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2:23: 1941
... 1941. View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano. Soothsayer's Recompense Paging Giorgio de Chirico ... ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 08/04/2012 - 11:07pm -

Ayer Mill clock tower, Lawrence, Massachusetts. January 1941. View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano. Soothsayer's RecompensePaging Giorgio de Chirico ... pig...Throw a pink pig up near that smoke stack and you've got a Pink Floyd album cover... Coming from the Northeast, it's interesting to see the mills when they were actually in use as opposed to their current states of disrepair or hip, urban renewal. great blog, by the way. Steel Mill photographs ?I have a request how about some steel mill photos? If anyone has any please post. If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything. Mark Twain What interests me mostare those old wooden bodied box cars of the now defunct New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad sitting on the company's siding. Many of these old time railroad cars were still in use well into the 1960's. "The New Haven", as it was commonly known, spent a good portion of its more than century of existence in derelict bankruptcy and trusteeship. Keeping equipment in good shape, other than motive power, was often something that was sacrificed in the name of financial savings. The New Haven was also a target of corporate takeovers and such by people like tycoon J.P. Morgan. I would love to know the history of that old passenger/baggage "combine" car sitting in the foreground. It is also of wooden bodied construction with open platforms and vestibules. At this point in its life, it seems to have been downgraded to a "boarding car", "maintenance-of-way" or work equipment. This was the fate that many old railroad passenger cars met before they were eventually retired or scrapped. Hello JackDe Chirico, indeed. The photographers on these pages were not only technically knowledgeable, but were real artists. I've known about well-known names like Walker Evans for ages, but Delano is a pleasant discovery for me. (The Gallery, Kodachromes, Factories, Jack Delano, Railroads)
Gym Taps: 1942
... the gymnasium at Iowa State College." Acetate negative by Jack Delano for the U.S. Office of the Coordinator of Information. View full size. ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 04/14/2023 - 10:40am -

May 1942. Ames, Iowa. "Tap dancing class in the gymnasium at Iowa State College." Acetate negative by Jack Delano for the U.S. Office of the Coordinator of Information. View full size. Wait a gosh darn minute!We were always told, "NO street shoes on the gym floor!" That was what "Sock Hops" were all about. I should think tap shoes, which the lady in the foreground has on, wouldn't be allowed. (The Gallery, Dance, Jack Delano, Pretty Girls)
Iron Dragon: 1943
... and Chillicothe, Illinois." Another of the many photos by Jack Delano documenting his trip on a freight train from Chicago to California. ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 11/24/2013 - 8:35am -

March 1943. "On the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe between Chicago and Chillicothe, Illinois." Another of the many photos by Jack Delano documenting his trip on a freight train from Chicago to California. View full size. For those of us in the North CountryIt's a beautiful picture, but I'm going to be looking at landscapes like this for the next five months. Wonderful, Jack!I just can not get enough of these terrific train pictures. Which reminds me -- anything ever from Lucius Beebe? [The occasional order for caviar and Champagne. - Dave] Ahhh, that's Lucius alright..... from ''The Pump Room''? #3259was 2-8-2 stationed at Chillicothe that met its fate in 1952. You may have driven around in a car with parts made from this beauty. Old Tea kettlesSP&S #700 is getting eready to make some runs the next few weekends as the HOLIDAY EXPRESS, here in Portland, Oregon. Along with SP #4449, SP&S #770 is one of two historic steam engines tha operate out of Portland, with a third one currently being restored to running condition. There is nothing like the sound of a Steam train and whistle. Is she "carrying green?"I'm referring to the flags that can be seen on either side atop the smoke box. Very difficult to tell in an old black&white photo. They may be very dirty white ones, however. Green signified "extra section(s) to follow," meaning the train was long enough that it was divided into more than one train. White flags meant it was "running extra" as an unscheduled train not listed on the timetable. Considering the date, March 1943, at the height of WWII, either designation was possible. The railroads were doing yoeman service hauling troops and freight for the war effort! (The Gallery, Jack Delano, Railroads)
Study Buddy: 1942
... at Iowa State College." Medium format acetate negative by Jack Delano. View full size. Dreaming of flights and a life too short In ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 04/14/2023 - 1:38pm -

May 1942. Ames, Iowa. "Sophomore Doris Clausen of Boone, Iowa, in a physiology class at Iowa State College." Medium format acetate negative by Jack Delano. View full size. Dreaming of flights and a life too shortIn 1944 (soon after her graduation) Doris Clausen married a fellow Boone County native, Wylie "Moon" Mullen, who would later graduate from the State University of Iowa (now U of I) College of Medicine. In addition to raising four children, Doris and Wylie bought an airport near Joliet, learned to fly small aircraft, and each received commercial, private and helicopter licenses. She died in 1966 (at age 43) near Hammond, Indiana, while working as a pilot. She was taking "Champagne Tony" Lema, a professional golfer and the winner of the 1964 British Open, his wife, and her co-pilot, from the Firestone tournament in Akron to the Lincolnshire Open. Ironically, the plane crash-landed on a golf course; witnesses said an engine cut out in midair. Her husband lived another 40 years as a doctor, then philanthropist, until his death in 2006. https://www.newspapers.com/image/330439635/?clipping_id=106217159&fcfTok... Bone of ContentionI always hated it when the teacher stood over me while I was trying to study. (The Gallery, Bizarre, Education, Schools, Jack Delano)
Bicycle Crossing: 1943
... on its way to Iowa ." Medium-format negative by Jack Delano for the Office of War Information. View full size. My Trusty ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 12/11/2014 - 12:07pm -

January 1943. "Freight train operations on the Chicago and North Western Railroad between Chicago and Clinton, Iowa. The train rushing through the town of Cortland Elmhurst, Illinois, on its way to Iowa." Medium-format negative by Jack Delano for the Office of War Information. View full size. My Trusty SteedLooks like the kid in the picture is riding an old Schwinn prewar bicycle. Likely an old DX frame style before they came out with the cantilever frame. I think Jack mixed up his captionsI'm fairly certain that we are in Elmhurst looking west towards the station from about Haven Road. If correct, that means the train is heading east, not towards Iowa. Maybe someone could link the Google street view? Nice photo, though. ElmhurstTrain is eastbound through Elmhurst, probably entering Proviso Yard. The tall bank building and other buildings can be seen on streetview. The track layout has not changed much over the years. Looks like ElmhurstIt looks like grubemed is correct. Here's the street view looking west from Haven Road in Elmhurst, IL. About two blocks west you can see the five storey building on the left of the photo. View Larger Map Some CNW quirks visibleThose horizontal signal heads were a peculiarity of the CNW, though they display perfectly conventional color light aspects. Another distinction hidden in the photo is left-hand running. When the main line was originally laid, the stations tended to be located on the south side of the tracks; when they double-tracked, the second track was laid on the north, and eastbound (to Chicago) traffic stay on the south track because commuter traffic would prefer to wait in the station inbound in the morning. Thanks BTW for the location update. I couldn't square the photo with Cortland but I couldn't quite convince myself it was Elmhurst either. (The Gallery, Bicycles, Jack Delano, Railroads)
The Experiment: 1942
... department at Iowa State College." Acetate negative by Jack Delano for the U.S. Office of the Coordinator of Information. View full size. ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 04/14/2023 - 1:10pm -

