NEW YORK

Here is the description on the CNBC site:

ABOUT THE SHOW: “60 Minutes on CNBC” takes you a step further into hard hitting investigative reports, interviews, profiles, and features stories that have made “60 Minutes” required viewing for millions. CNBC brings you the latest on these classic stories with updates and never before seen footage of these award winning business news stories. The program is produced for CNBC by CBS News Productions.

Certainly, the distinction between the brands is being made clear in the description, but when you see it on TV, it makes no sense, except to the people who have thought it up. NBC is a great brand. So is CBS. But they are different. It is as if Apple started selling used iPhones to Microsoft or Dell, and letting them put a Dell or Microsoft sticker on the phones in the process.

60 Minutes is a special case, and it needs to be protected. Through producer Don Hewitt, the show has a direct line back to the Murrow era that everyone loves to mythologize. It is and has been a cash cow for CBS; I think that it is fair to say that it has made millions (or even a billion) in revenue for CBS. For decades it not only fueled CBS News, but it powered the entire CBS lineup, keeping Sunday and Monday nights, the giant nights of TV viewing, for the Eye.

It may mean some extra revenue for CBS, as well as extra exposure for CBS correspondents. And perhaps it means some programming for CNBC to fill. But it is not good for the CBS News franchise to connect it to another brand that competes with it so strongly. People at CBS might feel that 60 Minutes is the “brand” but 60 Minutes and CBS are intimately connected, and are part of one another.

Certainly CBS is feeling inadequate as a news operation. The “star power” trick of hiring Katie Couric to anchor CBS Evening News didn’t work; it went against the longstanding brand tradition of CBS, which values the news correspondent over the news host or news hostess. Firing large numbers of correspondents, and paying an anchor millions, is a recipe that was destined to fail.

Meanwhile, NBC comes out even worse in the deal. NBC’s news magazines are pretty much concerned with solving murder mysteries and catching perverts, and those reruns tend to be a real bore after awhile. It’s the same meta-narrative over and over again. CNBC, by rerunning CBS news magazines, shows up how little programming there is from NBC that it can use for news. This is at the same time CNBC is getting real competition with brand-consistent Fox Business.

Certainly, brands in media get confused, particularly when film and broadcast companies have merged. For instance, the Paramount shows of NBC and ABC are now marketed by CBS Consumer Products, which acquired them through merger. And even in the olden days of network TV, some programs would switch networks when they were dumped. For instance, the longtime CBS soap Search for Tomorrow was acquired by NBC, where it ran for four years. And network stars switch camps all the time; David Letterman, so much associated with the NBC brand, made the switch to CBS.

That being said, they were only associated with one brand. Even in TV news, this distinction is made quite clear. For instance, in the rare situations where TV news correspondents appear on other news operations, they are handled differently, and shown a bit of deference.

CNBC would do well to fill its schedule with wacky and innovative concepts from NBC staff. I think they do have a few staffers left who might come up with some interesting shows, even with a low budget. Why not some wacky stuff like Fox’s Red Eye? Why not dig into NBC News archives? Why not try some pilot programs out on CNBC that might later evolve into NBC or other programs on Comcast cable channels? Why not explore some co-op programming with Comcast regional affiliates.

What does it say about CNBC when it must sell airtime around other news organizations’ programming? How about some imagination?

It seems all so very short term.

NEW YORK

We did some searching and found out that there was  a Gebott’s in Brooklyn, which was a bakery company that sold nationally. We found a mention in a 1920s paper of a product called GeBott’s Original Kream Frydkakes, and we wonder what else the company made, and whether the company was merged into another company, or just shut down.

Writes Gonzalez:

Five  years ago, I did some renovation work which included demolishing walls in an apt. in New York City, and I found this box containing coins, stamps, etc… I also found (2) stock notes for a company called “Gebott’s Inc” and it was dated in 1921 and 1930.

I tried to Google the name of the person on the stock notes to see if I may be able to return it to the family, but I wasn’t able to find anything, I am intrigued in knowing more about the company history and what exactly should I do with these artifacts being that I’ve had them for going on 6 years.

