CHAPTER 11: RETURN TO NEW YORK
When we moved back to New York, dog and all, JWT put my family
up in a hotel in White Plains, NY. They had a lot of patience, since it took
me a month and a half to find a place to live. I was looking for an
apartment that would allow dogs, and I finally gave up. He was adopted
by a nice family that gave him a good home.
During this time, while the company was covering our living expenses,
I remember we went into New York. Not knowing much about New York
restaurants, we wandered into the Four Seasons for dinner. When I put in
the expense account for that, along with other expenses, the company
suggested that I might want to tone down the places I chose to dine. The
bill was only $50 for the two of us, but that was a lot of money back then.
Most advertising people lived in the Westchester suburbs, and almost
nobody drove to work since the highways were packed tight and Grand
Central Station was around the corner from the office. In fact, the railroad
terminal was like a private reserve, with one entrance leading directly into
the Graybar Building. You could go almost anywhere in New York from
the underground Grand Central tunnels without ever seeing the light of
day, and return home through its secret portholes, as Martin Mayer said,
“uncontaminated from the herd in the Station Concourse.”
We finally located a two-bedroom, first-floor corner apartment in
Westchester County on the fringes of Rye, NY, and my routine
commuting into the City began.
I was assigned to administrative duties at our New York headquarters,
and shortly after my return, named secretary of the Review Boards for the
