Marilyn, Hamilton + John Wilkes Booth's Statue: NYC History Hiding in Plain Sight

26:00Dana Schwartz:It's a three-act play by Tom Taylor that today isn't really known for its merits. The next play they put up at the Booth Theater in 1915, a revival of Our American Cousin. What if your soda actually did something for you? Introducing Sky Pop Protein Soda. With 10 grams of complete protein, zero sugar, and 45 calories, Sky Pop Protein Soda offers four delicious flavors with big taste and real benefits. Light, refreshing, and ready for wherever your day takes you. It's anytime protein that helps you reach higher. Sky Pop Protein Soda. Reach for the sky. Get your Sky Pop Protein Soda now at Target, Walmart, or Kroger.

26:50Greatness is on the clock. The 2026 NFL Draft presented by Bud Light is underway. Catch all remaining rounds live from Pittsburgh on NFL Network, ESPN, and ABC. NFL Network is also streaming with NFL+. It all continues today at 12 p.m. Eastern. Visit nfl.com slash draft for more information. Subscription required for NFL+. Visit plus.nfl.com. Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto, and now generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI.

27:35It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20 % year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one-of-a-kind index, and lets you backtest it against the S &P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com slash podcast and earn an uncapped 1 % bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com slash podcast.

28:07Paid for by Public Investing. Brokered services by Open to the Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA and SIPC. Advisory services by Public Advisors, LLC, SEC Registered Advisor. Generated assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com slash disclosures.

28:23Dana Schwartz:You could spend a lovely afternoon in New York shopping in Soho. The streets are dense with designer clothing and jewelry stores. But even if you're not in the market for$4 ,000 jackets, there are plenty of options. Next door to the Burberry on Spring Street is a store called Koss, where you can get minimalist fashion for, well, a slightly more reasonable price. But if you happen to be in the neighborhood, the best find at Koss wouldn't be its corduroy bare-a-leg pants or gallery tote bag with crock-effect leather. No, the most interesting thing in the store isn't for sale at all. If you go into the store and turn left, you'll find a staircase leading down to the menswear department.

29:13Dana Schwartz:You'll have to keep walking past the racks of funnel-necked wool jackets and wool-blend straight-leg pants. In the back, near the register, there's, well, a well. A circular brick well that looks extremely old and extremely incongruous among the Scandinavian-style minimalism of Kos's clean lines. It looks extremely old, because it is. The now-sealed well at 129 Spring Street is what's left of the Manhattan well, the site of a grisly and tragic death. On January 2nd in 1800, the body of a young woman named Elma Sands was found inside the well igniting a media firestorm. It would become one of the earliest murder trials in the still new United States.

30:12Dana Schwartz:You might not know the name Elma Sands, but here's a name I'm betting you do know. Hamilton. Even if you're not a musical theater nerd to the degree that I am, unless you've been living under a rock or down in a well, you know the$10 founding father whom Lin-Manuel Miranda set to rap on Broadway back in 2015. There's a song right before the second act where Hamilton sings during his tenure as a lawyer. He's addressing an invisible jury with pomp and bravado. Quote, this is the first murder trial of our brand new nation. And continues on a bit before he's interrupted by his co-counsel, Aaron Burr, stepping in with a little less bravado, declaring our client Levy Weeks is innocent.

31:05Dana Schwartz:Those lines are referencing something that did actually happen. Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, future assassin and victim, did work together in 1800 on the legal defense of Levy Weeks. It wasn't actually the first murder trial in the new United States, but it is the first one we have full transcripts of, so close enough. Julie Elma Sands, known as Elma, lived at a boarding house in Manhattan owned by a relative, Catherine Ring, and her husband. Now, when I say Manhattan, that word probably connotes some degree of glamour or big city bustle in your mind. You're going to want to put that aside.

31:52We need to go back to the year 1799. You know, New York City is certainly not developed in any way, shape or form. We don't really even have like the old famous grid plan of avenues and streets. Most of New York was below today's Canal Street. So this is right just slightly above Canal Street. So completely undeveloped. It would be small shacks, again, like a boarding house.

