Historical Heisman Trophy Talk

When I worked at the freight forwarding brokerage in New York, we each had our personal coffee mug. Here's mine - complete with a nautical motif! - that I found at Zabar's, of all places, on the Upper West Side. I still have it.

Vinnie and Maria, two of my co-workers at the freight forwarding brokerage in Lower Manhattan. Taken on one of my birthdays, at a TGI Fridays on Broadway.

Would you believe I've touched the Heisman Trophy?

No, I've never played sports - football or otherwise.  And the college from which I graduated, the University of Texas at Arlington, shuttered its football program during my undergraduate years.  Shucks, I'm not even sure I fully understood what the Heisman was when I first saw it.  

Nevertheless, I think my little Heisman experience is a cool irony; another unexpected story from my New York City days.

Not just because a sports-averse person like myself got so close to such an iconic athletic touchstone, but because of the Heisman's own provenance.  In a way, it's its own irony, starting with its home being a city known for many things - except college sports! 

New York boasts several prestigious universities, yet only Columbia and Fordham continue to field NCAA football programs.  And while Ivy-League Columbia has placed in the Heismans, it's been for runners-up.  And those were ages ago... in 1938, and 1942.

Before I go any farther, let me assure sports purists I now know how important the Heisman is.  First called the Downtown Athletic Club Award, the Heisman signifies college football's most prestigious trophy.  It's been awarded annually since 1935 and is named for John W. Heisman, the first athletic director of New York City's now-defunct Downtown Athletic Club.  Heisman, the person, is credited with helping to develop not only the way collegiate football is played today in North America, but also how colleges administer their extremely popular and lucrative football programs.  

He was kind of a really big deal.

So was the DAC, back in the day.  Its home was a distinctive, proportionally-massed 35-story Art Deco tower clad in dark orange brick with chevron embellishments.  That tower still commands a choice location near the tip of southern Manhattan, a mere three blocks west of Wall Street, and four blocks south of the World Trade Center.  And the trophy which became bigger than the club itself enjoyed a place of prominence in the tower's lobby, near the main bank of elevators, where everybody could see it coming and going.  

My Heisman experience happened when I lived in Gotham and worked next-door to the DAC.  My employers were long-time club members who lunched there almost daily.

Occasionally they'd invite me to join them in the DAC's bar, which to my knowledge was the club's only venue still offering daily food service.  This was the early 1990's, and at that time, in terms of membership, the DAC was "on the ropes", to borrow a sporting term from boxing.  And yes, the club did have its own regulation boxing ring further upstairs.  

To put it frankly, those were years of decline not just for the DAC specifically, but for Lower Manhattan generally.  That was because two major economic engines for the southern tip of Manhattan Island - Wall Street and maritime commerce - were experiencing serious transitional phases.  Leaders from both industries used to be well-represented in the DAC's membership roster, but not any longer.  

Tourists likely weren't aware of it, but big banks and brokerage firms had been fleeing Manhattan's famous Financial District for decades.  Not only to Midtown and the suburbs, but also Florida, Brooklyn, and even Utah - of all places.  Inflated rents for outmoded buildings were two major problems, as was suburbanization.  

While the New York metropolitan area continued to be Manhattan-centric during the surge to the 'burbs, it was Midtown that benefited after World War II because it boasts two major commuter terminals - Grand Central and Penn Station.  The Financial District, meanwhile, had only one, and it went bankrupt during the 1950s.  And it only serviced New Jersey.  

That transit line under the Hudson River would eventually become the PATH train, whose conversion led New Jersey to help fund the World Trade Center.

It was the Hudson River itself, however, that helped make Manhattan.  After the first European ships sailed into what became New York Harbor 400 years ago, Manhattan Island quickly became our country's epicenter of maritime commerce.  Initially, the city imported goods from around the world to support the "New World's" exploding population.  Then, while our country actually made stuff, New York was our export capital, sending goods around the rest of our planet.  Now that we manufacture only a fraction of the goods we consume, we're back to importing; not from Europe this time, but Asia.  Which means America's West Coast ports are our busiest.

