By Gus Saltonstall

Upper West Sider Walter Loeb turns 100 years old next month.

West Side Rag recently sat down to speak with Loeb in his Riverside Drive home to talk about his upcoming milestone and the experiences that have stuck with him the most in his 10 decades of life.

The conversation begins with his birth in 1925 in Frankfurt, Germany, less than a decade before Adolf Hitler came to power; by age 10, Loeb and his family had fled their homeland, wandering the world for several years before landing on the Upper West Side.

He lived for years in Westchester County, raising a family and building a career in retail and finance, until returning to the Upper West Side in 2000. Though “retired,” at age 99 this year, he was still writing a column for Forbes.

To best understand Loeb’s remarks in our conversation, it is helpful to have a clear picture of the timeline of his life.

A Timeline of Life

Loeb was born on January 28, 1925, in Frankfurt, Germany, which is where he spent the first 10 years of his life, before his father was advised to get the family out of the country.

“I’m Jewish,” Loeb told West Side Rag. “My father was urged by friends of his in Italy and Switzerland to leave Germany.”

Loeb’s father, a salesman of buttons, transferred parts of his business to Italy, and in 1936, they moved to the new country.

Thus began a whirlwind of moves for the Loeb family from Germany to Italy, then Cuba, and finally to the United States. In the four years of migration, Loeb added three languages to his repertoire.

In August of 1940, the family arrived in New York. Loeb was 15.

The family settled on Broadway in the West 100s. Loeb went to high school in Lower Manhattan, and three days after he graduated, he received a letter drafting him into the United States Army.

Loeb, who had spent four years escaping Hitler’s Europe with his family, was now sent back into the conflict to fight against the nation of his birth.

Loeb took part in D-Day. He landed on Utah Beach in Normandy, France as part of the ship invasion. He survived the battle and soon thereafter found himself in the 1944 Battle of Bastogne in Belgium.

Loeb had a valuable trait that the vast majority of Allied Forces did not. He read and spoke German.

“And subsequently during the battle, they came to me with a German book, and I told them it was the destruction plan of the Bridge at Remagen, I translated it overnight and I was able to save the bridge and it subsequently helped us in crossing the line and winning the war,” Loeb told the Rag.

Loeb returned to New York in 1945, where he then set his sights on NYU and graduated in three years. He got married not long after to Phyllis Loeb, and the couple still live together in their Upper West Side apartment.

Phyllis worked for London Records and shares Walter’s love of music and dance.

“Her companionship is the most important thing in my life,” Loeb said of his wife. “We’ve shared a lot of things together. We enjoy music together. She is a wonderful woman. And still my companion.”

Together they have three daughters and six grandchildren.

Loeb then began his commercial career, in which he worked in advertising and retail sales for Macy’s, May Department Stores, Allied Stores, and as a retail analyst for Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, as well as a columnist for Forbes for the last 12 years, which he continued up until six months ago.

His most recent article from this summer?

“Walmart Relaunches No Boundaries To Appeal To Young Costumers.”

After his retirement from Morgan Stanley, he also became an volunteer advisor to the Army Air Force Exchange Service, which sells all manners of goods to soldiers and airmen on camp bases, as well as to their families and veterans, in addition to outfitting active duty members with combat uniforms.

At the time of his departure from the Army Air Force Exchange Service, the company wrote the following about Loeb: “Patriot. Leader. Mentor. These and other laudable words have all been used to describe Walter F. Loeb throughout his 82 years.”

In terms of his continued life on the Upper West Side, Loeb’s parents eventually settled at 107th Street and Broadway, where they spent the rest of their lives. Loeb raised his children in Rye, New York, but he came back to the Upper West Side around 2000, where he has lived with his wife since.

Here is our conversation.

Interview

WSR: As a child, did you have an understanding of why you were moving?

Loeb: You had to have an understanding. Hitler attacked the Jews and obviously we were restricted from certain things. My father was a frontline soldier in World War I, and because of that I was permitted to go to school, but only because of my father. When I was at school, I was identified as a Jew.

My brother and I always had to adjust to living in a new place. It was important that we as children adjusted to local customs, but we were torn away from our friends and had to re-establish ourselves and create new ones. This was difficult.

WSR: Once your migration did begin, what was the effect on you?

Loeb: As a kid, I had a tough time making friends. As a matter of fact, because of migration, I really never had steady friends early in life because when I got to Italy I had nobody, when I got to Cuba I had nobody. I went to school, but except for that, I didn’t have contacts that were permanent.

