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The Winds of Barclay Street
The Amusing Life and Sad Demise of the New York World-Telegram and Sun
By John Ferris AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2013 John Ferris
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4918-2271-5
CHAPTER 1
Nothing Was Strange
"... to the smoke, the foul air, the uproar, and the monkeyshines of the World-Telegram city room." (The Saturday Review)
There was no air conditioning ever, and there were no fans until the final years of the paper's life. The windows, factory windows, rarely were opened more than a slit, because the slightest breeze ruffled copy, and a strong wind or a sudden wayward gust sent everything flying. So we toiled there on the third floor—not only the news department, but the Women's Page, Sports, Amusements, Business, and Financial, all in one big room, 175 feet long, that ran from Park Place along the West Street side almost to Barclay.
In extremely hot weather, on those humid nights when the indefinable stinks that betrayed the presence of New Jersey across the river seemed unbearable, the lobster or early trick men, arriving between midnight and dawn, removed their shirts. From the far end of the room, near the morgue, which faced Barclay Street, one got the impression the paper was being put out by nudists.
Air conditioning was in its infancy in the early days of the Great Depression, when Roy W. Howard raised his ten-story waterfront plant across the street from the New York Telephone Company and the Barclay Street Ferry of the Lackawanna Railroad, which ran out of Hoboken. Afterwards, when the nation's economy improved, any major alterations of the building were out of the question because of the expense.
A large ventilating duct ran along the ceiling from one of the West Street windows to the Production Department, which operated in a glass-enclosed section of the room; but the shaft frequently broke down, usually due to a mouse in the works—or so it was said. Nobody knew how a mouse could get in there, and nobody cared or thought it strange. Nobody thought anything was strange.
Once, a city desk clerk gave a copy boy a message to deliver to Murray Davis, a reporter who had set himself up in a small office at the rear of the room because his investigative work required privacy when he interviewed callers.
"Do you know who Murray is?" the clerk asked.
"Of course I do," the boy replied. "I see him back there now." He stared at the distant lighted cubicle, which had glass walls. "He's standing up, talking to someone on the phone."
But when he went back there, he found the enclosure empty. Murray, in fact, was at that moment in India in a press party accompanying Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy. The boy returned to the city desk and looked back at Murray's office.
"I saw him," he said. "I swear I saw him before I went back there."
No one disputed him. It was only when one was away from the room for a time that one saw things as a little odd—as outsiders, for example, saw them on coming to the place for the first time, seeing the old scarred walls and the line of concrete pillars: pillars and walls that every few years received a coat of green and white paint and overnight, it seemed, reverted to griminess.
Fans that made the hot summers more tolerable were set up in the late fifties. Earlier, a young woman from Oklahoma who came to us for a summer of New York experience on the Women's page asked Lee B. Wood, executive editor, for a fan. Wood gave her a tall floor fan; but it was several years later before management yielded to the pressure of the Newspaper Guild and provided others. The absence of fresh air had no noticeable effect on us. Smoking was forbidden by law, as numerous placards reminded us; but everyone smoked—cigarettes, pipes, cigars. There were periodic Fire Department inspections. The inspector was always an amiable man who invariably paused at the reception desk run by Madeleine Curran, an elderly, indefatigably chatty lady, who held him at bay for five minutes while she alerted the city desk, which sounded a word-of-mouth alarm. The inspector would walk through the blue haze without seeing a lighted pipe or cigarette; and when he finally retreated and bade Madeleine good-day, she sounded the All-Clear and everybody lit up again.
Madeleine was not easily balked or outwitted. For many years there had been a City Hall custom of turning away cranks and people with petty complaints by advising them to go to The Sun, at 280 Broadway, at the corner of Chambers Street. We never knew how The Sun handled them; its receptionist, a man named Chanler, was ninety years old and frail. After Howard bought The Sun, in January, 1950, the cranks started coming to the World-Telegram. Madeleine had no trouble getting rid of them. Maybe she sent them uptown to The Times or The Herald Tribune.
There was only one occasion when she was visibly upset, and that was an internal problem. We had an artist, a good-natured, inoffensive lush, a man of small tricks. If the traffic on Greenwich Street or West Broadway displeased him, he would ignore the red light and, twisting his body into a crooked shape, act the bewildered cripple, while cars and trucks screeched to a stop and women screamed if there happened to be a near hit. He bought a monkey one day at Trefflich's animal supply store in Fulton Street, but his wife raised so much hell when he took it home that he brought it to work. Wood ordered him to get rid of it, saying the city room was no place for that kind of monkey. The artist returned it to Trefflich's and got his money back, because he worked for the World-Telegram, and Henry Trefflich liked the paper, which gave him a lot of free publicity.