May 1942. Ames, Iowa. "Conducting diet and nutrition experiments on rats in the animal laboratory of the home economics department at Iowa State College." Acetate negative by Jack Delano for the U.S. Office of the Coordinator of Information. View full size. (The Gallery, Animals, Education, Schools, Jack Delano)
Defense Window: 1942
... defense bonds to Swedish farmers." Acetate negative by Jack Delano for the Office of War Information. View full size. What Happens ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 03/19/2023 - 12:28pm -

April 1942. "Swedish postmaster in a small Minnesota town selling defense bonds to Swedish farmers." Acetate negative by Jack Delano for the Office of War Information. View full size. What Happens In Minnesota Stays In MinnesotaThat fourth guy is a Norwegian imposter! Too close for comfortEspecially the hulking lad breathing down the youngster's neck. I recall from childhood that such lack of physical distancing between strangers was tolerated and even the norm in some circumstances. Such uninvited closeness, in a present day North American society queue up, would undoubtedly result in instantaneous verbal chastisement towards the perpetrator, I know it would from me. [I suspect the bunching up was at the photographer's request. - Dave] 40 years laterI had one of those savings bonds thanks to a grandfather. He paid I guess $17.50 for a $25 bond, and when it matured in the 80s it was worth about $75. Physical spaceYes, I'm certain the tight lineup was the photographer's request. This is a bunch of Scandinavian Minnesotans after all. (The Gallery, Jack Delano, WW2)
Union Station: 1943
... in Chicago. View full size. Medium-format negative by Jack Delano for the Office of War Information. Lovely! Wow! Now *that* is a ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 07/17/2012 - 10:09pm -

January 1943. The waiting room of Union Station in Chicago. View full size. Medium-format negative by Jack Delano for the Office of War Information. Lovely!Wow! Now *that* is a gorgeous picture! LightPhotography is about light and this photograph proves it. How on earth did Jack Delano get the exposure so right? I don't think professional photographers indulged in bracketing in the 1940s, not with expensive sheet film anyway. A truly great photograph. But then again, Delano is my favorite on these pages. [Jack took dozens of shots in this room. - Dave] The eye would see more"If I was standing in that room would it appear similar to the photo? Or is it being helped along with some clever camera work?" I suppose if you were there the beams would appear not quite so bright and the darks would present more detail since the eye can work over a wider range of illumination than film can. But the effect would be similar. Enough to make the photographer think "hey, that would make a great picture." AmazingHelp me out, I'm not a photographer, but not too slow to comprehend the process. If I was standing in that room would it appear similar to the photo? Or is it being helped along with some clever camera work? ThanksThanks, that was the exact sort of response i was looking for. WowWow!!! Now that's a great picture! Union StationGreat picture. Amazing light... Union StationThe blur of the man's foot suggest a fairly long exposure. not THAT long, though, since no one else is blurred. 1/15? 1/8? This is a situation where you use a whole roll of film and get exactly one "perfect" exposure. I wish I knew the aperture and film speed. [There was no roll here. This is sheet film. - Dave] Are my eyes playing tricks?!I have just found this website, actually I was directed here by one of my U.S. friends. This image has stopped me in my tracks, truly an artistic and wonderful image! Exposure timeI'm no expert so this may be wrong, but I see it this way--- as you lengthen the exposure time, the beams get brighter, and the dark parts become more visible, but the spots of direct sunlight stay the same because they are already fully exposed in a short time, so they can't get any whiter. Union StationI walk through this room every day. I am going to print out this photo on a high resolution color printer and try to figure out where the camera was positioned in the room. The room is oriented north to south, and the entrance in the photo is either the north or south side. The room as been remodeled extensively, but I would think the camera is pointed south, due to the light rays coming in. Since the sun is in the southern sky, you would not expect to see light rays coming in from the north. Given that the photo was taken in January, it should be possible to determine what the light conditions were for the photo. By the way, this room is at the bottom of the stairs made famous in the baby carriage scene from the Kevin Costner / Sean Connery movie "The Untouchables". If my guess about where the camera is set is correct, the stairs are behind the photographer. Union StationSince I posted my original comment, I have spent a few minutes in the main waiting room at different times each afternoon. I haven't seen the rays coming through, but I think the difference between Jan 1943 and Jan 2008 is level of light in the room. In 1943, energy conservation measures were in place, so only a handful of dim electric lights were on. In 1992, Union Station was remodeled, and the massive glass roof of the room was cleaned. I recalled reading at the time that the roof had been covered with paint or tar very early in the Stations history, and that the buildings management didnt realize that the massive vaulted ceiling was actually made of glass. That seems a bit unbelivable to me, and I can't find confirmation of that on the web. Today the room is used extensively for Corporate Events. The benches, which appear to be identical to the ones in the 1943 photo, are moved with forklifts. A large center information kiosk in the middle of the room is hidden under a wood panelled cover. The Wikipedia entry has a nice daylight shot of the room. You can clearly see how bright the room is now. You can also see the benches and the end of the room as shown in the 1943 photo. Magnificent photoIt looks like the photographer used a simple rule regarding black and white film that is still taught today--expose for the shadows. By doing that Mr. Delano captured the details you see: the people and background while the sunbeams blaze through the windows like spotlights. If he had exposed for the highlights, i.e. the windows, there would be no sunbeams, the shadows would likely be dark and this would have been a dull image. Rays of LightWe have forgotten how many people smoked at the time. As a kid in Philly's 30th Street station and later as a young adult in Chicago's Union Station, I have seen these rays at both depots at certain times of day. I've tried to re-create them on my 8x10 view camera at both stations. You can't. No one smokes inside so the air is not to be seen. Atmosphere (Literally)Good point, Large Format. I once worked for a BBC film producer who used a smoke machine and a water vapor mist machine to create "atmosphere" for interior set shots. Goober Pea Sunbeams?I'm a bit puzzled by this photo – wouldn't sunbeams project as straight, parallel lines? These seem to spread, thus the source of light must be very close. [Which might mean they're not sunbeams. - Dave] Re: Sunbeams?I believe this is simply sunlight: the apparent divergence of the rays of light is a common optical phenomenon known as crepuscular rays or "God's Rays." Beautiful...!Reminds me of John Collier's excellent grasp of a Norman-Rockwellish scene in Grand Central Terminal — a photo from 1941 also to be found here at Shorpy. (The Gallery, Chicago, Jack Delano, Railroads, WW2)
South Water Street Terminal: 1943
... of this terminal." 4x5 inch Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano for the Office of War Information. View full size. format You ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 01/11/2023 - 2:44pm -

