G.E.'s Manhattan Transfer

Since 1967, more than 30 major corporations have decided to flee Manhattan for the greener pastures of suburbia (TIME, April 26). The corporate exodus shows no sign of abating. Now General Electric, the fourth biggest U.S. industrial company, has called it quits, at least for most of its top executives and their staffs. The company will move 500 members of its 800-man headquarters staff--including the chairman, the president and many vice presidents--into a new office complex to be built on a 100-acre wooded site in Fairfield, Conn., 55 miles from the horrendous traffic congestion and frazzled nerves that characterize life in Manhattan. The offices, to be completed in 1974, will serve as a sort of corporate think tank, where G.E.'s long-range planners can cogitate amidst chirping birds and croaking frogs.

Company spokesmen are eager to note that G.E. is not "fleeing the city." They prefer to see the move as part of a "longterm evolving plan" for realigning company facilities. As part of the plan, G.E. will continue to occupy its 50-story office building in midtown Manhattan, turning it into the headquarters for international operations.

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