The Time Life Building Only Has 500 workers showing up in comparison to Pre-Pandemic 8,000

The Rockefeller Center Ecosystem of Restaurants and Shops, created to serve Midtown workers and tourists, has gone dark

Introduction: Today’s New York Times Described the Catastrophic Decline of Midtown Manhattan

We need to remember that John D. Rockefeller built Rockefeller Center during the Great Depression to show his optimism about America’s future. Alas, what future do we now have?

The dramatic decline of Rockefeller Center (the epicenter of Midtown) strikes home. I loved working in Rockefeller Center. How could you not enjoy being in the footsteps of Carey Grant, Al Pacino, and Rock Hudson?

Eloise and I celebrated our 25th Anniversary in the Rainbow Room, (Rainbow Room occupied the 60th floor in the NBC Building) a magnificent place, which had fine dining, spectacular views and a great band. In brief, Rockefeller Center epitomized the glamour of corporations.

Do you remember when President Jim Carter criticized the “Three Martini Lunch?” I was interviewed by CBS News eating lunch at my favorite steak restaurant in the Time Life Building about my response to the President. I responded that business lunches were part and parcel of doing business. In brief, people do business with people they TRUST!

Midtown Manhattan, the muscular power center of New York City for a century, faces an economic catastrophe, a cascade of loss upon loss that threatens to alter the very identity of the city’s corporate base. The coronavirus’s toll of lost professions, lost professionals and untold billions of lost income and tax revenue may take years to understand and resolve.

For much of my career on Wall Street, I worked in Rockefeller Center. In today’s article in the New York Times, they not only focused on Rockefeller Center, but the Times Life Building, which was on 1271 Avenue of the Americas. When I was elected a partner at Morgan Stanley, I worked across the street on 1251 Avenue of the Americas (Exxon Building). When I retired from Lazard at the end of 2004, I worked in the NBC Building, 30 Rockefeller Center. David Rockefeller and the Rockefeller Foundation had offices in that building. When we were all fleeing our offices on 9/11, I saw David Rockefeller, as he was about to enter the elevator. My colleagues and I urged Mr. Rockefeller to return home.

Within walking distances there were many wonderful eating establishments, terrific men’s clothing stores, LA fitness, etc. In brief, working in Rockefeller Center was the workday equivalent of belonging to a swanky Country Club.

The Decline of Rockefeller Center

Editors and account managers at the Time & Life Building in

Midtown Manhattan could once walk out through the modernist lobby and into a thriving ecosystem that existed in support of the offices above. They could shop for designer shirts or shoes, slide into a steakhouse corner booth for lunch and then return to their desks without ever crossing the street.

To approach this block today is like visiting a relative in the hospital. The building, rebranded a few years ago and renovated to fit 8,000 workers, now has just 500 a day showing up. The steakhouse dining rooms are dark.

In jeopardy of extinction, at least in its known state, is the corporate office culture at large — its corner suites and cubicles, water-cooler movie reviews, coffee breaks, office crushes, shoeshines, black cars. Happy hour! “Mad Men” the wonderful series about Madison Avenue was staged in Rockefeller Center!

On a sidewalk once lined with food carts, a lone hot-dog vendor stood one recent Friday on a corner below the building. His name is Ahmed Ahmed, and he said he used to sell 400 hot dogs a day.

How many now? “Maybe 10.”

Midtown Manhattan is stuck in Phase Zero. The men and women who fed, clothed, poured drinks for the workers in Rockefeller Center have vanished! The staffs of the steakhouses that were part and parcel of Rockefeller Center have been furloughed.

Subway traffic is down 87%!

Conclusion

When I think about the demise of Midtown Manhattan I want to cry! My whole career was tied up in Rockefeller Center–my wonderful friends, the good times. Hopefully, some of you will CRY WITH ME over the loss of this heritage.

Originally published in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune