The Quiet Quarter
Closed mid-March 1997 · On stands late March 1997
The Front
The Meridian Index: April
Bull-market highs logged this quarter, the average Manhattan one-bedroom rent, days until the mayoral primary field locks
On Language: 'Synergy'
A column tracks the word's migration from boardroom memo to punchline in under three years
The Essay
The Compassionate Conservatism Nobody Asked For
Welfare reform's first winter under the new law reaches the magazine's readers mostly as anecdote; the essay asks what a policy argument owes the people it's already decided about
The Foreign File
Amsterdam, Counting the Money
A stringer's dispatch on the euro's coming arrival and a continent quietly rehearsing a currency it hasn't voted on
The Feature Well
The Reissue Business
A profile of the record labels rebuilding their back catalogues onto compact disc a second time, and the audience paying twice for the same music
The City
Subject: A co-op board fight over rooftop rights on a West Side prewar building, read as the city's oldest argument in miniature
The Back
Books: A review of the spring fiction list · Art: A gallery note on an emerging photographer's first show · Film: The early-spring releases, briefly