My Time at Tiffany's

As a Manhattan window designer for more than 25 years, Moore can take credit for putting belly buttons on mannequins and for placing kissing rhinos underneath a Valentine's Day heart. The originality with which he created these confections raises certain expectations about his prose, and Moore, with freelance writer Hyams, for the most part proves equal to the task. Regrettably, though, about a third of the way through this memory book he switches from telling a charming personal tale to cataloguing the windows themselves (Moore designed 16 a week for 16 years for Bonwit Teller, then one every other week for Tiffany's). ``Make people stop'' was his motto; his means were passion, intrigue, mystery, the elements that make for good theater--which did not exclude feathers, ice cream cones or pasta as building blocks for visual fantasy. A schooling in the fine arts, a prodigious gift of whimsy and a romantic spirit all come to the fore in this entertaining remembrance. (Nov.)