The Last days of The New Yorker / Gigi Mahon

Includes index.

When you enter 25 West Forty-third Street, the building that houses the offices of The New Yorker, you do so with the confidence that comes from moving through the world knowing not just where you are in place, but where you are in time. When you ride the elevator and exit on the nineteenth floor, the confidence crumbles. The overwhelming impression there is one of ages gone by. You have stepped into another decade. Perhaps the year is 1930, or maybe 1955. It is not 1988. A receptionist sits in a booth behind a sliding glass window such as one finds in some dentists' offices. The small waiting area she guards is neither welcoming nor fashionable (fashion-able lobbies are for mass market magazines) but rather resembles the set of a Sam Spade mystery. It is barely functional. The suite of furniture consists of two aged but not antique brown wooden chairs, a round brass tray-type table, and a small end table on which perches a large nondescript lamp. The cord from the lamp runs upward to an outlet almost in the middle of the wall. The chairs are often not functional, since they are frequently piled high with envelopes and other assorted papers.