WSR: Did you have a sense of relief when you made it New York and the United States?

Loeb: No. I still felt I was alone. You have to understand, I’ve always liked classical music. My brother liked sports, so he found it much easier to talk to people about the happenings of the day because he had an understanding of what the baseball teams were doing. He loved it. I did not. I liked the peanuts, that’s about it.

WSR: Did your parents have a sense of relief upon making it to New York?

Loeb: Yes, I think my parents were very happy to be here. They felt they were providing security for their children, providing security for themselves, and they lived a very comfortable life. My father started a wholesale custom jewelry business, which my brother continued. I understood that I wanted to do something more complicated.

WSR: Did you ever go back to Germany, and if so, did you find it emotional?

Loeb: When I finished work for Morgan Stanley, I took a job for a German company and went there about two to three times a year for a decade and helped them understand the American way of doing business.

Working in Germany was not easy because some people, more than just a few, felt very strongly still what the Nazis had preached. It turned out to be very difficult, but as far as I was concerned, I considered it a job.

WSR: Given your upbringing, and having to move around, how important was it to provide your family, your kids, with a stable and happy upbringing?

Loeb: Absolutely it was. I worked hard because I followed my father’s example. I wanted to create an environment for my children, and their children, on how to live together. I think it worked. I think today we can say the family is very close and speaks highly of each other. The family today is stronger and bigger as a family. It creates wonderful togetherness.

We have Zoom meetings every month, and the discussions keep us informed and aware of each other. We have family in Cleveland, California, Kansas City, spread all over the country, and when we started in 1940, when we came to this country, there was nobody in any of those cities.

WSR: Does the Upper West Side in particular hold a special place in your heart?

Loeb: Absolutely. It has always been a pleasure to live on the Upper West Side rather than any other part of New York City. We always loved living here, and it was part of our upbringing. We lived here when we moved here from Cuba, I lived with my parents at 107th Street, and this building, constructed in 1904, is a joy to live in now. Just wonderful.

WSR: What does turning 100 mean to you?

Loeb: I never thought I would be 100. I am pleased that my children are going to have a party for me. As a matter of fact, the party splits up into a couple of sections, one is family, one is close friends, and maybe if I can stand it, the building itself can come up here and have a glass of champagne. It will be a celebration of me being able to live. And I continue to enjoy my family. I call each of my daughters every night.

WSR: Any tips for others trying to reach the milestone?

Loeb: I haven’t had anybody discuss it with me. And if I did, I would tell them I eat Kashi cereal and yogurt, or something like that to be funny. What’s true is, I never really retired. I continue to write. I continue to observe the retail field. I kept working, and that follows the tradition of my parents, who spent their lives working, and trying to make sure that the family ate well, lived well, and was educated well.

WSR: Over the years, how have you dealt with losing people from your generation?

Loeb: I refer to earlier in our conversation, about the fact that I was very much alone because of moving from country to country. That, I think, stayed with me. I continue to be a loner. When you’re alone, you can hide behind what you are writing or reading, but it is certainly a difficult situation. I am proud of the fact that I have been able to do as much as I can.

Music is something that has brought me great joy. When I was in the army, I found a recreational place that had lots of young people, but I found one room that was totally empty, and I would listen to Beethoven alone, because most of the people that liked to fire cannonballs were interested in music that wasn’t Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

I had a nanny at four, who always went to listen to concerts in the park every afternoon, so as a kid I was attuned to listening to music, and it became much more vivid when I was alone in the army.

The first year we were in the United States we went to Carnegie Hall, and I would go on to do that every year to listen to chamber and opera music.

WSR: Is there a period of your life that you remember most vividly?

Loeb: You obviously remember the war time. It was a dangerous life every day. It was unpredictable every day. There were events that were happening that I remember so distinctly. For instance, when they announced that FDR died, and we were standing at attention, it was almost like a protector was taken away from you. Somebody you thought was a great person, and he certainly was a father figure to all of us. It was difficult.

My working for the Army Air Force Exchange Service was also a time of great satisfaction for me, as I was able to change an organization and have them be more profit oriented.

WSR: Anything in particular you are looking forward to?

Loeb: Besides my party, no. I would say that I am not looking for any highlights to develop, but at the same time, you never know if one of my grandchildren will have a baby and that would be a great joy. I certainly would be happy.

WSR: How does it feel to discuss your life in this format?

Loeb: There are things I remember more clearly than others. But, I know I enjoyed my life, I am very happy to participate in discussing it. I know I am very proud of my family. 

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