Life, 1926-06-17 · page 10 of 44
Life — June 17, 1926 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical poem by Arthur L. Lippmann mocks a naive country visitor overwhelmed by Broadway's sensory chaos—the "Battery and Wall Street," traffic noise, street performers, and window displays. The accompanying cartoon "Any Old Clothes?" shows a well-dressed man accosted by a ragman, inverting expectations: typically the poor solicited the wealthy, but here the visual suggests the city's hustlers target everyone. The broader page includes commentary on Prohibition ("Diogenes' Search Is Ended") and a testimonial about hair loss remedies. The humor targets urban overstimulation, commercial exploitation, and the bewildering collision of different social classes on crowded city streets—quintessential early 20th-century American anxieties about modern metropolitan life.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
ay L ife Number~ Main Street, New York HEN the haysced from the cou walks on His carpet bag a-bouncing ‘gainst his knees, and awed way s in a rever the stir The Batt'ry and the Wall Street s IL him, The traffic towers give him qu ; The Si the Woolwo' still him, The provincial, comic-section hick! The wi ve of the city And sees these mndred times a day in with a k es are callouse Observes k of pity, Who thr Whe At on yon idle crowd of gazer around the window of a a man exhibits safety rs $ an automatic strop. You'll note the sid You'll note the pavement’s packed wi walk’s jammed with city dwellers, «al boobs, For w shows make worldly city fell More boorish than the Asi inst the wi >w panes they And huddle like a od of hum n chicks, elrthur L. Lippmann. s idea there are two kinds of chorus girls and the other kind aren't working. “ANY OLD CLOTHES?” Diogenes’ Search Is Ended 1 wig oe, Ke ly ar hawing bu jon is all right, hir he a bootlegger. A Testimonial with fal it thor hair. I cons ands of doll e source of my frighti 1 go nowhere without exciti comment ir would fall into my soup, and, er ssment, I would have r feign il table manners, My mind be Then I discovered GLU-G bottle was en 1 have never been able to. get my A LOAN IN A GREAT CITY comicbooks.com