Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

[Inkstainedwretch]

I can't say it disappeared in my lifetime since I never saw it, but did newsboys really yell "Extra! Extra! Read all about it!" ?I don't think I ever even saw a newspaper put out an extra edition.

 

[2jakes]

I can't say it disappeared in my lifetime since I never saw it, but did newsboys really yell "Extra! Extra! Read all about it!" ?I don't think I ever even saw a newspaper put out an extra edition.

In my town it was an adult standing downtown main street selling the paper
and yelling "Extra!".


As kids we mostly had a paper route in the neighborhood.

This is something which I don't see today.
Kids on bikes delivering the daily newspaper.

 

[Zombie_61]

...I don't think I ever even saw a newspaper put out an extra edition.

The Los Angeles Times has produced a number of extra editions over the years in order to keep their readers informed about major historical events--Allied forces "invading" Europe during World War II, the Kennedy assassination and Oswald's subsequent murder, man walking on the moon for the first time, Charles Manson and his "family" being found guilty, Nixon quitting his job as President, various earthquakes, and the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, to name more than a few. I would imagine newspapers in other big cities did the same.

 

[Fading Fast]

I can't say it disappeared in my lifetime since I never saw it, but did newsboys really yell "Extra! Extra! Read all about it!" ?I don't think I ever even saw a newspaper put out an extra edition.

When I started working on Wall Street (literally on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange at the corner of Wall and Broad Streets) in the '80s, every night going home, the newspaper guys (almost all were men, no boys and very few women then), would be yelling out "late edition," "final" or - if it was one - "extra" as they tried to sell either the Daily News or New York Post (the New York Times didn't put out late, final or extra editions by then, at least that I recall).

It was a pretty active newspaper market - a lot of commuters bought them - and there was a vibrancy to the atmosphere. It didn't feel force or dated, just newspaper sellers trying to sell into a big but crowded market. I loved it. I grew up in a pretty small town and no one "hawked" papers - you went into the newsstand or convenience store and bought one, but no one yelled about it. NYC was so alive, so crazy with energy that, for me, it was infectious - I was just glad to be part of it and I loved the throwback (but not dated) feel of the newspaper market back then.

That went on well into the '90s, but seemed to end around the end of the Century. I was working in midtown for part of the '90 and then in Boston, so I lost the exact timeline, but when I returned to NYC in '04, there were no longer any of those editions (at least that I remember).

 

[LizzieMaine]

In the Era, the News put out, on a regular basis, as many as six editions a day -- I've got bound volumes that include copies of each edition (four days worth make a book thicker than Webster's Second Unabridged), and the differences between each edition are interesting. The "feature" pages -- the women's section, the entertainment section, the comics -- are usually identical in each edition, and make up the central pages of each copy. The news and sports sections, though, will often change drastically between editions, with different layouts, different front and back pages, and different story content. And if that wasn't enough, along with all this there was also a separate "Brooklyn Edition," featuring borough-specific content and advertising.

The News usually had its "bulldog" edition -- the first edition of each day's paper, with the news and sports pages printed on pink stock -- on the street around 9pm the night before the date of the paper. The last edition, the sports final, would usually hit the street in the late afternoon so as to include that day's racing and/or baseball results. The later editions were designed to compete directly against the regular "afternoon" papers -- the Post, the Journal-American, the World-Telegram, the Sun, and the Brooklyn Eagle -- with the result being that the News in its heyday was almost a round-the-clock paper, something that's unthinkable today. They started to prune down the operation in the mid-fifties, and editions gradually dropped away.

The use of colored paper to denote different editions was a common thing for many papers in many cities. The Hearst papers, in addition to "Pink Editions" also featured "Peach Editions" for their sports-and-stocks finals, with the changed pages printed on peach-colored stock, and often a large drawing of a peach on the masthead to catch the eye of semi-literate types. Other chains featured "Blue Streak" or "Green Streak" editions with the appropriate colored paper -- anything to make their sheets stand out on a crowded newsstand, and to ensure that Charley Straphanger didn't end up buying an edition he'd already read while racing for the train.

 

[Fading Fast]

⇧ How did I not know (or, at least, I don't remember ever hearing) about the different colored editions. Makes incredible sense, but somehow, I never heard of it 'till now from Lizziepedia.

The ones I got in the '80s (noted in my post above) didn't do that, but it would have been good if they did as you had to look in the upper corners to make sure you were buying the latest edition (being one of the semi-literate, I messed that up a few time and was quite frustrated to discover I had just bought the morning paper again ).

Your description, multiple daily updates - "round the clock -" news, etc. feels so analog internet with each addition being a "page refresh."

Having grown up with a professional gambler (and, in truth, bookie) as a dad, I remember regularly going to the local newsstand after 10 or 11pm for the final sports scores* (living in a town about an hour-plus outside of NYC, that's when the late editions made it to our newsstand) - and a grumpy** dad if the papers weren't in yet.

* Also, we knew when sports scores were given on every radio station - the din of which was the constant background of my upbringing. That said, the papers were better as they were more comprehensive - and had updated betting lines, etc.

