Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: Selling the Brooklyn Bridge

Episode Date: August 17, 2022

You've heard the phrase "If you believe that I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you." But did you know it's based in truth?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey friends when you're staying at an Airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lisa in Manitoba who got the idea to Airbnb the backyard guest house over childhood home now The extra income helps pay her mortgage. So yeah, you might not realize it But you might have an Airbnb to find out what your place could be earning at air bnb.ca Hey and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh and that's Chuck and we're flying solo today and that's okay because We've got something to say Mostly this is short stuff You really bailed on that one didn't you?

This is about selling the Brooklyn Bridge, which I I think I'd heard that this was a thing in history at some point But a big thanks to the New York Times How stuff works calm and NYC walks calm to bring it's the story of George C. Parker a man who sold the book the book the Brooklyn Blige Many times over as well as some other notable New York places You know Yitzy would be Oh, man, Yitzy's gonna become a regular part of the show. I think So, yeah, George C. Parker was like a con man extraordinaire like this guy

Supposedly he at least he claimed to have sold the Brooklyn Bridge multiple times a week every week for years That's how good he was which is probably not great No, that is almost certainly not true But it is documented that he did sell successfully sell the Brooklyn Bridge to a number of suckers over the years Like it wasn't just a one-time thing just once would have made him a legend But the fact that this guy did it over and over again is really something Yeah, and apparently this used to be a thing and not just the Brooklyn Bridge But you were in a situation in the you know sort of latest 1800s in New York City where you had

Millions of immigrants coming through Ellis Island who were Hopeful many of them were poor But not all of them because you had to have some money to buy the Brooklyn Bridge Although sometimes they sold these things for like not very much money, which is even sadder So they were they were targets. They were sort of Greenhorn targets and some of them did have money though and They would use I think like

I Guess scouts or something What would you call that someone to kind of like hey informants? Informants at Ellis Island that could maybe be paid off to pass along information like hey This immigrant came in they think America is the land of opportunity. They're really excited and they got a little cash in their pocket Right. So the whole jam was with Parker's Brooklyn Bridge scam Was he would find one of these people a well-heeled immigrant who just thought of America as the land of opportunity and Thought that this was a golden opportunity

He would find them and show them, you know some sort of A deed that said that he owned the Brooklyn Bridge and he wanted to unload it So he would sell it to somebody and and just basically tell them like it's not just owning the Brooklyn Bridge Which is amazing enough you can charge a toll and you could make your money back in like a month And then just get rich from there and that was how apparently he actually attracted people. Yeah, and all this stuff is so It's very easy in 2022 to say well, why didn't they say well, why aren't you doing this? Why aren't you making this money? Why aren't there tolls and things like that?

And who knows the answer. I think it was just a different time period As far as tolls on the bridge They did used to charge when it first opened it cost a penny To cross by to to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge by foot a nickel if you had a horse and a rider 10 cents for a horse and wagon and then Extra money for farm animals if you were, you know, toting your farm animals, which is very funny to think about now

Across the Brooklyn Bridge, that's pretty funny So there was there was at least a history where an immigrant may have heard That this was the case. Uh, they stopped doing this in 1891 and I think even the roadway tolls went away in 1911. So You know, they they didn't stop until 1891. So if it's 1892 or three Then you could sort of forgive someone for believing it Yeah, plus they were still charging those roadway tolls for for decades longer. So yeah I think the very presence of tolls on the Brooklyn Bridge made people think like, oh, okay. Yeah, this is a thing

This guy owns this bridge. I'm going to take over this enterprise from him. Yeah And another thing you have to think about is the Brooklyn Bridge is very large And it would be very easy to walk someone up there and maybe even show them a toll booth Uh, without arousing suspicion without getting caught without Uh, you know, them necessarily thinking they needed to go over and verify anything with the toll bridge Yeah, imagine also if you had an in with one of the toll booth operators, you could go and As your employee, you know, I'm bringing in money hand of a fist here Right the other thing about the Brooklyn Bridge too and and like you said people sold other stuff monuments

Plots of land and parks in New York City. Basically anything you can imagine that they didn't own But the Brooklyn Bridge in particular was like the scam Because it was such a monument in America at the time of the turn of the 20th century Like there was the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge and that was like the two big symbols of America So people wanted to own it as well. The idea of owning this huge symbol of America I just got off the boat from Croatia and now I'm I own one of two symbols of America Um, you could imagine how somebody would jump at that opportunity if they if they really thought that this guy was legit sure and

