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Your city station brings you a special broadcast of the annual luncheon of the Fifth Avenue Association the program was transcribed earlier today at the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria among our speakers are Grover Whalen and City construction coordinator Robert Moses here now is our chairman Percy C. Magnus a director of the Association Mr Magnus ladies and John of on. Behalf of the Fifth Avenue Association we are delighted to receive a round of guess the members and our friends after new eyes are going to appreciate we have a very modest day is here but time will not permit or a complete introduction of all the celebrities here your city list and program gives you that very complete information but I do feel that I would be derelict in my duty if I were not to announce the fact that we regret very much that our wonderful Mayor Wagner was not with us tonight at the very very heavy campaign the results of which I need not refer to he is convalescing in Florida I do. I do want to say that it is my privilege to present the following so the officials are washed away Billy representing the administration here to day and may I ask that you hold your applause as again I say time is of the essence we have Mr Charles prose a city administrator. Police Commissioner Stephen Kennedy private commission take wireless. Mr Sonner sanitation commissioner muttering. All that if you will jam of the moral standard. Murdoch commissioner Gilroy housing and building. Commission of licenses but not O'Connell city budget director very important and they bane. Commish Autumn of the city planning commission. And Stuart constable executive officer of the pot department and Robert McCulloch chief engineer of the Board of Estimate thank you both gentlemen rise place I'm going to let. You know that rifle. That's what you call the cream of the crop but we haven't got time for the rest of my days in mind gentlemen it's my privilege to present to you. My previous present to you the distinguished president of the fan Association Mr John one. Mr does Master. But the taskmaster office and directors of the Fifth Avenue Association on it guess ladies and gentlemen. I extend to you I most cordial welcome. I am told that this is the largest annual luncheon ever which is in Dade a tribute and a much deserved tribute to ironic as today. Also I am sure you will join with me in expressing I thanks and appreciation to those who spend so many hours of work and arranging this function. My assignment today is a pleasant one it is the presentation of the Association's annual architectural awards but before doing that a word or two about the association would seem appropriate if its an Association was founded back in one nine hundred seventy by a group of businessmen who believed that the development and the protection of the Fifth Avenue section. What fast be achieved by organized efforts the almost fifty years history of the association has certainly one that out. The area which is guided by and commission policed by and served by our association we call it that then a section includes Madison Avenue Park Avenue and fifty seventh Street within the last ten years we have seen an accelerated building program buildings no buildings going up all around us on Fifth Avenue on Madison Avenue and on Park Avenue. And many more are on the planning board. And. Their spelling. Has I believe a deep significance I'm sure of all of us it reflects a deep confidence and a continuing faith in the future of our Fifth Avenue time section because property values here enjoy stability soundness and security this we believe is due in large part to the work of our association and the vigilance which it exercises every day. For the future good of Irian we must promote the work of our association but because as we all know. There is no scars where it is invited. It stays where it is well treated and protected this is a task which deserves the support of all of us doing business in Manhattan. Now as the architecture wars. The program the architectural watch program was started in one nine hundred sixteen and is long. In creating And I think Fifth Avenue in midtown section. A truly beautiful architectural area and whether continued support. Has architects and builders are associations most confident. That our area will continue to grow as the world's quality Senate. What gives these awards added prestige is the important part that the New York chapter of the American Association of architects has played over the years and working with the association and selecting the reception of these awards we are proud of our close association with The New York chapter in this activity and we wish to pay special tribute to that organization for their fine cooperation I would like to ask Mr Robert Cutler who is present he our chapter was with us today if you'd rise and talk about Mr Gottlieb thank you. I would also like to express our appreciation to the six members of the current awards committee. Three of whom were appointed by the association and three designated by the New York chapter three appointed by the Mr William M. Holmes chairman Mr Isaac Lieberman and Mr Frank the wedlock. That's ignited by the New York chapter Mr Francis. Mr Richard Campbell and Mr Stevens. And now it is with much pleasure that I announce that the new manufacturers' Trust Company branch of Fifth Avenue forty third Street has been selected as the best new building a record in the Fifth Avenue section for the current awards period and I am happy to present this plaque Incidentally if I can left it. To Mr Bradford I want to representing the manufacturer press coming here today and Mr want to congratulate you and best wishes. For said to fit some merit for the spelling I've been presented to the architect Skidmore Owings and Merrill and to the belt as the George A for my company. In the category of nobel I will mention has been wanted to Moses Moses Ginsberg and signs for the new Belling at two sixty one Madison Avenue and I am happy to present this and I would add it's a tough get the mystic out. President. Said to the Good Samaritan present it to the architect seventeen and as such