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Against a wall of one of the narrow gray corridors on the eighteenth floor of The New Yorker, there used to be long, ugly shelves, also painted gray, where the daily newspapers were kept in separate cubicles. The New York Times, The New York Post, The Daily News, The Washington Post, the New York Herald Tribune, The World Telegram and Sun, The Journal American -- the last three still existed then, though they were foundering -- piled up, were read, became crumpled and disordered, but never seemed to be removed until the shelves were full. Most writers and editors did not arrive at the office until noon. Young writers, and very old writers, as they do at most publications, tended to come in early and work late. Each morning when I came in, I used to head for the cubicle that held The Daily News. The News horoscope, it seemed to me, though far from sunny, was reliable. The Dick Tracy comic strip was in an inspired phase....

One morning when I arrived, the News was gone. This was not serious. To miss a day of Dick Tracy was a bit like missing an episode of a soap opera. One could catch up. Several days passed. Each morning I came in earlier, and then earlier still, hoping to catch the News at the moment of distribution. I suspected the messengers. One or two messengers seemed always to be sitting, either chatting or reading newspapers, on the depressing little brown couch in the last bleak corner of the lounge -- which was rapidly being crowded out anyway by the ever-encroaching walls. But no. When the messenger came to put the newspapers in their cubicles, The Daily News was not among them. The next day, I arrived before seven. There it was. I took it to my office, read and returned it. The next morning, standing beside the cubicle, was Edmund Wilson. "Have you seen The Daily News?" he said, with consternation. "I can't find it anywhere. I've been following Dick Tracy...."

-- Renata Adler, Gone: The Last Days of The New Yorker (1999)