The news about 32 Sixth Avenue (Avenue of the America’s) came as no surprise. When AT&T Long Lines moved to Bedminster N. J. in 1977, the die was cast. The headquarters for Long Lines and its successor organizations was to be in suburban New Jersey, not in New York City.
The news first appeared as a well-founded rumor buried deep in the real estate pages of the New York Times in July 1999. By January 19, 2000 the news made the front page of the real estate section of the Times. In December 1999 the Rudin family took title to the 28-story pile of bricks south of Canal Street in New York City.
The Times story is called “Once and Future Telecommunications Crossroads.” It will now go by the grandiloquent name of “The New York Global Connectivity Center.” I’m not making this stuff up. That’s what William C. Rudin, president of the company which bears his name, will call it. Connectivity. Got that?
I’m not weeping any tears because Brother Rudin bought 32 Sixth Avenue from the AT&T Corporation. I never had any particular fondness for that building. It was just a place to work in a fairly grim neighborhood. It was reasonably close to other telephone installations (195 Broadway, the New York Company, Western Electric) and it had fairly good subway connections. I walked to the Lackawanna ferry which was about a mile south of the building. In bad weather I rode the subway and the famous Hudson and Manhattan Railroad, better known as “The Hudson Tubes” because they passed under the Hudson River.
The building inspired no affection from the employees who worked there. As I said, it was simply a place to work. Before it was air-conditioned it was mighty hot, particularly on the west side facing on Sixth Avenue. Henry Killingsworth, who headed Long Lines, decreed that only the 26th floor, the home of the Vice Presidents, and a few pieces of plant equipment were to have air conditioning. Air conditioning came to the rest of the work force some time in the mid to late 1960’s.
And so I read in July 1999 that the building would be sold. As I have said, I had no warmth in my heart for that building but I did care a lot about a pillar in the lobby.
On that pillar a plaque has been installed. It reads as follows:

“DEDICATED TO THE 2791 EMPLOYEES OF THE LONG LINES DEPARTMENT WHO SERVED WITH THE ARMED FORCES DURING WORLD II AND IN MEMORY OF THOSE WHO DIED IN THE SERVICE OF THEIR COUNTRY.”

There follows the names of 57 men who lost their lives in World War II. It has always struck me that the 57 men who were lost should have led the listings on the plaque rather than following the tribute to those who “served with the Armed Forces.” But that is an issue that has been settled so we go on from there.
Of the 57 men who died, three were St. Louisans: Bernie Wheeler, Dave Weiss and Ashby Vaughn. In point of fact, a fourth man from St. Louis, Don Meier, also lost his life in combat, but was not included on the plaque because of a tragic piece of bureaucracy. I was a friend to all four of these men from St. Louis.
I worked in New York City for nearly 20 years. I had many occasions to study that plaque. When I worked elsewhere, I always stopped by to look at the plaque in the lobby.
I’m not a gloomy fellow nor am I a flag-waving patriot of the American Legion school. I just have a certain sort of reverence for the men who died and who served in that greatest of conflicts, called World War II.
And I have a greater reason to stare at that plaque, even today. I started to work for Long Lines in St. Louis in September of 1941. My first job was mostly a messenger and file clerk position. I didn’t care. I wore a white shirt to work and unlike the filling station business, I didn’t have to change tires and drain oil anymore. After a short time, I was given a drafting table which was what I had been hired to do.
In six months or so, a position was created under Ashby Vaughn which involved a good bit of drafting and some statistical work in conjunction with buried cables being laid in Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. I went to work for Ashby Vaughn.
Ashby Vaughn was a fine man. He never chewed me out although I’m sure there were occasions when that should have happened. I was 19 and I expect Ashby may have been 28 or 29 years of age. He was very patient with me and I learned a lot about cables and topographical maps as well. He had a beautiful wife who had also worked in the St. Louis Office.
We worked on the 8th floor of the headquarters building of Southwestern Bell located at 1010 Pine Street in St. Louis. The quarters were fairly small and space was limited. Ashby sat in the corner of the room and I sat directly in front of him. I quickly found out that if I rolled my chair back eight or ten inches, I would hit Ashby’s desk. But I never complained. It was a lot better than rolling around under cars draining the petcocks of radiators when the anti-freeze weather arrived.
So I sat in front of Ashby. Directly across from Ashby on his right, separated by an aisle of 30 inches but certainly no more than 36 inches, sat Bernie Wheeler. Directly in front of Bernie sat Dave Weiss. Dave was to my right across that narrow aisle. Standing up, I could touch all four desks from my location. Dave and Bernie worked for Transmission Engineer Charlie Laughlin, a prince of a man. Now that I think of it, all the fellows who worked for Charlie Laughlin were good men who enjoyed a laugh now and then.
My contact with Bernie Wheeler was not as great as I would have liked. He spent at least half of his time on transmission projects in the field, so I didn’t see him for weeks at a stretch. My guess is that Bernie was about 27 or 28. As far as I can recall he was unmarried.
When war came, Bernie was a ready reserve and by February or March, in 1942, he was gone. Dave Weiss, whom I spent a bit more time with, also belonged to the ready reserve. Dave was probably the same age as Bernie and was also unmarried.
I don’t recall where Bernie and Dave were sent. I simply knew that they had joined outfits that were involved in the early fighting.
In probably April of 1942 came word that Bernie had been killed. I never knew many details.
After Dave was called to active duty, all of us kept track of him by talking to his father, David Weiss Sr., who was a supervisor in the Telegraph Department. It was located on the 8th floor as we were, so we saw the elder Weiss often.