it's and to the belt as the diesel construction company I watch committee. Has selected the seventeen storey building at four thirty Park Avenue as the best often building and I am having a visit to Mr Joseph Garland present at four thirty park an association this moment at its attempt to get. Such a good Samaritan and presented it for you and. Thank you. For the outstanding new institutional building our committee has chosen Library Center at twenty. I am most happy to present your word to Mr Maurice Hadley President the board of trustees of the New York. Your city station brings you a special broadcast of the annual luncheon of the Fifth Avenue Association the program was transcribed earlier today at the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria. And now here is a portion of the speakers program an address by the Honorable Robert Moses City construction coordinator Mr Moses. Stop. Thank you. Thanks for this project and. I think it's a merit that ladies and gentlemen completes the presentation of the warrants and I am indeed having now to turn the meeting over to Mr Grover where I'm well introduce our honored guest and principal to thank them thank. You Mr President. My part of this program is going to be very brief because of our limitation of time if I were to properly introduce our speaker today it would take hours and hours and hours and if anybody wants to know more than I will tell about him very briefly in about a minute. I suggest that you look up. And all the directorates in the country and you will find about three or four pages that just devoted to our guest of honor Robert Moses is not only a genius work of planning. But for making friends and incidentally I think he's made a few enemies. I doubt it. Bob looks so well and I doubt that it worries him very much but at any rate anybody that does one hundred of the work that Bob Moses does for the city of New York would have to step on some bodies toes and therefore may I just do my part by telling you the important functions that the now Guy There are about twelve about them and that will be the conclusion of my remarks except to tell the my fellow members of the Family Association that we are very fortunate I'm not out and having Robert Moses as our speaker today. Mr Moses as he choses to be called he never wants to be called commissioner I never heard any of. His assistants around him ever call him anything but Mr Moses so I'm going to address him as Mr Moses. Mr Moses is a president of the Long Island State Park Commission since nineteen twenty four chairman of the State Council of parks since one thousand nine hundred twenty four chairman of Jones Beach State Parkway authority sense one nine hundred thirty three chairman Beth Page Park Authority since one thousand nine hundred thirty three commissioner New York City Department of Parks since one thousand nine hundred thirty four chairman of the tribe are a bridge and tunnel authority since one thousand nine hundred thirty six member New York City Planning Commission since one thousand nine hundred forty two New York City. Construction coordinator. Since the one nine hundred forty six chairman of the Mez Committee on slum clearance since one thousand nine hundred forty eight chairman power authority of the state of New York sence nineteen fifty four John Homa ladies and gentlemen need you know more about our on I guess I give you Bob Moses thank you and in the. Members and friends of the flag new association. I may first thank Grover Whalen for introducing me I am one among thousands who boast of long friendship with the greatest of all greeters. We treasure among our fondest souvenirs the memory of the World's Fair Flushing Meadow it was an achievement of sheer breadth or up I was just a number of ditch digger on the Flushing Meadow dump when Grover was dreaming up his Cloud Cap towers and gorgeous palaces. And when that pageant faded he left a park behind him for all our people would enjoy it for all time I hailed with enthusiasm the prospect of Grover well kept his career by making Fifth Avenue a year round all season World's Fair a mecca of visitors and a fit companion for the United Nations world capital. I have no aspiration. To be the poet laureate of Fifth Avenue I'm not here is the poet said to heap the shrines of luxury and pride with incense kindling to the Muses flame there is to be sure no other street life if family or. Not the ring Strawson not the xan sanely today nor the reader Rivoli nor Bond Street nor the Prado own or hundred in Linden of the old days. The visitor like the young man on the street where it's fair lady lives feel for the pavement lending wings to his feet and himself several stories high or this is the street where glamour lives nor am I here is a diagnostician you have your own respected doctors. It is dangerous to rush in where nurses fear to tread I gather from current literature that in parts of Africa the followers of the native medicine man still put the whammy on the medical missionaries and cook and eat surgeons my role is to give you a short straight talk after which I shall Don whiskers in overalls and make my escape through the hotel kitchen. I don't however want to leave here until I tell you I think or to. My father years ago. I was a member of a committee of the New Haven Chamber of Commerce to invite peppery old president Timothy Dwight of Yale to the annual chamber dinner. This was before the days of your father Marse. This was long before the days of iron gray tycoons in blue pinstripe suits to take summer and winter vacations in the sun and have already embraced the four day week Dr Dwight agreed to speak briefly and he rose and this is all he said Gentlemen I have one question to ask you. What does the New Haven Chamber of Commerce do between me. Well I. Won't go quite so far with the Fifth Avenue Association. But there are some matters to which I believe your organization might give attention between luncheons and these I shall refer to briefly in the end or all between damage has some departure. I recall of course that while we were giving General Sherman you were keeping the marble lady on the Pulitzer found fountain from losing her slip but this hardly seems a