April 1943. "Illinois Central R.R. freight cars at the South Water Street freight terminal, Chicago. The C & O and Nickel Plate Railroads lease part of this terminal." 4x5 inch Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano for the Office of War Information. View full size. formatYou asked about the format. It looks like 4x5. It's sheet film -- you can see the sheet film ID notches and and marks from the developing hangers, which are only used on sheet film. It's proportioned like 4x5 or 8x10. It looks like 4x5 because of the sizes of the notches and hanger marks relative to the size of the picture. I think that back in the early days Kodachrome was made in sheet film sizes. I can't read the ID on the edge of the image, but that should tell you. FormatThanks for the info. Along the edge it says "EASTMAN -- SAFETY -- KODAK 62" (they all seem to be KODAK 62 or KODAK 3) and in two places is the number 679. Some of the others also have 679. Others have 678 or 640. The dimensions seem to be about 4.3 by 3.4 inches. FormatIts 4x5 for sure. Thing I'd like to know is if it is indeed Kodachrome. I know 4x5 Kodachrome did exist in the 1950's. However I'm not sure about 1944. I tried looking up code notches on a Kodak web site but they didn't go back that far. I was able to confirm based on the notches that is at least on Safety Film and not a nitrate base. Steve Crise NumbersThe numbers indicate the batch number of a particular run of film. Photographer who shot may images over a short period of time always tried to buy film of the same batch number to try to insure some color consistancy from box to box of film. Steve Crise FilmThanks Steve! Here is one from 1943. I reversed it so the lettering isn't backward: https://www.shorpy.com/images/photos/1a34708u.jpg FormatIf the dimensions are indeed 4.3 by 3.4 inches, then this was most probably taken with a 3¼ X 4¼ Graflex, which was a popular professional camera of the time. Graflexes were big reflex cameras made from the 20s until after WW2. They lost their popularity to more modern equipment and today can be found only on eBay... FormatThe outside (uncropped) dimensions are 4x5. Many of these were taken with Speed Graphic press cameras. SkylineChicago certainly had a more elegant skyline back then, didn't it? (The Gallery, Kodachromes, Chicago, Jack Delano, Railroads)
Iowa State: 1942
... "On the campus at Iowa State College." Acetate negative by Jack Delano for the U.S. Office of the Coordinator of Information. View full size. ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 03/09/2023 - 8:14pm -

May 1942. Ames, Iowa. "On the campus at Iowa State College." Acetate negative by Jack Delano for the U.S. Office of the Coordinator of Information. View full size. Hey!Where's the ivy and the neckties? What's in all the backpacks? Somebody open a window. Why would someone put these metal handrails here? Who put those metal handrails there?For sure it wasn't a personal-injury lawyer. Hay is for horsesThat’s what my mom used to say whenever we opened with Hey! Anyhow, I work in a university building just over 125 years old, and we don’t have air conditioning, so we can still open our windows, thank goodness. But when we recently had the windows replaced, the new windows had limiting devices on them that prevented us from opening them more than four inches. (To guard against suicide plus falls out the window by babies whose heads are bigger than four inches across, and as we all know, university buildings are simply crawling with babies on the window sills.) We raised a hue and cry, and the limiting devices were removed. (The Gallery, Education, Schools, Jack Delano)
Cozy Kitchen: 1940
... springing up a few miles out of Bath." Acetate negative by Jack Delano. View full size. Genteel Poverty Despite the worn condition ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 02/04/2023 - 3:09pm -

December 1940. "Bath, Maine. War boom in a New England industrial town. Inside the home of Ralph Hart, a worker at the shipyards. The house is one of a small settlement of shacks springing up a few miles out of Bath." Acetate negative by Jack Delano. View full size. Genteel PovertyDespite the worn condition of the furniture, everything is clean and tidy. The occupants appear to have just stood up from a light supper of biscuits. And what's the significance of the arrangement on the wall—a key, a lock, a barometer, a 19th century print? There's a story worth telling here. I'm shivering,Just thinking of experiencing a Maine winter in that uninsulated shack. The stove at the photo's edge leads me to believe that the occupants will survive nicely, if they have an adequate supply of wood or coal to fuel it. There can be no denying, folks were made of tougher stuff back then. Maine ... DecemberThat peeling thick paper over clapboard sure makes me appreciate modern insulation. It's five degrees somewhereI'm a bit surprised there isn't a thermometer joining the barometer. "Well, those are for outside" you're thinking. With uninsulated walls, in the middle of winter, I'm not sure there's much difference. Spring Has SprungSurely a residence in this condition didn't recently "spring" up? It looks to have "sprung" up a decade or more ago. Regardless, after the hardships of the '30s the inhabitants are probably grateful for food, shelter and steady work. Hopefully the next five years and beyond brought them a prosperity they never dreamed of. PS: My first discretionary purchase would have been insulation. Maine winters are cold!!! Mom Would Recognize ThisMy mother spent her childhood in nearby Vermont, although she went to high school in Maine. At one point during the Great Depression, her family lived in a horse barn. Based on her description of that place, this photo would be very familiar to her. Re: "clean and tidy" by Matilda Fitzgerald. In her Yankee sensibility, Mom always said, "There's no shame in being poor if you're clean." Part of the storyI’d like to think the man and the woman of the house have just had coffee and biscuits with their guest, the photographer, Jack Delano, who managed to shoot the table without Mr. and Mrs. Hart around, while he was setting up the lights. Just wait!The fraying armrest on that chair is crying out for some duct tape, which sadly won't be invented until 1943 ... TemporaryI'm supposing that a defense industry job came open suddenly and Mr. Hart showed up, found a place to crash, picked up a few items in the local thrift shops and got to work. Maybe he has a roommate or two. Those are fine-looking biscuits so somebody in the place has kitchen skills. Ralph HartIt may be a coincidence, but the April 1940 census includes a 51-year-old Ralph Hart from Bath, whose occupation is listed as a fireman at a shipyard, who was then living six miles down the Kennebec River from Bath in Phippsburg. But seven sons and daughters between 19 and 4 were listed as living with him and his wife Eva (11 years younger), so if it's the same Ralph Hart, this "shack" may have been a home away from home for him and Eva. General ObservationI've been a lurker here for years, but never have anything useful or specifically relevant to say, so here's a general observation about all the photographs here. They all seem more vivid, alive, and real than other images I see on my computer screen. They show a real world of real people. I don't get a sense of the past frozen in time, it's like they're glimpses of lives being lived. When I look at news sites, contemporary events, nothing strikes me in this way. Thank you. (The Gallery, Jack Delano, Kitchens etc., WW2)
Pabst Over Chicago: 1943
... Central Railroad, Chicago." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano. View full size. Directionality I believe this photo is ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 05/07/2017 - 2:11pm -

