O Christmas Tree

When is a Christmas tree a pollution of the aesthetic atmosphere? When it is made out of light-studded metal "branches" arrayed on seven-story-high flagpoles and surmounted by the four-pointed star that represents the First National City Bank of New York. At least so says one of the bank's huffy critics, Walter F. Hoving, chairman of Tiffany & Co., the Manhattan jewelry emporium. In an open letter to the bank, written in the elegant script of a wedding announcement and placed as an advertisement in the Wall Street Journal, Hoving declared: "We are very sad to see that you are once again polluting the aesthetic atmosphere of Park Avenue by lighting that loud and vulgar Christmas tree on Park Avenue and 53rd Street...We earnestly urge you to put out those glaring lights." At first the bank gasped. Then it began explaining that 1) the tree was not "vulgar" but was a creation of the celebrated design firm of Raymond Loewy/William Snaith, creators of, among other things, the Coca-Cola bottle, and 2) the four-pointed star was not meant to be the bank's emblem, just another star of Bethlehem. Finally, said the bank, "we wish Mr. Hoving a very merry Christmas."

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