AUTUMN IN NEW YORK
BUD POWELL - BARNEY WILEN
THE SKYSCRAPERS
MARCEL VERTES
On his first day in New York, the traveler found himself on Fifth Avenue at Fifty-Seventh Street. He took out his little note-book and wrote feverishly. “I see women here – the most beautiful I have ever seen. How different they are from their sisters in my country! They are beautiful and tall – very tall."
Carefully he underlined “very tall.” Because he now felt short – he who had always been regarded, across the ocean, as a fairly tall man. Here he had to lift his head to look into the women’s faces. It was quite vexing … “They stride like giantesses, looking only forward. They walk alone, perfectly at ease, feeling no need for the company of dog or man …” The traveler knew that at this time of day the men were far away, in a jail called Wall Street. “…Here my sex is represented only by policemen, who stop traffic every so often to permit the giantesses to cross the street in safety.”
Filled with admiration, he scribbled on. “They have their own style, with shoes open in front and back, with long hair falling to their shoulders.” He compared them to Joan of Arc, 1937 model, then modified: “Their tawny manes wave in the breeze.” Women lionesses – perhaps? And he also compared them to the splendid fruits of California – Giantesses – Triumph of Strenuous Sport and Rational Diet.
Marcel Vertes
Harper’s Bazaar July, 1937
MARCEL VERTES
HARPER'S BAZAAR JULY 1937
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