May 1, 1943. "South Water Street freight depot of the Illinois Central Railroad, Chicago." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano. View full size. DirectionalityI believe this photo is facing north. Quite a few of the skyscrapers are still there. All the way to the left, the black & gold building is the Carbide & Carbon (or is it Carbon & Carbide?) building on Michigan Ave. I seem to remember something about it being the "first" skyscraper. Just to the right, with the little cupola on top, is the original Stone Container Building at Wacker & Michigan Avenues. Off in the furthest distance in the center of the photo you can see what was originally called the Pamolive building (it became Playboy Towers, and is now a condo building). I think the building behind the Pabst sign at the right edge of the sign is the Chicago Tribune building, and across from it (underneath the main part of the sign) you can see the white building that is the Wrigley building. They flank Michigan Ave. just north of the Chicago river. Fellow (ex-)ChicagoanDefinitely facing North, definitely the Carbon & Carbide building - my dad used to have an office there. Not sure about the Playboy Towers.... might that be the Drake Hotel? 33 to 1?Blended 33 to 1? That sounds like a strange formula to me...but of course I'm not informed on the whole beer and beer history thing. 33 to 1Here's a 1940 Pabst ad that explains it. NorthThere is no question about it, this photo is facing north. Good Railroad ShotThe blue flags placed on the cars would be a violation of federal regulations today as they now have to be located at the switch providing access to the track. Also, note that several of the cars are on "yard air" in order to test the brakes on each car prior to movement. Finally you can see that this photo provides good images of several different types of car ends all together in one place. As I am from Milwaukee, I have no clue as to which buildings are which! I do know that the photo is definitely facing north as I now work for the South Shore commuter railroad and am familiar with the lakefront. I also know that the original Santa Fe railroad corporate headquarters was almost directly to the west of this photo and is still there today with the Santa Fe sign on top. It is now an historic landmark. Bootcamp BeerI went to Navy bootcamp in Great Lakes Il. in 1983 and after spending 10 wks. without beer our first chance to have a brew came. Unfortunatly for me the ONLY beer avaliable to us at the time was Pabst Blue Ribbon. Now, not being a Pabst fan I was very unhappy about that but after 10 tough weeks I said "what the heck" and ordered a couple of beers. I'll tell you what, that was the best beer I've ever had. I got so drunk the rest of the day was blur. I'd like to say "Thanks you Pabst" for the best beer ever and day I don't remember. Water Street DepotIt appears we are looking north from either Monroe or Randolph. I want to say we're looking from Monroe and that bridge spanning the width of the pic under the sign is Randolph. The row of low-rise buildings on the left side of the pic that are ~6 stories tall and have the water towers on top of them would then be on the east side of Michigan Ave and sitting directly on the north side of Randolph. I believe these trains are in the area east of Michigan Ave and north of Monroe, but south of Randolph as it used to be a railyard (now Millennium Park, north of the Art Institute). Furthermore there were never any buildings previously on this spot, as it would have either been a rail yard or part of Grant Park (where no buildings were allowed to be built, except for the Art Institute). This leads me to believe that we are looking north from Monroe towards Randolph and beyond. The vast empty space behind the Pabst sign spanning the whole width of the image would now be occupied by Illinois Center, the Prudential Building and of course the tall white AON Building (3rd largest in Chciago at the moment), or whatever they call it these days. Pabst SignCan anybody tell me if this sign was was animated and are there any night time shots of it? [The nighttime shot of this neon sign is here. - Dave] AnimationThanks Dave, do you know if the sign was animated in any way? [The hands on the clock moved! If you mean did various parts of the sign blink on and off, I don't know. - Dave] ChicagoI see the tallest building to the far left when I'm going to and from school. It's surrounded by a bunch of other buildings now. Chevrolet SignThis is a film clip of another Chicago sign. It shows how animated signs were operated. I can't find any date, but the technology looks like 1940 or so. http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/410104.html Chevrolet SignAfter viewing this clip of the Chevy sign, I'm fairly convinced that it and the 'Pabst' sign are one and the same. Shown in the clip of the Chevy sign is the same tall building that is located to the left of the Pabst sign in the photo. There are other similarities as well, like the circular design of the sign, the clock at the lower right, etc. It's my guess that Pabst took over the sign after Chevy and made the slight changes to suit their logo. South Water Street TodayThis photo is facing North on South Water Street and intersecting roughly what is now Columbus Drive. The ground level of this photograph is now covered by an elevated roadway in this area. If you went to this spot today, the Pritzker Pavilion at Millennium Park designed by Frank Gehry would be just behind you. The Playboy Building is visible in the background, now once again called the Palmolive Building and converted to condominiums. It sits between the Drake Hotel and John Hancock Tower at the end of the Magnificent Mile. The Drake is not tall enough to be in view here. The Allerton Hotel and Northwest University Law School in Streeterville are also visible here, which they wouldn't be today from the site, although they are still standing. Several of the mid-rise buildings in this photograph are no longer standing, in particular the large red-brick warehouse at the center mid-ground, to the right of the Playboy/Palmolive. This is where the NBC Tower now stands, just north of the river. Driving and DrinkingThis was indeed the Chevy sign. Pabst took it over. You can still make out the Chevy logo in the superstructure of the sign. The lower left hand corner of the "B" in Blue and the upper right hand corner of the N in "Ribbon" served as the edges of the classic Chevy "bowtie" logo. Going to ChicagoIt's interesting to think that Muddy Waters would have just arrived in Chicago when this photo was taken. Pabst signThe Pabst sign was next to Randolph Street Bridge; refer to the 1922 Zoning map that is available at the University of Chicago library site - the Illinois Central may very well have called the yard the 'Water Street Yard,' but Water Street moved to the South Side when Wacker Drive was created after 1924; the Pabst sign was located nearest the Randolph Street bridge and is the current location of the Prudential Building, not the Pritzker Pavillion. Warehouse full of booksI believe the red brick warehouse-like building on the right (east) of the photo survived into at least the 1980s, serving as the temporary home of the Chicago Public Library's main branch after it moved from what is now the Cultural Center (location of many shots in DePalma's "The Untouchables" and just out of camera range to the left) and before the opening of the Harold Washington Library Center. I used their manual typewriters and xerox machines to peck out and photocopy my resume. Why Boxcars are blue-flaggedThese boxcars are blue-flagged because they have both their doors open and gangplanks spanning the openings between cars on adjacent tracks. This is also why they are all 40-foot cars and are all lined up with each other. Less-than-Carload (LCL) freight is being handled here! This something that US railroads have discontinued; for decades, they haven't accepted any shipment less than one car load. As effective highway trucks were developed, they took this trade away from the RR's for obvious reasons. But, back in the 1940's, RR's would handle a single crate! This required sorting en route, which is what is being done here. There's a large shift of workers shuffling LCL from one car to another by way of the side platforms and the above-mentioned gangplanks. The LCL required local freight crews to handle this stuff into and out of the freight stations, and required station agents to get the cargo to and from customers, collect charges, etc. Very labor-intensive, yet somehow the trucking companies do it at a profit. From Pabst To Rolling Rock Beer "33"This photograph has also added another “answer” to the question: “What does the “33” on the label of a bottle of Rolling Rock Beer mean?” http://www.snopes.com/business/hidden/rolling.asp One person seeing this photograph concluded on a Rolling Rock Beer forum that the Rolling Rock "33" may have referenced the smoothness of blending “33 to 1.” http://toms.homeunix.net/toms/locFSA-OWIkodachromes/slides/blended33to1.... Makes you feel like a heroEven now, when I get a color transparency (2 1/4x2 1/4 or 4x5) and look at if for the first time, it is stunning. I can't imagine what it must have looked like to someone seeing it color for the first time ever! Sign BackgroundIf you look closely at the superstructure of the sign you can see the slogan "Blended 33 to 1" in the framework, which is seen far better in the nighttime shot Dave linked to. As to whether this would be considered animation I don't know, but a typical setup would be to light the Pabst Blue Ribbon sign, then switch to the "Blended" slogan, then light both. Don't know if that was done here. Those catwalksThe "down-the-throat" shot of those catwalks atop of the freight cars gives the viewer a good idea of what the brakeman had to deal with while setting the brakes. The uneveness of those platforms, even at a standstill, is enough to make the average person think twice about climbing up and traversing these planks. Before airbrakes became the norm, this had to be one of the most harrowing jobs a railroad worker had to face. And this would be on a nice calm day. With rain, wind or snow, even the most seasoned brakeman must've had second thoughts. Blue Flags?Mr. Leaman pointed out the blue flags were being displayed incorrectly by todays rules. But not being a train enthusiast, what did they indicate in the first place? Blue-FlaggedAny rolling stock or engine that is "blue-flagged" cannot be moved unless the person who placed the flag removes it. It's a safety rule, and for the protection of the workers, many of whom are between or under the cars. The iconic "Santa Fe" sign referred to in earlier posts is now on display at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, IL - not too far from Chicago and well worth the trip! http://www.irm.org The early brakeman's plightJKoehler, I read somewhere that a conductor remarked about brakemen in the days when cars used link-and-pin couplers, "If they still have their thumbs after three months, they must be really lazy!" Phantom Memory of a huge Chicago Phillips 66 Sign?For decades I’ve had a childhood memory of seeing a huge Phillips 66 sign atop the Chicago skyline, while driving with my family in the “wayback” of the family station wagon on the way to visit our grandparents in Iowa. We were coming from Michigan, and driving on Chicago streets because the still-under-construction Interstate Highway System still had gaps. (We were probably driving on/towards westbound US-30.) I remember being in awe of a big neon Phillips 66 sign receding in the distance as my dad drove west. It was a wide straight street, very busy. The sign had lots of neon motion, even in the daylight. This memory (if real), would have been somewhere between about 1963 - 1968. But am I mistaken? Did the Phillips 66 sign never exist, and could this Papst sign be the one I saw? (The Gallery, Kodachromes, Chicago, Jack Delano, Railroads)
Bettering Butter: 1942
... effects of acids on flavor of butter." Acetate negative by Jack Delano. View full size. Acids in Butter Butyric acid (the name comes ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 03/10/2023 - 1:35pm -

