No. 51 Fifth Ave.

Mr. Smith came home last week. On the day after his 55th birthday he had said goodbye to Albany, given Governor Franklin Roosevelt his blessing, left the capital while a band played "Laugh, Clown, Laugh." Then back to Manhattan he came, checked in at the Biltmore, began the theoretically obscure existence of a private citizen. The theory, however, proved unsound. Newspaper men, camera men, came to the Biltmore. They came to the Prudence Building, Madison Avenue and 43rd Street, where Mr. Smith had opened an office.* They wanted to know what Mr. Smith was going to do now. Annoyed, Mr. Smith said that he had no announcement to make, that he did not desire daily visits from the press, that he hoped he would not be asked to confirm such rumors as the possibility of his accepting a position as a ball player with the New York Giants. When he had news to give, he said he would give it. He then posted one Officeboy Cohen* to guard against intruders. Later in the week there was "news" in the Prudence Building; there were photographs of Mr. Smith's smiling face still in Manhattan newspapers. The news, personal, was that Mr. and Mrs. Smith will move, about July 1, to a new apartment building at No. 51 Fifth Avenue, corner of 12th St. The suite (10 rooms, 3 baths) is on the top story; it is believed that Contractor William Kenny (who supplied the campaign private car) will occupy the rest of the floor. Other close neighbors will be Tammany-leader George W. Olvany and Police Commissioner Grover Aloysius Whalen, both of No. 43 Fifth Avenue. The new Tammany Hall, at 17th St. and Union Square will be only a few blocks away. Oliver St., however, is considerably to the south and east. ^

*The office is part of a suite occupied by William R. English, of the Prudence Co. (mortgages and building loans). An old friend of the onetime Governor, Mr. English has frequently turned these offices over to him for conferences, for preparation of speeches, for other occasions demanding labor or solitude. The room occupied by Mr. Smith is on the corner facing his former suite in the Biltmore Hotel. The ceiling is of Spanish stucco, the walls, panelled in mission oak, are decorated with stuffed animal heads. *Mr. Cohen whom newspaper men last week certainly referred to as an office boy, figured as a secretary during the presidential campaign, shared, perhaps, in the universal deflation of his party.