Roving Rube Picture of the Day
10/31/01
"Winged Life"
This cherub surprisingly graces the entrance of the Herald Square Hotel at 31st St, where you can rent a Small Single Room
with shared bathroom facilities:for just $65 a night!
One of these rooms could literally have been the office where the "Gibson Girl" was created, as this was formerly the headquarters of Life Magazine, which way back in the early 1900's was a humor magazine. The inscriptions "Wit" and "Humor" are on the banners beside the angel.
The hotel's website elaborates:
"Its likeness was to be repeated on or in almost every issue of LIFE ever printed .... Soon, it had become more than mere ornamentation. ... In fact, "WINGED LIFE" as it was known became a demi-god in it's own temple. It perches sternly above the main entrance and watches, with proprietary pleasure, the comings and goings in its home ... The great writers and artists, the humble merchants, the proud and haughty models and courtesans, the tourists and the curious; it has winked at chicanery, frowned on deception, smiled at romance and accepted one and all because, after all...they're only human."