May 1942. "Iowa State College. Ames, Iowa. Miss Jeanne Dougherty, graduate in Bacteriology, working in the laboratory in the Dairy Industry Department. She is conducting experiments on the effects of acids on flavor of butter." Acetate negative by Jack Delano. View full size. Acids in ButterButyric acid (the name comes from the Greek word for butter) is another saturated fatty acid in butter. It smells like vomit when isolated and some people are quite sensitive to it and won't eat cheeses that have some, such as parmesan. The concentration is about 2% in butter. It is normally part of a triglyceride but breaks away when butter becomes rancid, accounting for much of the undesirable odor. Miss Dougherty is distilling a sample and capturing butyric and other fatty acids as they boil off. She knows what she's doingShorpy must be kept on a low heat, so he doesn't coagulate. Aside from that -- why would you want to know how acids affect the taste of butter? Of what acids do we speak? [Butter is over two-thirds saturated fatty acids -- palmitic acid, stearic acid, myristic acid, etc. - Dave] Future WAVE and Pharmacy Mate 1st ClassAccording to the obituary of Jeanne Dougherty McDonald (1918-2008), in 1943 she enlisted as a Navy WAVE and served two years at the Oak Knoll Naval Hospital in Oakland, California, and six months at Great Lakes Naval Hospital in Illinois, attaining the rank of Pharmacy Mate 1st Class. Upon her discharge in 1945 she worked at the Mayo Clinic for over two years before returning to her hometown of Waukon, Iowa (in the state's far northeastern corner), to marry Mr. McDonald. Like her parents, she and her husband went into the restaurant business. They also operated a Dolly Madison Dairy, where the skills she learned as a grad student in bacteriology at Moo U (as Hawkeye fans derisively call it) no doubt benefited the customers. Ahead of Her TimeWatch that Bunsen burner carefully, or you might discover CRISPR. Quite a Fancy setup there.But it's available in any Vape shop these days. Ah, Progress -- Learning modelFortunately she decided not to pursue her studies under Dr. Karloff. (The Gallery, Education, Schools, Jack Delano)
Mary & John: 1942
... building at Iowa State College." Acetate negative by Jack Delano for the U.S. Office of the Coordinator of Information. View full size. ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 03/17/2023 - 1:32pm -