** Grumpier would have been more accurate as grumpy was the default setting.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

I guess it was a big-city thing then. I grew up mainly in small to medium-sized towns and suburbs where we got the big-city papers but probably only the morning editions, no extras. My summers in the Pasadena-L.A. area the paper was delivered, no newsies hawking editions. The closest I came to big-city living in those years was Dallas, which was really only a medium-sized city in the early 50s. But the kid in the oversized "newsboy" hat worn askew on his head shouting "Extra!" was a trope of movies in the Era. Incidentally, directors Frank Capra and Sam Fuller both wrote of being newsies when they were boys, and fighting rival newsies for the best corners. These boys seem to have been 9-14 years of age, and their heyday was from the turn of the century to the 20s. Maybe the newfangled child labor laws put an end to it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

We always got, and still get, the early editions of the Boston and New York papers here. When I used to buy the Sunday edition of the News, it irritated me that the comic section and the Coloroto magazine were the correct date -- but the paper itself was a week old. They have, at least, fixed that now.

The fact that Hearst largely built his empire on child labor was not unnoticed by union activists in the Era, but he also employed a large squad of brass-knuckle goons to keep organizers at bay and the newsies in line. One of those goons, Moses Annenberg by name, was rewarded for his loyalty by being floated the funds to buy the Daily Racing Form -- and the fortune made there laid the foundation for the entire Annenberg family fortune, one which went on to rival Hearst, even though Moe himself went to prison for tax evasion in 1939. His son Walter would go on to publish TV Guide, be the US Ambassador to the Court of St. James, and an intimate friend to Presidents Nixon and Reagan. But as with the Kennedys, the shady origin of the family fortune was seldom touched upon.

 

[Harp]

When I started working on Wall Street (literally on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange at the corner of Wall and Broad Streets) in the '80s, every night going home, the newspaper guys (almost all were men, no boys and very few women then), would be yelling out "late edition," "final" or - if it was one - "extra" as they tried to sell either the Daily News or New York Post (the New York Times didn't put out late, final or extra editions by then, at least that I recall).

It was a pretty active newspaper market - a lot of commuters bought them - and there was a vibrancy to the atmosphere. It didn't feel force or dated, just newspaper sellers trying to sell into a big but crowded market. I loved it... NYC was so alive, so crazy with energy that, for me, it was infectious - I was just glad to be part of it and I loved the throwback (but not dated) feel of the newspaper market back then..

The Chicago Board of Trade sidewalk scene was like this...once, but the characters have gone and now all the old hubbub is antiseptic inside quiet news rack display.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Chicago Board of Trade sidewalk scene was like this...once, but the characters have gone and now all the old hubbub is antiseptic inside quiet news rack display.

Same with Wall Street / the NYSE regarding newspapers, but the former healthy hubbub outside capitalism's locus - which had been a quixotic mix of up-market bankers and businessmen, roll-up-your-sleeves floor traders, clerks, runners, hangers-on, street rapscallions (drugs, three card monte on cardboard boxes and other illicit activities where pursued aggressively albeit tucked into the street's nooks and shadows) and overwhelmed tourists (a definite minority) - has been replaced with a heavy anti-terrorism, para-military police force, imposing barricades and checkpoints, more tourists than ever and many fewer of everyone else.

The atmosphere went from an overly crowded chaotic-and-disheveled enthusiasm and energy to an almost police-state-like calm mixed with ambling tourists. Once in a blue moon a meeting will draw me down there (NYC finance today has mainly migrated to midtown and, with electronic trading, lacks a physical center) which I find oppressive and depressing. The large security is understandable - Wall Street (the physical street itself) literally sits in the shadow of the World Trader Center site - but that doesn't make it any less demoralizing.

 

[ChiTownScion]

I recall catching grief as a five year old kid when, after being sent to the closest major intersection to my grandmother's house I picked up the Late Market edition of the Tribune rather than the Final Market edition. Later in life, I found it interesting that Chicago Tribune was the paper of first choice in the home of my FDR Is God grandparents. Colonel McCormack had gone on to the great beyond before the time that I had my first birthday, and I was often told by my grandmother that McCormack was a rat who hated the working man and victimized Eleanor Roosevelt (a fact which Lizzie has addressed before) and that the Trib was a Republican paper, but for some reason it was an essential in their home. The Daily News was only the paper that they'd buy and read if they had the time. (The Trib had a decent sports section in the late 50's and their comics were always better: perhaps that was a factor.)

The Sun Times was only bought if there was even more extra time to read or if certain discount coupons were going to be in it. The Chicago American? Never had it in our house. It was a Hearst paper, formerly the Herald American..

The Sun Times was a tabloid and the other three were broadsheets back then. The American became a tabloid: later was called Chicago Today before it bit the dust in 1974. The Daily News died in 1978. My guess is that television did those dailies in- much like the internet is battling the remaining dailies today. Too bad- I think people were more articulate and literate when they had to rely upon newspapers.

 

[LizzieMaine]

In the Era, the Chicago Daily News was a moderate Republican paper -- its publisher was Frank Knox, Landon's 1936 running mate -- but the Tribune was an out and out Fascist sheet, right up into the war years. The Colonel made Hearst look like Earl Browder.

