This work can be called a "contextual memoir". It is an attempt to link the life experience of one native-born New Yorker, Stanley R. Graham, to the historically significant events and developments in this world class city between 1920 and 1960; i. e., the construction of skyscrapers, the 1939 World's Fair, the speakeasy culture, the evolution of jazz greats such as Frank Sinatra, World War II, and the evolution of the advertising industry. Read this work to find what it was like to have been born and educated, and to have worked half a career in a fledgeling industry, in a significant American city.