The New Yorker kicked off the summer season with a trip down to Coney Island. “The Talk of the Town” took in the various sights and amusements at the famed Steeplechase and Luna parks.
Attractions at Steeplechase Park included everything from racing wooden horses to a “human billiard table.” Less jolly diversions included air jets that blew up women’s skirts and clowns who administered electric shocks to unsuspecting visitors (one more reason to fear them). And there was at least one racist game of skill…
Over at Luna Park there were more air holes to blow up women’s skirts and assorted freak shows. More wholesome entertainments included the famed Cyclone rollercoaster, which celebrated its 90th year of operation in 2017.
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Writing for the June 23 “Talk of the Town,” Murdock Pemberton anticipated the construction of a new theatre to be developed by famed Austrian director/producer Max Reinhardt and designed by Austrian-American architect, illustrator and scenic designer Joseph Urban:
Unfortunately the market crash of 1929 put an end to the project, which would have looked like this had it been constructed:
Urban designed innovative sets for clients ranging from the Metropolitan Opera to the Ziegfeld Follies (he also designed a theatre for Ziegfeld in 1927, see below). Although he is noted as one of the originators of American Art Deco, most of his architectural work in the United States has been demolished.
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The New Yorker continued to struggle with the emergence of “talking pictures.” The critic “O.C.” found that the sound dialogue in The Lion and the Mouse did little to improve the picture:
The critic seemed to believe that sound pictures would take some time to catch on. Little did he know that Warner Brothers would announce later that summer (August 1928) that all of its films for the 1928-29 fiscal year would have sound. United Artists would make the same announcement in November 1928. In February 1929 Twentieth-Century Fox would make its final silent movie, and Columbia would release its last silent movie on April 1, 1929.
The New Yorker still found happiness at the movies through the likes of actress Colleen Moore, who made a sweet little film called Happiness Ahead.
Colleen Moore was one of the most famous stars of the silent era who popularized the bobbed haircut and flapper style. Moore presented a more wholesome version of the flapper, in contrast to the more worldly Louise Brooks, another flapper icon of the Twenties.
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From Our Advertisers
Continuing our series on celebrity endorsements of Old Gold cigarettes, none other than the Little Tramp stepped up to take the blindfold test (along with a pile of cash, no doubt):
And if Old Gold is not to your taste, then why not enjoy the “toasted” pleasures of Lucky Strike? Actress Betty Compson found them indispensable when preparing for a big scene:
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And now for something that caught my eye in the June 23 issue…a bit of filler art by Eldon Kelley that broke up some copy on page 34:
This particular illustration was also featured in one of The New Yorker’s earliest issues—March 21, 1925—in a two-part comic panel (below). I am puzzled why the magazine, flush with artistic talent by 1928, reused this Kelley illustration. Perhaps the layout editors figured since the readership was so small in March 1925, no one would notice.
And we leave with yet another look at some Jazz Age shenanigans, courtesy cartoonist Peter Arno:
Next Time: Summer Breeze…
A New Yorker State of Mind 