We skip ahead to the Oct. 2, 1926 issue to look at one of the big events of that year–the Dempsey-Tunney heavyweight prize fight (I’m not skipping issues…Sept. 25 appears later in this blog).
Heavyweight boxing was a big part of the American sports scene in the 1920s, and two giants of the sport, Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney, dominated the headlines in the late 1920s thanks to much-heralded bouts in Philadelphia in 1926 and a rematch in Chicago the following year (which would include the famous “long count” incident).
The New Yorker joined in on the hoopla, publishing a lengthy account of the match by Waldo Frank (aka “Search-light”), who trained his jaded eye on the whole affair:
According to the New York Times, the crowd included such notables as Charlie Chaplin, cowboy movie star Tom Mix and the English Channel swimmer Gertrude Ederle.
But in typical fashion, Waldo was less than dazzled, finding the rain an apt metaphor for a spectacle mostly unseen by those in attendance:
Never one to wallow in tragedy, the magazine made a brief (and oddly droll) reference in “The Talk of the Town” to a hurricane that hit Miami and its environs (it killed 372 people and injured more than 6,000):
Other items of note in the issue included this examination of country vs. city life by cartoonist Barbara Shermund…
…and this cartoon by Al Frueh commenting on the challenges of Manhattan’s rapidly changing cityscape:
The changing city was also on the mind of Reginald Marsh in this illustration he contributed to the Sept. 25, 1926 issue of the magazine:
The Sept. 25 issue also featured an update from Paris correspondent Janet Flanner…
…who commented on the large number of American tourists crowding the city just as the locals were fleeing for their long, late summer holidays:
She offered some numbers to back up her observations:
And finally, a cartoon by Rea Irvin exploring the trials of the idle rich:
Next Time: Do Gentlemen Prefer Blondes?
A New Yorker State of Mind 