June 28, 2016

The Tudor City SLOGAN

The arrival of Tudor City coincided with the birth of modern advertising. Hundreds of ads for the complex appeared in newspapers and magazines over the years, and the tagline Live in Tudor City and Walk to Business (coined in 1927 by some enterprising copywriter) was used well into the 1940s.

Below, an ad campaign profiling the kind of tenants Fred French hoped to attract. These newspaper ads ran in April-May 1930.

Every ad concluded with the Live in Tudor City and Walk to Business tag. The slogan became so ubiquitous that the New Yorker poked some fun at it in a full-page cartoon by Gluyas Williams:
INDUSTRIAL CRISES
A Resident of Tudor City Is Discovered not Walking to Work 

A detail of  the cartoon, showing neighbors aghast at someone not walking to business. The streetcar line on Prospect Place is strictly artistic license.

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