With 1929 in the offing, we sit here quietly reviewing our life & times. Many things, not all, seem discouraging. Smoke drifts over from Jersey, shutting out sunlight; the town is growing darker every year. The town is also becoming noisier, harder on the nerves. The glut of automobiles has made the streets almost impassable, and the rate of travel on Fifth Avenue during rush periods is two miles an hour. Fewer people are getting married. More people are getting divorced. The birth rate is lower. The city costs each citizen fifty-four dollars a year, some of which goes to enforce prohibition, which does not exist. Piper Heidsieck is on sale for ten dollars at club banquets. Home-made wine has been adjudged legal, but the Treasury Department says people aren’t very good at making it.

There is no war in South America, but Bolivia took thirty wagons and one tractor away from Paraguay, costing the life of Jose Miguel Villaneuva Chavarria, a Bolivian lieutenant. This angered his brothers almost to the point where the League of Nations could do no good. If war should come, scientists have invented a gas called cadodyl isocyanide, which is so terrible they hardly dare speak about it. As for the immediate future, Mr. Ford says planes will soon be as common as autos (we have just seen how common they are); and Professor Voronoff says gland operations will be as common as filling stations. Whether in spite of, or because of, some or all of these interesting phenomena, we find life perennially amusing, are occasionally thrilled by the sight of a small patch of sky showing through the smoke and between the buildings, and have every intention of going through with the year 1929 — now that we’ve virtually started.

The New Yorker, 29 December 1928

And here we go.