Can the Restaurant Industry Be Saved?

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2. "Eleven Madison Park"

was, once upon a time, the Metropolitan Life North Building. I had my first office job there some 50 or so years ago.

The employee dining rooms were on the second and third basement levels. The dining rooms and elevator lobbies had magnificent murals painted by Edward Trumbull, D. Putnam Brinley, Nicholas L. Pavloff, N. C. Wyeth, and Griffith Bailey Coale. The purpose of the murals was to "bring to the employees a feeling of cessation from their work through the contemplation of artistic and amusing masterpieces."

I loved working in that building, and I still have dreams about it. I'm glad that the latter-day restaurant on the site is currently providing meals for healthcare workers. But I am sorry that a building that was originally created not only for commerce, but to uplift workers as well, is now, for the most part, inaccessible to everyday people.