Friday Sept 1 evening to Saturday Sept 2 morning - Delores

[Gaffer]

It's about 4:30 pm as you leave the Hudson Street Station and head uptown to the World Telegram building. The wind has picked up a bit and is blowing out of the northwest. The skies have cleared.

Your editor, Lester Pierce shouts after you, as you pass his door: “Don’t forget the ‘Prettiest Baby in the Bronx’ contest at the Armory tomorrow, Dee! I’m sending Sparky with you to get some good pics and I want plenty of schmaltz in your piece. Remember, it's a byline for you. The contest starts at 9:00 a.m. Sharp! So you should be able to meet a noon deadline, right?”

[Gaffer]

Library Use (World-Telegram morgue): Palatine Hirt’s obituary and subsequent stories detailing the challenges filed by his brother Jacob as a result of Hirt naming his partner Robert Stanton III executor of his estate and guardian of his children instead of his brother. Jacob dropped his suit when Stanton agreed to allow Jacob Hirt’s accountants to review all of the relevant financial records. Other rather mundane stories recount Hirt’s financial and social fortunes, including his wife Inez Allwight’s prominent family and unexpected death in 1910.

Oral History (various reporters): Alphonse Hirt is mostly remembered as the partner of Robert Stanton in Hirt & Stanton Shipping Ltd. and a bit for his wife, the socialite Inez Allwight. Her parents have since died and her siblings no longer live in New York.
Tad Kammer from the financial page tells you that J. Hirt Imports Co. (Jacob Hirt’s firm) did well until the 1929 Crash. Hirt sold off his assets and moved to Hawthorne north of the city.

<You can learn more with a one-point Oral History spend. Do you want to?>

[Delores Brown]

OOC,I'll spend the extra point please, then post my response with what Delores found.

[Gaffer]

Oral History one-point spend: Luther Dewlap (World Telegram literary critic) says that there’s a Marlene Hirt working as a reader and editorial assistant at The New Yorker, but he doesn’t know her personally. Maybe she can help you find this Alphonse.

[Delores Brown]

It's about 4:30 pm as you leave the Hudson Street Station and head uptown to the World Telegram building. The wind has picked up a bit and is blowing out of the northwest. The skies have cleared.

Your editor, Lester Pierce shouts after you, as you pass his door: “Don’t forget the ‘Prettiest Baby in the Bronx’ contest at the Armory tomorrow, Dee! I’m sending Sparky with you to get some good pics and I want plenty of schmaltz in your piece. Remember, it's a byline for you. The contest starts at 9:00 a.m. Sharp! So you should be able to meet a noon deadline, right?”

Delores scowls as she hears Lester's reminder. She's still bristling after her spat with Langdon and really didn't want reminding that all her editor thought she was good for was covering beautiful baby contests. She'd try and have a word with Sparky and see if he'd cover for her in the morning. They wouldn't be judging until mid-morning so that would give her a bit of time to ask around.

She drops her bag on her desk and heads downstairs to the 'morgue', the part of World Telegram library where the obit's are stored. Henry, the librarian, is a creepy guy so she's glad when he says he needs to leave early and she promises to switch off the lights and lock the door when she goes. She pulls one of the large obit files towards her and starts to flick through the entries. As she's doing that, she leans across and picks up the receiver from the phone on Henry's desk. With her second call she gets a result. Luther Dewlap, the World Telegram literary critic and renowned gossip, tells her of a Marlene Hirt who works at the The New Yorker. 'Could it be the same woman?' ponders Delores.

Finding the entry she was looking for, Delores reads about the death of Alphonse Hirts father. A couple of quick calls, to Tad Kramer on the finance desk and William Hunt, the current obit's writer, help to fill in some of the missing pieces, although not enough to explain why Alphonse might suddenly disappear.

Making up her mind to call Marlene Hirt in the morning, she picks up the phone one more time. Dialling the number for the photographer's office, she's rewarded with Sparky's thick Irish brogue. "Sparky, it's Delores. Listen, I need you to do my a small favour..."

[Gaffer]

There’s a crisp feeling of Autumn as you hurry to the subway station Saturday morning, still fuming that Sparky wouldn’t help you, the bum; though he is just a shutterbug and no great shakes as a writer. Yesterday’s paper said it would get up to 70° by the afternoon and the skies should be clear all day with light breezes. The three-quarter moon set about an hour after you and the sun rose at six-thirty.

At 8:30 a.m. you emerge from the subway to find the Romanesque brick castle that is the Kingsbridge Armory besieged. Seemingly hundreds of parents with their “wee ones” storm the wide limestone steps leading under the portcullis to the immense front door. Within, the din of squalling, screaming, shouting kiddies reverberates from every hard and polished surface to create a cacophony like Jacobins around a tumbrel.

You find Sparky Sullivan cowering in an alcove and send him to start snapping photos. A maternal mob engulfs him, shouting in a half dozen accents and as many languages: “Hey, Mister! Yoo-hoo, Photographer! Take my little darling next!” You abandon him to his fate.

You spend two hours worming through the crush, interviewing proud poppas and preening mommas and trying to keep sticky-fingered tykes at a distance. You get a couple of quotes from the organizers and slip out a side exit.

Dashing to the convenient Kingsbridge subway station, after a 30-minute ride you emerge from Grand Central Station onto 42nd Street. Hurrying the three blocks to the World-Telegram building, you pound out your story with plenty of schmaltz in plenty of time for the noon deadline. It won’t be a bad piece to get a byline on.

You should be at the Carnegie Deli in plenty of time.

[We'll be moving to a new thread, but you can post any last thoughts here.]

[Delores Brown]

OOC: Nope - happy to move on.