Indeed, New York's waterfront had been incessantly evolving, up until the time excavation began for the Trade Center's deep basement in 1966.  By then, the metropolitan region's shipping logistics had nearly deserted Manhattan Island for New Jersey's sprawling container ports and direct access to Interstate highways.  During development of the World Trade Center, most of the dirt dug up for its 7-level basement was simply trucked across the street to the Hudson River, and used as fill where abandoned piers once stretched out into the water.  Today, a huge master-planned neighborhood called Battery Park City exists where oceangoing vessels used to dock.  

The only ships docking along Manhattan anymore are cruise ships, up in Midtown. 

As my employers would explain to me over our lunches in its bar, the DAC existed in three parts:  Its legendary trophy, its dwindling yet still influential membership, and its aging yet impressive building which, in addition to its boxing ring, still held banquet halls, a bowling alley, indoor tennis courts, and - up on the 12th floor - a swimming pool that when built, was billed as the world's highest.  It's upper floors offered guest rooms where celebrities such as Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, and Muhammad Ali would stay when they were in town.

Ultimately, its building's location became the deciding factor for everything else.  On 9-11, a poignant total of 11 club members perished up the street in the World Trade Center during that infamous attack.  While the DAC's tower wasn't physically damaged, it was close enough to the disaster site to be included in its security/rubble/recovery lockdown zone, which knocked it "down for the count".

Yeah, another boxing metaphor.

The DAC, whose building dates from 1930, never reopened.  Its membership, having struggled for years and now shaken by the terrorism, disbanded.  Their building was sold for conversion to market-rate condominiums.  And the club's prized trophy, the Heisman, was spun off as its own separate foundation, whose trust still awards the statue every December.

I never saw the club's hallowed Heisman Room, but if the lobby and the bar where we had lunch were representative of the rest of the building, I'd describe the facility as being traditionally, conservatively decorated.  If "decorated" is even the right word.  While its exterior remains unmistakably Art Deco, everything I saw inside was, um, uninspired.  Not cheap, but not creative, either.  Thick carpeting, most of it red.  Dim lighting, mostly from fixtures that were either original or very dated.  Lots of dark wood paneling.  And the dull scent of liquor permeating everything... or was that stale body odor from decades of sweaty athletic activities?

During lunch hours, at least, the bar rarely saw more than half its tables occupied.  The actual bar - which my employers said used to be packed three to four people deep, all raucous and boisterous back in the day - was always deserted now.  Partly because modern business practices frown on prolific public alcohol consumption, but mostly because the DAC's membership was so scant.

I can recall how silence pervaded the entire club.  Down in its lobby, curt nods of recognition from doormen and desk clerks would greet us, but no voices.  Upstairs in its bar, everybody talked in hushed tones.  Servers spoke softly, with reserve, and barely any chit-chat, but they'd obviously waited on my bosses for years.  Long-time regulars would smile at acquaintances as they passed.  Everyone was polite, but hardly effusive.

These members were affluent people, to be sure, but not from Manhattan's highest echelon.  And they weren't all male, although most of them were.  I never saw anybody famous, or even athletic, frankly.  These were New York's working wealthy; people who could afford a bit of panache but still knew how much effort it took to pay for it.  I got the impression most of us were noshing on a corporate account, not a personal one.  At the end of a meal, my bosses would discreetly sign off on a check without even looking at it, the protocol being only to approve its addition to their monthly tab.  No cash or credit cards ever appeared.

I'd never been to such a place, and its signature trophy aside, the club's novelty intrigued me.  It oozed a faded gravitas.  Of course, having that Heisman in the lobby made it all the more compelling.  I remember my employers expecting me to be quite impressed when I first walked up to the actual trophy on my inaugural trip to the DAC's elevators.  And I likely disappointed them by being underwhelmed at the experience, while most folks would have been either giddy or reverential.

On my subsequent visits, I made a point of casting an appreciative gaze at the statue while we waited for our elevator.  I was savvy enough to respect the uniqueness of that opportunity.

