Grover (Michael Aloysius) Whalen

Promoter, merchant, and public official, born in New York City, New York, USA. His long business career included positions at John Wanamaker (1914–34), Schenley, and Coty. As the city's official greeter (1919–53), he originated ticker-tape parades in staging welcoming ceremonies for, among others, Charles Lindbergh, the Prince of Wales, and returning soldiers from both World Wars. He was a member of the New York–New Jersey Bridge–Tunnel Commission (1919–23), chairman of New York City's Board of Purchasing (1919–24), police commissioner (1928–9), and president of the group that organized the New York World's Fair of 1939–40.

Grover Whalen was a prominent politician, businessman, and public relations guru in New York City during the 1930s and 1940s.

He was later appointed by Fiorello La Guardia as New York's official greeter and became a public celebrity easily recognized by his exquisitely groomed moustache and ever-present 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.

He is mentioned in the immortal Groucho Marx song, Lydia the Tattooed Lady, as well as in the 1933 film The Prizefighter and the Lady starring Myrna Loy and Max Baer.