April 1956

He was smoking in the shadow of the Plaza, no less disappointed by the building now than when he’d first approached its doors on Monday afternoon. Its sheer bland face was so imposing from this angle, thumbing him into the pavement. Eighteen storeys. Limestone at the base, but mostly terracotta cladding. A mansard roof, finished in what seemed to be a mix of slate and copper with a seaweed tinge. Across the breadth of 59th Street, where he stood, was Central Park and all its crafted wildness, captive in a frame of other roads and buildings that stretched northwards, up to Harlem, as though a better landscape had been winched in via crane from a great height. Everybody was an incidental particle upon the grid of New York City, but those who occupied a certain area at the right end of the park were satisfied their lives were meaningful, superior to the rest. It made no sense to him. In one glance down Fifth Avenue, he saw a Packard limousine, a yellow schoolbus leaking radiator steam, a horse-drawn carriage, sweaty bellhops shoving golden trolleys stacked with travel cases, scaffolding that climbed halfway to heaven, flagpoles dangling the Stars and Stripes like tasteless party decorations. How could anybody claim to practise an organic architecture looking down at all of this? There wasn’t any logic to it, and it nagged him. Ever since he’d disembarked at Pier 90, he’d been bothered by the thought, and three days’ trudging round the city hadn’t brought him any closer to an understanding.

On Monday aftenoon, he’d been so confident about it all. He’d strolled into the lobby at the Plaza and informed the po-faced clerk that he’d arrived.

‘Whose list are you on, sir?’

‘Mr Wright’s. I’m meant to have an interview at two fifteen.’

The clerk had stapled a receipt to a small slip of headed paper. Then he’d leaned across the desk, lowered his voice. ‘I believe that Mr Wright is out of town. Perhaps I might convey a message for you?’

How naive he’d been, expecting he could saunter in, announce himself and be escorted to Wright’s suite, as though the great man had no other pressing matters in his diary that would intervene before he got there.

Everything had been arranged by correspondence. First, a letter of endorsement from the Mayhoods, urging his acceptance as a Taliesin Fellow, giving a full outline of his situation, his credentials; then, a wonderful, magnanimous reply from the great man himself, inviting him to come out to New York for a brief interview of sorts, with myself and one or two comrades. He couldn’t quite contain his joy at seeing the red square on the envelope, the letterhead, Wright’s looping signature below the second fold. Please call the number here below to set it up. I shall look forward to our meeting. It had seemed so wrong to smile again and punch the air as he had done, to be excited by his future prospects in the wake of what he’d lost – but, for a moment, he’d forgotten who he was. The dialling code was for Wisconsin. He’d been given a direct line to Taliesin East. It was a daunting prospect, but a thrill. He’d spoken on a bad connection to a woman by the name of Alice Kirsch. She’d told him that the Wrights were going ‘back and forth from the east coast a lot right now, and nobody’s too sure about his schedule for the next few months – can I telegram the details when I have them?’ A fortnight or so later, he’d received the message: FLW NYC FEB THRU MAY. CALL BACK. And once he’d checked the sailing schedule with Cunard and asked old Ponsonby for time off work, he’d organized a date in April for his interview. ‘We’re at the Plaza. Second floor,’ he’d been informed. ‘We’ll put your name down on a list at the front desk. Just walk right in and somebody will take you up.’