If readers have any information on the company, please add it below.

Wikipedia’s entry has the company has it founded in 1907 as the Ideal Toy and Novelty Company, eventually merging into CBS Toys. The Queens-based company later became part of Tyco and later Mattel, which still makes the Rubik’s Cube and Magic 8 Ball. It was know for toys like Mouse Trap, Kerplunk, Careful, Panic and Odd Ogg. It also made dolls like Betsy Wetsy.

The Ideal brand has resurfaced on the Tinker Toy-like item Fiddlestix, which was a product of Plaza Toys of New York. Ideal is now one of the brands of Poof-Slinky Inc., 45400 Helm Street; P.O. Box 701394; Plymouth, MI 48170.

The revival is an instructive case because the people run large companies in the U.S. mostly have a doctrine of killing off the corporate brand when they purchase other companies. It is mistakenly believed that corporate brands do not have value, and they are routinely discarded in mergers. In the toy sector, many classic company brands have disappeared including Marx, Selchow and Righter, Mego, Remco and others. The kids that bought the toys knew that different companies stood for different things. These brands were well-known, and the companies that they were merged into became the new parent brand brand for the individual toy.

Some sub-brands have survived. For instance Hasbro has wisely kept its Parker Brothers and Milton Bradley identities. They seem to get it more than other companies.

NEW YORK – We read in Crain’s New York that the old Pan Am Worldport at JFK might be demolished soon by Delta. The building is one of the great landmarks of aviation, though it has been so abused over the years that few would actually believe it if they toured it.

It’s where the Beatles arrived; it was even in the news today as the place where that Cuban hijacker left in 1968; I think then they called it skyjacking. In 1970, millionaire dilettante singer James Brody asked Richard Nixon to come there and talk about world peace. Dozens of great scenes have been enacted in the lobby, perhaps none more frightening than the 1978 return of the remaining, elderly cultists from Jonestown, Guyana. And then there was the arrest of Axl Rose in 1992 at the WorldPort after that St. Louis concert gone wrong.

The terminals, believe it or not, were top tourist attractions in their Catch Me If You Can era. Pan Am’s Idlewild terminal was such a snazzy destination that during the Kennedy Administration, Jackie and Caroline left for Italy from the terminal on a commercial Pan Am jet. Likely Caroline got to play in Pan Am’s toy-filled nursery, staffed by bi-lingual attendants.

The WorldPort was built in 1961, and designed by Ives, Turano & Gardner Associated Architects and Walter Prokosch of Tippets-Abbett-McCarthy-Stratton. Delta owns the terminal next door, Terminal 2, which was designed in 1962 for Braniff, Northeast and Northwest. Pan Am also had tenants in the building, including JAT, the Yugoslavian airline.

The WorldPort (actually UPS now uses the term for its terminal elsewhere) is of the same vintage as JetBlue’s TWA Flight Center nearby, and that building has been preserved, though no one has quite figured out what to do with it. Certainly, it is not as interesting a building as the TWA Flight Center, but the Eero Saarinen building is one of the world’s greatest architectural landmarks.

Part of what was so fascinating about JFK was that each of the airline brands had their own branded terminals. TWA was coolest. The most sublime was the Sundrome of National Airlines. This was an I.M. Pei masterpiece of glass that allowed visitors to step into the Sunshine State when they headed into their terminal.

