"You can't be a hustler and a princess"

Drug dealers give THE best quotes. One Washington Square dealer gives his opinion about NYU freshman, Julia Diaco, who was arrested by undercover police officers for dealing drugs in Washington Square Park, her dorm room, and the East Village, to the Daily News: "You can't be a hustler and a princess. You have to choose one or the other." The "princess" aspect of Diaco's life has been played up by the press, with the tabloids referring to her family's home in Rumson, NJ, as a "castle" and a friend describing it as "ridiculous" with "lots of crystal" and "marble tiles, gold-plated lamps" (Gothamist can just imagine the Post editorial staff, trying to figure out how many ways they can drive the point home without getting sued for libel). The Daily News went to the Diaco house, where Julia is hiding out. She opened the door and said, "No comment," but not before the Daily News could describe Diaco as wearing "a white tank top and a fashion-fad Von Dutch baseball cap," which confirms that Diaco was desperate to fit in any way possible.

For a different era of Washington Square, read Washington Square by Henry James, made into the William Wyler film, The Heiress, with Olivia de Havilland, and later, Washington Square, starring Jennifer Jason Leigh, directed by Agnieszka Holland (Gothamist prefers The Heiress). But our favorite New York drug movie is New Jack City.