32:20Dana Schwartz:On December 22nd, 1799, Elma went missing. For almost two weeks, nobody had any idea where she could be, if she was even alive. And then her muff hand warmer was found in the well in the wildland known as Lispenard's Meadow. Soho wasn't Soho then. There were no designer stores or cute overpriced coffee shops. It was a green space where hunting parties could occupy themselves. and where a well stood to provide fresh water to the local area. This is an era before New York had a water system. In fact, it's a very fraught time between now and the 1840s when we finally get this proper Croton Aqueduct, which brings in clean, clear water.

33:17So we don't have that. You got your water from wells and you got them from cisterns. And so what happened is these sort of community wells became the center of activity because it's where everyone's going.

33:30Dana Schwartz:But on January 2nd, they weren't pulling water up from the well. Half a dozen men strained with a net to pull the body of a dead woman up from the depths below. There she was, dark hair strewn across her face, her pale skin bruised and waxy. It was Alma Sands, and she was long dead. Eventually, word spread, and the constables heard the name Levy Weeks. Weeks was another boarder at the house where Elma lived. People said the two were romantically involved. There were rumors of a secret engagement. If anyone had murdered Elma Sands, and according to the verdict of the city coroner who examined her body, someone almost certainly had, it seemed likely it would have been Weeks.

34:28Dana Schwartz:The public outcry came fast and intense. A beautiful young woman, only 22 years old, was found dead in the wintry cold water of a well. How could the city not fall into frenzy? Fortunately for Levy Weeks, arrested and awaiting trial in Bridewell Jail, he had a powerful brother, Ezra. So Ezra Weeks is one of New York's great builders, a very well-connected man. In fact, he helped build Gracie Mansion back when that was an actual mansion, which today is the mayor's house. But it was a mansion up on the Upper East Side. He also assisted in the construction later, well, not to spoil it, of Hamilton Grange, which is the house of Alexander Hamilton.

35:18Dana Schwartz:Ezra Weeks had also worked with Aaron Burr through Burr's association with something called the Manhattan Company. The Manhattan Company was really a tool for funding political candidates, but it ostensibly had the goal of establishing water infrastructure throughout the city. Ezra worked on laying wooden pipes to carry fresh water from wells dug in Lispenard's meadow, including, incidentally, the Manhattan well where Alma Sands was found. So a very well-connected, a very wealthy man, his brother gets accused of murder. So what does he do? He made sure to get his brother the best legal minds in the city, Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, the Dream Team.

36:10Of course, as we know, it will end in the infamous duel of 1804, where Burr murders Alexander Hamilton. But at this time, they're just like kind of frenemies. And they also just happen to both be very well-respected lawyers.

36:24Dana Schwartz:There was also a third lawyer working on the case, H. Brockholst Livingston, who was known as a top lawyer, but who unfortunately wasn't famous or relevant enough to make it into the musical Hamilton. Maybe it was hard to find a rhyme with H. Brockholst Livingston. The trio of lawyers got weeks out on bail and started working on his defense. Order in the court. During the trial, they methodically dismantled every seemingly damning piece of evidence against their client. He had an alibi that would have made actually pulling off the murder incredibly difficult. There was no evidence he and Alma actually were secret lovers.

37:09Dana Schwartz:Maybe she was really involved in an affair with her relative's husband, her landlord, Mr. Ring. As a side note, there were plenty of the challenges to Alma's character that you might expect. That a young, unmarried woman might have been involved in the sort of salacious sexual activity that turns public sentiment against you. People speculated Alma might have been suicidal. She could have taken her own life. There was one other fairly damning piece of evidence against Levy Weeks. Immediately after Elma's body had been pulled from the water, the police went to arrest him. He worked as a carpenter, and when the constable approached him in his workshop, Weeks immediately knew they had come because of Elma Sands.

38:03Dana Schwartz:Is it the Manhattan well she was found in? He asked. It was. How could he possibly have known that if he hadn't been the one to kill her and deposit her body there? Turns out there was a perfectly reasonable explanation. A neighbor testified that she had run in two weeks at the grocery store early in the afternoon on January 2nd and shared with him that apparently they had found Elma's muff in a well near Byard's Lane. He told his brother Ezra, who said, oh, it was probably the Manhattan well. After all, Ezra had been working on the water project. And so when the police told Levy that they had found Elma's body, he was just making a reasonable guess as to where that probably was.