I think a lot of times he would just do it to make a few hundred bucks at a time to some real Greenhorn, but apparently its legend has it. He got up to $50,000, which I did not fail to do the calculation Did you happen to do that? Shamefully no. I don't know why we didn't do that. That's let's just say it's 10 million dollars today. Yeah, it's a lot of money today Yeah, I'll bet I'm right too. Should we take a break? Yes, let's take a break and figure out how much that is. All right If you want to know then you're in luck Just listen up to Josh and Chuck

Stuff you should know Hey friends when you're staying at an air bnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an air bnb? And if it could what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lisa in manitoba who got the idea to air bnb the backyard guest house of her Childhood home now the extra income helps pay her mortgage So yeah, you might not realize it, but you might have an air bnb too find out what your place could be earning at air bnb.ca Hey, I'm Lance Bass host of the new iHeart podcast frosted tips with Lance Bass The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road

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About my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye Listen to frosted tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts Stuff you should Know so we're back Chuck and I was essentially right. Oh, well, how much was it? Uh, so I said 10 million, right? You said 10 million Uh, it turns out it's um, it looks like it's about 50 million. No. No. No, I'm sorry. Let's see one two three One two three. No, it's five million zero. It's five million. Okay. That's a geez. He really took somebody then Yeah, imagine losing five million dollars buying the Brooklyn bridge because again, like you're an immigrant

You're not really kind of hip to how things work here yet Imagine going to the cops and them being like you're you're joking like you just gave somebody five million dollars to buy the Brooklyn bridge Like that had to hurt like just add insult to injury. Yeah, and you know, there was some wife in that decision that was going You idiot, that's every penny we have and some husband going it'll be worth it All right I also just bought some magic beans, right? Uh, here's one thing that's pretty interesting is this became so common because it wasn't just George Parker doing this

Um, there's one story that we couldn't quite get to the bottom of that. There was someone named William McLeon D uh, aka IOU O'Brien who did this but then other people have said no that was actually an alias A Parker, but there were definitely people this was a not the most common thing But it was a grift that other people did to the extent that eventually on Ellis Island They had signage up and pamphlets that said like these things are not for sale Welcome to America. Do not try and buy the Statue of Liberty Yeah, the thing I've seen bandied about is you can't buy public buildings or streets

And I was like is that true and I looked it up and I don't know if it's true Chuck Well, what do you mean? But which one public buildings or streets? The that they handed out pamphlets that said that on Ellis Island. You don't think that's true Don't you think that somebody would have saved that pamphlet and there'd be an image of it on the internet somewhere? I don't know that's your reasoning That's part of it. It also appears in one book in one New York Times article and the New York Times article prints it From a quote from somebody else who also wrote a book about but they're the paper of record Yeah, but I mean the failing New York Times

It's also Friday at five in the New York Times sometimes. Okay. All right. Well, who knows it makes for a good story though It is a good story, but aren't those the most fun to just Just Sure, uh, I know that it did get harder to sell these public buildings Uh, I think they were trying to do that up through like the 1920s But um, you know people became a little more wise to this thing over the years Right, even though parker, I believe in his day sold Uh, the statue of liberty Madison square garden

grants tomb And the met Not bad pretty amazing. No Imagine buying the met too. You get all the art inside too. You're not going to move the art. No arts included Wow, what a deal. Oh, no, what I would have said is No, you know, you don't own the art but you can you get a lot of money for charging for the art to be there Right, that's true. Uh, what happened to him though? He got caught, right? Yeah, he finally did and apparently there was a four strikes in your outlaw in new york at the time called the bombs laws

And um, they said that if you were convicted of a fourth felony The judge had no choice but to give you life in prison and that's what happened to uh, to mr. Parker He passed a hundred and fifty dollar check that bounced Supposedly the olean evening time said that it bounced back with startling elasticity Which is hilarious. Um, and he served the rest of his life in syncing prison as a result after all of those grifts and scams He he got life in jail for a hundred and fifty dollar bounce check You know, there were four strikes in baseball at the time so that all makes sense Oh, okay. Now it makes sense. I'm just kidding. Wait a minute. Is that true?

Wouldn't that be funny if that's how the judicial system worked like well, what's baseball doing? Right, what's baseball? I have to say about is it three strikes or four. That's what we'll do. Yeah, you you can steal first, I guess Uh, oh wait, you couldn't steal first Oh, wow I think this one ended in just the best way possible I think it ended about 30 seconds too late Uh, a short stuff is out everybody Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio

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