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Catalogues in Bed. Practical to the hilt, Sáo Paulo contrasts violently with lethargic Rio. The federal capital's easygoing citizens often spend hours sipping sweet black coffee at sidewalk cafés and watching the girls go by. Paulistas rush through their noisy streets with elbowing brusqueness, gulp their coffee at stand-up counters, and queue up four deep for buses in the square. Matarazzo's father used to rise daily at 5, after waking and reading machinery catalogues in bed for an hour. Present-day Paulistas often hold board meetings at 7 a.m. They scorn Rio's business and professional men, many of whom are just settling down to their desks when Paulistas knock off for lunch at 11:30 or 12.
When they do play, Paulistas play hard. They gamble recklessly at cards and the race track. They dash off for strenuous weekends of swimming at Santos and Guarujá, boating at Lake Santo Amaro, riding in the cool mountains at Campos do Jordão. They flock by the thousands to futebol matches. But for Paulistas, rich and poor, home is still the center of society. Though the richest Paulistas sometimes go out to such spots as the Clube 550 and the tiny Russian L'Hermitage, their real magnificence is reserved for their mansions, where they can entertain in a style to recall the levees of Mrs. Potter Palmer and Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt.
Count Matarazzo's Sáo Paulo home is a marble palace staffed by 30 servants. Luiz Medici, another multimillionaire industrialist (plastics), has just presented his wife with a new building on their estate consisting of a music room, dining room, bar and private art gallery. The richest Paulista women probably spend more money on their wardrobes than any other women in the world.
Just Like Detroit. American enterprisers love Sáo Paulo—the brisk, efficient way things get done; the high-quality labor; the pretty, prosperous suburbs. Said a U.S. businessman: "I can understand this. It's like Detroit. I feel right at home."
Much of Sáo Paulo's forward surge has been foreign-financed, with the U.S. lately in the van. General Motors, which assembles cars in a $2,500,000 plant in Sáo Paulo, this year plans to turn out 20,000 Frigidaires as well. Ford's new $10 million plant is expected to assemble 30,000 trucks and cars a year. Anderson Clayton, with South America's largest insecticide plant, fertilizer plants, six cottonseed crushing mills and 47 cotton gins, is also Brazil's No. 1 cotton exporter. Sears, Roebuck's huge department store dominates Sáo Paulo's retail market. Other blue-chip U.S. firms expanding in Sáo Paulo: International Harvester, Firestone, Otis Elevator.
Springtime for Henry. The boom roars on. "We ourselves are astounded," said a Paulista last week. "Last month it was an empty lot. Then I go back and there's a new factory." Another made the point more cannily: "Go out in any direction and buy land—swamp, hillside or anything. That land will be worth ten times what you paid for it before long."