Life, 1917-04-05 · page 60 of 70
Life — April 5, 1917 — page 60: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical piece humorously catalogs the miserable experiences of a provincial visitor to New York City. The text lists indignities from arrival to departure: the sleepless train journey, the shabby hotel room on an air-shaft, the expensive meals with tiny portions, the aggressive taxi drivers with rigged meters, overpriced theater tickets, and the constant threat of traffic. The satire targets both the city's predatory service industry (porters, clerks, waiters all graphically exploiting visitors) and the visitor's own naïveté and social anxiety. The repeated mention of automobiles and near-death escapes reflects early-1920s anxieties about urban traffic. The concluding irony—that despite hating New York, the visitor repeats the whole ordeal "on ensuing days"—suggests an almost masochistic compulsion to the city despite its hostility and expense. This page also contains period advertisements for Universal Electric appliances and DuPont's trap-shooting promotion.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
The Visit to New York HE sleepless sleeping-car. The congested wash-room and the suspicious glances. The encouragement of the porter’s graft. The hollow-eyed arrival. The mastodonic hotel with the bored desk-attendants, The request for a three-dollar room. The contempt and loathing of the clerk. The four-dollar room on the air-shaft. The princely generosity to the satchel- hearer. The embarrassed entry into the dining room. UNIVERSAL ELECTRIC HORE NEEDS Boils, Broils Fries, Toasts Will do all manner of | cooking in quantity sufficient for three or four people and is ready at the tum of a switch for immediate use: Four heats avail- able, Tron Stays Hot You Stay Cool When the weather is scorching hot it is a simple matter to keep cool and work with comfort in any room in the house by the aid of a Universal Electric Iron. Golden Brown Delicious Toast Madeatthetable and served as hot as want- ed. Evenly browned over the entire sur- face. No fumes of the fuel to mar its flavor. Alluring—carries with it athrill— an exhilaration—such as no other sport affords. It holds a subtle chal. lenge to one’s gunskill. g Sport Winging the wily clay pigeon has be- come quite de rigueur in smart coun- try places and has proven a welcome boon to both host and hostess in the entertainment of house parties. The “ Sport Alluring Booklet” on request, E. 1. DU PONT DE NEMOURS & CO. Wilmington Delaware As fanete Nelerman J the fous The hard poached eggs and the light gray coffee. The sinking fecling at the size of the check, The reluctant tip to the waiter. The feeling that the waiters are smil- ing privately. The tip to the hat-boy to recover the hat. The venturing forth into the street. The twenty million automobiles. The twenty million escapes from death. The delicately kalsomined young wom- en. The half-portion skirts. The odors of gasolene, perfume and rice powder. The innumerable telephone calls The bad lunch wi’) the strangely named foods. The too-frequent smokings. The descent on the business district. The crick in the neck from looking up. The fifty million automobiles which narrowly graze the back. The taxicab with the trick meter. The rapidly decreasing size of the pocketbook. The twelve-dollar dinner with the sev- enty-five-cent taste. The two-dollar theatre tickets for six dollars. The tiresome performance of the same old stuff. The gay restaurant life, costing eight- een cents per minute. The tired-looking men with their pock- ets full of it. The chatty women with near-pearls and dangerous shoulder-straps. The wild excitement and the wa'ter’s hints to buy. The distributing of largesse and the return to the hotel, The hatred for New York. The troubled slumber and the deter- mination to be more careful on the morrow. The repetition of the whole business on ensuing days. K. L. Roberts: comichooks.qeinn