New York

I worked at the Grand Rapids Herald for about a year after graduating from college. I went home after work one evening and, to my own astonishment, announced to my parents that I was moving to New York City. I had not thought about it. I was perfectly happy at the paper. I still have no idea where the decision came from. Although they were disappointed, Mother and Dad rallied and supported my surprise decision.

A month or so later I was established in a modest apartment in New York with two friends. I set out to look for a job in publishing or news. On the second day I was standing at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street by the library trying to figure out which way to turn to find The New York Post. A truck driver, stopped by a red light, called out asking if I were lost. I asked him which way it was to…unexpectedly…The Daily News. He waved toward the right, nodded acceptance of my thanks, and drove off.

I disliked The Daily News with its lurid tabloid style and had no intention of applying for a job there. However, given directions, I shrugged and turned right as the friendly truck driver had indicated. At the handsome News Building only one person entered the elevator with me, a nicely dressed man. He asked if I were looking for a job and introduced himself as the manager of United Press (UP) Radio. That’s how I ended up doing radio news for the rest of the war years.

 

Letter dated October 23, 1944

At last I am firmly settled in the Big City…with apartment and with job.

Before I left home, I had the apartment and roommate lined up. Betty Fearheiley went to school with me. She is perfectly swell, a writer, and is now working for Parents Magazine. She was living with her sister till the latter got married (which took place a week ago), so in the meantime, I have been living with a friend of hers in our apartment. The second girl, Marjorie Hope of Cleveland, is also a writer and has had a few things published. She is grand, and I couldn’t have found anyone I would have preferred being with. Betty moved in with us yesterday, so we are really settled at last.

The apartment is on 14th Street, just on the edge of Greenwich Village. It is a street at least as wide as Washington or Michigan Avenues in Saginaw, and is all stores except for our very new and modern apartment building. We have three or four uniformed doormen and three locked doors between us and the city.

The apartment itself is very nice. The living room is largish, with two rust-colored studio couches, blond wood furniture, and Degas prints on the walls. The bedroom, at present, has a surplus of suitcases and trunks and a lack of bedspreads and curtains, but it definitely has possibilities. The bathroom and kitchenette couldn’t be smaller, but the first is beautifully tiled and the second compact and efficient, so we don’t complain. Altogether, we like it very much.

I looked for a job the first week I was here and found that I had sort of overestimated the anxiety with which New York publishers were waiting for my appearance. There were a few possibilities left when, completely by accident, I happened into United Press. The minute I hit it, heard the teletypes and the typewriters, and saw people rushing around with copy and yelling “flash” at each other, I realized that, in spite of all I had said, I was still a newspaper woman.

I took a job in the radio news department. Here we write all the news and feature broadcasts that are sent to radio stations all over the country. It is a style of writing very different from that of a paper. Since it is to be spoken, the sentences must be shorter, more vivid, more concise. It is wonderful training for me. I had to start as a copy girl to learn the business, but I hope to be promoted to the writing staff within a month or so. It is the sort of opportunity every young writer in the city is crying for, and I walked in, as I said, by mistake and snatched it from under a long waiting list. In fact, he even had to talk me into taking it because I wasn’t sure that it was what I wanted. I love it now though. Already some of my stories have gone over the wire as I wrote them. The people are marvelous, and I love the city.