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I was born in Toledo, Ohio in 1941 to my truly beautiful and loving mother, Eleanor Jane. During wartime with Dad in the Navy, our local super business Libbey Owens Glass hired the both of us to pose for a magazine ad for their glass brick. The advertising agency’s people put Mom in a Dorothy Dress (Wizard of Oz, 1939), as it was still on folks’ mind I suppose. The picture here tells you the story better than a thousand words.
In addition to some money, we obtained several cases of glass brick delivered to our Toledo home. That brick has moved with us all these years; some of it was installed in our current home as solid basement windows, but that is not the only place where the shiny bricks managed to get a prominent, luminous function! The bricks’ legacy, which strongly relates to my mother’s memory brings back other recollections, meandering through my feelings to eventually reach my beloved wife Sabiha, the mother of everybody else in my family and my strong ally in my work.
Let’s go back to the bricks, but not in Ohio . . . Later during the 1970s, when we opened a small office on the second floor of LaGuardia’s historic Marine Air Terminal (MAT) as part of our effort to save the “Flight” Mural in the lobby downstairs, we worked to restore the 1940s era original design of our allotted space. In that effort we noticed a slight outline of what appeared to have once been windows on each side of our entranceway door to our room. It turns out – in true art-deco style – the outlines we thought to be “windows” were originally filled with glass brick. The idea in 1938-39 when MAT was created by WPA labor was to allow light to naturally flood into the inside hallway from outside windows.
We dutifully replaced the glass brick on both sides of our entranceway and never quite understood why the Port Authority had allowed the glass brick removal, but during the years after the bi-state agency took control of all the NY/NJ airports in 1948, apparently changing things hell-bent for leather. This happened in an uninformed manner and MAT suffered thoughtless renovations, including the obliterating of James Brooks’s epoch giant 237 foot around x 12 foot high Roosevelt era, Works Progress Administration (WPA)-sponsored, mural “Flight,” which Jim affixed on Belgian Linen to the upper lobby walls of MAT in 1942. PANYNJ painted it over a decade later in 1952. To their credit, the Port Authority cannot be forgot to have kept up maintenance in MAT: roof, plumbing, etc. so the great building was able to continue service for all those years until 1980’s, silently awaiting its renaissance. The situation was set right by our campaign, endorsed and allowed at the airport by Port Authority LaGuardia Airport Manager Tim Peirce and Robert J. Aaronson, who served as Aviation Director for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey from 1981 until 1989.
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On May 15th 1986, 39 years ago this month, Tim and I were feted and recognized for saving “Flight” and thus the MAT, at a Washington, D.C. Ceremony conducted at The National Historic Trust, in concert with The Federal Arts Commission and The U.S. Department of Transportation. On that date U.S. Secretary of Transportation, The Honorable Elizabeth Hanford Dole and Cynthia Grassby Baker, Chair of the Advisory Board for Historic Preservation, said thanks as they presented the highest award of the DOT, FAA and U.S. Historic Preservation to both of us. Sometimes as you age, thoughts drift back to seminal moments and I think the last time I saw Tim, was when he was no longer manager of the airport and its community that he truly loved. You may wonder what this has to do with writing on Mother’s Day . . . If you continue reading, it will become clearer . . .
Tim was visiting the airport driving his comfortable older personal car. We both often talked collector cars as I had a restored 1940 Cadillac. I recall airport maintenance supervisor Herb Borelli driving that car on the ramp, loaded up with children and everyone enjoying a blast from the past on LaGuardia Kids Day.
Tim, a fellow car collector, also had an immaculate 1930s Ford Model A tucked away in a small barn next to the lovely home he shared with his wife Cary and their two daughters Jennifer and Amanda in Connecticut. But now, as we met for the last time before he sadly passed away, gone forever was Tim’s signature managers’ car with all the antenna, buttons and sirens on it. Now Tim was driving down to see us in his comfortable older immaculate personal car. Last thing Tim said to me with a smile was: “Look after the MAT once in a while,” he cautioned.