full time career for a great association. Let's face it the Fifth Avenue Association has not always been far sighted off co-operative in public matters and is not in fact often been on the side of the angels at least not my angels you oppose the Midtown elevated expressway connecting two great tunnels on an independent right of way with parking underneath a facility which would lift through traffic off the surface streets you had no substitute accepting a silly scheme for a ventilated to back cess of only up the water fronts and seventy feet underground. You whittled down our zoning improvements by taking us into court and reducing high standards wherever they affected the least progressive and intelligent of your members you would never helped us extend Fifth Avenue through and below Washington Square in the reconstruction of a substandard a cane part of the city. You have never supported adequate off street loading and parking. Fee admirable set back and slender tower designs of the lever and master buildings on Park Avenue and body voluntary self-denying ordinance says which should be written into law are not left to chance. THANK YOU are the men and women of midtown Manhattan you are the representatives of the great institutions which line the most famous griddle in the world Yours is the problem of maintaining the supremacy of a great bull of bought at the very core of the city there is more to solving this problem slogans trade association association clichés dependence on the past and reliance on the connotations of the famous name more even than imagination boldness new styles and the meeting of new demands on Fifth Avenue and the palaces minus of giving way to stars offices hotels hospitals museums foundations schools clubs and apartments nevertheless Fifth Avenue where survive and prosper but take he new dangers threaten the Phila Stein's be upon the Sampson. Management It is true has moved to the country and in some cases back into town the big stores have built suburban branches which look like blocks of the old chip yet there are still mid Manhattan attractions. Not matched by the convenient miracle miles of Manhasset and White Plains so far so good but the storm warnings are up. You cannot keep the fame of Fifth Avenue alive by cheapness mass and assembly line production small profits and immense output. You cannot do it by catering to the lowest common denominator usually the key to success in our highly competitive American industry you cannot survive by mere ballyhoo and super duper advertising in. Everything is overdone on the theory that nothing exceeds like excess. In a town of tiresome support of what it was I live in hope of hearing an occasional understatement all this too is a form of emphasis. On Fifth Avenue is intro fanatic new of luxury in Prague with all its public features it is an expensive St The German merchants years ago made a distinction which is still valid between a cough Strawson and allow Strauss that is between a leisure only shopping street and a thoroughfare or Speedway you belong in the first category it is not the function of public officials to teach Fifth Avenue how to design buy and sell advertiser attract customers except in instances like the Colosseum our job is to predict major movements and changes suburban growth and traffic and other threats to mid Manhattan while the wealth of the world is on display and taxes are collected which keep the city solvent. If associations like yours don't wake up the challenges of change you will be fair before very long face construction the centralisation deterioration the geriatrician the mortician and finally the archaeologist who on earth the artifacts of Fifth Avenue when it's pomp of yesterday's one with an invited talk. Nastassja dogmatism old fogie isn't neat but to some one snobbery will not say Fifth Avenue and it's environments from Ontario sclerosis of the D. the disease needs careful diet and diagnosis and a new regimen. The tired radical the worn out architect the skyline philosopher the Scribbler would rebuild the city with dynamite these won't do anything for you and yet you have done little to disprove their allegations neither will your auditor's in the columns who are all about assessments and taxes without offering any constructive alternatives. May I also cautiously suggest that you call that a a sense of proportion and such madness you spend too much time groaning over a municipal extravagance while you pay more to the experts who address your manikins than the city can afford for the top officials upon whom your future depends. On news ations like yours ten more and more to become mutual admiration society and. I'm told that at the next Daniel luncheon all your members were aware an old Fifth Avenue top featuring ivory apes and peacocks something which can be described in the refined lingo of the radio city guides as emboli call. There are certain conditions and threats which you must recognize study with an item self-interest and surmount if you aim to be more than a vigilance committee or a mutual protection of society it should be added that a lofty purpose may not be inconsistent with good business and that there is more to life than turning an honest dollar. Fifth that you cannot flourish if the parallel avenues on the side streets go Dogg. Park Avenue needs no stimulus it is if anything rising too high and too solid with its new buildings Third Avenue has a remarkable rebirth with the disappearance of the old L. the Avenue of the Americas in part at least is approaching its renaissance where you know the moniker avenue of America to my old chief fear oh a Guardia It was one of his more brilliant inspirations I for one can't see the point of the silly campaign to return to sixth Avenue in a name which never had pleasant connotations one more Latin American hero and bronze in the battle dissolved. Week out of Fort to insult our neighboring southern republic. Incidentally the name Avenue of the America is not as long as Flatbush Avenue extension which leads straight to the Elysian field of Mr water all Molly. Broadway is a puzzler and the hockey talks which now line it are steadily moving east poisoning everything in their way and if