Ups & Downs in Gotham

Below is a portrait of the adman as a young man. Yes, I was young once. The polaroid is courtesy of our agency photographer, the fabulous Carl Rulis. He was taking test shots of lighting, in preparation for shooting agency big wigs. I was no such thing at that time.

By the mid-seventies, our company headquarters moved from Philadelphia to New York. N. W. Ayer was located at 1345 Avenue of The Americas in The Burlington House. The skyscraper was owned by the first billionaire I ever met. His name was Daniel K. Ludwig.

Mr Ludwig kept his own floors in the building, his own pool in its basement, and his own private elevator bank. No one ever saw him, except for his personal staff. But one day I accidentally met him. His private elevator wasn’t working. So he took another. When it reached our floor, the man who was pushing Mr. Ludwig’s wheel chair, held up his hand as if to signify “stop.” But I got on anyway. Having once seen the magnate’s photo in the New York Times, I recognized him. Being polite, I turned to say, “Good day, Mr. Ludwig.” He glanced at me and scowled. We three returned to looking at the floor numbers above the doors, as one is supposed to do in NY elevators. The unwritten rules are “face forward, look up, stay silent, no eye contact.” Gregarious me is just a rule-breaker. When the elevator opened on the ground floor, I exited, then saying, “Good bye, Mr. Ludwig.”

Next, a memory of taking that elevator up. About 10 people entered on the ground floor, following the unwritten rules recounted in the paragraph previous. In silence, we rose. The elevator doors opened on the next floor. Suddenly and involuntarily, audible gasps of air shot from the lungs of the women in the car. A man walked in. Flashing his famed million-dollar grin, he briefly scanned the car, and chortled, “Hello, ladies!” Then he turned to face forward, look up, and wait to get out on the next floor. He turned and waved. What followed was a loud exhalation of collective breath in the elevator, as women exclaimed, “That was Cary Grant!!” It turns out he was a board director of Faberge, which was headquartered at Burlington House.

Such are the ups and downs of elevator rides in mid-town Manhattan.