Last week asked the question, Who is Sean Driscoll?, noting that Sean Driscoll is a name listed with Dun & Bradsteet as associated with WVOX.
Talk of the Sound readers had the answer. One provided a high level of detail:
I first met Sean Driscoll about 46 years ago, when I was working at WVOX, when it was then part of the “Herald Tribune Radio Network”, which consisted of WVOX-AM and WGHQ-FM in Kingston (NY) WVIP-FM in Mt. Kisco (NY), and WPAT-FM in Patterson (NJ).
In those days, the WVOX offices and studios were in the Pershing Square Building, what most people now call the “K” building (Kaufman). I guess I was about 17 at the time, and as I remember, Sean was about 15. He was a good kid, very intelligent with big dreams – as I suppose we all had, at that age. After a couple of years, I moved on, but Sean stayed on, as I recall, a few years more. I think he worked finally for a few years selling airtime.
Some years later I happened to meet him on the New Haven RR. At that time, Sean told me he was involved in an “upscale” Manhattan catering business which he had apparently started. This must have been in the early 70’s, as I recall. Maybe some years later, maybe the early eighties, I heard that he was back at VOX, again, as a glorified airtime salesman. It has to be decades since I last heard about Sean Driscoll. I sincerely hope he is still around, somewhere.
A little online sleuthing reveals that Sean Driscoll is not only alive and well and operating an “‘upscale’ Manhattan catering business” as the reader suggests but has been fabulously successful:
Glorious Food of New York opened its doors in 1971 and immediately set a new standard for the catered event. Bland was banished. The expected was replaced by the new and exciting. Personal, attentive service experienced a much welcomed renaissance. Consistency and dependability became a guarantee. With great skill and creativity, Glorious Food proved that it can rival the world’s finest restaurants in quality, style and service. Today, under the direction of Sean Driscoll, Chef Jean-Claude Nédélec and a staff of seasoned professionals, the “Glorious Food Party” has become synonymous with the most imaginative, flawlessly executed events — large and small, corporate and private. It has been said that to call upon the considerable talents of Glorious Food is to be a guest at your own party.
In fact, Glorious Foods is one of the most successful and well-known catering businesses in the United States.
1993 New York Times article on Sean Driscoll “Selling Perfection in an Imperfect World”
As a co-owner of New York’s most prestigious catering company, Mr. Driscoll knows everything about everybody (who counts, that is). He fetes them, marries them and buries them. But if you expect him to tell his secrets, you are mistaken.
“The reason I am sitting here 22 years later is because I do not tell stories,” he says firmly…
2001 BizBash Article on Glorious Food’s PresidentSean Driscoll
Grab a waiter at one of New York’s toniest benefits, and ask him where he’s from. Odds are, he’ll tell you Glorious Food, the high-class caterer that serves Manhattan’s glitziest galas and cultural events (maybe you’ve heard of the Costume Institute benefit, or the Robin Hood Foundation gala, or the Metropolitan Opera’s opening night?).
After 30 years of feeding New York’s upper crust, Glorious Food founder Sean Driscoll has built one of the most well-known brands in the special events industry. (You don’t have to order meals by the dozen to recognize the Glorious Food name.) While including Driscoll in its recent “Gay Power 101” list of prominent gay New Yorkers, New York magazine called Glorious Food “the preeminent caterer in town,” and having a Glorious Food truck parked outside an event is as much of a status symbol as carrying Louis Vuitton luggage or wearing Manolo Blahniks.
“We have an amazing repeat business and we automatically get every opening there is to get,” Driscoll says. But while his privately held company caters about 3,000 events a year–earning an estimated $12 million in annual revenue–and he claims he doesn’t pay attention to his competitors, Driscoll says he hasn’t become complacent.
BiZBash: How did you start Glorious Food?
Sean Driscoll: It started as a small company working out of my apartment. I had been in advertising and TV, and I had a lot of production background…
That last quote certainly adds another level of support to the belief that the Sean Driscoll of Glorious Foods is the same Sean Driscoll who worked at WVOX in the 1960s.
The question remains, if Sean Driscoll worked 46 years ago at WVOX before going on to found one of the most successful catering businesses in the county, why does WVOX have him listed with Dun & Bradstreet, the nation’s leading credit reporting agency for small business, as Administrative Director as recently as 2011?
Mr. O’s Shillelagh peeks out
Someone should report O to the building department for illegally living in the back office. Mr. O if you’re reading this: FYI your white bath robe is a weeee bit toooo short for your SHILLELAGH peeks out…….
WVOX Driscoll Scandal
When WVOX was located in the K-Building in New Rochelle during the 50’s and 60’s, it was owned by a man named Walter N. Thayer, who also owned the New York Herald Tribune. Thayer was a brilliant man who actually cared about journalism and the quality of broadcasting. Writers like Jimmy Breslin got their start in journalism at the New York Herald Tribune. Thayer even served as a member of the Commission on Government Reorganization during the first administration of President Richard M. Nixon. He even played golf with Babe Ruth at Westchester Country Club. When his daughter Ann Thayer divorced William O’Shaughessy he inherited the station from Walter Thayer. And everything went downhill ever since. WVOX went from a prestigious radio station to an unprfessional, laughable, giant joke. And I am sure Walter Thayer turns over in his grave everyday knowing that the station he built, owned and operated,is owned by a pathetic man who shuffles around in a bathrobe. O’Shaughnessy should be ashamed of himself.