256 Part III: Emigration Years
Adorno took this letter so much to heart that he began to think
about how to solve institute’s financial problems. With this in view he
took up contact with the architect Ferdinand Kramer, a childhood
friend from Frankfurt who had arrived in New York as an émigré a few
days after him.^70 Adorno’s idea was to make use of Kramer’s pro-
fessional expertise. Because of the current shortage of funds, Pollock
and Horkheimer had resolved to sell some of the land owned by the
institute on Long Island Sound in Port Chester, New York. Kramer was
to be entrusted with the sale. The idea was to divide the property up
beforehand and build private houses. This plan was in fact carried out
successfully. The architect designed two large estates with around thirty-
five large houses (in Greyrock Park) and 150 smaller ones. However,
this investment only helped to restore the institute’s finances in the
longer term.^71
Horkheimer’s birthday letter ended with the formula ‘Success to our
work’, which may well have confirmed Adorno’s own sentiments. For
thanks to his negative experience of American scholarship, he clung
increasingly to the hope that he would find comfort among his German
friends in the institute on Morningside Heights. Later on, in Minima
Moralia, he was to use the image of the Bremen town musicians. They
welcomed him, and cunningly gave him tasks to perform in the ‘robbers’
cave’ in order to outwit the swindlers there. ‘With eyes full of yearning,
the frog king, an incorrigible snob, looks up to the princess and cannot
leave off hoping that she will set him free.’^72 In fact, Adorno had now
served out his time of suffering in the robbers’ cave of social research
in Newark. And as with the happy end in the fairy tale, he had been
rescued, not indeed by the princess, but by Horkheimer, who now pro-
cured a permanent post for him in the institute, despite the financial
crisis. For reasons of space, he could not yet be given a fixed place to
work in 429 West 117th Street on the Upper West Side. According
to Alice Maier, one of Horkheimer’s secretaries, there was an acute
shortage of space in what had formerly been a private house. ‘On the
ground floor there were no rooms at all.... On the first floor, Fritz
Pollock occupied the front room, and Leo Löwenthal, who edited the
journal, the room at the back. Mr Horkheimer worked in the front
room on the fourth floor, and we secretaries worked in the back. Then
there were another three or four rooms in the attic, one of which my
husband (Joseph Maier) had, and the other Otto Kirchheimer.’^73
Alice Maier’s memoir conveys an accurate picture of the personnel
active in the institute at the time. Erich Fromm had already made
efforts to make himself independent of the institute because of the
growing theoretical disagreements which had arisen following the closer
alliance between Adorno and Horkheimer. He had set up a psycho-
analytical practice and only made occasional appearances in the institute.
Karl Wittfogel and Henryk Grossmann were regular members of the
institute, but mainly worked away from it. Their specialized involvement