Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 4

Section 1 Chicago Tribune, Friday, February 4, 1977 trust State Street Store Hours: Monday and Thursday, 9:15 to Tuesday. Wednesday and Friday, 9:15 to Saturday, 9:15 to 5:30 Establishing: is Garter priority 'I Jack Mabley AT APPROXIMATELY :03 Wednes. day evening in millions of American homes, a simultaneous exclamation went up, roughly: "My gosh look he's wearing a sweater." I happened to be sitting by fire in a fireplace, wearing a sweater, and I cheered Mr. Carter's dress. He was talking to me.

Shortly before the talk one of the numerous Washington commentators commentated on Carter's "stylistic novelties and symbolic acts." special February selling -tie-measure draperies and eustom slipcovers IT WASN'T DONE In a critical sense, but suggested that cutting down on limousines and not decking out the guards to Gilbert and Sullivan costumes wouldn't solve the energy shortage or stop inflation. But this comfortable style a sweater really Isn't a novelty for Carter symbolized to me a man who is cutting through the nauseous posturing of Washington, a man who really wants to communicate with the people and who is recognizing a vital priority to anything he does getting the trust and confidence of his constituents. And he didn't have any pictures of his family in camera range, nor did he close with an appeal for help from God. He's some President GOODBYE AND HELLO: This column is dependent on the work of others to a degree that might startle the bosses who pay my salary. This is the last day at The Tribune for Mark Miller, who has been the reporter assigned to the column for nearly two years.

U. don't have a "legman" or "assistant." Mark was with me about 14 months longer than the usual term because he liked the Job and was doing super work for me. For an immediate example, Mark took a phone call late Tuesday from the man who bought the stolen van end had it confiscated. Mark checked out the facts with the police and state and worked up the story. I retyped it and put my name on it, and accepted congratulations on "a good piece." Nearly a score of young men have worked with the column over the years.

Walter Jacobson, who earns a lot of money talking on TV, came fresh out of New Trier High School and made his first journalistic splash when I sent him to a nudist camp in Indiana and he couldn't figure where to put the napkin when be sat down for lunch. The bench was cold, too, he reported. THE FOLLOWING SUMMER Jim Stuart, now at Quaker Oats, went to the same place, sought modest refuge in the lake, and was bitten by a crab. Column 1 -Mr: 41 uf rf 'Tfw nil HRlfl4g I IY.J i ULiUw fV4U LLXlU VIAL ft At il- i I i A ii i lL V'wmirnl I In VrHtHr-i I Mart's still biggest Kenan Helse, operator of Action Line, lost his pants in the line of duty. Kenan and -a hired bodyguard, Bill Witsman, who used to wrestle all comers at carnivals, were investigating vice and crime in Old Town when they were mugged under the elevated tracks and relieved not only of their money, but their trousers.

They had found vice and crime. George Leposky came in late ona morning pulling wood chips out of his hair. When the city announced it was cutting down trees to put a new road through Jackson Park, George chained himself to one of the trees. This was his idea, not mine. I ASSIGNED MIKE McGovera to Infiltrate the Nazis, and he ended up as bodyguard for George Lincoln Rockwell, the head Nazi.

Mike stood at attention behind Rockwell on the stage at a Nazi Dwayne Oklepek was hired out of Cornell College to infiltrate the organization planning the '68 Democratic convention street demonstrations. He wound up as one of the coordinators of the demonstrations, and I had fits when one of the papers had his picture on page one training demonstrators in Lincoln Park. DICK ATCHESON, a brilliant writer, came from the News to the American with me. I sent him to interview Hugh Hefner, who offered him a job at doubla his salary. Dick took it with my blessing, and later landed the best job in American journalism travel editor of Holiday magazine.

Ronald Wade took me to his home neighborhood on 47th Street and showed where the Blackstone Rangers used to chase him home from school firing as they ran. Ron went on to four years at Harvard, where the administration boasts of his accomplishments. He now is a copy editor at The Tribune. Working with these young reporters is one of the joys of the job. Mark plans to stay in newspaper work, and he leaves with the highest regard of his friends at The Tribune.

His successor is Mika Powers, who comes over from City Press the same route I took 39 years ago. offer ideas free to visiting retailers, and elaborate travel help to the reluctant out-of-towner. DRAGGING PEOPLE to Chicago Is important to King, especially if they buy in the mart And he wants them to like the mart enough to come back. To insure that they do, he keeps close contact with the tenants of the building, with the workers in the halls, with the visitors themselves. And he keeps a clean house.

