What Comes Down
Closed mid-December 1998 · On stands late December 1998
The Front
Index of the Close
Numbers of the year's last weeks — closing markets, year-end farm-belt grain futures, the going rate for a Super Bowl ad minute
The Christmas Nobody Drove To
A short note on the season's online retailers, who moved more gift orders through a browser than any previous December, the delivery trucks straining to keep pace
The Essay
The Last Billboard
The Master Settlement Agreement, signed by forty-six states in November 1998, bars tobacco companies from outdoor and transit advertising; the highway billboards and bus-shelter panels begin coming down
The Foreign File
Eleven Currencies, One Ledger
The euro launches January 1st as a book-entry currency across eleven member states; trading floors and back offices spend the week reconciling ledgers to a unit no one has yet held as a coin or note
The Back
Three Parties, One Winter
A short round-up of the season's most-photographed New Year's galas in Manhattan, Aspen, and Palm Beach, and what the seating charts say about who's up this year