Frank Ready, Hotelman

At Christmas time, all the little Readys would pile in the car and drive from the Jersey Shore to New York. Dad would park in Port Authority, and we would hold hands and make our way through Times Square to Rockefeller Center. Sometimes we want to the show at Radio City, sometimes we just saw the trees and the decorated windows. But we always ended up at the Waldorf, where we would gaze up at the portrait of my grandfather, Frank Ready, on the wall. He was in management from the opening of the new building to his death in 1961. The Waldorf was his world.