The Meridian Archive
MER
January 2002
The Turn of the Year

The Turn of the Year

Closed mid-December 2001 · On stands late December 2001

The Front

Index of the Turn

Area codes added nationwide, gas prices at the pump, what chains closed and what opened

On Language

'Dot-com' recedes from boast to punchline

The Essay

The Death of the Generalist

Newsroom and university alike now reward the specialist; an argument for the writer who knows a little about everything

The Foreign File

The Uses of Neutrality

On the quiet standing of the arbitration bodies nobody elected

The Feature Well

The Long Commute

A profile of an Amtrak conductor's cross-country route, start to end

Held Ground

A profile of a homeowners' association in a Phoenix subdivision, in its thirtieth year

The City

Subject: The co-op board minutes as a genre; a season inside one Upper West Side building

The Back

Books: Review essay on the year's debut novels · Art: Notes from the winter gallery openings · Film: The awards-season slate against its box office · Architecture: A Building for the Address — The Prada Epicenter opens at Broadway and Prince, Rem Koolhaas's building on the address of a landmark former gallery