Life, 1910-03-24 · page 9 of 44
Life — March 24, 1910 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This *Life* magazine page satirizes the modern hotel experience through two pieces: **"The New Yorker" poem** nostalgically contrasts childhood (living on a low floor, closer to earth and heaven) with adult city life on the eighteenth floor—a commentary on urban vertical living and disconnection from nature. **"Hotels" essay** humorously catalogs the absurd complexity of hotel infrastructure and staff hierarchies—listing everything from "Louis XIV rooms" to "non-tippers and cads." The satirical tone mocks how hotels pretend grandeur while actually housing diverse, chaotic humanity. The accompanying illustration shows an ornate hotel lobby with well-dressed guests and staff, visually reinforcing the contrast between hotels' pretentious facades and their actual function as impersonal, bustling commercial operations catering to every social class.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
The New Yorker REMEMBER, I remember, The flat where 1 was born, The little window where the sun Did not peep in at morn. To-day we live on floor eighteen, But now ‘tis little joy To know I’m closer up to Heaven Than when I was a boy. Hotels OTELS are huge hives for hand- somely haberdashered and habit- ually hungry humans. Hotels have many floors: Middle floors, lower floors, basements, cellars and sub-cellars, upper floors, top floors, topper floors, topmost floors and then some. On these floors are dining rooms, palm rooms, airship garages, rathskellers, roof Louis XIV. rooms, bar annexes, smoking rooms, cafés, leather rooms, café annexes, Egyptian rooms, buffets, elevators and buffet annexes. In these rooms are Hungarian bands, porters, messenger boys, head and tail waiters, guests, celebrities, near celebri- tics, hangers-on, tippers, non-tippers and cads. . Male guests come in with or without cigars. Female guests are in many. styles: Fat, lean, round or square, upholstered or plain, double or single, and those aspiring to single or double states. They are enveloped in princess gowns, empire gowns, Moyen dge gowns and just gowns ; diamonds, dimples and double chins, paint, powder, perfume and piffie. In hotels bells are ringing, electric lights flashing, messengers calling, tele- phones tinkling, annunciators announc- ing, drinks going down, prices going up, chambermaids gossiping, visitors black- mailing guests, costumes and minds changing, commercial travelers lying, chefs shrugging, cooks cursing and moncy disappearing. In hotels are held banquets, concerts, weddings, vaudeville shows, balls, din- ners, conventions, celebrations, drinking bouts and orgies. Harvey Peake. gardens, bars, two varieties: HOW THEIR FIRST HOTEL Feared Nothing Then “LJOW brave!” exclaims the wife, after her husband, at the hushed hour of 3 a. m,, has told her of his desperate resistance of three highway- men who have attempted to hold him up only a block from home. “I did not dream you were ‘0 courageous. How ‘ARS TO THK RRIDE AND GROOM does it happen that you dared to give them battle when any other man would have yielded weakly or would have run if he had the chance? "* My dear," explains the husband, “I had just finished nerving myself to meet you and explain what kept me out so late—and when I am in that frame of mind I'll defy anything.”” away comicbooks.com