May 1942. Ames, Iowa. "Miss Mary Louise Long of Chicago and John Staley of Maryland look up drawings in the files at the landscape architecture building at Iowa State College." Acetate negative by Jack Delano for the U.S. Office of the Coordinator of Information. View full size. Archived drawingsIt's true that copy methods such as Xerox weren't around when this photo was made, but drawings could still be reproduced, and fairly cheaply. Drawings stored in those flat files likely were original, hand-drawn plans in ink or pencil on linen or (paper) vellum. The process a hundred years ago would have been blueprinting. At the time of this photo it would have been blue-line (diazo) printing. True blueprints are before my time, but pen and ink drafting and blueline printing were part of my livelihood "back in the day". Starting in about 1980, computer drafting began to make inroads, though drawings were still printed out first on pen plotters and later on large-format inkjet printers and then reproduced by blue-line. Today things are pretty much universally digital -- computer drafting, digital storage and direct printing. Iowa State (Ames) was my school, too. That Architecture department had a focus more on technology than design. One result of that was that people who were great at drawing and design but weak in the engineering courses ended up in the Landscape Architecture program, where they did beautiful drawings that put the architects to shame. Their great grandchildren will never knowwhat it was to go through drawer after drawer of drawings, maps, etc. to find what you're looking for. Then you had to make a sketch or write a description of what you wanted to remember, because copiers didn't hit the market until 1959 and you would have to use up a whole roll of film if you took a photograph. How did Mary Louise and John ever get anything done? [1959 was when the Haloid Xerox plain-paper office copier was introduced. (The Haloid Model A xerographic copier came out in 1950.) Filmless photocopiers (Photostats) for large documents like architectural drawings go back to the early 20th century. - Dave] Nice place to park yourself.*cough* Must have!I love those drawers! Perfect for artwork paper. And treasure maps! JHSJohn Hedges Staley Jr. (1918-2015) Occupation in 1950: Landscape Architect (The Gallery, Education, Schools, Jack Delano)
Christiansted High: 1941
        Jack Delano on assignment in the Caribbean. Delano, born Jacob Ovcharov in Russia, ... in the Christiansted high school." Acetate negative by Jack Delano. View full size. Makes a teacher glad I have taught kids ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 02/01/2019 - 12:47pm -

        Jack Delano on assignment in the Caribbean. Delano, born Jacob Ovcharov in Russia, grew so enamored of the islands that he moved to Puerto Rico in 1946. December 1941. "Christiansted, Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. Class in the Christiansted high school." Acetate negative by Jack Delano. View full size. Makes a teacher gladI have taught kids of this age, and rarely seen such universal engagement, as in this photo. Especially impressive as it's probably sunny and 77 outside. Style all aroundI can't help thinking that those kids had a better sense of dressing style than our contemporaries. And for integrated schooling they appear to be like 20 years or more ahead of much of the mainland. (The Gallery, Education, Schools, Jack Delano)
Tommy Dorsey: 1942
... school in Chicago." Medium format acetate negative by Jack Delano. View full size. Before ICs It's always a tube or blown ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 01/25/2023 - 8:09pm -

April 1942. "Chicago, Illinois -- Mr. Thomas Dorsey, radio technician, in William H. Green's radio and electrical store. Mr. Dorsey is an expert radio repairman and studied at the Tilden technical school in Chicago." Medium format acetate negative by Jack Delano. View full size. Before ICsIt's always a tube or blown filter condenser. Caution, the chassis metal is directly connected to a random side of the AC line. Probably a few bad filter capsNow that's a cool shop, Mr. Dorsey! The test equipment they have is pretty impressive. I hope that both Dorsey and Green made a decent living from their radio repairs. Tommy's Alma MaterStill going strong as Tilden Career Community Academy High School. Established in 1881 as Lake High School, renamed Tilden High School in 1915, became an all-boys technical school in 1919, coed in 1960. Electro-mechanical eventsOr maybe sometimes a mouse chewed up a dial cord. Mrs. Dorsey's Lament"Thomas, you've been putting your wire cutters in your coat pocket again." Tilden TechMy father-in-law went to Tilden Tech back in the 1940s. It was a preparatory high school that specialized in industrial technology, preparing its pupils for a career in the industrial trades. My father who also grew up in Chicago, went to Lane Tech which also was a preparatory high school that offered similar industrial trade training programs. It is a crying shame that we do not have more of these schools today. Yet Another Thomas DorseyThomas A. Dorsey (1899-1993) was a musician and composer of religious music. His best known song, "Take My Hand, Precious Lord," was sung by Mahalia Jackson at the funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr. What's In A Name?Mr. Thomas Dorsey working hard to make sure the store's customers have their radios repaired to hear Tommy Dorsey, the "Sentimental Gentleman of Swing" on the radio. The latter Dorsey worked steadily in radio during the 1940s, playing live “remote” broadcasts and hosting shows of his own. During 1946, Tommy Dorsey had no fewer than four weekly programs over the Mutual Broadcasting System and NBC. Ahead of His TimeJust noticed the cool-looking digital clock on top of one of the pieces of Philco test equipment on the right. Oscilloscope is gathering dustThat oscilloscope at the left was a newfangled diagnostic tool at the time, but not much use on AM radios. It would be a lot more useful ten years later when television became the shop's priority. ClockI had one of those "flipper" clocks in 1970, and I thought they were a new type of clock. Now I see that they date back to the forties. [The numerals on these don't flip. They rotate. - Dave] Test equipmentI can recognize a tube tester, an oscilloscope and a voltmeter. What is the Philco device the clock is sitting on? Some kind of signal generator? Maybe a frequency generator? [The nameplate says PHILCO SIGNAL GENERATOR. - Dave] (Technology, The Gallery, Chicago, Jack Delano, Stores & Markets)
White Flash: 1943
... here was figuring out that crazy clamshell hood. Photo by Jack Delano for the Office of War Information. View full size. It looks like ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 09/30/2013 - 5:59pm -

