Mary Norris a few years after moving to New York City in 1977. Photo: Nancy Holyoke/Courtesy of Mary Norris
Mary Norris came to New York in 1977 hoping to work for The New Yorker magazine. And within six months, she did. She worked as a magazine copy editor for decades, eventually becoming a grammar expert and publishing multiple books. (She still writes for the magazine from time to time.) But those first six months “felt like an eternity,” Norris says. She was considering becoming a taxi driver instead. We spoke to Norris about his first few months in the city, sharing a loft while playing the harp in the Financial District, walking home across the George Washington Bridge, and eating peanuts in Algonquin. We talked about eavesdropping on Ella Fitzgerald’s stories.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
A phone call from my sister made me decide to move to New York. She had lived here for at least 10 years by then and had a loft on John Street in the financial district. I don’t think I would have moved if I didn’t have a job or a place to live, but having one allows me to think about something about the other. It was the summer of 1977, and I was coming from Vermont, where I was attending graduate school.
I drove in an old 1965 Plymouth Fury II. I had $200, so I stupidly put it in the bank. I had to withdraw and close the account immediately the next month in order to pay the rent. My sister is going to Paris for the winter, so she gave me a place to live. The loft was on the 9th floor of a commercial building and had only two rooms, one with a bathtub and a loft bed, and the other with a harp. That was the music salon. My friend Jeanne shared the cost of a loft for me to use as a painting studio. The bathroom was down the hall and there was no heating on weekends. But it was a place to live, and I didn’t know anything different. I could lean out the window and look at the Twin Towers. They looked like chrome blades against the sky.
Jeanne C. Fleischman’s painting of Norris’s “Music Salon” in the loft. Photo: Provided by Mary Norris
My sister came back and we tried to share the place but it didn’t work. Dee had a girlfriend at the time, but it was too crazy. While I was sleeping, they came and started frying fish or something. So I finally took the hint and got out of there.
When I moved here, my first job was as a dishwasher at a friend’s restaurant in New Jersey. I took the train to the George Washington Bridge bus terminal and then took the bus to Paterson. She paid for my bus fare and gave me unlimited beer. I washed dishes and made maybe $75 a week. On the way home, I often got off the bus on the Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge and walked across it. That first summer, I ate a lot of bagels and drank a lot of beer. That was my diet. I had to scrap the car. I saw a sign that said, “We buy used cars,” so I drove to Flatbush. And they said, “This doesn’t mean used.” But they took the car out of my hands and gave me a subway token.
Today’s photo of Norris’ former home on John Street in the Financial District. Photo: Google Maps
I wanted to be a writer for The New Yorker. But that first fall, around Thanksgiving, I interviewed there, but they didn’t offer me the job. So I decided to try driving a taxi. I used to work driving a milk truck, so I had a driver’s license. I was about to take my hacking license exam when my friend Peter said, “Call me back and see if there’s an opening.” Because as I was behind the wheel, I could see disaster approaching. And there it was. In February 1978, I took a job at the Editorial Library. It was all about taking apart magazines. I actually cut up the magazine with a razor blade and pasted it into my scrapbook. The editor at the time was William Shawn, who was theoretically open to new writers. But if you have a writer under contract, you’re giving space to that writer and not to freelancers trying to promote it. But in the end he accepted some pieces from me. It was quite a thrill.
Mary Norris attends a New Yorker gathering with cartoonist Victoria Roberts, circa 2000. Bruce Diones.
Mary Norris attends a New Yorker gathering with cartoonist Victoria Roberts, circa 2000. Bruce Diones.
I was really living hand to mouth. The bar we went to called Tehran had free hors d’oeuvres during happy hour, so it was mostly dinner. When we were feeling high, we went to Algonquin. Algonquin was a tiny little blue bar that only seated 4 people at the bar and had 2 small tables. There were peanuts, so I ended up buying a beer and eating peanuts for dinner. It was the perfect place for eavesdropping. Once I was there at the same time as Ella Fitzgerald. On another occasion, I met one of John Steinbeck’s sons there. I was a student of the book East of Eden, and the main character has two sons, like Cain and Abel. After talking for a while, I finally realized that this was definitely Cain, the bad brother. He ran out of checks.
Everything about New York was so monumental. But after my interview with The New Yorker, I remember walking home and being on the East Side. I remember seeing the World Trade Center and thinking, “It’s not that expensive.” That’s when I realized, “Oh, I could live here.”
