[46:51.480 --> 46:54.500]  You will see something, I guarantee, that will be of interest.
[46:54.680 --> 46:57.840]  That's something that you can talk about to somebody later on that day.
[46:58.200 --> 46:59.160]  So much happens.
[46:59.620 --> 47:01.140]  And we do this at the HOPE conferences.
[47:01.140 --> 47:03.600]  We just kind of stand outside and watch New York happen.
[47:03.800 --> 47:11.320]  And the other thing I'd like people to do, if you live in New York, you have parents or grandparents who have lived in New York, ask them about the hotel.
[47:11.320 --> 47:12.940]  I guarantee they have stories about it.
[47:13.020 --> 47:18.100]  I guarantee they've been in there at some point and know something about it that you probably don't know.
[47:19.700 --> 47:24.740]  So, all right, Pyro, the information again on the meeting takes place tomorrow at 6.
[47:25.040 --> 47:25.680]  6 p.m.
[47:26.040 --> 47:26.040]  tomorrow.
[47:26.200 --> 47:27.660]  We have three minutes each to talk.
[47:27.660 --> 47:30.680]  And all you have to do is sign your name and you can say what you wish about the subject.
[47:30.720 --> 47:34.700]  When you walk into Building C, there will be a security guard sitting there or maybe standing there.
[47:35.100 --> 47:37.080]  You fill that slip of paper to speak.
[47:37.080 --> 47:43.440]  You will be given three minutes to make your case before the full 50 board community members.
[47:44.280 --> 47:48.220]  And once everybody is done on the topic, they will make their deliberation.
[47:48.540 --> 47:54.080]  Now, this is by no means, if we do not get the community board support, this is by no means a done deal.
[47:54.080 --> 47:56.760]  But it will be just a little bit harder.
[47:56.760 --> 48:02.720]  Yeah, we intend to fight this to the very end until they actually knock the place down, which hopefully they will never do.
[48:03.400 --> 48:09.540]  And, of course, if Merrill Lynch can be convinced not to move up there, that would be a big deal right there and then.
[48:09.700 --> 48:10.080]  Without a doubt.
[48:10.240 --> 48:12.260]  Fashion Institute of Technology tomorrow at 6.
[48:12.660 --> 48:18.320]  227 West 27th Street at 7th Avenue, Building C, Haft Auditorium on the second floor.
[48:18.720 --> 48:19.200]  All right.
[48:19.340 --> 48:20.940]  I hope that a lot of people show up.
[48:21.140 --> 48:22.880]  Not just people interested in the Hope Conference.
[48:22.880 --> 48:31.520]  People interested in history, people interested in New York, people interested in not having Times Square Jr. opposite the new Penn Station.
[48:32.540 --> 48:34.200]  Okay, we're going to take phone calls in just a second.
[48:34.200 --> 48:36.880]  I would like to read this letter that somebody sent in.
[48:36.940 --> 48:44.420]  Also, if you'd like us, again, we can read letters to the board if you mail hotel at 2600.com.
[48:44.500 --> 48:52.020]  I know there are a lot of people out there in various parts of the world who have been at the hotel, who know the importance of Hotel Pennsylvania and the history of New York.
[48:52.020 --> 48:53.540]  Maybe the experiences that you've had there.
[48:53.700 --> 48:59.480]  If you'd like any of that to make it to the board tomorrow, please email hotel at 2600.com.
[48:59.600 --> 49:01.480]  You only have a few hours to do this, so don't put it off.
[49:01.600 --> 49:03.000]  Hotel at 2600.com.
[49:03.080 --> 49:10.720]  Hopefully, we'll get a lot of mail and can present it to them tomorrow to show that people in other parts of the world actually care about this as well.
[49:11.700 --> 49:12.020]  Okay.
[49:12.140 --> 49:15.380]  Dear ladies and gentlemen of the board, this is a letter somebody sent already to that address.
[49:15.380 --> 49:20.380]  I have stayed at the Hotel Pennsylvania several times over the last few years and have always had a great experience.
[49:20.640 --> 49:25.180]  I was very sad to hear that there was intent to tear it down and erect yet another skyscraper.
