Background

Grover Aloysius Whalen was born on July 2, 1886 in New York City, the son of Michael Whalen, a building contractor, and of Esther De Nee.

Education

He was educated at Clason Point Military Academy (now La Salle Military Academy), De Witt Clinton High School, Packard Commercial College, and New York Law School, which he was forced to leave in 1906, because of the death of his father.

Career

Whalen took over the family contracting business. In 1914 Whalen went to work for the Wanamaker Department Store in New York City. The store sponsored the Businessmen's League, devoted to rousing concern for the political, fiscal, and administrative problems that the city faced. Whalen became the organization's secretary. The Businessmen's League endorsed Democrat John F. ("Red Mike") Hylan for mayor of New York in 1917. Hylan won the election, and soon thereafter named Whalen his secretary. Whalen was retained as a temporarily absentee member of Wanamaker's while in municipal service. Under Hylan, Whalen served as a member of the New York and New Jersey Bridge-Tunnel Commission from 1919 to 1923. He was the city's commissioner of plants and structures, and chairman of New York's Board of Purchases, from 1919 to 1924. He was general manager of Wanamaker's from 1924 to 1934. Whalen had been appointed executive vice-chairman of the Mayor's Committee for the Reception of Distinguished Guests in 1919. As such he became the city's official greeter, an unpaid post he held for almost thirty-five years. He set up parades for the returning members of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) and General John J. Pershing after World War I, and engineered welcoming ceremonies for the Prince of Wales (Whalen thought up the city's first official ticker-tape parade on this occasion), Désiré Cardinal Mercier, the king and queen of the Belgians, Queen Marie of Romania, the swimmer Gertrude Ederle, and Guglielmo Marconi, to mention but a few. Frederick Lewis Allen noted that Whalen was able "to reduce welcoming to a science and raise it to an art. " Whalen appreciated the differences between visiting dignitaries and saw to it that the right people were invited for each occasion. Whalen quickly conceived the idea of bringing his dignitaries from Bowling Green to City Hall at 12:05 P. M. , when tens of thousands of workers would be on their lunch hour. These huge crowds made a captive audience, so that even New York's minor guests could feel they were getting a great welcome. The parade for Charles A. Lindbergh after his return from his solo flight to France in 1927 was one of the greatest of the Whalen ceremonies. In 1928, Mayor James Walker appointed Whalen police commissioner of the city. Whalen had not wanted the post, but the Wanamaker management persuaded him to take it, guaranteeing him his salary as general manager of the Manhattan store while he headed the police force. He served for a year and a half. Whalen sought to restore the confidence of the citizenry in the police and to improve departmental administration. He founded the Police Academy, had new uniforms designed for the police, and originated a crime-prevention bureau. When he resumed his position at Wanamaker's, many felt that Whalen was the best police commissioner the city had ever had. In 1933, Whalen became New York administrator for the National Recovery Administration (NRA). He organized the greatest parade ever seen in New York in support of the NRA. In 1934 he left Wanamaker's to join the Schenley Products Corporation as chairman of the board. He was largely responsible for placing the legend "Federal law forbids the reuse or resale of this bottle" on liquor bottles. The new law helped to stabilize the industry and to protect the government's alcohol tax collection. Whalen left Schenley in 1937. In the mid-1930's Whalen proposed that New York City sponsor a world's fair as a way to revive the fortunes of the city and port. In 1935 a committee, which included Whalen, verified that the Century of Progress Exhibition in Chicago had brought $170 million of new money to the business community of that city. Whalen was elected president of a nonprofit, private corporation to organize the fair. His salary was about $100, 000. The venture was christened "The World of Tomorrow" by Whalen. It was to be an international exposition, celebrating the sesquicentennial of the launching of the American government and the inauguration of President George Washington on April 30, 1789, in New York City. Whalen, one of the greatest salesmen of his era, went to Europe to sell the idea in 1936. Nations participating in the fair were to be given 3, 000 square feet of covered space and 10, 000 square feet of uncovered space, rent-free. The participants could purchase more space if they desired. The Soviet Union signed first; its pavilion occupied 100, 000 square feet and cost $4 million. Great Britain, France, and Italy were other early major signers. Enlisting foreign countries was only one item in assuring the fair's success. There was the immense task of transforming 1, 216 acres of wasteland into a magnificent exhibition grounds. The North Beach Airport was expanded, the Whitestone Bridge was erected, and new highways in New York and New Jersey were built. Thousands of fair-connected jobs were created. The fair, with its trylon and perisphere, opened on April 30, 1939. It was a show window for the industrial and scientific advances of the twentieth century. The first regular public television service in the country was inaugurated on April 30 when the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) carried President Roosevelt's opening address live from a platform on the Flushing Meadow fairgrounds. The World of Tomorrow was continued the next year. It still drew large crowds, but cost too much to run. The World's Fair was the climax of Whalen's long career. In April 1941 he assumed the post of chairman of the board of Coty, a cosmetics manufacturer. He also resumed his volunteer duties as the Mayor's Reception Committee chairman until American entry in World War II. After Pearl Harbor, Whalen was appointed a civilian adviser to Simon B. Buckner, Jr. , commanding general of the Alaska Defense Force. In 1943, New York's Mayor Fiorello La Guardia appointed Whalen head of the Civil Defense Volunteers Office. The organization enlisted some 225, 000 workers during the war. The Mayor's Reception Committee was reactivated in 1945, with Whalen as chairman. He prepared suitable ceremonies for the returning veterans as well as for General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Admiral Chester Nimitz, and Winston Churchill. Later he received President Harry Truman, General Douglas MacArthur, and Churchill again (in 1952). In 1948, as part of the city's golden anniversary celebration of the consolidation of the five boroughs into the Greater City of New York, he put on a twenty-eight-day educational exhibition in the Grand Central Palace. Whalen lost his greeter post to Richard C. Patterson, Jr. , in 1953. In 1955 his autobiography, Mr. New York, was published. In it were many amusing, nostalgic, and educational stories, but the book revealed very little about the inner workings of the author's mind. Whalen was elected president of Trans Continental Industries, a Detroit hardware firm, in 1956. The following year he became president of the Fifth Avenue Association. He died in New York City.

Achievements

• He was a famous political figure and police commissioner in New York. He is mentioned in the Harold Arlen song Lydia the Tattooed Lady, the Cole Porter song Let's Fly Away, the Bobby Short song Sweet Bye and Bye, as well as in the 1933 film The Prizefighter and the Lady, starring Myrna Loy and Max Baer. Grover Whalen is also mentioned in Once in a Lifetime, a play written by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman in 1930. He is also mentioned in E. B. White's essay "The World of Tomorrow. " Whalen titled his 1955 autobiography "Mr. New York.

Works

More photos

• book

  • American Art Today: Gallery of American Art Today, New York World's Fair

    (Additional Contributing Authors Include Stuart Davis, Jon...)

  • Mr. New York: The Autobiography of Grover A. Whalen

    (Whalen, Grover A.)

Connections

On April 23, 1913, he married Anna D. Kelly; they had three children.

Father:

Michael Whalen

A building contractor

Mother:

Esther De Nee

Spouse:

Anna D. Kelly