Judge — September 25, 1926 — page 22: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This satirical cartoon imagines the year 2000, depicting city skyscrapers so tall that climbers treat them like mountains. The joke plays on turn-of-the-century anxieties about urban growth and towering industrial architecture. The climbers ascend a massive building while discussing landmarks visible from extreme height—Lake Michigan and Pittsburgh are referenced as geographic markers. Characters complain about pollution obscuring visibility ("Can't see Pittsburgh"), missed turns, and exhaustion ("quitting on us?"). The satire mocks both the competitive culture of mountaineering clubs and the rapid, almost absurd vertical expansion of American cities like Chicago. By literalizing skyscrapers as mountains, the cartoonist critiques how urban development was reshaping American geography and leisure activities. The 2000 date suggests this was speculative futurism—likely from Judge's late 1800s publication period.