Somewhere in the recesses of my old brain I have the name Gordon Jenkins and Manhattan Towers stored. They 'ring a bell' and I believe Gordon Jenkins orchestrations were similar to Morton Gould's.

I wish I could hear music the way it should sound because I can't remember what Manhattan Tower sounded like. There is just so much storage in this old brain. ;-) (This is the second time I have commented, but the first one didn't appear. If this is a duplicate, forgive me.)

I absolutely love Manhattan Tower and remember it well from my youth so long ago. Nostalgia city.

Even though it has been said above, my first reaction was pure schmaltz with a major touch of nostalgia. I too, remember with fondness for a different era; though as we all are aware, life does move on.
Thanks Ronni from another ex-New Yorker.
Cheers,

Warren

I managed to finally listen and... Oh my gosh, Ronni!! What DRAMA!! There's no question that it would've had a huge impact on you at the age of 5-6! It's like an entire Hollywood movie made with the sole purpose of selling NYC! I wonder what was behind it at the time. Who financed it and why? Well, the WHY seems obvious. Selling NYC, as I said. But still... why? Why just then? Man-oh-man, they could've sold Cleveland with that backup! No offense, Cleveland. What fun to listen to that! Imagine what a typical teenager of today would think of something like that!

Yes, I adored MT too; when I was young I first heard it on the radio. Though I am 62, I was not yet born when the original came out. Yet somewhere... in my childhood days of radio listening, some announcer must have loved the Gordon Jenkins piece...for they played it often. My favorite line? "'cause we're havin' a party, and the people are nice, and the people are nice!" What a heartwarming, evocative musical memory. Thanks, everybody!!

I first listened to the old 78 at the public library with my first girl friend. Now I know what she was really trying to tell me.

Thanks for opportunity to hear the lyrics once again.

I was lying in bed on the threshold to sleep, reviewing these tunes, and wondering why? I think I was a teen when they played this on the radio.
So I got out of bed and tried an Internet search, and there you are!
Well, I ordered the CD from Amazon, it should arrive next week.

My father bought this album for my mother on their 15th wedding anniversary and sent my sister and me over to friends while they listened to it on the record player. I know it was the 1946 version because it was that year and they were married in 1931. I remember thinking "how romantic" but in retrospect, no boy friend or my husband was ever that romantic and years later, I am jealous of what my parents had. The music is still hauntingly beautiful. Gordon Jenkins did many arrangements for Frank Sinatra. I think Frank made a recording of Never Leave Me from MT. Thanks for the memories.

Cindy again - and now, I am sad to reveal, my mom at 91 is showing early signs of dementia, which strongly points to Alzheimer's. Mother spent her younger years post WW2 singing with Tex Beneke and Saxie Dowell, and had a real gift for music. Interesting about Alz: many who have it cannot recall what they had for breakfast..BUT they can sing or recite entire chunks of dialogue from old movies, sing songs from that time, and mother's Doctor encouraged me to get her to play piano and sing whenever she feels the urge to do so. The other day, coming into the room I distinctly heard her picking out notes on the piano and, singing the "never leave me" segment - from MT. And she got well along into it before fading out. Her appreciation of this wonderful piece of music has not faded one bit, despite advancing dementia. Touching, really..

Surprised I never found this site until now. As a tiny child I played the original 78s over and over and completely memorized the suite. I remember when (but not how) one of the 78s broke. I was so upset, my dad bought the then-new LP version - not the substitute version, but one recorded by Jenkins, Elliot Lewis And Beverly Mahr. BTW, Beverly Mahr was Jenkin's wife. They made an LP released by Impulse, the jass label, called, "My Wife the Blues Singer." She always reminded me of Dinah Shore - a ladylike, white "blues" singer. Another BTW - not to shatter the romantic glow of the MT cult - but while in college, I began to revisit the LP (and collect every version of MT I could find - and there are lots). I played it for my hippie friends, who were amazed by the work at every level, from irony to...I don't know what. But if you really listen to the lyrics and put the story together (all right, I suppose a bit cynically) - it's a radical story or "love" that involves meeting a woman in a men's bar, spending the night together, wondering why "everyone in the Village seems so happy," characterizing artists as businesspeople ("dreams with price tags on them"), and finally, a frank and pretty shocking declaration of female independence - just listen to "Married I can Always get."

I cannot believe what I just began reading. I am shocked to put it mildly. The first few sentences blew my mind. For so many yrs. beginning sometime in the '50's and could have gone back into the '40's for all I remember. I was born in '41 so I would imagine that in the '50's "Manhattan Towers" got in my blood when I lived as a child in Wisconsin. I"d play that album & knew I just knew I had to live in NYC when I grew up. I did, I came to NYC in '59. I moved to Chicago for about 7 yrs. then NYC again then L.A. and now I'm back in NYC since '80 and will remain here until I die. NYC is my home and I type this as I"m looking out my window gazing at my towers.
Now I can't wait to read the rest of Kathy Smuz's experiences or what ever it is she has to say.
Thank you, Kathy!!

My parents had Manhattan Tower early on and they loved it. In Fremont, Ohio. I grew up on it and, wouldn't you know, I moved to New York as an adult 18 years later, and I have a copy of the LP (the original version).
I thought of the record recently in the wake of the immigration battle among the candidates and in Congress. The Emma Lazarus poem that appears on the Statue of Liberty is sung on the recording:
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door."
Whatever happened to this ideal?

hauntingly beautiful

I found this on lp around the turn of the century and instantly fell in love,
It ha the great virtue of innocence

In the late 1960s when I was 9 years old I'd visit my Bubbe; after the obligatory kiss, I'd make a beeline for her apartment's guest room where, on a small stool in the corner, was an ancient maroon-leather-covered portable record player with a metal tone arm, a felt platter, and a 2-way 78/LP needle. I must've played the Manhattan Tower 78s dozens - if not hundreds - of times in the late 60s and early 70s. When my grandmother passed in the 1970s, I inherited both the record player and the Manhattan Tower 2-record set. I still have both! The phonograph stopped working years ago, and I'm kinda afraid to play the 78s on a vinyl player that still works. In the 1990s I purchased a Gorden Jenkins CD that contained the complete *original* 1945 Manhattan Tower and many other songs. My wife and I drove across the country with our 6 kids listening to the Manhattan Tower suite as a component of our mix - everyone's favorite song was "Where is Noah." Our kids - some of whom now have kids of their own - would love to knock on something and sing along to that song. There's something magical about the Manhattan Tower project in how both time and place are evoked. It's almost 2017 and the Manhattan Tower suite continues to have its allure.

I have just acquire the 1946 version of it and loved it. Inside the cover on front and back is the hand written narrative, word for word. Even though it is a record I could visualize it all. Thanks, Darline

When I was in 5th grade in 1960, I took jazz dance classes at a studio that presented a show every year.That year the show was Manhattan Tower. The cast consisted of dance students who were in high school and taking jazz and ballroom. My class performed a sailor’s hornpipe that the teacher inserted somewhere in the story. I idolized the cast and loved the show. It cemented my idea of New York, which sadly was dashed when I lived in Brooklyn for a summer in 1970 and worked in Midtown. It was a far cry from my vision, especially since I did not have any money to go anywhere nice. In recent years, the city has once again become more like that dream, and is my favorite city to visit. It is also worth noting that the character Julie was a proto-feminist. This show had a huge impact on me, and I am thrilled to relive its charms through the CD I just purchased.