Questions about the building and its future:

1. How bad? Critics call the building “insufferable” but are its problems beyond fixing? Technology keeps changing, and part of the challenge of the building is that it was built for 707s, but by the time it got just 10 years old it had to adapt to Pan Am’s 747s. The other challenge for buildings at airports is that because airport space is limited, you can’t leave too many old things around.
2. Is it eligible to be a National Landmark? As far as we know, that eligibility work has not been done. Even if it is a national landmark, that does not mean it cannot be taken down. What it does mean is that its merits have been weighed.
3. Are there preservation tax credits if part is saved? If the building is eligible for the National Register, and pieces of it can be utilized in a manner sympathetic to the old, then there are tax credits possibly available. Certainly, much of the building has been destroyed, and a series of renovations have not done well by it. Part of the idea of a building is whether the historic fabric has been destroyed. But if good bits are still there, there might be a case. These questions are not easy, though; someone needs to really look at the structure.
4. Is there Section 106 review? If a building is eligible for the National Register, and it is threatened with demolition with projects that involve federal dollars, the government goes through a process called Section 106 Review. It basically means that there should be an official process as to whether the building should be demolished. Section 106 review does not always mean that a building cannot be demolished. What it means that there must be a process if it is to come down, more than a decision by the Port Authority and Delta saying that they want it down. If it must come down, it needs to be documented properly, and any pieces that can be saved, must be saved. In addition, there is remediation; that might mean that a replacement building could utilize pieces of the building, such as the Hebald zodiac scupltures that were removed in the 1990s.
5. Can the Milton Hebald Zodiac be re-mounted? Sometime after Pan Am went bankrupt the first time and Delta took over its European routes, the wonderful Milton Hebald sculptures of the zodiac came down. They are now reportedly in a Port Authority of New York warehouse.

Tomorrow: We will examine the history of the Milton Hebald zodiac and Pan Am’s fetish for star designs on its terminals.

Recently, The Fantastiks came back. That’s quite interesting. And then a version of the old Horn &  Hardart Automat returned, in the format of Bamn!

It got us thinking. What are the other tourism opportunities out there involving brands or classic things that have gone missing in New York?

Here are few ideas, all a bit wacky, we admit, but designed to make folks who are paid to think about these things think about something other than boring junk:

1. Permanent World’s Fair: The old World’s Fair in Queens is still there, and people still love to stand by the Unisphere. It needs to come back as a more utilized urban park, with some of the park elements revived to create a more dynamic experience. Face it; Manhattan gets all the attention for tourists, but Queens deserves a bit, eh?
2. Proctor & Gamble Soap Opera Land: So Proctor & Gamble’s productions are gone, except for As The World Turns., except for Young and the Restless. Guiding Light’s sets were thrown out into the streets. Why wasn’t this developed into something before it was lost? Good news; you can always start it back. Here’s what it looks like. Sets for soaps, combined with P&G products, all mixed together. The Guiding Light, Search for Tomorrow and As The World Turns will go on forever in Internet versions that guests can walk onto. In the land of the Internet, bandwidth is cheap, and everyone wants to be a part of the show and will pay for a walk on bit. They make a reservation, give their name, sex and age, and get sent the “script” the week before. Shows are short, only 15 minutes. Apparently, P&G is doing some web with live couples and Pampers (no, not that sort of thing!), but seriously they aren’t with the TV brands that people know, like Guiding Light. Big bore. Bring them back.
3. Sesame Street: Why oh why, when Children’s Television Workshop was born in New York, did they open a theme park with Busch near Philadelphia? New York needs an urban attraction that is all about the production of the actual show. It could be connected to other PBS programming in New York, though Sprout is through Comcast in Philadelphia, home of Sesame Place. It does not have to be elaborate, just authentic.
4. Colgate World. When the old New Jersey Colgate clock was set up on the ground, it lost all its oomph. I want a Colgate factory tour, thank you. Their factory building was torn down in the 1980s; thankfully the clock was saved. Well, let me tell you. It is time for manufacturing to come back to New Jersey. I am sure Colgate could get some nice old tax breaks if it rebuilt a factory. The factory needs to actually employ human beings, and it needs to have glass windows so folks like me can get my jollies by watching the tubes in the factory line. Colgate World would have a number of additional features including reduced price teeth cleanings (all market research), product samples and photos up on the roof with the clock, with the New York City skyline in the background. Take that P&G!
5. World Trade Center: Call me a stick in the mud. But when sand-bandit sent his creepy minions to destroy this place, we would have shown him by rebuilding it better, not smaller. And then nothing is yet rebuilt.
6. Lost Retail: All of these great retailers are gone. Quite missed. Retailers we miss include Abraham & Straus, Gimbel’s, Peck & Peck, B. Altman, Rumplemayers and others. These could all return. Not ALL of them could return, but certainly they could return in reduced form. Some ideas:
   • Macy’s Brooklyn returns as A&S.
   • One other idea is Abercrombie & Fitch, Original Store. Yes, this chain is known for tarted-up teens, but it could actually have an “original” N.Y. store where it sells sporting goods to encourage tarted-up teens to do things outside, rather than procreate.
   • Times Square Howard Johnson’s: This place could have been cleaned up with a bit of Clorox. Well, actually LOTS of Clorox. Where to buy those subliminal clam strips?
7. S. S. United States: As a Virginian, I admire the National Historic Landmark ship, the S.S. United States. It was built in Newport News Shipbuilding. It rusts in Philadelphia, all rust. Perhaps it needs to come back to New York? Jersey? Near the Statue of Liberty? Underwater? Who knows, but the beautiful thing needs a home and maybe there is a solution in New York.
8. Pan Am: While the old airline is gone, and I will forever be sad about that, remnants of the airline survive, in the name of the Delta Shuttle terminal at LaGuardia and the Pan Am WorldPort, now Terminal 3. Delta could exploit these branded experiences more, without switching to the Pan Am name. How? It’s all about Delta claiming the Pan Am legacy. And what the heck happened to those Hebald Zodiac sculptures?
9. HotelPennsylvania: It’s still around, but it could be bold and grand again. One other thought. In the UK, the regional railroad brands were revived when BritRail was privatized. How about reviving some of the regional railroad brands to add some oomph to commuter rail? New Haven, Pennsy, that sort of thing.
10. The Biltmore: The Grand Hyatt New York, connected to Grand Central Station, was once The Commodore, and a sort of cousin to all those other Biltmore Hotels across the U.S. The chain could be revived, though there would certainly be some issues as to who exactly owns the Biltmore brand (perhaps it has become genericized). There is also a Biltmore apartment building in New York, and the clock is in an office building.
11. Chrysler Building: How about some way to get to the top of the Chrysler Building and look at some Chryslers, Dodges, Fiats and such in the lobby? And what the heck happened to the Cloud Club?

The Digest’s durability over the years was because it was all paid for. Its headquarters was paid for. Its debt was nil. And so during a downturn, of which there were many during its long history, it could survive.

The story of the breakup of Reader’s Digest is a sad tale, detailed in Peter Canning’s excellent biography of founders Dewitt and Lila Wallace. The undoing begins with the literal suffering of Dewitt and Lila Wallace during their last days at High Winds, their estate. In senility, Lila Wallace’s staff was taken away one-by-one, and she wore ragged nightgowns. Dewitt Wallace literally died with untreated cancer, his guts spilling out at home. When she died, Lila Wallace’s ashes were spread over her Rose Garden. She felt secure about this; before she died she had seen to it that High Winds would be a part of Reader’s Digest permanently, and used as a conference and retreat center. But the estate was sold in 1985; her Rose Garden dug up for new owner, investor Nelson Peltz.

I mention all of this because it shows how far the company strayed from its founders, not only in its editorial mission, but it its whole respect for the Wallace legacy. Like Walt Disney, the BRAND was the Wallaces. To keep the idea alive, you need to have a healthy respect for the founders and their legacy. Certainly, you can change things, but whatever you do has to come out of a healthy respect for the brand and franchise. That was far from the case in Pleasantville.

A few weeks ago, and totally oblivious to bankruptcy issues, I wrote on how the early Reader’s Digest was literally the first “WEB 2.0″ media product, with elements of blogs, HuffingtonPost, Drudge Report and other elements. Having started a state magazine at the height of the last recession, I thought that the magazine during this recession is perfectly positioned for today, if it could only understand what made it great.

I don’t think it understands its strengths.

