The guy smoking a pipe, The candlestick telephones too. And most impressive, the guy on the right using both kinds, modern and vintage. Very good multitasking. The wire cages on the light fixtures are also strange. Overkill, I would say. But it's a delightful photo of the past.

Kind of depressing once you take it all in, a newsroom entirely staffed by men, plus the pipe smoking, the anti-Japanese propaganda poster, etc. It really is true that "The past is a different country. They do things differently there."

Not sure what the well thought out and professionally made wire cloth covers on the lights are all about. I guess it has something to do with being at war???

Bill spikes, stick telephones, eye shades, rubber stamps, oak office chairs, pipe smokers.. all of an era.

Can anybody identify the round white things with the little handle sticking up?

[Gluepots. - Dave]

And the cages on the light fixtures — did things get rough in that room from time to time???

That Assistant put his hand through the CE’s memo spike again.

Or maybe the editor is a very, very stern taskmaster.

What is that for. Oh, and that caricature, so not politically correct today.

This most be towards the end of the era for visors. Green eyeshades or dealer's visors are a type of visor that were worn most often from the late 19th century to the mid-20th century by accountants, telegraphers, copy editors, and others engaged in vision-intensive, detail-oriented occupations to lessen eye strain due to early incandescent lights and candles, which tended to be harsh (the classic banker's lamp had a green shade for similar reasons).

Interesting. When I worked in a newsroom in the 70s it wasn't much different from this except everyone had a typewriter. I wonder why there's not a single one visible in this photo.

[You don’t need a typewriter to edit. Just a grease pencil. - Dave]

Why are there cages around the ceiling lights? All I could think of was that the composing room upstairs creates enough vibrations to occasionally knock a light fixture off its ceiling mount, and the cages protect those below.

Copyboy! Get me OSHA! And having worked in such dangerous places in the 1960s ...

What do they need protection from?

US FIGHTS NEW LANDINGS IN SOLOMONS; SINKS CRUISER, 4 OTHER SHIPS IN PACIFIC; NAZIS ADVANCE NORTH OF STALINGRAD

Marines Meet Foe

Franco Shakes Up Cabinet, Ousts Suner and 2 Others

Allied Blows Force Rommel to Withdraw at Some Points

President Warns Youth to Choose Death or Freedom

Submarines Sink 5 Japanese Ships

Astor Real Estate Policy Shifted to Meet New Order

British Bombers Sear Karlsruhe; Sinclair Urges Sabotage in Reich

OPA to License All Meat Packers and Wholesalers in Control Move

What, are they planning early for TV?

What a classic case of industrial chic, even with wire cages on the lamps!

I only see three telephones in that whole office! How can they get any work done?

I'm sure that everyone they would've needed to speak with was within shouting distance. Amazing how efficient things were back then!

No cubicle walls either.

Looks like way back then they didn't need an agency of the Federal Government to codify or remind them of the dangers of falling light globes (I didn't even know that was a thing.) Their safety conciousness even extended to the film used to record their workplace for posterity. Which begs the question, what happened to the guy at front left.

Paper cut? Malingerer? Bar fight?

Not very glamourous, is it?? Even by the standards of the day, I would have expected something more impressive for the Paper of Record. But perhaps our expectations are tainted by modern conditions: whereas today the 'Times' may be NYC's only broadsheet, in 1942 there were a multitude - Journal-American, World-Telegram, the Sun -- some of which eclipsed the Times in circulation; but the real competitor for the quality reader was the Herald-Tribune. I've heard it posited that WWII is what earned the Times the final victory lap: it used its war-ration reduced pages to emphasize news, whereas the HT gave the edge to advertising. I don't know how true this is, but it's a great story.