you don't watch out the snake charmers strip teasers fortunetellers Penny Arcade shooting galleries and commish vendors will be on your door steps. The Fifth Avenue Association must watch its neighbors. And this brings me to the suggestion that the various organizations which represent the great power oh north and south get together. I do not suggest that they live in perfect harmony like Castor and Pollux or ham and eggs a little rivalry does no Hong I urged that their relation be something like that between Harvard and Yale. Why first second third Lexington Park Avenue associations or the Avenue of the Americas Association or the Broadway Association why not a mid Manhattan Association speaking authoritatively for all of them and for the business people and residents of the side streets as well. Broadway's not your only danger some Our reconstruction and prosperity have jumped over the twenties above Washington Square there is much to be done in this section all among the no Often the doldrums below Washington Square are looking up but need the support of Midtown give them genuine aid not merely what Gov Smith used to call substantial justice in the governor's book that was just about the worst thing that could happen to you. Let me offer another suggestion why not demonstrate a lively interest in the rest of New York there will always be latent jealousy of middle Manhattan because it disassembled what wealth affluence and luxury you must overcome the normal natural jealousy of conspicuous wealth harbored by the less fortunate than opulent people of the city who live away from the main stem you can do this by demonstrating a genuine interest in their welfare why not show less prosperous people that they have a stake in the roaring thirty's forty's fifty's sixty's and seventy's there are scores of ways of doing this support the rebuilding of other parts of town adequate housing enough schools parks and playgrounds be willing to share their cost without grumbling You might also do something handsome and even sentimental I paying for poems and flowers on thoroughfares in places which need the green of growing things Suppose you make lilacs gloom in other parts of town I admire the spunk and confidence exhibited by the entrepreneur who put up great buildings in midtown Manhattan and I'm appalled by their indifference and that of the banks which loan the money to the curses of overcrowding and traffic congestion and their manifest contempt except when they run afoul of the law and need favors variations or amendments for public officials they don't even pay attention of the recommendations of their own architects. Let me give you a classical. Listen to the story of the Noosa County back you one building at one fifty forty second Street Wallace Harrison's original plans provided a parking space for seventy five executive cars in the basement of the building the owners thriftily decided to admit to admit this and use the space for a cafeteria and storage this huge building contains one million two hundred thousand square feet of floor space and six off street loading birds on the forty first Street side on July fourteenth one thousand nine hundred fifty four column the number forty two the city planning commission adopted an amendment to the zoning resolution requiring something like adequate parking space in large office buildings and other commercial structures that was flatly disapproved by the Board of Estimate on July twenty second one nine hundred fifty four calendar one fifty five and that's what usually happens to efforts to improve traffic when the big boys get hit. And while we're on the subject of all the buildings think of my friend Bill second dog I think he's here. And the Grand Central in Pennsylvania stations widely heralded in the press they defied the principle of the heightened bulk of structure should be related to the capacity of streets at breakfast with the mayor basically mansion not long ago Bobby Young and Pat McGuinness took thirty stories off the eighty six story building proposed to take the place of the present Grand Central Terminal This was before we'd even reached the scrambled eggs by the time we hit the coffee the new terminal was just flat as a pancake. Somebody similarly left the air out of the Pennsylvania US station souffle shortly after the heated imaginations that produced it. Now Bill is my friend. He waves. He waves but he never naps. And handing time toils after him in vain. He is however one of our most useful citizens because he has the three by all eyes imagination ingenuity and industry oh let's have another look at traffic. BARNO sman had a comparatively easy time and hacking out the radiating butt of odds of Paris to support derive from the necessity of widening alleys which could be barricaded for street fighting. The automobile is here to stay for bidding it below fifty ninth Street except on Sundays won't say Fifth Avenue which cannot be served by a bus of some taxis alone stick around charms you ain't seen nothing yet well you may have to stop all B. If you want traffic above fifty ninth Street when Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum opens I'm going to be sure when the Ninth Commandment has been amended by our statesman so as to declare the seven hour day and four day week Fifth Avenue will be a place Street over every weekend and vehicular traffic will be excluded entirely I would join Stephen Steve Kennedy in welcoming this addition to the park system. You will have to get rid of through traffic there will be more one way streets are elevated expressways staggered working hours night deliveries are caves off street public garages and terminals they're all coming are you going to welcome them or have them jammed through eventually in the face of your ineffective protests Well my time is up Arava day Archie as they say in Mulberry Street thanks for the money. You have been listening to a special broadcast today's luncheon of the Fifth Avenue Association our speakers portion has brought you the address by the Honorable Robert Moses transcribed earlier this afternoon at the Waldorf a story this transcribed feature was presented by your city station in the public interest one right.