A few thoughts on what surviving investors like J.P. Morgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch (BOA), GE’ GE Capital (GE) Eaton Vance Investment Managers, Regiment Capital Advisors LP and Davidson Kempner Capital Management LLC, need to do, here on out.

1. Focus on its data: Reader’s Digest has a powerful subscription database; over eight million. It needs to use that data to sell other one-off products.
2. Be aggressive: Keep launching new magazines and web portals. Just because they are doing it now doesn’t mean it isn’t the right formula.
3. Stop the focus on costs. Publishing has overhead; you have to grow revenue. If you cut the overhead, you cut the brains that make the product. You can’t make cars without a factory, and you can’t publish magazines and websites without editorial and sales staff.
4. Buy regional titles: A magazine no longer stands on its own. A magazine is a front-piece to a web portal and a web brand. The Digest has the scale to build each of them into a franchise. I made a quick list off the top of my head.
5. Keep going with the magazine: In recent editions, Peggy Northrop has begun to take the magazine back to its hopeful state. They need to make sure they stay true to the original vision.
6. Launch a true web edition: The web is packed with great things; a DIGEST of the web would be a powerful publishing company.
7. Think about putting the index on the cover again. There is a reason why it worked; it was part of the brand. Remember the Digest had an index on the cover all during the era of Life and Look. In an overloaded era of graphics, reading and type becomes restful.
8. Honor the Wallaces. There is some bad juju when you sell of the family silver and you sell off the Rose Garden where your founder is buried, against her wishes. Reader’s Digest needs to do some things to mend those mistakes, or they will keep making them again and again.

Our reader New York Licensing Guru emailed to tell us that there is one brand revival he thinks is nuts. Crazy Eddie.

Crazy Eddie closed its famous electronics stores in 1989. Has it been that long? Totally insane.

The owners of the brand, Magic Investments, are forming a branding and licensing program, and discussing with licensees in all sorts of electronic categories. It will all be off price electronics branded with the Crazy Eddie name.

We really think the only hope for reviving the brand is in a bucket electronics shop where everything is sold on price. We don’t see it adding much value to a cheap mp3 player. But who knows. Stranger brands have revived.

In addition, it does show the value of regional brands with cult followings.

These brand names have value in a web-centric world.

With that in mind, let’s look at one newspaper, the New York Herald-Tribune. When the newspaper died in the 1960s, what survived was the International Herald-Tribune and the supplement, the New York magazine. The latter was rescued by Clay Felker in 1964 and turned into a very profitable magazine brand. Each flourished; perhaps one could argue that if the Herald-Tribune company had sold off or shut down the newspaper and kept New York and the IHT, it would still be in business. (We wonder how long New York Times Co. is going to keep the IHT brand? We believe that they should NOT change it. What they are doing now is perfect, leveraging the content of the Times, but still keeping the IHT identity. It’s a totally different paper. NYT did shut down the IHT website.)

I noticed on the website Newspapertiger.com that Journal Register had closed down a number of flags. (Read a great Alan “Newsosaur” Mutter analysis here.) While not having a familiarity with the exact market, in general any local newspaper that has been around for over four decades has much regional clout, and long relationships with local advertisers, even if they have been ruined by over-leveraged companies. In addition, they have back issues that sometimes go back 100 years. This is all legit “goodwill” that needs to be sold for cheap, not ditched. Dirks, Van Essen & Murry, a longtime broker, handled the sales; I am sure they would love to talk to anyone with cash.

Now, I am not saying these papers have LOTS of value. They have small value. What I am saying is that there is some value there, and with the investment of tiny amounts of money, and large amounts of expertise and time, many of these properties do not have to disappear. Perhaps the company could offload them for nominal amounts for a five-year balloon payment of some reasonable sum. That way there might be some long-term hope for the local flags.

It looks like some newspapers are being saved. For instance, in the Media Post story by Erik Sass, he writes that says that The East Hartford Gazette was closed, but its longtime editor Bill Doak has reincarnated it as “The Gazette,” serving as publisher, chief writer, and deliveryman. This type of setup has a long history in newspapering.

