Daily News from New York, New York • 103

5 Ik mm ff sunt irsa Ed Sullivan's right-hand guy dismayed at theater's demise 5 ft By BELLA ENGLISH 2k I 4 4 mfi ft r. guys, dolls, show biz operators, Lin-dy's waiters, gamblers, bright lights and limos. The biggest scandal he can remember involved Marilyn Monroe's in "The Seven Year Itch." It was 1934 when Santullo, then 16, made his Cinderella-like transition from slum urchin to Broadway insider. He was helping support five brothers and two sisters by shining shoes backstage at Loew's Astor, Theater and running errands for the stars. One day, Sullivan took a shine from Santullo and to Santullo.

"Yoit look like an intelligent fellow," he told Santullo. The teenager became Sullivan's staff of one and worked with him for four decades, remaining alone at Sullivan's bedside as he drew his last breath. "Do you know who came on the stage with Louella Parsons in 1937?" he asked recently. "Are you ready for this? Jlonald Reagan and Jane Wy-man. I remember him as young and tall, though I don't think either of them did much on the stage." On the seventh anniversary of Sullivan's show, Santullo arranged to have 50 other Ed Sullivans ranging in age from 5 to 70.

from New Jersey to Connecticutr-appear as a surprise. -Another time, he got 22 governors to declare an "Ed Sullivan Day." Santullo, who grew up on lHth St the same street Sullivan was born on moved with his family to the Bronx during the Depression and still lives in the same house with his brother and sister. Every morning that he worked for Sullivan, he would take the subway to the Delmonico Hotel at 802 Park where Sullivan lived, and find a memo from his boss, who came in at the crack of dawn and slept till noon daily. "Carmine," one fcegan. "I always thank God nightly for bringing you There are more than a few people who shook their heads over the news last week that CBS was giving up its lease on Broadway's Ed Sullivan Theater, the most visible testimonial to the late Daily News columnist who helped shape popular culture and television for decades.

But the news struck Carmine Santullo especially deeply. The Sullivan name conjures visions of Elvis Presley and the Beatles, dancing dogs in skirts and horses that counted with their hoofs. But for those who knew Sullivan behind the scenes, there is another -image that his name brings to mind the wiry, energetic one of Santullo, a Bronx boy who got his start on Broadway, too shining Sullivan's shoes. Santullo became Sullivan's right hand man, the guy who some say was almost a part of Ed Sullivan for the 40 years they worked together. For Santullo, a shy, soft-spoken man, the loss of the Sullivan Theater would be a grim one, another signal that his Broadway is all but dead.

"If the theater is torn down, it would be the end of an he says, adding with more than a touch of bitterness, "Things really change. It makes you throw up, really, to see all the changes. "The trash you see, the-language you hear. I try to avoid It nowadays. There's nothing left there (on Broadway) to enjoy." Today, Santullo remains busy working in New York for Sullivan Productions, a Los Angeles television production company run by Robert Precht, Sullivan's son-in-law.

At 63, he speaks of an age when Broadway was still a cacophony of Carmine Santullo, right, with Ed Sullivan In the old days. through. He got in touch with them and signed them up for three shows for $10,000. They were nice boys." On Elvis: "The sponsors of the show got a lot of complaints because Elvis was shaking too much. The next time around, all we showed was his face and his feet We left his hips out" And oh Sullivan himself: "There's nothing I wouldn't have done for him." and me In contact at Loew's State, because I'd be lost without you.

Your affectionate old man, Ed." Of all the stars Sullivan had on his show, Santullo remembers the Beatles and Elvis Presley best. On the Beatles: "It wa3 October of 1963 and Ed was in an airport in Europe at the time. There was so. much commotion, he asked about it and found this group from Liverpool called the Beatles, wa3 passing The hull and China landmark encounter Continued from page one building "more sympathetic and more responsive to the low-rise nature of the block." In his final analysis, "Galbreath-Ruffin and Goldman, Sachs had simply deckled to build this tremendous building come hell or high water. We were told that the Mayor wanted the building and he wanted it in his term of office." "My job was to get the building to go ahead," says Richard Rosan, the director of the Office of Economic Development until last year, and now the president of the Real Estate Board.

Indeed, the "Voice" and the "Soho News" have both tied the ten-year $9 million tax abatement Goldman, Sachs received for 85 Broad St to cozy relations with' Koch. But Rosan maintains that, "I never talked to Koch once about this project" As for the abatement, Philip Shannon maintaini that In 1979 the project could never have started without it "People forget how bad things were. They don't want to remember." The market was bad, in fact that Galbreath-Ruffin wasn't even interested in buying the air rights over the historic district (the India House on Hanover Square on block away has just sold its own). "Some days when you walk around here it's like walking in a cowboy town," says Christine Miles, director of the Fraunces Tavern museum, of the construction going on on Pearl Street. Cranberry-colored 85 Broad St should open for business in October 1982.

Jts cjUlaJt landmark a landmark location It's a landmark example of a building needing a city as much as the city needs the building. ia setback regulations, granted a special permit, and amended a zoning resolution allowing 85 Broad to Incorporate both Stone Street and the archeological finds into its design and create "a harmonious relationship" the six major trees with the Fraunces Tavern Lovelace Tavern will lie under glass within the 23-foot high arcade around the building. Special stones will outline the site of the Dutch city hall on the sidewalk at the head of Coentles Slip. As for what Philip Shannon refers to as "the ghost of Stone Street" think ten people wuj know about it," says another insider), the lobby will run crookedly east to west over the path of the street, with special paving and plaques to draw attention to it The landmark people are still skeptical: "It's like tearing down a building and leaving a door," says one critic. The compromise the parties worked out spared the developer a full city environmental impact statement, but it forced Galbreath-Ruffin to reckon with the.

fragility of its landmark neighbor. A hundredjhousand dollars was paid to consultants to monitor the vibrations of the historic, block district and the level of the water table beneath it Water was pumped in when the table dropped too low, which was almost all the time. And the developer will also provide the block with new sidewalks lighting "We're delighted to have Goldman, Sachs as a neighbor," says the Sons' Bert Stinchcomb carefully, but he admits he would have liked to see a Manhattan. But before Dollar Savings could transfer title to the land, it had to get Stone Street off the map and do something about its little problem in storage. "In the late "70s it was considered far more significant to dig." says Dorothy Miner, counsel to the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

"We said we would forgo the right to have the facade reconstructed and put the estimated $100,000 into: an excavation. We got $120,000 to fund the archeologists from Dollar. It was begrudging." Excavation started in October of 1979. Philip Shannon and Dollar Savings began going through, by his count 28 city agencies to get permission to, build on top of Stone Street "We viewed the original plans and we were horrified by what we saw," says Bert Stinchcomb, architect and chairman of the Sons of the Revolution's real estate committee. "Skidmore, Owings Merrill moved the building back, and Roy Allen, the architect, told us he'd plant 'six major My question to Roy Allen was, what is a major or a minor tree? By early spring of 1980 the foundations of the, Lovelace Tavern had been identified.

"This was the first time you had found 17th century foundations in lower Manhattan considered it the equivalent of a Plymouth Rock situation." The City Planning Commission waived certain I.