an old joke

[George Thompson]

An article in the NYTimes City section of a couple of Sundays ago gave the old joke that New York will be a fine city, if they ever get it finished, and credited it to O Henry.

I had posted the origin of this joke here years ago, (under this same heading, if I recall), and wrote the editor with the full text of the first version.  This letter was published this past Sunday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/opinion/nyregionopinions/l21city.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

By the way: I didn't find this quotation in The Yale Dictionary of Quotes, and I think that Fred muffed a popup when he did not include it: it's a living quotation, it's always misattributed, and the true author is known.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

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