According to the Media Post story, the daily newspapers, The Herald of New Britain and the Bristol Press, were “saved from closure at the last minute when they were sold to Mike Schroeder, a former Newsday executive who also bought three weeklies: the Wethersfield Post, the Newington Town Crier, and the Rocky Hill Post.”

God bless Schroeder.

Interesting that Journal Register could not find buyers for the Harlem Valley weeklies. Some of these readership areas are very affluent and that the company was unable to find a buyer speaks not only to the crazy market, but to the company’s utter lack of imagination in figuring out how to run these small papers. The reality is that most of these papers could have run themselves if given independence from the parent company, but realistically, they sucked so much life and cash out of all these small papers for so long that it is no wonder they could not survive. I wonder if the company had so much to worry about that it just couldn’t do it all in time.

A few mentioned in the story:

Taconic Press (Journal Register subsidiary)

• Millbrook Round Table
• The Voice Ledger of Pleasant Valley
• The Gazette-Advertiser of Rhinebeck
• The Pawling News Chronicle
• The Harlem Valley Times
• The Hyde Park Townsman
• The Register Herald of Pine Bluffs
• The Putnam County Courier

Connecticut (apparently) closed:

• Bloomfield Journal and is said to be preparing to close the Shoreline Times
• Pictorial Gazette
• Branford Review
• Clinton Recorder and The Advertiser, of East Haven.

Interested in saving the actual newspaper? Read our post 20 Ways to Save the Daily. You might not agree with them all, but I think you will find that there are some suggestions that make you think. You might also read my story on saving newspaper flags; there I mention that over a decade ago I revived a newspaper name in Richmond, The Richmond State. We lasted for two years; perhaps at age 28 I wasn’t ready to run a newspaper. But in that scenario, I learned that using an old flag made a start-up much easier. I can look back on the project and see many mistakes that are easy to see in hindsight; one thing that was NOT a mistake as taking an old legacy newspaper flag and reviving it. Instantly, I found a spot in local libraries, and with the community.

I would love to hear from some folks in NY and Connecticut about these individual flags. While many cannot be rescued immediately, the folks at Journal Register should listen to suggestions on how to keep these newspapers alive in some form, so that these great towns can still have a voice. When these newspapers disappear, it is not like a filling station closing up. The soul of a community often leaves with the weekly newspaper.

NEW YORK – The FAO catalog is out. Christmas is coming.

Sure as the turn of leaves along the Taconic Parkway, the iconic New York toy retailer FAO Schwarz has released its fall offerings, this year with the Muppets on the cover. No matter the misery on Wall Street, at least the Christmas buying season will arrive, and give everyone a push.

The travails of FAO Schwarz, at least on the consumer side, appear to be over. For a time, they went mass market, and it was horrible. The Fifth Avenue store became more like Kay Bee. The main store at the General Motors building shut down in January 2004, after bankruptcy. The pieces of the company were purchased for $41 million by D.E. Shaw Laminar Portfolios. The flagship FAO reopened after a redo that year, done by Rockwell Partners. The redesign restored the magic by opening up the cluttered feel; the new version even includes a Madame Alexander Doll Factory.

The brand, actually owned by the F.A.O. Schwarz Family Foundation, is one of those iconic New York experiences, and it is now a parent company of Best & Co., which is a redo of another venerable New York retail brand. Like Times Square, Rockefeller Plaza, the Empire State building and Central Park, it is a civic icon for New York. So much so that it was even mentioned in the SNL Katie Couric/Sarah Palin interview skit.

The catalog is as much of, or more of an icon than the store. For most of us folks in the hinterlands, we only rarely got to see the real store, but spent hours with the catalog. Like the Sears Wish Book or Neiman-Marcus Catalog, it was a part of every fall.

