Memoir Chapter: Wall Street Assets (Pt. 1)
Crazy Sherman was the most disgusting man I ever met and that made him exotic.
From Linden, New Jersey, to Manhattan was a mere fifteen miles, but it felt like fifteen hundred when measured in degrees of sophistication. I wanted to be a part of that culture. After graduating from college in 1968, I rode the bus into the cavernous Port Authority Terminal at Eighth Avenue and 40th Street. I made my way, joining other young hopefuls, through throngs of commuters, passed vagrants asleep on benches, and boozers sipping from brown paper bags on my way to McGraw Hill Publishing where I hoped to get a job on the path to fulfilling my dream to be an author.
At that time, for a woman, the first step to employment in almost every field of endeavor was a typing test. In high school, I was in Section One. We were called “the intelligentsia,” groomed to go to college. Only the kids who took the commercial course were taught practical lessons, such as accounting or typing. My mediocre typing skills had not improved in college. A miserable keyboard score of twenty-six words per minute with ten errors killed my chances at every job interview. Desperate, I decided I’d better take a typing class. There was one offered at the YWCA at Lexington and Fifty-first street. I immediately enrolled. I still rode the bus every weekday, happy to be on the way to my new job: learning to type.
The woman who taught the typing course was Greek and since I was half-Greek, she especially liked me. One day she told me that a former student had alerted her to an opening in her husband’s office at 70 Wall Street. The firm was a small trading house, market makers whose specialty was buying and selling over-the-counter stocks. I was interviewed by Norman, the office manager, a big bald-headed man in his late thirties with a soft-spoken manner. He explained the job, which was that of a trouble-shooter, following up on paperwork errors from the trading room. This was Wall Street pre-computers. Transactions were hand-written in pencil on color coded paper tickets; the receptionist worked at a switchboard; and accounts were documented in large leather bound ledgers. The firm’s traders worked just next door to Norman’s office and I could hear plenty of shouts emanating through the wall
Not in my wildest dreams had I imagined a career in Wall Street. I was never proficient at reading a balance sheet, or even keeping a budget. This lack of knowledge regarding personal finance was a serious flaw. But my typing teacher’s recommendation went a long way with Norman and it seemed the job was mine if I wanted it. Sensing my hesitation and unfamiliarity with Wall Street, Norman told me the New York Stock Exchange was nearby and visitors were welcome. I stepped outside and felt dwarfed as I walked up the canyon of Wall Street, a narrow road bordered on each side by ornate stone buildings, each one trying to outdo its neighbor with gilt and grandeur. Broad Street was marked by the statue of George Washington at the Federal Building and across from that was the New York Stock Exchange, a marble palace. From the visitor’s gallery, I saw a sea of men, some in suits, others in matching blue or brown cotton jackets, all vying for attention, waving slips of paper while they danced around a few central kiosks. It brought to mind the biblical story of the golden calf. The action was exciting and though I couldn’t imagine myself being a part of that world…It was November, I had graduated in June and I was still waitressing at Newark Airport…
I walked back to 70 Wall, past the bearded man on the corner who held a sign that read “Jesus Saves,” inhaling the steam from vendors selling dirty water franks on every corner, rode the elevator back to Norman’s office and took the job. I imagined the bells rang at Trinity Church to mark the significance of the moment.