38:55Dana Schwartz:Still, public opinion was vehemently against Weeks. Newspapers were calling for his execution. A beautiful young woman was found dead. Her body pulled from a well. Somebody's head needed to roll. If you've learned anything from watching true crime documentaries on various streaming services, you know it's always the husband. Or, in this case, the maybe, possibly, secret fiancé. But Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the third guy who doesn't factor into the musical were excellent lawyers. And when the judge sent the jury off to deliberate, the judge made a frankly astonishing declaration, informing the jurors that in the opinion of the court, quote, the proof was insufficient to warrant a verdict against the prisoner.

39:52Dana Schwartz:Maybe that's why it's not surprising to hear that the verdict came back less than five minutes later. The jury declared Weeks not guilty. Even still, the sting of public opinion and the damage to his reputation made it difficult for Weeks to remain in New York. He left the city a few years later and settled in Natchez, the capital of the Mississippi Territory, where he was able to reinvent himself and begin a new life as a very successful architect, building a mansion that's now on the National Registry of Historic Places, and getting married and having four kids. We don't know how Elma Sands died.

40:43Dana Schwartz:We likely never will. One researcher and writer, Paul Collins, has put forward the theory that a man named Richard Croucher was actually to blame. Croucher was another resident at the boarding house where Weeks and Elma lived. And in the aftermath of Elma's disappearance, he had been one of the loudest voices against Weeks. As it turns out, Croucher had a pretty flimsy alibi and a notorious history of legal trouble and erratic violence, especially when he was drinking. Just three weeks after the Manhattan Well trial, Croucher would brutally rape his 13-year-old stepdaughter. He was eventually convicted and sentenced to hard labor, though he would get out after only three years on a pardon from the governor.

41:39Dana Schwartz:But more crimes were to follow. He would break the terms of his parole and eventually be convicted of a crime that led to his hanging. All of this evidence is circumstantial, but it's pretty convincing circumstances in my personal opinion. Over the decades, Manhattan changed. Liz Bernard's meadow gave way to gridded streets and blocks with restaurants and artisanal coffee shops. That's the thing about Soho in particular. It's always been associated with modernity. All the buildings are cast iron. You know, in the 70s and 80s and 90s, it was super chic. And today it's all boutiques. But somehow, the walls of the Manhattan well remained upright, preserved in Soho even as the city around it became unrecognizable.

42:29It's since the 1970s that people who've owned that building have associated their well and their address with this particular story. And by which I mean, they claim that it is haunted. And they've claimed that this building has been haunted for decades and decades. And so it makes for a great spooky time in a clothing store because we rarely get to see architecture. Like most people don't see wells, but to see something so old in a clothing store is really fascinating.

43:03Dana Schwartz:All of the parties involved in the notorious trial are long dead, and the truth is gone, known only to the ancient bricks of the Manhattan well still standing in the basement of a clothing store in Soho, where shoppers can browse racks of trousers and jackets without knowing the tragic, dramatic history that had once unfolded right where they're standing, wondering what a stone well is doing in the middle of a Soho store. Wait, this is a soda? Yeah. And it has protein? 10 grams. No sugar? Zero. And it actually tastes good? It's Sky Pop! Sky Pop Protein Soda delivers the refreshing taste you want from a real soda.

43:51Crisp and delicious with 10 grams of complete protein, zero sugar, and just 45 calories. So you're not choosing between great taste and real benefits. You're getting both in every sip. Sky Pop Protein Soda. Reach for the sky. Get your Sky Pop Protein Soda now at Target, Walmart, or Kroger. Greatness is on the clock. The 2026 NFL Draft presented by Bud Light is underway. Catch all remaining rounds live from Pittsburgh on NFL Network, ESPN, and ABC. NFL Network is also streaming with NFL+. It all continues today at 12 p.m. Eastern. Visit nfl.com slash draft for more information. Subscription required for NFL+.

44:35Visit plus.nfl.com. Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto, and now generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20 % year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one-of-a-kind index, and lets you backtest it against the S &P 500.