The items in the catalog appear to be unique, and not too pricey. That’s good, because the company never had a new money feel. There is a big page of Lionel, a cool Hudson Hornet die cast car, even a microscope. A $170 Super Star theater is in line with the original sort of stuff, and a real FAO-type of product. It is larger than life, and involves a bit of creativity by the kids.

The best thing of all is a Muppet Whatnot Workshop. This Muppet making toy is a bit pricey for a puppet, but we found it irresistible. Just pick eyes, ears, nose, clothes and the like, and then your kit arrives. No wonder they put it on the catalog cover. It is exclusive to FAO, which is genius of them, and Muppets Studio LLC. Just looking  at the colors makes one want to spend the $130 to order one for a kid.

Some stuff is a bit iffy. We would not want to buy a Project Runway Projector Kit for a 12-year-old girl. While there is nothing wrong with the toy, the show is totally inappropriate for a pre-teen. If they want to watch it at 16, buy them a real sewing machine for $100 at Wal-Mart. Don’t like the When Santa Turned Green stuff either. We are sure that it sells to the guilt ridden, but please keep the didactic Al Gore claptrap away from the kids at Christmastime. Rationale: Elves are green, Santa is red. 

The company should keep the collector stuff to a minimum. For instance, special collector dolls, and even a Bob Mackie Barbie, are reaching an audience WAY off base from FAO. The adult collector audience has ruined toy trains and turned it into model railroading. They make it a game, and impose adult “rules” on how to play with toys. That is not to say that FAO shouldn’t have lots of specialty items that it sells, only that it shouldn’t promote it.

There is some quintessentially New York stuff. They sell a Madame Alexander Rockette Trunk Set. It allows girls to dress up a Rockette with different outfits. While we would be curious comparing what a Madame Alexander would sell for in the 1970s compared to today, $280 seems a bit of a steep price, and makes the item more of a collector thing and less of an actual toy.

But those are small criticisms. The catalog is magic, and we are glad the company is in such a good place, at least creatively.

Learn more

Read our post on historic New York brands called “Revived Prep Brands Abercrombie and Best.”

But there is another way to experience the old stuff. By U.S. Helicopter. Back in the day, New York Airways ran Sikorsky helicopters from the top of the Pan Am (now Met Life) building to the Pan Am Worldport. It proved a bit (understatement) dangerous landing those big Sikorskys atop the building, but the people who actually got to land there still recall the excitement of leaving for a trip by stepping onto the roof of the tower.

Eventually, New York Airways ended, as did Pan Am. But for us folks who long for a smidge of excitement in air travel, there is still helicopter service to JFK from Manhattan. Lucky for us it still goes to the old Pan Am Worldport, which is now Delta’s nifty (but busy) Terminal 3.

The company providing the service is called US Helicopter, and the company operates 27 daily flights, Monday through Friday, connecting the Downtown Manhattan Heliport near Wall Street and the East 34th Street Heliport in Midtown Manhattan with Delta’s Terminal 3, Gate 11 at JFK.

You would do well to book a flight on Delta to New York in October. Delta is offering their 8 minute helicopter ride with US Helicopter for $45 one way (it is usually $159) through Oct 31 to passengers flying into JFK. The company also runs its own specials on its website. Security screening is in Manhattan, so you don’t have to do it again at JFK.

Futurist Dream

The company New York Airways, led by Robert L. Cummings, opened in December 1965, the vision of Pan Am founder Juan Trippe, what Meredith L. Clausen in her book “The Pan Am Building” called “Futurist” dreams. It was launched with Vertol 107 helicopters. There was a Pan Am check in desk on the first floor of the Pan Am building. Passengers would then board an elevator, then take an escalator to the roof of the building. Critics called the service a p.r. “gimmick” that was merely about promoting Pan Am. The service ended after a May 16, 1977 rotor blade snap that killed five, four while boarding. While nothing was wrong with helicopters per se, they needed to land in less gust prone places that weren’t right above Grand Central Station.

Book via delta.com, through Delta at (800) 221-1212. A one-way flight on US Helicopter is complimentary when purchasing eligible First class, Business Class or unrestricted Economy tickets.