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…