45:09Then you can invest in a few clicks. generated assets are like etfs with infinite possibilities completely customizable and based on your thesis not someone else's go to public.com slash podcast and earn an uncapped one percent bonus when you transfer your portfolio that's public.com slash podcast paid for by public investing brokerage services by open to the public investing inc member finra and sipc advisory services by public advisors llc sec registered advisor generated assets is an interactive analysis tool output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice complete disclosures available at public.com slash disclosures

45:42Dana Schwartz:New York City is full of hidden history. Centuries of stories stacked up like the floors of downtown skyscrapers. But Greg brought my attention to another piece of New York City's past I didn't know about. History that's quite literally underfoot, if you know where to look. All right, so head down to Lower Manhattan and to Pearl Street. So this is the financial district. It's like the oldest district. In fact, across the street is another very famous tavern named France's Tavern, which was a landmark to the Revolutionary War. Like George Washington from this tavern gave his farewell address. I've actually eaten there.

46:28Not bad. However, across the street are the remains of a tavern that is almost 100 years older than that. So back in the 1660s, back when New York was in fact a Dutch settlement called New Amsterdam, their city hall was actually a tavern because back then there weren't that many buildings. You needed a place where people could gather and it was kind of sizable. So naturally it was a tavern. So that lasted then into, of course, the handover from the Dutch to the English. And it was, you know, it was a British stronghold for forever. and then the New York governor, a man named Lovelace, decided to expand it because it was getting a little rickety by that time.

47:14It's already a couple decades old. He built what is called today the Lovelace Tavern right next to it and they were connected. These were the official city buildings but they were taverns. They were in fact places where you drank and you had a meal but it was also a place where you conducted business. I believe there was even like a jail in it and courts were inside of this building.

47:37Dana Schwartz:It actually sounds like we could learn a lot about efficiency in architecture, a real one-stop shop. So anyway, lasted for several decades in its own right. But then what's interesting about New York in general is it gets constantly built up, right? And never stops to kind of honor its past. when you find the past is even more amazing because so many things are gone. But with the city, also it starts expanding with landfill. So this used to be on the water. This faced, in fact, into the water, onto the East River. But then several decades later, they fill it up with landfill. So it's actually like a couple blocks away from the water.

48:21And the building is sort of useless by the start of the 18th century. And so it kind of falls into like uselessness. And then they've got to pave it over because the streets are like kind of rising as more and more people are coming to the city.

48:37Dana Schwartz:So now jump ahead to the 1960s. Businesses aren't exactly booming. A lot of offices have jumped away from the financial district, moving to Midtown or even leaving New York City altogether. But there's this effort to try to revitalize Lower Manhattan. This will culminate, of course, in the construction of the World Trade Center, which will bring business back to Lower Manhattan. But sort of in this process, they're like redeveloping for new glass skyscrapers. New building projects mean there's going to be digging. A lot of it. And then while they're digging this one particular skyscraper, they look and they find the ruins of this tavern kind of intact with like tankards and plates, broken plates and everything.

49:31Dana Schwartz:The question then is, what do you do with the shockingly preserved historical tavern? The easy answer is, well, pave over it and make a parking lot. And unfortunately, that's exactly what they did. But that's not the end of the story. Because if you know Manhattan, you know that it's always changing. A meadow becomes a neighborhood, becomes a restaurant, becomes a clothing store. A parking lot becomes, well, something else. A few years later, they're building something else. They rediscover it, or rather they knew that it was there. They pull that out and they're like, oh, let's actually preserve this.

50:17And this is in the 70s now. And so what they do, which is amazing, instead of taking the whole thing out or like bringing the sidewalk down so that people can see the walls. In fact, by that point, the street level is about at the top of the building. So they just put a glass sidewalk over the remains of this tavern. An actual glass sidewalk.

50:40Dana Schwartz:You can go see it, the, quote, portal down to old New York, as it's identified on Google Maps, around 85 Broad Street, a literal window into the 17th century. That's a really cool secret. When you say things are literally hidden beneath your feet, this is the most literal answer I could possibly give you is this place.

51:06okay first of all how cool is it that greg young of the bowery boys agreed to do this that's a hall of fame podcast if there's a podcast hall of fame i don't know if there is but there should be and greg should be in it first ballot yeah so so grateful to greg it was so sweet of

51:21Dana Schwartz:him to to spend his time talking with me so interesting so smart saren you know this is a non-typical one this would be hard to get all this into one film but did you have any fun putting on your casting hat here? I actually, I did. This was an interesting one. It was like, yeah, I have like two actors to cast. And then also I threw in Shakespeare just because he got mentioned so often. So for Marilyn, I went a couple of different ways because she's been portrayed recently on the screen. I was like, I want to come up with someone fresh. So I went with Lea Seydoux, the French actress. I thought she would be really interesting.