[49:25.340 --> 49:28.040]  In my opinion, the atmosphere of the neighborhood would suffer greatly.
[49:28.360 --> 49:35.200]  I fear that the current facade with its welcoming feel that you get when emerging from Penn Station would be replaced by a cold and uninviting slab.
[49:35.200 --> 49:48.440]  I have been to a few conventions held there, and the hotel offers reasonable accommodation rates, a friendly, eager staff, and lovely amenities, which sounds too much like an advertisement that I believe would most likely not be met elsewhere, resulting in these conventions moving to the boroughs or,
[49:48.540 --> 49:50.200]  worse yet, ceasing to exist.
[49:50.420 --> 49:56.400]  The sentimental value of the hotel made famous by the Glenn Miller song is priceless, and I'm sure that it is known throughout the world.
[49:56.400 --> 49:59.600]  I believe its destruction is on par with destroying a piece of art.
[49:59.600 --> 50:05.700]  And I know that if all New Yorkers were made aware of it and given the vote, it would surely be voted to be saved and given landmark status.
[50:05.900 --> 50:14.720]  If we look back on other great structures in New York City that have been torn down, I think most would agree that if we had it to do over again, they would elect not to be taken from the people.
[50:15.120 --> 50:17.440]  Thank you for taking the time to read and consider my comments.
[50:17.520 --> 50:25.380]  I hope you will come to the decision that the Hotel Pennsylvania has a special place in the public's heart in New York, the suburbs, and indeed around the world.
[50:25.520 --> 50:28.180]  Please grant it the landmark status that it rightly deserves.
[50:28.580 --> 50:32.100]  Karen from Lake Grove, New York, thanks so much for writing those words.
[50:32.260 --> 50:35.240]  And for other people who are writing in, hotelat2600.com.
[50:35.500 --> 50:38.200]  Meeting is tomorrow night, so we have to have your input then.
[50:38.360 --> 50:40.720]  And hopefully, a lot of people will show up as well.
[50:41.240 --> 50:42.260]  Let's take some phone calls.
[50:42.340 --> 50:44.300]  212-209-2900.
[50:44.840 --> 50:45.380]  Good evening.
[50:45.560 --> 50:46.300]  You're on Off the Hook.
[50:47.100 --> 50:52.460]  You know, the New York Times building was saved after they built a big building.
[50:52.760 --> 51:05.380]  You know, they moved, and they said they couldn't tear that building, even though the building, even with all this tearing down of buildings in the city, they can't tear down the Times building because that's a historic landmark, even though they've moved.
[51:06.100 --> 51:11.940]  I'm wondering how they got that historic landmark, and maybe they can get this historic landmark as well.
[51:12.100 --> 51:14.340]  Well, it's something to pursue and to think about.
[51:14.600 --> 51:17.520]  Hopefully, history will repeat itself in that regard anyway.
[51:17.800 --> 51:18.300]  Good evening.
[51:18.500 --> 51:19.120]  You're on Off the Hook.
[51:20.740 --> 51:22.820]  Did you get my DVD?
[51:22.900 --> 51:26.960]  Okay, you know, Rebel, if you call every single line, we're not going to take any of your calls anymore.
[51:27.080 --> 51:27.400]  Good evening.
[51:27.580 --> 51:28.340]  You're on Off the Hook.
[51:29.360 --> 51:29.760]  Hi.
[51:30.000 --> 51:30.220]  Hi.
[51:30.320 --> 51:30.840]  What's on your mind?
[51:31.240 --> 51:31.540]  Yes.
[51:32.420 --> 51:32.860]  Speak up.
[51:33.080 --> 51:33.360]  What?
[51:33.500 --> 51:34.160]  What's on your mind?
[51:34.320 --> 51:34.780]  Oh, yes.
[51:34.780 --> 51:54.880]  I quite agree that the tearing down of buildings is without total lack of appreciation of history, history, and not just for the reasons you said, but because any hotel like that, that has such a great history, and you cited some of the examples, can easily be upgraded around.
[51:54.880 --> 52:00.720]  It could still be valuable, but to tear down the main structure would be a sacrilege, I think.
