This piece was originally produced for ATXplained Live in January 2020.

Austin has had its rivalries. In the '60s and '70s, it was the Hicks versus the Hippies. Nowadays, maybe it's the people who live here now versus the people on their way.

In the 1980s, it was Yuppies versus Bubbas. North Side versus South. People looked down their noses at each other from across the river. Even Austin’s acclaimed writers of the time got in on the act.

"You know if you want to get an education go to the North Side," wrote columnist and author Molly Ivins. "If you want to get your furniture reupholstered, go to the South Side."

Austin American-Statesman humor columnist John Kelso fed the flames.

"South Austin is so far superior to any place north of the Colorado [River] that North Austin just plain old pales when the two are compared," he wrote. "In South Austin society, things are much less confusing, much simpler. This is because all the men in South Austin, as well as their dogs, have the same name, Bubba."

Lin Zagorski grew up hearing from her father about a fabled battle between North and South Austin. She wanted to know if there was ever a tug-of-war between North and South Austinites on the Congress Avenue Bridge in the 1980s. So she asked ATXplained.

The simple answer is: No.

There was not a tug-of-war across the bridge.

It was held across Town Lake (now Lady Bird Lake) on the East Side of I-35.

This piece was originally produced for ATXplained Live in January 2020.

Marie Catrett was sitting at Garrison Pool in South Austin a few years ago, trying to cool off on a hot summer day. She had just had a baby, and she and other new moms were breastfeeding their children.

But the moms weren’t the only ones with visible breasts.

"That particular day there was someone going topless at Garrison," Catrett said.

She said she considered topless women the backdrop of Barton Springs, but it stuck out to her at the smaller neighborhood pool. And she wasn't alone.

"As I’m leaving the pool, there’s a man in front of me ... [who] just kind of makes this comment about [how] he enjoys getting to see stuff, but don’t we think that’s kind of inappropriate to have around kids?" she said.

Well, the breastfeeding moms did not agree with this guy.

"The woman next to me, without missing a beat, just looks at him and says, 'I think most kids are pretty familiar with breasts because they have moms, right?'" Catrett said. "And then we all just kept walking, and it was an awesome little moment. I just felt so connected to her and validated."

The incident had Catrett thinking a lot about public nudity. She wrote in to ATXplained asking KUT News to investigate why it's legal to sunbathe topless in the first place, and how it became such a regular part of Austin's culture.

The answer to the first question is simple: The law doesn't address it.