Not long after Bernie Wheeler was lost, came the terrible news that David Weiss Jr. was killed. His father delivered the news. It is now 58 years later and I can still feel the sorrow as I recall his father telling us that his only son was gone. Dave Weiss, the father, never whimpered or sought sympathy. It was simply the price that some had to pay. His son was in harms way and he was not completely surprised by such a tragic event.
I left St Louis in the summer of 1942 to enlist in the United States Army Air Corps. From time to time, Ashby wrote me a note. Apparently, Ashby was not taken in the draft until sometime in 1944. I heard about Ashby’s death months after it happened. Unfortunately, when his draft number came up the Army needed riflemen and he was assigned to a rifle platoon. Ashby was killed in the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944. He had only been in the Army for about six months.
And so with Bernie Wheeler, Dave Weiss and Ashby Vaughn killed, it meant that three of the four of us who sat in that 8th floor corner at 1010 Pine Street in St. Louis were lost. So I hope it is clear why I go out of my way – even now – to view that plaque in New York.
When word first appeared in the New York Times in July 1999 that the Long Lines building was to be sold, I wrote to Mirian M. Graddick, Executive Vice President of the AT&T Corporation. If the building were sold to an outside firm, they might not care what happened to the plaque. I told her that I hoped the plaque would find an honored and prominent place either in the former headquarters building in New York or in Basking Ridge.
I’m not at all certain that Ms. Graddick ever read my letter. Instead, a person who identified himself as being from the “Chairman’s Office” called to say that because 32 Sixth Avenue was a landmark building – presumably in New York City – the plaque may have to stay right where it is. The person from the “Chairman’s Office” said he would keep me informed. That was in August 1999. I haven’t heard from him.
Now to complete the story on the plaque, I need to tell you about AT&T’s practice concerning permanent employment and granting of leaves of absence. At the time I went to work for Long Lines, the rule was that new employees were not granted leaves of absence until their first service anniversary. After that permanent status was automatic. So it was that I timed my entry into the U. S. Army a week after my first year of service. But then in that week came an announcement from – you guessed it – the headquarters of Long Lines at 32 Sixth Avenue in New York City. It said simply that the traditional long standing practice of employees gaining permanent status upon completing the first year of service would no longer apply.
The effect was obvious and immediate. Whereas under the practice that had obtained until then, I would have been given a leave of absence, with service credit, for the time I spent in the military. Because that practice had been withdrawn, those of us entering military service were not given leaves of absence. We were simply cut loose.
I said to hell with it and enlisted. That was in 1942. During the time that I was unprotected by a leave of absence, the Company took me off all its publications lists. I simply was a person who no longer worked for the Company. I received no magazines or any other mail from the AT&T Company. In short, I was history.
Then in early 1944, Congress passed an act that said that people in my situation had to be guaranteed a job, with service credit, when they finished their military service. I found out about this by reading a pony copy of Time Magazine. It took some weeks before the Time story found me so I thought I would soon be hearing from Ma Bell. But the fact is that Long Lines had buried my records so deep in the former employee file that they did not have an address for me.
My mother later told me that a very relieved telephone employee was very happy that she had located my mother after going through all the Carr’s in the phone book, and could she please have my current address. Well in another few weeks, a letter from the Personnel Vice President – a Mr. Franklin P. Lawrence – arrived some where in Italy telling me how much they were looking forward to having me back to work for the Company. And they were now going to send me the monthly Long Lines Magazines. I should have told the Germans. It was as though that interval from 1942 to 1944 had not really happened.
Now I tell you all this for a reason. When I started to work at Long Lines, I drove my 1937 Chevrolet through Maplewood to pick up other fellow employees. They paid me to do that. One of my regular riders was Don Meier who worked at the testroom on Beaumont Street. Don had almost exactly my leave situation. The Company failed to grant him permanent status so he entered the service with the Marines without the protection of a leave of absence, just as I had done.
In the ensuing months, Don was killed. He had fulfilled the one year of non-permanent service but as any bureaucrat can tell you, he was killed before the Company reinstated the former leave policy, under pressure from Congress, in 1944. Because he failed, through no fault of his own, to have a leave of absence, Don Meier’s name is not listed among the men “who died in the service of their country.” What a tragic crime that is.
I first noticed the omission of Don’s name when I first went to New York as a member of the Union bargaining team. That would have been in June 1950 and again in July 1951. I asked the Company brass about it. The people on the Company side more or less ignored me. They sort of chalked it up to some more rabble rousing from the Union. Curiously, none of the Company representatives who blew me off had ever served in the military.
That is the story of the plaque. I hope, as I said in July 1999 in my letter to Executive Vice President Graddick, that the plaque finds an honored and prominent place somewhere in the headquarters of the AT&T Corporation. It’s future right now is unclear. If the Company can dispose of Golden Boy, perhaps they can do the same with the Plaque. We’ll have to hope for the best.
E. E. CARR
March 17, 2000
~~~
If any New York readers — present or future — want to swing by 32 Sixth Avenue and check in on the Plaque, I’d be more than happy to post any updates. You can reach me just by leaving a comment on this essay.  I’d imagine the plaque is intact: Wikipedia notes that in 2001-2, “numerous features of the building’s original design were restored, including the lobby with its expansive Art Deco murals.” Restorations tend to bode well for historical artifacts, so I’d imagine the plaque is secure still.
Edit: As of May 2005, it was still kicking.
This is Ed and Howard Davis viewing the plaque with their wives in May 05: