Mad Men and the City: Catch-up edition
Don Draper , Freddy Rumsen, and Roger Sterling are out for drinks on what will be a life-altering night.
By Rolando Pujol
Duck Phillips would really be on our case about missing our deadlines for "Mad Men and the City" write-ups, but "it's my life, so it's time to move forward," to paraphrase the words uttered by Don Draper and taken deeply to heart by Roger Sterling. Here's a selective review of New York City and pop-culture references in the episodes "Six Month Leave" and "The Inheritance." And we'll be back later with our review of Sunday's nights episode. As always, comments and contributions are welcome.
Six Month Leave
The New York World-Telegram: We spy this defunct Gotham newspaper blaring headlines of Marilyn Monroe's death. The World-Telegram badge had existed since 1931, the result of a merger of two newspapers. By 1962, however, it was known as the New York World-Telegram and Sun, having absorbed the Sun after it perished in 1950. By 1967, it would be gone (along with the celebrated Herald Tribune), leaving the News, the Post and the Times. (Newsday wasn't a serious player in the city yet, went big in the 1980s and 1990s, then retreated again to its base on Long Island.) It's curious that the day after this episode aired, the new iteration of the New York Sun would prepare its final edition.
2.) The Sterling and Cooper blood drive: Online commentary here suggests blood drives such as these were common even then, yet it somehow sounds anachronistic. But a reference to the agency's blood drive actually appearing in The New York Times seem highly unlikely, then and now.
3.) Mitch Miller: There's a reference to a Mitch Miller concert on NBC, airing during the height of his fame on "Sing Along with Mitch." Miller is a living New York landmark ... he's 97 and apparently still here in the city.
4.) Samsonite Silhouette:
The stylish line was introduced in 1958 and is still going today. Freddy Rumsen handles the account, until his public display of incontinence ends his career and gives Peggy a big boost. More on retro luggage here.
5.) The Carlyle Hotel: Sterling Cooper puts up its clients from Samsonite at this high-end Upper East Side hotel. The place will forever be in the imagination of New Yorkers because of Bobby Short's decades-long stint at the Cafe Carlyle. And, this being 1962, John F. Kennedy still had an apartment at the hotel.
6.) The Roosevelt: While his marital troubles play out, Don Draper is hunkered down at the Roosevelt Hotel on Madison Avenue, not far from his offices and a quick walk to Grand Central Terminal, where he can jump on the commuter train for his weekend trips to Ossining to take his children out to eat. The Roosevelt has come up before. Its bar/restaurant is the scene of a meeting between the closeted Sal and a male client who makes a pass at him. And today, it's still there and home to a rooftap bar, Mad 46. An advertising campaign for the new spot seemed to play off the Mad Men associations.
7.) News teletype: A depressed, boozing Betty turns on her home hi-fi briefly, where we hear a news report on the Marilyn Monroe death, accompanied by the staccato of a wire-service teletype machine. Of course, she wouldn't have been tuning into 1010 WINS, which had not yet gone all news, but today, remains the only station in the city that still delivers news with the sound of a teletype churning away in the background. (Actually, an old sound-effects tape.)
8.) Cafe Soleil in Old Town: That's where Betty sets up the date with her crush at the stables, but this reference has us totally stumped. Where's Old Town in the New York area? And Cafe Soleil? No relation to anything in the New York area at the time, or now, yes? Please let me know if you have some insight on this reference.
9.) Menkens: That's the fictional department store where secretary Jane Siegel buys dress shirts for Don Draper. One can imagine what Don thinks when he sees the bag -- of course, his old flame works there. Nice, subtle reference -- Menkens is never mentioned by name, but we see its cursive lettering on the bag.
10.) The Stanhope and the Biltmore: Sterling throws out the names of these hotels as his guess for where Don is staying now that he's been booted by Bets. The Biltmore was at 43rd Street and Madison Avenue, directly across from Grand Central. It's now a Bank of America office building, but in its day was a famous meeting place for New Yorkers. (You'd meet at the clock in the lobby.) The Biltmore's name survives in the form of the Biltmore Room, which still leads to Grand Central from the Bank of America building. As for the Stanhope, it sadly finished its run as a hotel in 2005.
11.) Indian Point and Ravenswood: The opening of Indian Point nuclear plant in Buchanan -- not far from the Draper household -- is mentioned, as is a campaign to promote the industry and open a similar plant in Ravenswood. That would have meant putting a nuclear plant in Queens, in a neighborhood with a vast public housing project. Con Ed's wish never happened -- no ad campaign could allay the public's growing fears about nuclear power, but three years after this episode is set, Con Ed opened the power plant Big Allis, built in 1965, and still chugging under KeySpan control.
References in "The Inheritance"
This episode was lighter on references, so we'll quickly skim the highlights. We learn about getaways to Rehoboth, charitable contributions to Lincoln Center, and real-estate purchases up in Millbrook. What's more, we see a Martinson's Coffee can, and Betty-obsessed Glen Bishop sports a swank Pan Am bag. And beautiful Pasadena, Calif. is written off by Pete Campbell as a place where people with TB go, displaying a stereotype about Rose Bowl-hosting Pasadena few people would even know of today.