June 1943. "Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Women garage attendants at the Atlantic Refining Company." The hard part here was figuring out that crazy clamshell hood. Photo by Jack Delano for the Office of War Information. View full size. It looks like aLaSalle. [Not even close. - Dave] I think it's a1942 Dodge. [Correct! -Dave] West Philly GasI would suggest the image is taken from the southwest corner of Chestnut Street at Markoe Street (now called Farragut St)in West Philadelphia, looking towards the large natural gas storage tank at 47th and Chestnut. The gas tank is gone, but a BP station remains where these ladies were checkin' under the hood. Gasoline and GasAnother great view of a gasometer right behind them. Would not want to be there if that thing blew up! Full ServiceI remember full service back in the day when the attendant would check your oil, clean your windshield and maybe even check your tire pressure. But the young lady with the whisk broom? What's she going to do, sweep out the interior? That's really full service. Rethinking West Philly "Gas"The gas stored in containers like these would be of the manufactured variety-- a by-product of a coal carbonization process that yielded a gas that was both toxic and heavier than air at atmospheric densities. In those days, manufactured gas consumers could and did asphyxiate themselves by simply turning on an unlit stove burner in their home. It was the toxic constituents in the gas that did them in. Save for legacy manufacturing sites subject to environmental remediation, manufactured gas has been almost totally supplanted by natural gas as piped to customers through distribution utilities. "Natural gas" as we consumers know it today comes out of the ground, is delivered through interstate pipelines, and is odorless until the mercaptan odorant is added for safety. Dress Shoes?Looks like the ladies are wearing loafers (without socks, too). I guess workplace regulations at that time did not require steel toe work boots. My mechanic says he would never work without them; he's lost track of how many times he's dropped something on his foot.... PantsLove the cargo pants part of the coveralls ... although the cuffs need work. Last Call for CarsThis would be one of only 22,055 Dodge Custom four-door sedans built in that war-shortened year (more may have been made for government use), but I'm sure it had Fluid Drive to absorb some of its 101 horsepower from a slightly enlarged flathead six. There was an even rarer (13,000 built) example of the less expensive DeLuxe sedans with the blacked out trim here in town as late as the 70's and I've always wished I'd bought it! Lost inspirationIf the writers of the "I Love Lucy" show back in the early fifties had seen this photo, there would probably have been a classic episode of Ethel Mertz and Lucy working at an auto service center. Oh well, you can always write your own. Bumper JackIf you enlarge the photo and look just left of the left knee of the lady on the right, you can see the reflection of the photographer, Jack Delano, in the shiny car bumper as he is taking the photo. That CornerHistoricAerials.com still shows those billboards on top of the Buick dealer on the northeast corner of 47th & Chestnut streets in 1950. The gasholder is on the northwest corner. (The Gallery, Cars, Trucks, Buses, Gas Stations, Jack Delano, Philadelphia)
Pittsburgh: 1941
... Pennsylvania." Medium-format nitrate negative by Jack Delano for the FSA. View full size. Haunting Sad but yet beautiful ... photographs from the late 1930s. Hats off to Jack Delano and all the FSA photographers. "Paper Streets" I ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 12/22/2018 - 11:03am -

