Life Can Be Lovely

Everywhere a person turns, it seems, another Tishman
building is springing up. It’s a magic name in the construction
industry. And the other day there was 56-year-old, Harvard-educated,
serene-looking Norman Tishman himself, proudly showing people around the latest Tishman triumph, the $13 million Wilshire Terrace, perhaps the most luxurious apartment structure ever built. 

Located
on Wilshire Boulevard at Beverly Glen, the highest point on the
fabulous boulevard, the 14-story edifice is distinguished by its
staggering design and by large salmon-colored Italian glass plant
boxes, one for each suite.

There are 112 apartments and five
penthouses. They are intended for wealthy people; for instance, those
whose children have grown up and gone off, and who wish the privacy and
elegance of a home without the headaches of running one. You now,
mowing the lawn and taking out the garbage and trapping gophers and all
those little irritations.

IT IS ALMOST superfluous to
mention that there is a maid service, a beauty shop, a restaurant, a
70-foot pool and an underground garage for 300 cars — two and a half
cars per apartment.

The Wilshire Terrance is a co-operative
apartment building which means tenants don’t rent, they buy. The
smallest apartment, four rooms and two baths, goes for from $24,000 to
$36,000. The largest, eight rooms and three baths, $71,000 to $81,000.
Penthouses are up to $125,000.

There also are maintenance charges, $2,640 to $13,750.

However, tenants can claim substantial tax deductions, $1,668 to $8,687.

Chatting with Edgardo Contini of Victor Gruen
Associates, who designed the place, I brought up a question that has
always fascinated me: "Where in the world do all the people who can
afford such luxury get all that money?"

He sighed and he said
he didn’t know, but they do. And he pointed out there are scores of
$150,000 homes nearby, many even more expensive, whose owners will be
attracted to the Wilshire Terrance.

Very classy joint.

A PRESS RELEASE
from the National Association of Suggestion Systems in Chicago states a
personnel officer in Sacramento recently developed a novel idea to
attract employee attention. As a worker approached a Genie suggestion
box, an electric eye sets in motion. To quote: "A music box plays and
moving, printed tapes, give a suggestion pep talk. At the bottom of the
box, a mechanism provides a free shoe shine."

Sometimes a person can’t help wondering whither electronics leadeth.

TWO MEN got
into a political argument and soon were shouting violently at each
other. A friend broke it up, but a lady who’d been listening
disapprovingly was overheard by Rosetta Case Bent in this charming malaprop: "You wait! In a minute they’ll go through the whole rigamaroar again!" 

A FISHERMAN asked Tony Costa, who tends the boat rentals at Paradise Cove, where the fish were hitting.

"It
is very good at the Depot," Tony replied. Or at least that’s what the
fisherman’s baffled expression indicated he thought Tony said. Tony, of
course, was referring to the Deep Hole, a spot between the Cove and Zuma Beach, where the big ones lurk. 

MISCELLANY-
It was old home week for customers and clerks again yesterday when
supermarkets reopened. One lady asked a checker what she’d done all the
time. "Just sat there on my hands," was the reply . . . Wonder if it’s
true that engineers at a plant here have developed a laboratory model
which cancels the force of gravity? Could be the biggest thing since
splitting the atom . . . A waitress in the Sparkletts plant commissary
has an effective formula for dispersing girl employees who block her
path. Instead of the usual warning, "Hot stuff! Coming through!" she
says, "Watch your nylons!" They scatter like frightened birds.