The Boy in Little Havana
Closed mid-December 1999 · On stands late December 1999
The Front
Index of the Century's Last Month
Auld lang syne prices, watch-night service attendance, the going rate for a case of good champagne
The Rented Dress
Department stores nationwide report a run on evening-gown rental services for a single night's dressing, the century's turn treated as an occasion worth the fee even by households that would never call it that
The Modem's Christmas
Online retailers nationwide close out their first real holiday season claiming they can ship on time, the promise itself the year's actual product
The Foreign File
The Last Lockage
The United States formally cedes control of the Panama Canal to Panama
The Feature Well
The Boy Who Would Not Be Sent Back
The Elián González custody case and the asymmetry it exposed between Cuban and Haitian arrivals
The Back
Books: A critic's year-end list, kept deliberately short · Art: A survey of the teen-pop boom's arena tours and boy-band album sales, the format's reliability treated as its own trend story · Film: The awards-season crowding of December releases