A golden phone number is one that has a lot of repeating digits, or spells something out, like 1-800-FLOWERS. There are of course numbers associated with those letters, but you only need to remember the letters to get connected.
Before I retired in 2011, I rode the NYC subways nearly every day of life since I was probably 11. The cars were always filled with advertising placards right above the windows, on both sides of the car, stretching from front to back. The ads of course had a captive audience as either sitting or standing, you were sure to gaze on some of them. Better that than making eye contact with the perhaps wacko sitting across from you whose leg spread is taking up two seats.
In the good old days of subways ads there were all kinds of advertisers: those that claimed they could turn you into a speed writer, air conditioning technicians. police officers; rent you storage space, vote for Miss Subways, get medical care, especially for your back.
My favorite medical ad was for a physician who advertised as 1-800-MD-TUSCH. Any native New Yorker knew that tusch is Yiddish for rear end or ass, and that the doc was all in to cure your hemorrhoids, polyps, whatever it was that hurt you when you sat down. Doc Tusch spent a lot on advertising.
The doc was a real doc, with a real office. He was in the person of Jeffrey Lavigne, and he was always in trouble with regulators who accused him of deceptive advertising and incompetence. At one point he was spending $40,000 a month on transportation ads.
When I was working in health care fraud detection for a major insurer Doc Tusch was always under investigation. A retired NYC police detective who worked for us went undercover as a patient to get a feel for the practice. The clientele was dominated by the male gay community, and the doc had his hairdresser partner down the hall for appointments. You could get services from top to bottom.
Dr. Lavigne eventually changed his calling card to 1-800-877-LASER, but was weakened by all the negative attention and eventually moved to Vermont, I believe. I always joked that he really should have changed his phone number to: 1-800-ASSHOLE.
These days, subway ads are nowhere near like what they were. They seem to have themes, with a product or service advertised throughout the car. A lot of them seem to be environmental. They tend to be more public service notices than product/service advertising.
Aside from doctors who might use golden phone number for advertising, lawyers also try to catch the wave of being clever. Every year there is a thick, glossy insert with the NYT that has ads and listings of what seems to be an endless array of legal specialties and whose who in the practice. It's basically a phone book with advertising.
Some of the ads are huge, and show off a team photo of the partners that prove the firm's diversity. I don't seem to see any ads for the high profile white shoe firms whose names you always seems to read of when there is a high profile case. But the advertisers don't seem tiny, either.
Ever since in my prior life when I worked with two Assistant U.S. Attorneys office in Manhattan (the so called Sovereign District) when there was a health care fraud case that seemed destined to go to trial, I've always looked for the names of these individuals who are now in private practice, both with high profile firms.
I never find their names. That doesn't mean they are not good attorneys, it only means there is no advertising for them. I have come across some names I'm familiar with. The expanded phone listing that looks like one of those you see in the phone books (remember them?) carries Getnick & Getnick, with a Getnick at the helm.
This firm became the overseers of The New York Racing Association (NYRA) when there was deep financial trouble and internal fraud going on at that organization. You would go to the track, look up from the betting window and see their name, Getnick and Getnick in order to be in touch with them if you had something to report. NYRA has since moved on from being overseen.
I once did a posting about the word shyster, a bit of a derogatory term for an unsavory lawyer. There was an episode in 'Elementary' when Sherlock, in the form of the actor Jonny Miller is in a conference room of a lawyer's office and in typical acerbic British fashion directs an insult to one of the lawyers he's just been talking to: "Did you know that shyster in German means to defecate?"
Well, I sure didn't. I knew the use if the word "shyster," but not its origins. Off to the OED. Sure enough, that most reliable of dictionaries (I always use the hard copy version.) tells us:
[Origin uncertain perh. rel. to German Scheisser worthless person, from Scheisse excretment...] Yikes, Sherlock does know everything.
So, imagine that I've now leafed through the insert Super Lawyers | New York Metro 2020 and gotten to Page 55.
Lower right, a somewhat large ad for The Wallace Firm...Matrimonial and Family Law. Photo of Robert Wallack, looking like Cassius with a "lean and hungry look," white shirt, spread collar, dark jacket, and a dark tie with a badly tied schoolboy knot.
The banner bumper running at the bottom of the ad has a look as if it is from an entry in a dictionary (no, not shyster) that me thinks they wrote their own definition of.
kick-ass \ 'kik - as \ adjective slang: strikingly or overwhelmingly tough, aggressive, powerful, or effective. (Me thinks they wrote their own definition.)
The address is 777 Third Avenue, between 48th and 49th Streets (across the street from the Smith and Wollensky steak house) that I've never been in, but know there are probably more lawyers there then there were dentists at 1 Hanson Place in Brooklyn years ago. Press any button in the elevator (if they let you do that these days) get off, and choose.
Head for The Wallack Firm and ask for an ass-kicking attorney, if it's an ass-kicking you want to give someone. I'm sure you think they probably deserve it.
Oh, BTW, the phone number in the title is not the phone number for The Wallack Firm. My thought is if you do dial it you will get another ass-kicking lawyer. With a number like that, how could you not?
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