"My staff and I waik the stairwells every Saturday morning," he said. "If they're clean, the building is probably clean." There are 150 persons on the house -keeping staff trying to make sure King isn't disappointed. And there are 32 people on bis security force trying to keep him happy, too. He is, after all, very much like a mayor to the town of 20,000. His domain covers a business district within the mart that includes a bank, 35 retail stores, 10 restaurants, insurance offices, stockbrokers and, with the Apparel Center's opening, a 527-room MORE ACCURATELY, he's their landlord, but he thinks the special interest his office takes in tenants makes him more than just a landlord.

The landlord business isn't so bad, however. "Most of the showrooms go for about $8 a square foot a year," King said. 'It's expensive to be here, but it's worth On the other hand, it's less expensive than being in Sears Tower, where rental space goes for $10 to $13 a square foot, depending on what part of the atmosphere you're breathing. "You know, don't you," one mart loyalist pointed out, "that with the new Apparel Center we're bigger than the Sears Tower again." WHEN YOU WORK to the mart, that's important, somehow. Its 4,229,000 square feet were topped when Sears put together 4.5 million square feet of floor space.

Now the Apparel Center adds 2.2 million more to the mart, loyalists claim. Whatever the figures, the mart will always be big. In the wholesale buying business it is the biggest. For example, the Apparel Center offers 3,000 lines of women's and children's clothing. Viola Hoddle has been working in Room 1520 of the mart far ui vnr ma she hasn't seen it all.

Her employer wnoiesaiers unaer tne name of the late W. C. Owen hold the first lease ever issued in the building. "There are floors I've never, been on -at all and that I don't care about at all;" she said. "When vou com in vmrv come to And the appeal hasn't worn Off, either.

Jean Tunney just joined Chromecraft liu December and Chromecraft just joined the mart in October, the newest addition to the mart family; "I'm a design major from the of Illinois," she said, "and this isv; the only place I've ever wanted to be." 7 -But even Jean can't get it for you mm ffimnirr7srr. mm Ho LiUkJ wiw i i ri mm i k. mm mi Wf ft rs Jit ii in 1 ii r- a Continued from page one ing in all directions, enough to just about cover the distance from the Dan Ryan-Kennedy expressway junction to Oak Park. i Of course, few of these showrooms enjoy the convenience of one of the building's 4,209 windows. But the really Important conveniences are always available.

One of the 143 washrooms, for instance, is nouna to xx just aown tne hall, iv "Right," one young mart worker agreed, "but you have to remember that 'just down the ball' can be a block away." Such minor problems haven't slowed the demand for space in the mart As usual, it is 100 per cent occupied and more people are clamoring for space. The new Apparel Center already is 93 per cent occupied. TT HASN'T ALWAYS been that way," Noonan recalled. "At first there was an awful struggle to get tenants. I uuu uucu uji uuiu u' late Thirties or Forties." But there was a good reason.

The Great Depression was well under way wnen me man openea. me stpcK mar ket had collapsed in the middle of its construction, too late for the owners to Stop building. When it opened it carried a price tag of $32 million tucked inside its Indiana limestone facing, but it was anything but a bad investment. Building a comparable building today, according to the original architecture firm, would cost $90 to $100 million. Replacing it would cost around $150 million.

The Kennedy family of Boston recog nized the value of the mart and when Marshall Field's decided to sell in 1943, a including Joseph P. Kennedy was ready to buy. Noonan remembers the father of the late President Kennedy later stating flatly that "the syndicate is the Kennedy family; we own it lock, stock, and barrel." THE KENNEDYS have owned It since, relying for the last five years on Tom King a likable former pro basketball player to run it for them. King, whose business credentials go far beyond his single year in pro basketball. nas neaaea or served on scores of civic organizations and has spent 22 years working in the mart and learning how to make it go.

"The only justification for our existence is serving our tenants," said. "We serve them the best we' can by creatinga professional atmosphere where the buyer and seller can come' King explained that the idea was more than simply restricting the building to wholesale sellers and buyers, though his -organization has an elaborate for doing just that. It also includes seminars to coincide with "markets" for particular Industries, a buying center to Create a designer look at beautiful sayings throughout February. Slipcover a favorite chair or V11 P61 Wllj yit your home for precise mcaauring and cutting. And to make a complete setting, cnooscrmtching or coordinating draperies.

Just measure the area to be covered we will add 1 2 inches for overlap and return. Draperies will be delivered pleat folded with pin hooks inserted. You'll find a tabu ou? selection of colors, and fabrics to complement your decor. Transform your' rooms 'now and save substantially. Custom slipcovers begin at $1 08.7 fesa standard one-cushion lounge chair; made-to-measure draperies begm at $43.25 for a 44x84 pair in unlincd rayon and acetate antique satin.

Come to Drapery and Mr Fwor, Middle Wabash; also at Water Tower Placi and all suburban stores i .1 i 1. 1 V1" i i.