But that said, the Tribune's comic section was second to none -- it was the home paper for Dick Tracy, The Gumps, Gasoline Alley, Terry and the Pirates, Smilin' Jack, Moon Mullins, Winnie Winkle, Smitty, Harold Teen, and Little Orphan Annie, whose politics were even more to the right than those of her employer. (The Colonel didn't fake his own suicide after FDR's reelection in 1944, but Daddy Warbucks did.) With the exception of Harold Teen and The Gumps, all those strips were still running in the 1970s, and Tracy and Gasoline Alley -- the jewels in the Tribune Syndicate's crown -- are still running today.

 

[Harp]

Same with Wall Street / the NYSE regarding newspapers, but the former healthy hubbub outside capitalism's locus -
The atmosphere went from an overly crowded chaotic-and-disheveled enthusiasm and energy to an almost police-state-like calm mixed with ambling tourists..

The open trade pit denizens have scattered and the outcry bid silenced by electronic trading echoes in memory.

 

[Haversack]

Regarding different colored sections of newspapers, the San Francisco Chronicle still uses green for the sports section, (titled 'The Sporting Green') and pink for the entire weekly entertainment section printed in tabloid format in the Sunday edition. Up until a few years ago this was done with colored newsprint. Since the paper got in new, fancy presses, they now just print the entire pages with the distinctive green and pink. I've heard tell, (not that I've been able to run it down), that the Business and Labor section, (now just the Business section), used to be printed on gold or yellow newsprint as well.

 

[Fading Fast]

The open trade pit denizens have scattered and the outcry bid silenced by electronic trading echoes in memory.

For those of us who lived through the open outcry trading in the pits (I spent a small amount of time in Chicago in the pits), the floor of the exchanges (a lot of time on both the NYSE and AMEX) and even the robust screaming of a pre-digital trading floor (years on those), it's sad that, effectively, that culture, that way of doing business is just another vintage thing that has disappeared in our lifetime .

 

[Harp]

it's sad that, effectively, that culture, that way of doing business is just another vintage thing that has disappeared .

A slow lingering death for the past decade; still, some pits remain but the CME will finish the strangle this summer.
A few: agricultural, options, S&P will be allowed to remain but inevitably those pits too will become mute.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

For most of its existence, the pit forbade cameras, especially movie cameras. I can see why. From the few minutes of film I've seen, they knew how it would affect the general public. To people of that culture, I'm sure it was all very sensible and exhilarating. to Joe Sixpack (or his Era equivalent) and the folks in the small towns, it looked like packs of rabid baboons fighting.

 

[ChrisB]

I just realized that I no longer see children on bicycles near my home (in a rural area, I do see them riding in town). When I was a kid, we would walk or ride bikes to our friends homes, which were a mile or two away. It may be that parents have become chauffeurs for their children, especially with all the organized activities that they have these days. Do children have any unsupervised time any more?

 

[LizzieMaine]

I just realized that I no longer see children on bicycles near my home (in a rural area, I do see them riding in town). When I was a kid, we would walk or ride bikes to our friends homes, which were a mile or two away. It may be that parents have become chauffeurs for their children, especially with all the organized activities that they have these days. Do children have any unsupervised time any more?

A few years ago as I was leaving work, a fire broke out in a building down the street, which ended up blockading me in my parking lot so I couldn't go home until almost 3AM. So I spent much of the night standing on the sidewalk watching the fire and seeing the night-owls go about their routine. Just before 1, I saw a bunch of kids running down the street, nine or ten years old, entirely unsupervised. "What are those kids doing out at this time of night?" I asked a fellow bystander.

"The bars are about to close," she replied, "and they're going down to bring their parents home."

 

[Fading Fast]

For most of its existence, the pit forbade cameras, especially movie cameras. I can see why. From the few minutes of film I've seen, they knew how it would affect the general public. To people of that culture, I'm sure it was all very sensible and exhilarating. to Joe Sixpack (or his Era equivalent) and the folks in the small towns, it looked like packs of rabid baboons fighting.

The Chicago Pits definitely had an appearance of chaos and, compared to the structurally different stock exchanges, were more mano-a-mano in nature, but in truth, all had extensive, clearly defined and rigorously enforced rules that belied the outward appearance of chaos. The yelling, screaming, hand waving, etc., was not the true chaos of the exchanges (that was all part of the structure), the true chaos was and is the inherent volatility of markets.

The reality of markets is that at any point in time, the value of a partially commoditized asset being set in an open forum trying to distill constantly changing, real-time and imperfect information into a single price is, by nature, chaotic. That "chaos" is still with us today, it is just hidden from view in the flow of zero and ones, algorithms, routers and all the other tools of electronic trading. Think of the periodic "flash crashes" as the chaos or volatility breaking out from the electronic markets structures' best attempts at order.

Because, at it's core, the market is what it will always be: a price discovery system that is inherently "chaotic" and volatile. The exchanges - physical or electronic - exist to create a construct around the chaos. That construct has never been and probably never will be able to anticipate and control all the potential chaos.