51:54And then if she's unavailable, Florence Pugh, I thought she could also play it pretty well. For Joe DiMaggio, I I thought he may be a little bit tall, but I think he's got the right energy is Adrian Brody.

52:04Dana Schwartz:Yeah, he has the right energy. Maybe not the physique, but I think he could do it. Yes, exactly. And he's like lean enough that I think he can get it. And then John Wilkes Booth. This was another difficult one. One of the actors I liked was too tall. And then the other one, I think he may be too associated with other things. But if he wears his brown hair and works on like a Van Dyke or some type of like 19th century appropriate facial hair, I think it could work. So Adam Driver and Orlando Bloom, those are my two options. Ooh. Right? Yeah. Especially Orlando Bloom's a surprise one for me. And then Adam Driver's is a little bit big, but I think he's got the, like, aggressiveness that I kind of picture from the ego of John Wilkes Booth.

52:45Dana Schwartz:Oh, yeah. I'm reading Lena Dunham's memoir right now, and everything I'm learning about Adam Driver is he is definitely an actor's actor. So I think he could have that energy. Totally. He went to Juilliard, right? Juilliard. He's like a real actor. Properly trained. Oh, and for the last one, William Shakespeare. I thought this because I was like imagining the images of a lot of like the very famous paintings. Edward Norton. Yeah. Let's get him a statue. Right? Yeah, totally. I like the part where it was kind of a twofer. It was not only history hiding in plain sight in the Soho store, but also in Hamilton.

53:22This is like this meticulous historical play also has this tossed off line that you used as a jumping off point. So kudos to you.

53:31Dana Schwartz:You know, kudos to Lin-Manuel Miranda. I loved all the musical theater references. I thought that was so much fun. That's really the truth is that I go to New York City to squeeze in as many musicals as I can. That's cool. For very special character, I think we could easily give it to Greg for agreeing to do this. We could also easily give it to the iHeart Accounts Payable team for approving the travel expenses and hopefully approving them in the future. Zarin, can we get you to give this treatment to another city of your choice? Oh, yeah. I think San Francisco, I actually know a couple already fun, like hidden history sites.

54:05People walk past them all the time. They're on Market Street, Union Square, and they are connected to the San Francisco of the mind in terms of like what we think of as being San Francisco, but also it's like, oh, this place has always been kind of counterculture. So, yes, definitely. Very Special Episodes is made by some very special people. This show is hosted by Dana Schwartz, Zarin Burnett, and Jason English. Our senior producer is Josh Fisher. Today's episode was written by Dana Schwartz. Editing and sound design by Jonathan Washington. Additional editing by Mary Du. Mixing and mastering by Josh Fisher.

54:41Original music by Elise McCoy. Show logo by Lucy Quintanilla. social clips by Yarberry media. Our executive producer is Jason English. Special thanks to Greg Young of the Bowery boys podcast. That was very cool. Go over and scroll through their archives. You'll get hooked on their show too. We just recorded a mailbag episode, which is going to come out next Wednesday. But if you ever want to email the show, hit us up. Very special episodes at gmail.com. Very special episodes is a production of I heart podcasts.

55:16Wait, this is a soda? Yeah. And it has protein? 10 grams. No sugar? Zero. And it actually tastes good? It's Sky Pop. Sky Pop Protein Soda delivers the refreshing taste you want from a real soda. Crisp and delicious with 10 grams of complete protein, zero sugar, and just 45 calories. So you're not choosing between great taste and real benefits. You're getting both in every sip. Sky Pop Protein Soda. Reach for the sky. Get your Sky Pop protein soda now at Target, Walmart, or Kroger. Greatness is on the clock. The 2026 NFL Draft presented by Bud Light is underway. Catch all remaining rounds live from Pittsburgh on NFL Network, ESPN, and ABC.

56:00NFL Network is also streaming with NFL+. It all continues today at 12 p.m. Eastern. Visit nfl.com slash draft for more information. Subscription required for NFL Plus. Visit plus.nfl.com.

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