THE New York Daily News has been published since 1919. I am no longer a daily reader, but I reveled in its sports section in the 1960s and 1970s, with the likes of Dick Young, Phil Pepe, Red Foley and later on, Mike Lupica and on the political side, Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill. The Daily News offices are now at 4 New York Plaza near Battery Park, but the paper occupied this Art Deco tower at 220 East 42nd Street near Grand Central Terminal from 1930 through 1995, designated a NYC Landmark in 1981. It was commissioned by Daily News founder Captain Joseph Patterson and designed by Raymond Hood.
Building interiors were used to substitute for the Daily Planet in the first (and best) Superman movie from 1978. The globe, one of the largest in NYC, is iconic.
Of particular interest (to me at least) is the three-story bas relief showing everyday people and the inscription “He made so many of them.” This is from an unattributed quote by Abraham Lincoln: “God must love the common people, because he made so many of them.” The News began as a tabloid, New York City’s first, and from the beginning was contrasted with the larger and more difficult to read broadsheets, with their multiple columns consisting of nine-point type. Folding such papers while standing on busy commuter trains became a rite of passage for office workers; now, most people read newspapers of choice on small handheld devices like my IPhone, and many newsstands don’t carry newspapers at all!
As always, “comment…as you see fit.” I earn a small payment when you click on any ad on the site.
4/30/22