Grover Aloysius Whalen (June 2, 1886—April 20, 1962) was a prominent politician, businessman, and public relations guru in New York City during the 1930s and 1940s. His first major political assignment was as chief of police, where he was known to be a ruthless enforcer of current prohibition laws. He is known to have declared at this time, "There is plenty of law at the end of a nightstick."
He was later appointed by Fiorello La Guardia as New York's official greeter, succeeding William Francis Deegan, and became a public celebrity easily recognized by his exquisitely groomed moustache and carnation boutonniere. In this capacity, in which he served until the early 1950s, he officially welcomed everyone from Charles Lindbergh to Admiral Richard Byrd to Douglas MacArthur to New York and became master of the ticker tape parade.
In 1935 he became president of the New York World Fair Corporation and put a familiar face on the 1939 New York World's Fair. In this capacity he graced the cover of Time Magazine on May 1, 1939.
He died in April 1962.
He is mentioned in the Groucho Marx song, Lydia the Tattooed Lady, the Cole Porter song Let's Fly Away, as well as in the 1933 film The Prizefighter and the Lady starring Myrna Loy and Max Baer. Grover Whalen was also mentioned in Act II in the play, Once in a Lifetime, a play written by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman in 1930. He is also mentioned in E.B. White's essay "The World of Tomorrow."
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