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I cite that as an example of the kind of trouble--
Level of negotiations. Yes.
Then we did three typical offices down at a studio, down in 30th Street. We owned a church. Why did we own a church? It was no longer used for services. We bought a church, because it had a wooden interior that the record people said was just right for orchestral recordings. And André Kostelanetz and the Philharmonic did a lot of their best recordings in that particular building.
We had a lot of space there, so I said to Bill: “Why don't we build three typical offices. A major executive office, a middle-management and the run-of-the-mine office. Do three of them. Let your architects do it. I don't want to see it. I don't want to know anything about it, and I won't let Saarinen get into the act. We'll go ahead and build the building; you go ahead and do the interiors.”
One day he was told that the offices were finished, and he was invited down to see them. After dinner he called me and said he would like it if I went with him. In fact, I was unhappy about it. I didn't want to get that close to it.
But I did go down, and, I tell you, they were such a disappointment that you wouldn't believe it. He said to me, as we were coming back in the car, they weren't what he expected and how did I feel. I told him I was as disappointed as I thought he was. He said: “Okay, you do it.”
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