Lee Wood fired the artist one day without ceremony, and everybody wanted to know why. After all, the man did his work, half-drunk or sober. He was punctual and never sick. Madeleine liked to tell the story, and people liked to hear it because she told it so well. A gentleman of some dignity, she said, had come to see Mr. Wood, and as he was sitting near the reception desk, an elevator shot up from the ground floor, the door opened, and out lurched the artist, more stewed than usual. Seeing the man of dignity, he took an instant liking to him, staggered across the lobby, and threw himself onto the man's lap. Madeleine was terribly distressed. The artist had put his arms around the man's neck, and Madeleine tried her best to separate them; but at last she had to call Wood. It was very sad.
The city room became familiar to millions of moviegoers in the late fifties in a film titled Teacher's Pet, which starred Clark Gable. We never knew why the World-Telegram was picked for the movie's background, but one day a squad of busy men appeared, photographed the room from different angles, made many measurements, and after several days went back to Hollywood and reproduced our office on a lot.
The layout of the room was simple. There were ten rewrite desks arranged in pairs alongside the city desk, and beyond the rewrite desks were those of the reporters. The most conspicuous desk stood in the front row and for twenty years belonged to a woman reporter, Carol Taylor. Its drawers were crammed with old notebooks, pencil-scrawled publicity releases, and clippings. On top of the desk were several spikes heavy with notes and clippings. From time to time, someone on the night-side surreptitiously cleared the spikes.
The astonishing thing was that the daily bantering, the rude humor, the laughter, clowning, joking, and antics around the city desk—the spirit of mockery and irreverence constantly lurking in the background—never affected the quality of the work. We could be serious without being solemn. We knew what merriment and bright writing were. When the second Kinsey Report sent a new wave of prurience across the land, Bert MacDonald, the city editor, ordered a Whimsy Report on the sex life of the oyster, which said in part:
Oysters have no code. Oysters pet when they are young. Oysters pet when they are old. Oysters regret nothing. Most male oysters approach female oysters as they, the male oysters, would like to be approached by a sexual partner. This is comparatively easy for a male oyster, who can remember what it was like to be a female oyster the week before last.
Oysters know nothing of the meaning of promiscuity, infidelity, or Kinsey charts. They have no fear of poor posture, facial pimples, mental dullness, or what other oysters think of them ... An oyster bed is a happy bed.
After Ella McAvoy, a telephone operator, told Norton Mockridge, MacDonald's successor, that her ankle, once broken in an accident, ached that morning and that it was a sure sign a snow, her daily forecasts were recorded for a month and then printed alongside those of the Weather Bureau in a story and summation written in a pseudo-scientific style. Subway and bus riders and homeward-bound New Jersey, Westchester and Rockland counties, Connecticut, and Long Island commuters got more than closing stock market prices before dinner when they read the World-Telegram. Sometimes an ordinary story was quickened by a suggestion from Frank Kappler, an assistant city editor. It was Kappler who suggested "The Frayed Edge of the Sea," a parody of Rachel Carson's best-seller The Edge of the Sea. The parody used for background New York's polluted river and bay.
The intertidal zone is sometimes invaded by urchins who come down through the crowded streets ... urchins of stout spine and shrill yelp and taunting screams. I have watched them by moonlight, gay, boisterous, in faded tee-shirts and tattered sneakers, romping among the switchblades, dancing around middens of zip guns and garrison belts, or, in tender, relaxed moments, chanting in chorus some old half-forgotten cigarette or soap commercial dredged up out of babyhood's memory.
Reporters who had the skill and the self-confidence to risk a curt denial could try almost anything. Once a rewrite man had to do a piece about an aged horse that had died in Patchogue, Long Island. What could he write about the burial of a horse! Well, with Kappler's encouragement and the cooperation of Herb Kay, news editor, much could be done and done quickly. He started writing:
Old Smoky, the gentle horse who became a disposal problem when he died in Mrs. Lucy Cutler's garage, went for his last ride today—in a truck.
At this point the tune of the song "On Top of Old Smoky" intruded, and the parody flowed:
In life he was cheerful, in life he was brave, But now dear old Smoky lies deep in the grave.
Would it go? Kappler read it, raised his arm in salute, and passed the copy on. Kay read it and yelled, "Keep it up! Let's have more!"
Maybe this doesn't fit a journalism school's idea of a New York newspaper operating close to a deadline, but it was our way. The rewrite man continued:
For two days since Old Smoky expired in the garage, Mrs. Cutler had worried about the obsequies. She got an abundance of advice, but little of it was practical. After all, there aren't many horses in or around Patchogue, and not even the oldest inhabitant could remember when one had died in a garage.
Old Smoky was pleasant, a joy and surprise, But promptly on Tuesday he began drawing flies.
"More! More!" cried Kay. "Keep it coming!"
Kappler pretended to roll up his sleeves. He pulled open a desk drawer and withdrew a rubber cigar, which he put between his teeth. Every time he chomped hard, a green worm wriggled out of the fiery red end.
Mrs. Cutler had bought Old Smoky for her two boys, aged eight and twelve, four months ago. The boys had a wonderful time with Old Smoky ... But this side of Valhalla there is no equine immortality, and Old Smoky, who had begun to show his age some time ago, finally gave up the ghost.
