Life, 1899-07-27 · page 12 of 20
Life — July 27, 1899 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Life Magazine Page 72 This page satirizes New York's rooftop gardens—fashionable entertainment venues of the era. The text humorously critiques these establishments as pretentious spaces offering mediocre music, expensive drinks, and cramped conditions, yet attracting wealthy patrons seeking to appear sophisticated. The central cartoon, "The Funny Story," depicts a man telling an anecdote to companions while gesturing dramatically. The joke appears to be visual rather than textual—the humor likely derives from the man's exaggerated storytelling performance at a social gathering. The "Prehistoric Donkey" illustration at left references aerial agriculture, discussing rooftop farming innovations in New York. Overall, the page mocks the affectations of upper-class New York society and their enthusiasm for trendy but ultimately uncomfortable leisure venues.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE PREHISTORIC Aerial Agriculture. HE harvest time of that branch of agriculture known as roof-gardening is now at hund. Not only doos the stay-at-home New ‘ker flee from his heated pavements to cull cooling drinks in these gardens of the air, but the stranger within the gates also secks them to gather im- pressions of metropolitan life in midsum If the impressions areas bad as most of the drinks, vr visitors aro not likely to carry away a very good opin of our heated existence. At nc be fou constant! thoy 1 “ our si 0 of the roof-gardens is to 1 what New Yorkors aro clamoring for and what ver support when it is pro- pd for thom—good music at a Ww price of admission, and to the accompaniment of al fresco sur- roundings. Instead, wo have at all of them a surfeit of vaudeville— good, bad, and worse, The exper- fenced roof-gardener visits them all, and when he finds the one which has the best average in the matter of general comfort and attractiveness, he is likely to make that his favorite stamping ground during the summer evenings, when a roof over ono’s bead becomes in- tolerable and the sidewalls of a room stifle one. OONKEY HE most proten- tious of the roof- gardens this year is the New York — formerly the Olympia, It has commodious elevators, which do not run as high as the prices of admission and liquid refreshments, ‘Tho entertainment consists principally of a ro-hash of that given in the theatre below. Hammerstein's Victoria bas the nov- elty of a stage located in tho midst of the audience, ‘This admits of an in timate acquaintance with the darned kpots in the cotton tights of the per- formers, and permits the monotony of second-rate vaudeville to be varied by the occasional tumble of a trained horse or elephant on to the drink- bearing table of a social party. Tho cheap construction of the building, and the narrowness and crookedness of its exits, tend to mar the enjoyment of persons who are not fond of being burned to death, Tho American is about the most at= tractive of tho gardens in architec turoand arrangement. ‘The building is thoroughly fireproof, the prices aro moderate, and the vaudeville clean, Tho same courtesy that marks iho management's treatment of its winter patrons is also to be experienced on the roof, Koster and Bial's has no distinctive feature, except the way its slovenly THE FUNNY STORY. waiters toiter in tho aisles and shut off the view of the stage. This may not be a great deprivation, but it isapt to grate on the nerves of a sensitive person, The gurden is a pleasant one, and the liquids possess the requisite degroo of moisture. Lire has frequently expressed its opinion of the posst- Dilitios of tho Casino as a holocaust-furnisher, What is teuo of the downstairs theatro is even more true of the comicbooks.com