May 4, 2020 A recent copy of The New Yorker , downloaded and read on my iPad, had this stunningly beautiful photograph of Park Avenue on a...
May 4, 2020
A recent copy of The New Yorker, downloaded and read on my iPad, had this stunningly beautiful photograph of Park Avenue on a recent March morning – a long shot of the vista, laden with cherry trees in full bloom, sunlight glinting in the windows of tall buildings on either side, a column of skyscrapers disappearing towards the Pan Am building at the end of the street. There was not a living soul on it, apart from a lone pedestrian crossing the road. Covid had emptied the avenue.
The Doubleday office where I worked in 1969-70 was located on Park & 44th next to the Seagrams building designed by Mies van der Rohe. My husband Pogey’s office, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, an architecture firm, was on 54th & Park, in the Unilever building designed by Gordon Bunshaft. I would walk down from my office to meet him at the corner of 54th every day, so we could have lunch together. (The telephone operator at Doubleday never missed an opportunity to tease me: “Married for better and for worse – and for lunch, dear!”)
My heart broke when I saw that photograph, but later, I wondered what it was that filled me with sadness. Was...
