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On the date

Monday, March 21, 1921

From the day

Perspective: The Future Historian · Sight

The skyline is a jagged silhouette of scaffolding and hope, where the steel skeletons of new apartments rise to house a thousand families under the pale spring sun. Men in wool newsboy caps squint at the fresh blueprints, oblivious that their optimism is merely the prologue to a century of vertical expansion. I watch a laborer surrender **$0.11** for a loaf of bread, his dusty hands trembling slightly as he avoids the gaze of a foreman who looks ready to find a **fall guy** for the week's delayed shipment of rivets. To these workers, this boom is a lifeline; to my eyes, it is the first blueprint of the modern metropolis.

Memories from that day

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The Headlines

BOOM IN BUILDING HERE, SAYS CURRAN; Gain of 61 in Plans Filed in First Two Weeks of Tax Exemption. TO HOUSE 1,076 FAMILIES This Is Only a Start, Borough President Asserts--Urges Loans for Building Operations.

Read in The New York Times →

Best-selling Sheet Music

The Sheik of Araby

Harry B. Smith & Ted Snyder

The must-have

Raggedy Andy

On This Day

  • The New Economic Policy is implemented by the Bolshevik Party in response to the economic failure as a result of war communism.

    Wikipedia →

Slang

Slang of the decade

General

applesaucebaloneycheaterscrush

Flapper

bee's kneescat's pajamasgiggle watershebahotsy-totsy

Gangster

big cheesebump offstool pigeongatfall guy

Catchphrases of 1921

  • Ain't we got fun?

Tech Check

Robots (The Term 'Robot'), Polygraph (Modern) & Insulin (Medical Tech).

Cost of Living (1920)

Loaf of Bread

$0.11

Gallon of Gas

$0.30

Average Home

$6,296

New Car

$575

Meanwhile

  • Post-WWI RecessionSevere deflation and collapse of agricultural prices.

Time Elapsed

38,427 days ago

(105 years, 102 days)