8. Nan and Richard in New York

 High Style in Hard Times

 

Postcard of the Rockefeller Center where Nan and Richard worked at NBC studios, late 1930s. Source

When Nan and Richard got married on October 15, 1936, they were both working in radio - he in advertising then as a writer, and Nan as a performer. At the time of their wedding, they lived at 33 West 51st Street, a block away from NBC studios at Rockefeller Centre. They soon moved into an apartment four blocks away at Randolph House, 135 East 50th Street, about half a block off Lexington Avenue in the heart of Midtown Manhattan. 

Their salaries from NBC would not have been high. According to Robert Eichberg, in 1937 big radio stars like Kate Smith and Eddie Cantor were paid $7500 per episode, but staff performers made much less. Announcers might have been paid $50 to $90 per week, while singers made as little as $25 per week. "Staff script writers worked on a low weekly salary; only those turning out exclusive material or star get more." [Source: Robert Eichberg, Radio Stars of Today. Boston: L. C. Page & Co., 1937.]  Richard would have been paying alimony to at least some of his previous four wives and child support for his only son. Nan, on the other hand, may have been receiving income from her mother's estate or other family sources. I have no evidence of this, however.

Still, the Morenuses had a comfortable lifestyle enhanced by a dog - a cocker spaniel named Nik - which they took for daily walks along Lexington Avenue. They also had a car - a coupe - into which they loaded Nik, a typewriter, and other belongings when they moved to northern Ontario in 1941. 

Randolph House, Nan and Richard's Manhattan residence until May of 1941, is a 10-story, 104-unit Beaux-Art apartment building designed by E. Polk, completed in 1924. Source The entrance at the centre of the building has double doors covered by a canopy that extends out over the sidewalk. As you can see in the two photos below, Randolph House has not changed much since 1940.

Current photo of Nan and Richard's apartment at Randolph House, 135 East 50th Street, New York. Source

Randolph House in 1940, the year before Nan and Richard moved to Canada. Source

Social Life

"Silver-screen elegance became more affordable for the average man" during the 1930s. Source

Nan and Richard's social life in New York City largely revolved around their work at NBC. In his article "From Broadway to Bush" for Maclean's magazine (September 1, 1946), Richard describes himself and his wife as "two people instinctively gregarious, so dependent upon contacts with other human beings for livelihood." Richard writes that, on their last night in New York before moving to northern Ontario in May 1941, they "were partied, and had to listen to the head-shaking commiseration of our friends.”

 

It was not long before they were missing those friends. In a letter to his former boss Lewis H. Titterton, Manager of NBC's Script Division, written from Sioux Lookout on May 15, 1941, Richard said, "I'm glad I left some friends, for I liked the people I was working with and wanted them for friends...it's a warm feeling." [Source: Wisconsin Historical Society, National Broadcasting Company Records, 1921-1976: Central Files, 1921-1976, Subseries: Correspondence, 1921-1942, Box 85, Folder 35, Richard Morenus, script writer.]

 

 

"On the Streets of Manhattan," 1937, a series of video clips from "March of Time" newsreels. Source: YouTube

 

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