[52:00.880 --> 52:04.440]  So I hope people are going to write letters, and I'll try to make it tomorrow.
[52:04.920 --> 52:07.100]  Repeat the address again before you hang up.
[52:07.200 --> 52:07.840]  We absolutely will.
[52:08.140 --> 52:09.300]  We'll repeat it with you on the phone.
[52:09.380 --> 52:09.600]  Go ahead.
[52:12.820 --> 52:17.520]  7th Avenue, Building C, in the Heft Auditorium, second floor.
[52:18.440 --> 52:19.260]  Good luck to us.
[52:19.340 --> 52:19.820]  And that's on the website, right?
[52:20.100 --> 52:20.360]  Yeah.
[52:20.620 --> 52:20.800]  Yeah.
[52:21.600 --> 52:21.860]  Save the website.
[52:22.100 --> 52:23.200]  Save the hotel.org.
[52:23.300 --> 52:24.100]  Thanks very much for calling.
[52:24.600 --> 52:26.240]  You know, it's not such a bad place.
[52:26.300 --> 52:28.820]  I've stayed in hotels that are way, way worse than that.
[52:28.940 --> 52:32.280]  Everybody seems to be saying that it's, you know, kind of grimy and dingy, but it's not.
[52:32.380 --> 52:32.940]  It's a nice hotel.
[52:33.080 --> 52:33.920]  And they're upgrading.
[52:34.060 --> 52:34.960]  They're overhauling it.
[52:35.140 --> 52:36.820]  They're actually making money now in the hotel.
[52:36.840 --> 52:38.260]  I've had some very nice experiences.
[52:38.440 --> 52:46.700]  So there's not really a reason to tear it down, except that Vernado owns that property from the hotel and the Manhattan Mall behind it all the way over to the Farrelly Post Office.
[52:46.800 --> 52:50.900]  And they want to move Madison Square Garden over towards the west side.
[52:51.080 --> 52:52.820]  It's insane the things they want to do.
[52:53.060 --> 52:55.960]  I mean, and it's unnecessary, too.
[52:56.020 --> 52:59.520]  If they want to rebuild things, rebuild downtown and leave history alone.
[52:59.620 --> 53:00.680]  That's what I think.
[53:00.680 --> 53:07.240]  Well, one of my opinions is that the reason they want to tear this down is because this hotel has been paid off in full.
[53:07.500 --> 53:08.600]  The mortgage is done.
[53:08.860 --> 53:13.680]  So Vernado doesn't really get any true revenue from the hotel.
[53:13.820 --> 53:16.360]  The hotel is a business entity unto itself.
[53:16.540 --> 53:18.860]  Any money it makes, it puts back into its own corporation.
[53:19.320 --> 53:27.860]  So if there's no more profit to be made by collecting rent or mortgage off of this building, why bother keeping it up, they feel?
[53:27.860 --> 53:28.700]  It's all about money.
[53:28.820 --> 53:30.920]  And the thing is, this place is not failing.
[53:30.920 --> 53:31.900]  It's doing well.
[53:32.040 --> 53:32.360]  It is.
[53:32.500 --> 53:36.220]  The rooms are sold out almost all the time with tourists from all around the world.
[53:36.380 --> 53:39.580]  So yeah, it's about making even more money off that.
[53:39.680 --> 53:40.720]  And where are these tourists going to go?
[53:40.780 --> 53:41.460]  That's what I'd like to know.
[53:41.540 --> 53:44.940]  Where are 1,700 people going to go instead of a place they can afford?
[53:45.140 --> 53:48.220]  They're not going to come to New York or go someplace a lot more expensive.
[53:48.480 --> 53:57.760]  And Pyro, you found a couple months ago a report from City Hall that was saying that in a couple of years, there was going to be a serious shortage of hotel rooms in the city.
[53:58.000 --> 53:58.300]  Absolutely.
[53:58.820 --> 54:02.540]  And here they're trying to tear down a hotel with 1,700.
[54:02.720 --> 54:06.960]  And it's amazing because originally when this hotel opened, it had 2,200 rooms.
[54:07.120 --> 54:07.260]  Yeah.
[54:07.500 --> 54:10.080]  And over 3,000 beds in it.
