I spent the better part of forty years working in Midtown Manhattan. I started in 1976 reporting for duty at 280 Park Avenue (between 48th and 49th Streets), and was there almost to the end of the firm in 1999. The Bankers Trust building was a mainstay during those years when other banks like Manufacturers Hannover Bank, Chemical Bank, Chase Manhattan Bank and J.P. Morgan all went through mergers and consolidations with their offices swirling around us on Park Avenue. I spent some of my time downtown at BT Plaza on Liberty Street, both with Bankers Trust and then with its successor Deutsche Bank. When the World Trade Center came tumbling down in 2001, I was not in the building, but many friends of mine were. They all got out, but the collapse of WTC2 sliced an 18-story gash into BT Plaza (then called DB Plaza) and eventually with the help of some nasty mold spores, that building was demolished and replaced with some sort of park that is adjacent to the WTC Memorial. Meanwhile, 280 Park still stands where it was, connected by a 14-story walkway to its companion West building that sits on Madison Avenue. The facade has been changed and updated, but the bones of that building remain. I made my way back into Midtown in 2003 and lived for the next four years at 385 Madison Avenue, which was the new Bear Stearns building. That’s where I ended my Wall Street career in 2007. My friend Steven sent me a picture a few years ago taken from across the street from 280 Park on the eastern side of Park, looking southwest. The J.P. Morgan building (the old Union Carbide building) had been demolished and was awaiting rebuilding as the new J.P. Morgan headquarters on the block through from Park to Madison between 47th and 48th streets. It was a poignant shot for me because it captured 280 Park and right straight across the vacant lot to 385 Madison Avenue from the Vanderbilt Avenue side. That was the start and the end of my Midtown career, all in one snapshot.
I even lived in Midtown (sort of) for a few years when I moved back from Toronto in 1992. I rented a very unique triplex apartment in Tudor City, overlooking the UN and the East River. It was a very New Yorker sort of apartment with its 23-foot high living room with leaded glass windows and its gargoyle-surrounded top floor roof deck that had a “summer kitchen” for entertaining that was landmarked since it had been the radio shack for the Free French resistance during WWII. I also lived near Gramercy Park for a few years and owned a condo there that had been renovated out of a 200-year-old brewery, complete with huge wooden beams. Gramercy Park is more downtown than midtown, but it sort of still makes the cut since you could and I did occasionally walk to work in midtown.
Whether commuting in or walking to work in midtown, I certainly feel like I spent my share of time there and have lots and lots of stories about many of the intersections there. In the late 1980’s the Cornell Club moved from a nondescript location on Third Avenue to Ivy League Row on 44th Street, between Madison and Fifth Avenue. I joined the club when it was formed, but was not yet a big enough hitter in the world of finance to be asked to be a founding contributor. I have been a member for the last 35+ years, only using it as an occasional lunch spot or resting/meeting spot for friends in midtown. Many times I thought of cancelling my membership for lack of use, but I am very happy I didn’t. As I have written before, the Cornell Club is now our home away from home when we visit New York City. We really don’t like the impersonal nature of midtown hotels and the Club facilities suit us to a tee, so that is where we always stay. The room rate is relatively agreeable (about $400/night), the lobby is homey and a great place to meet folks, the pub room is a convenient place to have a casual lunch or drink, and the dining room feels very elegant and yet familiar at this point for breakfast, lunch or dinner. It really is perfect for our needs, including being both close to Grand Central for transport anywhere in the Metro area and near Bryant Park for the Christmas Market. It is also easily walkable to Fifth Avenue shopping and Rockefeller Plaza, which is sort of the heart of everyone’s midtown experience any time of the year.
The Cornell Club is one of the only hotels I stay in where I do not use Booking.com. Reserving a room or a table for a meal is as easy as a quick call and a mention of my membership number (which is 0093…an impressively low number in honor of my early membership entry). I get monthly bills from the Club, but probably only have something to pay five or six times a year. I am always surprised to see that the bill has room for 30-60 and 60-90 day past due designations. I have never not paid my bill in full when due, but I guess that means that others do drag their Club bills out for up to 90 days, which strikes me as strange.
We are going for our annual holiday visit to NYC in a few weeks. We will arrive on a Monday and were planning to leave on Thursday, but have now switched to Friday. It is the week before Christmas, so it will be a busy time in Manhattan. I was pleasantly surprised that when I just called to extend my stay for a day, they had a room available for us. You see, an old work friend from Bankers Trust died recently. We were family friends with him, his wife and his children. His son even worked for me for a while. His wife died a number of years ago and he just passed away at 84 a month or two ago. His children just emailed that his memorial will be held on the day we had planned to leave New York. The older I get, the more I feel obliged to pay respects when someone I know passes away. Sometimes that is simply too inconvenient, but its good for the soul when it can be arranged so that proper respects can be paid. These events are obviously less for the deceased than for the family and friends thereof, but its a good way to remember someone who played a role in your life and its an equally good way to see old acquaintances. So, we will attend the memorial at the Tribeca Grill in downtown Manhattan and spend that extra day in reflection.
The plan for the rest of that visit consists of the otherwise usual holiday activities. We have our family gathering at the Club on Tuesday afternoon/evening. That is an extended family affair, and has become a tradition that we enjoy every year. In addition to my kids and both ex-wives, we will have cousins Pete and Nancy down from Ithaca to join in. It is a pleasant gathering that probably looks and sounds like everyone else’s family gatherings in the country. Then on Wednesday, we have Kim’s Singnasium Gala at a venue down at Gramercy Park. So, family, organizational friends and a memorial as the main events on three consecutive days. In between we will scatter a number of breakfasts, lunches and dinners with other friends and family to fill our dance cards. I try to organize these all around the Cornell Club because its convenient and I’m just lazy enough to prefer not walking all over the city. Its a whirlwind three+ days and just enough to get our fill of New York for a while. That’s our Holiday Marin Midtown Madness.