The Press: Sylvia & You

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(7 of 10)

The Crash's Impetus. In 1929, during Sylvia's freshman year, her life took an important new direction. By no coincidence, this was the year of the great October crash of the stock market, in which millions of dollars literally vanished in a day. Among the millions were some $30,000 that Mrs. Feldman had risked from her profits as a milliner. "It took a while for the pinch to really hurt," says Sylvia, "but when the roof fell in, I was appalled—and fascinated. How could something like that happen? How could so much money just disappear? I was damned curious." Sylvia decided to find out for herself.

Until then a history major, she switched to economics the following year, pursued the subject with an obsession that earned her a Phi Beta Kappa key as a junior, every cash prize open to economics students ("I went out for them because we needed the money") and graduation magna cum laude in 3½ years. But Sylvia was not around to collect her diploma. "The point is the winning, the achievement," says Sylvia. "Being there didn't matter. I had no compulsion to say, 'Look at me.' "

Appointing her mother as her stand-in at the graduation exercises, Sylvia dashed off on a shoestring motor tour of the country with seven young men. One of them was her husband, Reed Porter, a tall, blond budding financier whom Sylvia had met on a subway in her junior year at Hunter. She was 18. "Instead of having an affair," says Sylvia now, "we got married. It was a nice marriage, but it was meaningless." The Porters were amicably divorced in 1941.

Beckoning Wall Street. From graduation on, Sylvia's destiny was never in much doubt, at least to her. She tried selling magazines for a while, signed up as an Arthur Murray dance instructor, but these were only diversions. All the while, her sights were set on Wall Street, and one July day in the Depression year of 1932, this symbolical world beckoned. Or rather, Sylvia beckoned it.

Sipping coffee and reading the business section of the Times in an Automat at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, she came upon an ad announcing the opening of a new investment-counseling firm, Glass & Krey, just up the street. Sylvia made the trip over in such a hurry that her Phi Beta Kappa key was still swinging like a pendulum on her bosom when she arrived at the desk of Arthur William Glass. The sight of the pendant transfixed him. "I've always wanted to hire someone with one of those," he murmured before Sylvia could open her mouth. "What can you do?"