[54:10.160 --> 54:11.500]  It was the world's biggest hotel.
[54:11.660 --> 54:13.360]  It had the first high-rise elevators.
[54:13.720 --> 54:16.420]  The building itself has been abused, really, by its owners.
[54:16.420 --> 54:20.040]  And a restoration is a lot more appropriate than a demolition.
[54:20.640 --> 54:21.200]  We'll help.
[54:21.340 --> 54:21.980]  We'll pitch in.
[54:22.840 --> 54:23.000]  All right.
[54:23.020 --> 54:23.620]  Let's take another phone call.
[54:23.700 --> 54:24.000]  Good evening.
[54:24.140 --> 54:24.880]  You're on Off the Hook.
[54:26.320 --> 54:27.020]  Speak up, please.
[54:28.040 --> 54:28.660]  On your account.
[54:29.200 --> 54:31.020]  However, this offer is about to be fired.
[54:31.420 --> 54:32.880]  We're getting spam on the phone.
[54:33.040 --> 54:33.480]  How nice.
[54:33.700 --> 54:34.120]  How wonderful.
[54:34.200 --> 54:34.520]  Good evening.
[54:34.660 --> 54:35.260]  You're on Off the Hook.
[54:35.580 --> 54:35.900]  Yes.
[54:36.000 --> 54:36.460]  How are you doing?
[54:36.700 --> 54:37.640]  I think...
[54:38.180 --> 54:39.020]  I love your show.
[54:39.140 --> 54:39.660]  Great guys.
[54:40.120 --> 54:40.320]  Thanks.
[54:40.400 --> 54:40.800]  Great stuff.
[54:41.460 --> 54:42.900]  I hope Jim gets better.
[54:43.060 --> 54:44.020]  I didn't hear what happened to him.
[54:44.060 --> 54:44.740]  I got you on tape.
[54:44.860 --> 54:45.660]  I'll take care of it later.
[54:48.060 --> 54:48.520]  Hello?
[54:49.020 --> 54:49.480]  Hello?
[54:49.660 --> 54:50.060]  Yeah, go ahead.
[54:50.320 --> 55:00.060]  Yes, I think when they changed the names of countries, the names of streets, when they changed landmarks, and changed, what was it, area codes.
[55:00.280 --> 55:05.580]  They really take our bearings, try to take our bearings away from us.
[55:05.860 --> 55:08.820]  Don't they seem to be related to each other?
[55:09.220 --> 55:10.720]  Well, some change is good.
[55:10.720 --> 55:12.140]  Some change is just unnecessary.
[55:12.740 --> 55:13.020]  Yeah.
[55:13.300 --> 55:13.660]  Yeah.
[55:13.660 --> 55:18.340]  I think maybe when they questioned Charlie Chaplin, he clammed up and did only movies from that.
[55:18.860 --> 55:20.140]  Did only talking movies from that?
[55:20.640 --> 55:21.000]  Yeah.
[55:21.000 --> 55:21.260]  Sorry about that.
[55:21.360 --> 55:21.940]  Yeah, maybe.
[55:22.140 --> 55:22.500]  Maybe so.
[55:22.660 --> 55:22.720]  Okay.
[55:22.940 --> 55:23.120]  Thanks.
[55:23.120 --> 55:25.900]  I'm going to email you and look for D-O-S-T-A-R-T.
[55:26.080 --> 55:31.200]  And I'm telling you that because I have a great formula for you for fun drives through your telephone.
[55:31.400 --> 55:31.760]  Okay.
[55:31.840 --> 55:34.460]  Well, we'll talk about that at a future date.
[55:34.600 --> 55:35.260]  Thanks for your call.
[55:35.340 --> 55:36.600]  Let's see if we can get one more in.
[55:37.120 --> 55:38.080]  And good evening.
[55:38.260 --> 55:38.800]  You're on Off the Hook.
[55:39.600 --> 55:40.080]  Yeah, you are.
[55:40.320 --> 55:42.460]  And I'm telling you that because I have a great...
[55:42.460 --> 55:43.500]  Turn down your radio, please.
[55:43.820 --> 55:44.040]  Sure.
