William Gibson, "The Gernsback Continuum"

And as I moved among these secret ruins, I found myself wondering what the in- habitants of that lost future would think of the world I lived in. The Thirties dreamed white marble and slip- stream chrome, immortal crystal and burnished bronze, but the rockets on the covers of the Gernsback pulps had fallen on London in the dead of night, screaming. After the war, everyone had a car no wings for it and the promised superhighway to drive it down, so that the sky itself darkened, and the fumes ate the marble and pitted the miracle crystal. . .