The company that hired me was still run by its founder, who when I worked there was a spry octogenarian.  He came into the city only a couple of days a week from his home out on Long Island.  My direct boss was his son, who endured a two-hour commute each way to and from his place in suburban Connecticut.  There was a third partner who lived in Brooklyn, but I didn't report to him.  Although the three of them were tenured members, none of them used the club's sports or fitness facilities.  Their membership was mostly for hosting clients, and visiting with fellow industry executives.  It was a business expense, with a very famous perk.

Our company's founder started his firm back when New York City had those piers and docks spiking out from all over Manhattan Island.  We were a freight forwarder, meaning we processed all of the documentation required for commodities being shipped out of the United States to buyers located in countries around the globe.  And our company was located for decades on the 25th floor of another Art Deco tower at 21 West Street, literally wall-to-wall with the DAC.

Both of these towers are today landmarked.  They were designed by the same architectural firm at approximately the same time.  Yet aside from their age and attractive aesthetics, their more obscure significance involves their shared economic and geographic historicity, since when they were built, the Hudson River and its piers were literally across the street.  Through their respective purposes (officing and recreation), they participated in servicing ocean freighting, one of the key industries that made New York what it is today.  Maybe that's not exciting to tourists and sports fans, but it still counts in terms of how the Heisman's reality has come about.

By the time I worked next-door to the DAC, the Hudson River had been pushed more than two blocks further west.  Luxury apartment buildings were rising across the street, on that infill from the Trade Center.  Even our office building, as well as the DAC, had been built on infill; the Hudson used to run where our towers exist.  It's all part of Manhattan Island's incredible transformation over the centuries.

Fortunately, since our office was on the 25th floor, we still had commanding views up the Hudson and across New York Harbor, including Ellis and Liberty Islands.

Although there were no more freighters plying their way past our building, we'd see cruise ships along the river, including the elegant Queen Elizabeth II - or QE2 for short - whenever she graced New York.  Even our firm's founder - who after decades with that view, barely ever glanced out our windows anymore - would come out of his office and stand with the rest of us as we'd silently watch the QE2 glide past.  She was a distinctive ship, and we all recognized her, lithe and stately, just like one might expect from a fairy tale form of royalty.

My most memorable conversation with our company's founder took place during my first week there.  He hosted the firm's two other executives and me for lunch at the DAC.  I'd already learned that since he was partially retired, he spent most of his time at Long Island's various country clubs.

Our server had courteously seated us around a table in the DAC's venerable bar, and almost immediately, our company's founder turned to me and asked not about my education, or my professional background, or even my hopes and dreams... 

Nope.  In his forthright style, looking me square in my eyes:  "So, how's your golf game?"

It's all about priorities, right?

You already know that sports and I do not share an intimate familiarity.  So I balked, unsure of how to proceed.  I knew we were in a venue with "Athletic" in its name, but in my case that word was utterly relative!  Plus, I barely knew the guy.  How negatively would he receive my reply?  In awkward honesty, I told him as politely as I could muster that I don't golf.

He turned to his son - my direct boss - and in a tone of disgust that even now I suspect was only partially feigned, complained, "He doesn't golf?!  Why'd you hire him?"

For his part, my boss reacted as though he'd been expecting just such an exchange between his father and me.  He dispassionately dismissed his father's query, which suggested to me that I'd passed a key test.  Anyway, in retrospect, considering how we were ensconced in such a sports sanctum like the Downtown Athletic Club bar, that whole golf thing seemed apropos.  Eventually I think the founder came to like me, even if his casual office banter with me was limited by my lack of golfing expertise.

And the Heisman?  That hunk of cast bronze has outlived its club, its building, and the entire complex just up the street that used to be the original World Trade Center.  And it's morphed into far more than a trophy.  Today, the multi-million-dollar trust created by the DAC's disbanding membership funds a number of sports initiatives for urban youth and the physically-challenged, including figure skating, chess (some people consider it something of a sport!), marathons for differently-abled athletes, sailing, and sports journalism.

Even youth golf.

So when it's awarded again this coming December, just remember that the Heisman represents more than simply college football.

There's a lot of history, some good architecture, the QE2, and... golf.

_____