Life, 1929-03-08 · page 25 of 44
Life — March 8, 1929 — page 25: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from *Life* magazine satirizes 1920s Manhattan nightlife and social pretensions through short humor pieces and a cartoon. The main cartoon depicts people dancing on a rooftop at the **Manhattan Country Club**—a real speakeasy operating illegally on a midtown skyscraper during Prohibition. The caption "The sky's the limit!" is a double meaning: both a boast about the club's exclusivity and a pun on its rooftop location. The text pieces mock various trendy establishments and social customs: fake tanning lotions to simulate Miami vacations, "gypsy tea rooms" with fortune-telling waitresses, and speakeasies like the "Old Fashioned Garden" that disguise raw alcohol as refined cocktails. There's also a jab at show girls being prohibited from smoking (to appear "respectable") while being fired if they don't buy drinks. The overall satire targets wealthy New Yorkers' shallow pursuit of fashionable venues and their creative circumvention of Prohibition laws while maintaining middle-class propriety.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
New York Life it's a new lotion that, when applied gives you a nice bronze tan that won't come off and will make all your friends think you have just returned from |Miami . . . or, if you do go to Miami you can sit under a nice shady um- brella all day long and people will ‘think you are a regular outdoor girl, lor boy, as the case may be. Facts of Life (night) Show girls and Hostesses at most of the big night clubs are not allowed to moke when sitting at tables with cus- omers as it “doesn’t look nice” .ifthey don’t order rinks, however, they are fired! rell me Pretty Gypsy The latest fad among the girlies, ac- ding to my sister, is the Gypsy Tea ‘com, there being several scattered round town... the waitresses are ‘ortune Tellers and when you have nished your tea they predict the fu- ire for you from the leaves. ligh Life The Manhattan Country Club is a ongalow atop a midtown skyscraper 2. an . here, high upon a city hill top, if you know the clevator boy, you may sit and sip soothing drinks in a country-lubish living room, before a grate fire or if you prefer, dance in the adjoining dining room to the strains of a radio orches- tra. In cold weather, the roof around the pent house is frozen over and you may skate in the clouds... the favorite song of the cus- i 'm sipping on top of the world!” . .. we predict a great sum- mer’s business for this “upper joint” if it isn’t closed in the meantime. Old Fashioned The Old Fashioned Garden is in the Times Square district... the pro- prictor of this speakeasy, following the example of our modern Doctors, has gone Specialist . . . he serves nothing but Old Fashioned Cocktails ...a long row of “set ups” lines the bar ...if you wish you may have 222 2 2 “The sky's the limit!” The Manhattan Country Club straight rye but who wants the raw product when it can be made into a smooth Old Fashioned? .. . the place is always crowded. Manna About Town The new fifty-five story Mid-York Club which is going up at goth Street & Madison Avenue will be the great- est Athletic club in the world... Olive Sibley at Barney's (suggestion to Otto Kahn—go and hear this girl sing) . well known “Front Page’ actor in front of Reuben’s at 5 A. M. giving a horse a lump of sugar—the horse looks very ungrateful—actor mutters “All right go take a run around the block for yourself!” ... Shaw and Lee in “Pleasure Bound” . . . Barbara Stanwyck at Club Richman... Bobbe Arnst (Hello, Bobbe) in Movie- tone with Eddie Cantor... . Rudy Vallee singing “Vagabond Lover.” ... Walter O'Keefe singing “Though You Get the Best of Whiskey.” ... “You're Perfect” from “Pleasure Bound.” Kocmcbone p> comicbooks.com