[55:45.300 --> 55:45.980]  Oh, hi.
[55:46.060 --> 55:46.500]  Yes, go ahead.
[55:47.620 --> 55:47.980]  Quickly.
[55:48.140 --> 55:48.200]  Hello?
[55:48.380 --> 55:48.880]  Yes, go ahead.
[55:48.960 --> 55:49.080]  Quickly.
[55:49.860 --> 55:50.280]  Oh, okay.
[55:51.580 --> 55:55.600]  I read an article in the New York Times recently about personal cell phone jammers.
[55:56.120 --> 55:57.160]  I was wondering if you guys have heard of it.
[55:57.160 --> 56:06.660]  Yeah, that sort of hit the mass media in the last week, but we're not going to have time to discuss it tonight as the personal computers show people are already here, and we have to move on.
[56:06.820 --> 56:13.180]  But let's give out the address one more time for the hearing tomorrow night at 6 o'clock, a hearing to preserve the hotel.
[56:13.700 --> 56:17.140]  And it's very important that people show up in great numbers.
[56:17.240 --> 56:20.680]  And you don't have to speak, but if you do want to speak, three minutes, you're allocated.
[56:20.900 --> 56:21.900]  It would be great if you did.
[56:21.900 --> 56:26.120]  The address is 227 West 27th Street at 7th Avenue.
[56:26.140 --> 56:27.800]  That's the FIT Building C.
[56:28.480 --> 56:30.280]  Haft Auditorium, second floor.
[56:30.600 --> 56:32.400]  And that starts at 6 p.m.
[56:32.500 --> 56:32.700]  6 p.m.
[56:32.800 --> 56:41.760]  And if you're a local radio, newspaper, TV, media person, and you have some connections, come on down.
[56:41.880 --> 56:42.720]  It's open to the public.
[56:42.860 --> 56:43.680]  It's open to everybody.
[56:44.080 --> 56:44.680]  All right.
[56:45.500 --> 56:47.140]  Hope to see a lot of people down there.
[56:47.140 --> 56:56.200]  And, Bernie, for people who want to write in, actually, let me just go to the email address for the hotel, hotel at 2600.com, if you just want us to read something to the board tomorrow night.
[56:56.300 --> 56:59.780]  And those of you overseas, please write in with your experiences and thoughts.
[56:59.960 --> 57:04.180]  Now, Bernie, as far as Jim goes, the address to write in, if people want to...
[57:04.180 --> 57:10.080]  Besides OTH at 2600.com, cards and letters can go to the Lutheran Medical Center.
[57:10.080 --> 57:20.280]  Remember, attention, Jim Vichench, V-I-C-H-E-N-C-H, at 150 55th Street, Brooklyn, New York, 11220.
[57:20.820 --> 57:23.120]  Send your cards, letters, and wishes of well.
[57:23.280 --> 57:23.560]  Thank you.
[57:24.020 --> 57:24.400]  All right.
[57:24.480 --> 57:26.840]  And again, send OTH at 2600.com.
[57:27.000 --> 57:30.400]  We'll be happy to read what you send to Jim next time we see him.
[57:30.900 --> 57:32.240]  More updates next week.
[57:32.520 --> 57:34.220]  We'll see you then for another edition of Off the Hook.
[57:34.340 --> 57:37.080]  Stay tuned for the Personal Computer Show here on WBAI.
[57:37.260 --> 57:37.500]  Good night.
[58:08.540 --> 58:13.380]  We'll see you then for another edition
[58:17.130 --> 58:23.310]  of Off the Hook.
[59:20.130 --> 59:21.010]  Hey, cat.
[59:37.570 --> 59:38.290]  All right.
[59:38.550 --> 59:39.810]  That's the personal...
[59:39.810 --> 59:40.350]  Oh, no.
[59:40.730 --> 59:41.630]  That was off the hook.
[59:41.790 --> 59:43.230]  You know, we haven't been here in so long.
[59:43.290 --> 59:46.090]  I tell you, I feel a little off the hook myself.
[59:46.090 --> 59:47.030]  I tell you when I look myself.
[59:47.310 --> 59:47.930]  I feel a little off the hook.