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 Small Town New York
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Driving by St. Patrick's Cathedral. 10:00 PM. Photo: JH. |
Sunny day in New York. I went down to Michael’s to meet a friend for lunch. I take the same route everyday – the FDR at 79th and East End to 63rd Street, then down York Avenue to Sutton Place, to 57th Street; across 57th to Fifth, and then I get out and walk the two blocks south to 55th between Fifth and Sixth.
The route I take is the same old same old, just like so many of us who walk the same streets in our towns and neighborhoods everyday. Except this one ain’t just any town. I am often reminded of that fact for a variety of reasons.
For example, at this time of year there is always a crowd of tourists outside Tiffany taking pictures of each other standing next to the Tiffany front door. Kids of all ages, in shorts and tee-shirts of all sizes, and sneakered out; long short tall fat, with a preponderance of the latter.
Passing by today I had a dose of nostalgia, remembering the first time I went into Tiffany -- to buy a Christmas present for my then wife. It was a big deal. I bought a small brooch. $350. That was a lotta money (mid-60s), especially for a working stiff. Tiffany wasn’t intimidating but it wasn’t NOT intimidating either. You wore a suit and tie. The staff was very polite and gracious and NOT snobbish, but still, you were in Tiffany, and they let you know it.
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| Donald and Melania Trump. |
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Today, everyone dresses for going to the deli; Tiffany or no Tiffany, no matter the season. Audrey Hepburn would have looked like a neat-freak and spindly, in this all-American crowd.
Moving on. Right next door is the Trump Tower where Donald Trump lives. There are always tourists, all year long, standing in front of this brass and black glass super-structure. The clamoring crowds; sometimes a hundred or two. With digitals poised for a shot. Of whom? Of The Donald of course.
It always amuses me because Donald – despite his international celebrity and his beautiful wives and his big time big town image and the stunning coiffure – is a very likeable regular kind of guy. No, he’s not a regular guy. He’s a regular kinda guy. I mean he talks the talk. His parents brought him up in the real world (albeit with a lot of money in the background and the bank). The Trumps are rich but they’re not fancy. His particular business is fame and fortune (and high TV ratings) and as we can see, he’s very good at it. He knows, however, whence he comes.
Moving on: on the corner of 56th and Fifth is/ was the Steuben Building. This was a very special store when it first went up, almost like a museum. When it opened in the 60s, the public feeling about Steuben was elegance and reverence. Like a museum Now there’s someone else a-movin’ in and the place is covered by temporary walls.
Right next door is 711 Fifth Avenue. Now the Coca-Cola Building, that was originally the Columbia Pictures Building. Its number “711” was chosen when the building went up by Harry Cohn, the crass and gassy and gambler of a mogul who started Columbia Pictures.
In the late 60s when I was in the stock brokerage business, the penthouse was occupied by the East Coast offices of producer/director Otto Preminger. Otto as he was known to one and all, and Alfred Hitchcock were the two most famous directors of the day. They were as famous name-wise as any of the stars that graced their movies. Both were frequent guests on the late night talk shows like Jack Paar and later Johnny Carson. They were witty and amusing.
Otto’s executive suite (he was briefly a client of mine) occupied the entire rooftop of the building. There was a reception (with a glassed in wall), a long hallway of offices, and then at the end, the door to Otto’s inner sanctum. It was huge; his private office. Huge. High ceilings, windows all around (looking out at the St. Regis and the Church across the avenue). It was cavernous in memory – and all grey -- grey walls, grey carpet and the walls covered with major modern art. De Kooning, Rothko, Rauschenberg, Pollock.
At the center of the room against the south wall was a large thin marble slab, probably 4’X8’ supported by two chrome stands. That was Otto’s desk. Behind it was one tall black leather chair and in front two not-so-tall black leather chairs for his subjects.
Otto was kingly. He lived like royalty. He carried on in public like an autocrat and was famous for blowing up at people working on the set with him (including the stars) and creating scenes. Most of it was calculated. He preceded Donald Trump in the generation that knew how to draw notice.
