Meet me under the Biltmore clock
Tim O'Connor (tim@roughdraft.org)
Tue, 16 Feb 1999 20:08:47 -0500
One of the sad pleasures of Holden Caulfield's New York is that so much of
it is gone.
If you have access to the current issue of The New Yorker (2/22 & 3/1/1999
issue, p. 50), you can read the ever-reliable Frank McCourt's recollection
of his first job in NYC, as the cleanup man in the lobby of the Biltmore.
His boss rambles, "Important people say, Let's meet under the clock at the
Biltmore, and what happens if they come in and the place is covered with
dust and buried in garbage." And that's his job: "to keep the Biltmore
famous."
It's a charming little piece by a blessed writer, and gives us another
perspective on what New York -- Holden's New York -- must have been like,
for those of us who were never fortunate enough to see it.
--tim