To a dark old countinghouse at Church and Chambers Streets in Downtown Manhattan, with old-fashioned desks, high-backed chairs, an ancient parlor stove, some 60 years ago went a .
Its dingy, fourth-floor Manhattan offices resemble a countinghouse out of Charles Dickens.
When George Bernard Shaw and Giacomo Puccini brightened TV screens last week, the countinghouse critics scoffed; CULTURE GETS TRENDEX SHELLACKING headlined Variety.