Tim was and rightfully should be honored as among a handful of the greatest airport managers to serve anywhere in the world. His understanding of how to balance the public agency and private sector, never overlooking the neighborhoods around the big noisy airport, was pure pioneering of the form, nothing less. His alliance with Helen Marshall, who represented LaGuardia’s fate as political leader of City Council District 37 next to and around LaGuardia Airport, was courageous and unique for that time frame, changing history for the gateway.
Put simply, these two people laid down their swords and sought common ground as the pair coalesced and became the template on how to make airports coexist with communities in the USA, and I believe in many places around the world. I cannot say that this shining example of respectful coexistence and appreciation has been the norm in many other areas of the world, but there it was.
Without Tim and Helen’s cooperation a generation ago that made the peace between the airport and the community, it would not have been possible for that recent eight plus billion rebuild of LaGuardia Airport itself. Later when Helen Marshall ascended to being elected and serving as President of Queens, a Borough of 3.5 million people in New York City, her road to the top was paved in no small part by her dedication and brilliance and the once upon a time collaboration with Tim.
Now comes the connection with the other ladies in my life and family, give it another five minutes.
Elizabeth Dole served as the first female Secretary of Transportation (1983–87); the first female executive of the American Red Cross (1991–99) since its founder, Clara Barton; and the first serious female contender for the Republican Presidential nomination (2000). Mrs. Dole, who we are happy to report, is still with us in 2025 at age 88, also served in the U.S. Senate from 2003 to 2009.
Mrs. Dole appeared one day in the MAT, some years after this picture of the three of us was taken on May 15th, 1986, bustling through the station after an official flight into New York City with an entourage bound for some big-to-do in Manhattan. She saw me and stopped and we said hello as “Music for Airports” by Brian Eno softly floated above us via the old Pan Am marble encased public address system still working in the lobby. “Are you looking after our Marine Air Terminal?”, she asked. “Every day, Madam Secretary!” I affirmed as she whisked through the lobby into a waiting limo.
Geoffrey Arend
A Postscript will drive you to a close: looking back 39 years ago at what stood out during our Washington, D.C. encounter, recall a lovely dinner with Tim’s brother Greg. My brother’s name is Greg, too . . . so when Tim’s brother tragically died quite young after we met him, we keenly felt the loss. Let me also recall that after this picture here of us with Mrs. Dole was snapped we made our exit, waiting outside of the National Historic Trust Mellon Mansion in Washington, D.C., where we were both perhaps overanxious to get to National Airport (now Reagan) for an adult beverage and the flight home. We had teamed up appearing at a conference where I had spoken and Tim, with characteristic charm and effusiveness, just looked at the interviewers after my words and smiled “Ditto”! But as we waited, so full of ourselves with chests expanded to the max, in that moment we wondered where was my wife Sabiha who had accompanied us both to this grand event?
As the ceremony ended, she was observed talking to Mrs. Dole, but we expected her to appear to meet our schedule. After maybe five minutes that must have felt like an hour, Sabiha appeared, walking out of the Mellon Manse, still talking face to face with Mrs. Dole.
So there we were, so self-important, as we watched the two ladies hug before Madame Secretary departed. Turns out The Honorable Mrs. Dole, U.S. Secretary of Transportation was off to see President Ronald Reagan at a White House reception. Prior to she had invited Sabiha to ride with her in the very small elevator in the building that was once a private residence, while all of us big shots walked down the stairs earlier. So in the elevator the Secret Service agent pressed a wrong button and during the wait Sabiha notices a spot on Mrs. Dole's beautiful camel's hair coat and the two ladies immediately went erasing the spot. Thus the delay at our departure scene, recalling a magic moment that felt like a bracing slap in the face, as us two big shots were reminded of the way some real heroes in life roll.
This piece was written on Mother’s Day, so all the elements of the story flew back through space and time to occupy their natural positions by now: the glass brick, the Flight and the rest, all the ladies and men who made it possible to keep such Precious Memories . . . |
Vol. 24 No. 22
“So much so that Kale asked me to open Kale Info Solutions USA and I accepted. In April 2020, I interviewed and offered a position to the very first Kale Info Solutions employee, Sheereedah Copening, (right) Customer Service Manager, with the plan for me to run their USA operations as Vice President starting in June of 2020.
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