He once told me “money is fiction; you’re never rich unless you can’t spend it all.” Otto, who was not poor, lived very well -- with a townhouse on the East Side (with its own screening room – a rarity in those days), an office on the Paramount lot that was an exact replica of the office at 711 Fifth, and a fabulous house on St Jean Cap Ferrat.
He used to walk this same path everyday from his townhouse between Park and Lexington, down to 57th, past Tiff’s.
Moving along I’d passed the grand Gucci store on 56th and Fifth, reminding me that the first Gucci came back in the mid-60s. It was a small, narrow shop where Godiva is today (or was recently). Gucci was an overnight sensation because of their shoes. The men’s loafer with the brass/gold buckle/clasp, and the women’s low heeled shoes also with a brass/gold buckle/clasp. The men’s shoe was $41 – a very dear price in those days. The women’s, referred to always as “the walking shoe” was $45. Maybe the most expensive shoe on Fifth Avenue.
They were the rage. The first winter I went to Palm Beach (about 1967) I was amazed to see that everyone at a party one night – all the men – were wearing the Gucci loafers. The other thing about Gucci was their service. They were very snotty. They closed for an hour for lunch between 1 and 2 (and they closed, out you go!) and when you went in to look at shoes, they treated you with an indifference bordering on hostility. As a result, the customers were very intimidated, but loved it. Some of them felt compelled to spend more to try to ameliorate. Turned out to be brilliant marketing.
Meanwhile, all this memory-lane time, I’m running to get to Michael’s so I won’t be late for my lunch date. My lunch date was an old friend whom I see once or twice a month at Michael’s. I’m usually late. This time she was late. But very late. Finally so late I concluded she wasn’t going to show (I later learned I made the wrong entry in my calendar – she was out of town yesterday).
There was another Michael’s customer a few tables over waiting for someone too. Steve Millington, the general manager, told me she was waiting too. Her name was Lisa Dallos, a public relations executive with Freud (a public relations firm). She passed by my table going to the reception, probably to check times or dates and I called her over.
“What’s the maiden name of the girl who’s married to Mr. Freud?” I asked.
“Murdoch,” she answered. As in Rupert (daughter of). We struck up a conversation. She too was afraid her lunch date either forgot or she’d made the wrong entry in her calendar. So we decided to have lunch together. I wanted to hear a little bit about Mr. Freud (whose grandfather was Sigmund himself).
Settled in and lunch ordered, Lisa’s lunchdate shows up. His name is Harold Ford. He’s a former Congressman from Tennessee, who served from 1997 (at age 27) through 2007 when he gave it up to run for the Senate (and was defeated by the Republican, Bob Corker).
Mr. Ford is now head of the Democratic Leadership Committee and works for Merrill Lynch. He’s a young guy, clean cut, bright eyed, with a politician’s (and journalist’s) eagerness to get a look at the room. His father had been Congressman from Tennesee and his granddaddy was a big politico in his day. |
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| DPC with Lisa Dallos and Harold Ford. |
He ordered lunch too and a political conversation ensued with guess-who doing most of the talking and telling the former Congressman (who’s clearly not through with elective office aspirations yet) what I thought about the way things were going and how and who and what. Now that’s obnoxious when you think about it but then how many times do you get a chance to tell a politician, especially a national politician what you think of what’s going on? Not many.
Mr. Ford was very patient listening to me (and taking in the room which obviously fascinated him). He was always gracious but he’s thinking of other things. He’s thinking of what the specific issues are that the candidates will be talking about and debating. He’s thinking about what the American people are going to want to hear to allay their anxieties about their pocketbooks.
We concluded nothing except it was nice to make the acquaintance of two very interesting New Yorkers whom I’d never met before, both of whom probably knew little if anything of the history of the street I’d just walked down. For that was then, and this and they are now. |
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