Frank Lloyd Wright Hated the U.N. Building (Script, 1947)
When architects and builders howled in protest when the firm of Wallace Harrison (1895 - 1981)was commissioned to design the United Nations Center in 1947, the editors of Script Magazine dashed off to ask Frank Lloyd Wright to pick up his quill and ink-up his arguments against the project. Wright, a bitter foe of skyscrapers and cities and a bombastic advocate of the organic architecture emblematic of its occupants, voiced his disapproval in the attached article. Those who are familiar with the high esteem in which Frank Lloyd Wright held himself, will not be surprised that he referred to himself entirely in third person throughout this entire article!
| The Shell-Shocked New Yorkers (Literary Digest, 1929)
The unsettling noises of New York City are as well-known to the New Yorkers of today as they were to the New Yorkers of yore. Indeed, during 2007 the New York government saw fit to introduce a number of "noise ordinances" in an attempt to reduce some of that racket; additionally, the New York Daily "News" reported that when the local police instituted its quality of life telephone hotline during the Summer of 1996, 43% of the calls received related to noise. The attached article from 1929 briefly concerns the findings of a psychologist named Dr. Arthur P. Payne who felt that ceaseless clattering of the city was creating symptoms not unlike "battle fatigue":
"Soldiers get war shell-shock; New Yorkers get peace shell-shock, a condition of nerves less obvious, but more insidious. It makes the New Yorker smoke more cigarettes than any one else in the world...it keeps the speakeasies open, it builds skyscrapers and eggs him on to splendid achievement, or shatters his morale..."
| A Census of Skyscrapers (Literary Digest, 1929)
Inspired by the 1929 completion of the Chrysler building, the curious souls who ran the New York offices of The Literary Digest were moved to learn more about skyscrapers, both in New York as well as other parts of the U.S.: We were surprised to learn that as of 1929"50 percent of the buildings in New York from 10 to 20 stories and 60 percent of those over 20 stories are located between 14th and 59th streets." "There are 10 buildings in the country taller than 500 feet, and five others are in the course of construction. The highest is the Woolworth building, whose 792 feet has not been surpassed in sixteen years. This mantle of supremacy will pass this year to the Chrysler Building, which will rise 809 feet above the sidewalk..." The article also presents statistical data concerning the number of tall buildings that could be found throughout the 1920s United States.
| New York City Bars at Four in the Morning... (The Stage, 1937)
Tickled by the New York laws that prohibited bars from serving spirits between the hours of 4:00 to 8:00 a.m., this correspondent for Stage Magazine, Stanley Walker, sallied forth into the pre-dawn darkness of a 1937 Manhattan wondering what kind of gin mills violate such dictates. He described well what those hours mean for most of humanity and then begins his catalog of establishments, both high and low, that cater to night crawlers. "For something a shade rougher, more informal, smokier: Nick's Tavern, at 140 Seventh Avenue South [the building went the way of Penn Station long ago], dark and smoky, with good food and carrying on in the artistic traditions of the old speakeasies." Click here to read about the arrest and conviction of New York's high society bootleggers.
| High Society Ladies' Rooms (Stage Magazine, 1937)
The New York cafe society of the Thirties was well documented by such swells as Cole Porter and Peter Arno - not so well-known, however, were the goings-on in the ladies' bathrooms at such swank watering holes as El Morocco, Twenty-One, Kit Kat, Crystal Garden and the famed Stork Club. That is why this one page article is so vital to the march of history - written by a noble scribe who braved the icy waters of Lake Taboo to report on the conversations and the general appearance of each of these "dressing rooms".
"The Rainbow Room, Waldorf, and Crystal Garden are modern and show a decorators hand, but the only really plush dressing room we know is at Twenty-One.""Strangely enough, it doesn't matter whether it's the ladies' room of El Morocco, Roseland, or a tea room; the same things are said in all of them. First hair, then men, then clothes; those are the three favorite topics of conversation in the order of their importance."
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