He lowered his haunches, a sigh shook his frame. He whinnied, "Farewell, boys. Let no one take blame."
Kappler read swiftly and passed the copy. "A few more grafs and we'll make it," said Kay. The rewrite man, pausing only a second, went on:
At first Mrs. Cutler could get no help in the village. It looked as if Old Smoky would have to go to New Jersey-to a final resting place in a glue factory, a meadow pit, a tannery, or another of Jersey's typical resting places. Then Mayor George E. Lechentrecker sprang to Mrs. Cutler's aid.
He looked at Old Smoky, so peaceful in death, And lisped to the others, "Oh, take him to reth.
Kappler grimaced, then added an asterisk and a footnote: "He lisps only when speaking in verse."
Doggerel; but we were on deadline. The rewrite man hurried on:
They came for Old Smoky with a big truck, hoisted him aboard, and soon picked up speed as they headed, dirgeless but sad, for the village dumping grounds. Old Smoky's grave was a fine big hole, roomy enough for the biggest horse that ever lived, where Old Smoky could begin the slow return to the dust from which he had sprung.
That was it.
* * *
The atmosphere of the city room was buoyant most of the time. People were friendly. There was no open show of jealousy or envy, spite or malice, though these certainly existed. Some men bitched occasionally, some never stopped bitching about the hours they worked and the way MacDonald, and later Mockridge, regarded them. There was justifiable griping about salaries. The new reporter, whatever his experience, was accepted with good will. There were no barriers of age or competence. We always had a few mediocrities, men who showed no sign of ever becoming good reporters or good writers. They came and went over the years, but their presence never affected the paper's excellence.
The explosions of words and immoderate laughter around the city desk often nettled the girls on the Woman's Page and their two male copyreaders, and even some of the distant reporters were annoyed; but this was mainly because they didn't know the source of the mirth and felt put upon when they smiled in spite of themselves. One day everybody was drawn into the fun. In the afternoon a man dropped in to see Ed Wallace, the paper's best humorous writer and most-photographed reporter. (A composite picture of Ed in coolie jacket, shorts, and bare feet drawing a rickshaw in which he sat in tourist's kit, pith helmet, and safari jacket, with cigar and cameras, was a staff favorite.)
Ed's desk was halfway to the back of the room, an aisle desk on the wide space that separated news reporters from business and financial writers. As we were accustomed to seeing odd-looking callers at Ed's desk, nobody gave this visitor a second look, until he began making strange sounds. Still, we saw nothing unusual. Wallace was his assured, affable self, leaning back in his chair and smiling expansively. The sounds at his desk became more audible—a beep or a grunt or some other not-easily-identified noise. And then the show started, as the stranger let go with the most amazing repertory of imitative sounds any of us had ever heard. Wallace had met the man in the subway, where he was confusing people who thought he was sheltering a whimpering puppy under his coat. The man could imitate song birds, parrots, various beasts, hounds in pursuit of a fox, a snarling lion, a seal; but his best work was with the sounds of machines: fire engines, screaming ambulances, and fog-bound tugs and ferries. We listened but withheld our applause.
At last we saw the visitor get to his feet to go. He shook hands with Ed, who waited as the rest of us waited. Vague sounds emitted from the stranger. Then we understood: he had become an old steam locomotive and a train of cars, preparing to leave a station. It hissed as it let off steam. It chuffed tentatively, hissed again, and chuffed. For anyone who had known steam trains, here was heaven indeed. You could see the engineer, hand on the throttle, leaning from the cab. You could see the wisp of steam escaping at the boiler top, the white jets spurting at the sides, the glow of the firebox and the fall of hot ashes, and hear the powerful chuffs that shook the station.
ChudnoffUFF! ... ChudnoffUFF! ... ChudnoffUFF! Then two short, impatient chuff-chuffs. We were on our way. We were pulling out of the station. We yielded to the dream, as we picked up speed, clickety-click, clickety-click, clickety, clickety, lickety, ickety, ick, and then the noiseless rush, as we rolled over the gleaming rails through a peaceful countryside, where the telegraph poles became a picket fence, and people in fields and farmyards waved, just as they did in old prints.
The visitor was walking to the rear of the city room now, trailing the glory of his sounds, watched by everybody; and as he reached the door that led outside, he sent a final salute—the faraway whistle in the night, a loving, lonely whistle that lingered in the air a full minute before the spell broke.
Our applause was spontaneous, loud, and sustained. Lee Wood, who sometimes appeared to be in a state of perpetual puzzlement over the behavior of the city desk, came to the door of his office in the far corner of the room on the Park Place side and looked in our direction, as he usually did when the din penetrated his sanctum. He would show himself thus many times, glasses on the tip of his nose, a sheaf of correspondence or financial statements or bills in his hand, gazing across the intervening space of sixty feet, listening for a minute or two before retreating and closing the door.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Winds of Barclay Street by John Ferris. Copyright © 2013 John Ferris. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
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