Hi, I'm Zivie Owens, and you're listening to the Webby-nominated podcast, Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.

Please also check out my other podcast, kids do have time to read books.

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don't have time to read books and at kids do have time to read. So please follow me.

And if at any time you have suggestions, my email is Zibi at Zivvyowens.com. Thanks for listening.

Thanks so much to my latest sponsor, the Mermaid Pillow Company, Mermaidpillow.com.

They make these amazing pillows with sequins on the back and positive messages on the front,

and they now even make custom pillows and blankets.

It's an amazing company, and if you enter the code Zibbi, Z-I-B-Y, you will get 10% off, which is super cool. So please check them out, MermaidPillowco.com. I'm excited to be interviewing Julie Sato today, who's the author of The Plaza, the Secret Life of America's Most Famous Hotel. Julie is an award-winning journalist who has covered real estate in New York for over a decade. She's a regular

contributor to The New York Times, and her work has appeared on NPR, Huff Post, Modern Loss, Kveller, and the New York Post, among others. A native New Yorker, she currently lives in New York City with her husband and two children. Hi, Julie. Thanks so much for coming on moms. Don't have time to read books. Thanks so much for having me. It's an honor.

Oh.

After you're on the Today Show yesterday, this will probably be a piece of cake. Well, that was taped, so it's not airing for a little while, so it was like a little, the pressure was off slightly. Okay. Yes. This is also taped. That's right, exactly. The bushes and I, you know, same thing.

So congratulations on the plaza.

Thank you so exciting.

Thank you.

So can you please tell listeners what the plaza is about and what inspired you to write it?

Yes, the plaza is a biography of the hotel, but it's also a social history of New York. So I use it as a lens to tell a social history from 1907 through today

of what was happening in New York and the country and through the stories of the plaza.

Why was I inspired to write it?

I've covered real estate for a long time in New York, and I grew up here.

So the plaza was always like, you know, presents.

Right, like you go to Central Park after school, sometimes in afternoons, and it was always there.

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