January 1941. "Long stairway in mill district of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania." Medium-format nitrate negative by Jack Delano for the FSA. View full size. HauntingSad but yet beautiful photograph. You can hear the ice crunching under the woman's steps on the long stairway. Would love to see a picture today to see what remains. When the mills closedI moved to Pittsburgh (Ambridge) in 1980 and the sky was yellow. By 1984 when I left the sky was blue...most of the mills had closed. This scene could be anywhere in the Pittsburgh area and is really representative of what it was like. Except for the vintage car, I've been in this scene. I don't understand why I'm coughing......maybe it's the pollen??? Less smoggy, still cloudyWell, the hills are still there! The mills, not so much. The smell of moneyLooks downright Dickensian. There is a pulp mill out in the bay near where I live. For decades it belched a foul smelling brew of toxins from the stacks until the owners were forced to install scrubbers to clean up the exhaust. Now you'd hardly know it was there. When someone would complain to my friend's dad, who worked there for decades, he would reply, "That's the smell of money." City StepsA few years ago Bob Regan documented these stairways in a book called "The Steps of Pittsburgh." There are some 700 stairways all over the city. From the publisher's website: Many of Pittsburgh's steps are legal streets, and all of them reflect the city's unique topography and history. Together, these 712 sets of steps provide a vital link in the city's transportation system as well as unusual challenges for pedestrians, joggers, the bike police, and especially pizza delivery. . . . San Franciscans like to boast about their steps and consider them a top tourist attraction, but they "only" have 350 sets. Cincinnatians do the same, but claim a mere 400. Neither have steps that are legal streets. Pittsburgh is clearly King of the Steps and a place beloved by the self-propelled. Whether you're an active step trekker or an armchair climber, The Steps of Pittsburgh should be on your to-do list! Every year there's an event called the Step Trek that takes participants all over the steps on the South Side Slopes. It's pretty cool and great exercise! Thanks for the beautiful photograph. Led ZeppelinI was raised in a small, very industrial Connecticut town in the 1940's which had a similar wooden staircase from Main Street over the railroad tracks. When we had to attend church, it was necessary to ascend these many, many stairs, after which we were faced with a steep, almost straight up hill, to get to the level of tiers on which our church stood. It was so steep, the concrete was scored about every inch to give better footing and in icy, snowy weather, it was a real challenge. I used to think of it as a stairway to Heaven, and then the title above came out with their hit song. I thought of it first. The town was Seymour, for all you doubting Thomases. The church was St. Augustine's. Good day. Smoke ControlPittsburgh passed strict (for the time) environmental laws a year later, in 1941. What they called "smoke control" back then was delayed until after the war, but went into effect in 1946 and cleaned up the city's air well before the steel industry went south. Smoke Gets in Your EyesMy dad visited cousins in Pittsburgh around the same time this photo was taken. He spoke of sitting on the front porch and watching soot settle on the railing. Hell with its hat offI saw that caption on a picture of a Pittsburgh populated by stacks belching smoke in the bad old industrial days. My daughter is studying ballet there now. It's a different place, really an beautiful city. Not hard to find reminders of those days, though -- soot-blackened buildings and decrepit factory sites. Bisbee, ArizonaAnother vertical metallurgical town where stairways take the place of streets. Three shirt townThey used to call Pittsburgh a three shirt town. You'd wear one in the morning until the sweat and soot mixture was turning your collar gray, then change into another at lunch, and then into a third at dinnertime. I Had No IdeaI had no idea that Pittsburgh was a city of steps. You learn something every day. Thanks for posting this beautiful picture. Photos of some of the city's steps here (http://www.frontiernet.net/~rochballparks2/towns/pgh_steps.htm) for those as ignorant as I of the wonders of Pittsburgh! Epic PicThis is an epic capture. Its like a frame from some Academy Award bait movie. This image is as fantastic to me as something from the new Star Trek movie - and I mean that as a compliment. So inclinedMy son delivers appliances in Pittsburgh, a challenge in that city. And watching a cable guy run a new wire is like having a front row seat a Cirque du Soleil. One of our roofers lives on one of these "stairway streets". He says that there are 214 stair steps to reach his front door and that the number one rule in his household is that you never enter or leave empty-handed. Those Steps...........look like a heart attack waiting to happen. I'm surprised someone didn't rig up some type of trolley to get from one end to the other (both ways). Dig Sixteen TonsAngular staircase, belching factory, grim lack of scenery: Makes me think of the bleak urban intro to Joe Versus the Volcano. Gotta hope someone in one of those houses has a hula lamp. Honore SharrerYesterday's New York Times carried the obituary of Honore Sharrer, "a noted American artist of the 1940s and afterward whose bold, witty, incisive paintings documented the daily experiences of ordinary working people. Known for their jewel-like colors and painstaking attention to detail, her paintings were purposely flat, hyperrealistic and strongly narrative in their depiction of everyday life." It doesn't have anything to do with this particular photograph, but I found this part of the obituary to be of interest to Shorpyites: Ms. Sharrer’s masterwork, critics widely agree, is her painting “Tribute to the American Working People.” A five-image polyptych that recalls a medieval or Renaissance altarpiece, it is more than two yards long and a yard high and took five years to paint. Its central figure, a factory worker, is flanked by smaller scenes of ordinary people at a picnic, in a parlor, on a farm and in a schoolroom. Completed in 1951, the painting was unveiled that year at Ms. Sharrer’s first solo exhibition, at the Knoedler Galleries in New York. Reviewing the exhibition in The New York Times, Stuart Preston called “Tribute” “a notable contemporary American painting” and “a bold, frank and fine achievement.” “Tribute,” which is in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution, was the subject of an exhibition there in 2007 devoted exclusively to it. Titled “Anatomy of a Painting: Honoré Sharrer’s ‘Tribute to the American Working People,’ ” the exhibition featured much of Ms. Sharrer’s source material, including Farm Security Administration photographs from the late 1930s. Hats off to Jack Delano and all the FSA photographers. "Paper Streets"I live in this neighborhood. The term we use is "paper streets" because on the city map, they look like any other street, but that's only on paper. My girlfriend has called me in tears when her Garmin couldn't get her home because it wanted her car to take staircases. These sets of steps also all have street signs like any other city roadways. Paper Alley"Paper streets" are common here in Pittsburgh and the suburbs, but most common are "paper alleys." There is one directly across the street from me that runs up the side, then in back of all of the houses. It's now covered in grass and woods (and I imagine it has been this way for at least 90 years). My parents used to fight the boro to let them take ownership of the "property," however they have not budged in 35 years. Funny how the local gov't doesn't want to take care of it, and after my parents stopped, the neighbor does on the other side. Love Pittsburgh!I have lived in Pittsburgh all 23 years of my life. I would never live anywhere else. It's sad we can't get this smoke-ridden image out of the minds of people. This is nothing like the city today. Pittsburgh is a beautiful, growing city that is leading the way in green technology. After the steel industry collapse, the city plummeted into debt. Now, we are a shining example. Anyways, that misconception will be shattered with the hosting of the G-20 Summit here in September! Pay attention to the news around that time. Anyways, this is still a great image. You cannot deny this city's history, and the steel industry was vital to the US, especially during WWII. Pittsburgh has always been a pivotal cornerstone in American (and world) history. Does anybody know where this mill is located? Warhol-landThis is the Pittsburgh that artist Andy Warhol was born into in 1928. When this picture was made, a 12-year-old Warhol was living with his family in a house on a soot-covered hillside in a neighborhood just like this. It's Tullymet StreetThese steps connect Sylvan Avenue and Chance Way in the city's Hazelwood neighborhood. The old wooden steps have been replaced with concrete. The house sitting just out of the frame is gone along with most of the homes on Sylvan. [Thanks for the answer to a longstanding question! - Dave] First Three homes are still thereIt looks as if the first 3 homes in the middle of the picture are still there. So cool to finally know where this photo was taken! many thanks to sinking_ship for solving that mystery! This is still one of the most beat up areas in the 'burghWhen I return via Allegheny County airport in W. Mifflin, we always pass thru this area on our way to Oakland. It's pretty sad now but still very recognizable from this photo. My foreign born wife immediately recognized the neighborhood just from the lay of the land. Back in the early 70s I worked the last in-city blast furnaces at Jones & Laughlin steel just down the road towards Oakland. Very glad I had the chance to touch the history before it was gone. Been thereI lived in the third house in from 1953/1960. Glad my house is still there. First Two HomesSince the photo of first three homes still standing was submitted, the third one in is now gone also...along with pretty much everything in the 1940 photo... (The Gallery, Factories, Jack Delano, Pittsburgh)
Cranbury-Bound: 1940
... of the folks last seen here -- 12 years ago! Photo by Jack Delano for the Farm Security Administration. View full size. Original ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 04/30/2021 - 8:30pm -

July 1940. "Near Shawboro, North Carolina. Group of Florida migrants on their way to Cranberry [i.e., Cranbury], New Jersey, to pick potatoes." Some of the folks last seen here -- 12 years ago! Photo by Jack Delano for the Farm Security Administration. View full size. Original caption writer nodsI believe the original caption was intended to refer to Cranbury, a nice little town a few miles east of Princeton. That Tie!This young man is barefoot, but still rocking a tie! Looks ready for a fight to protect everything they have strapped to that car. Amazing photo. Tag10 = Broward County Boxer PoseThe young man is giving his all to his inner Joe Lewis. Rough RoadsThe collision damage may have helped get it started, but that crack on the front fender is a stress crack from the constant shaking and bouncing of the rough ride. Car ID1935 Studebaker Dictator. [1934, not 1935. - Dave] Solution to a knotty problemMy son's solution: "If you can't tie a knot, tie a lot." (He resisted my instruction in this matter.) American BeautyI highly recommend to everybody to follow Dave’s “last seen here” link to see one of the all-star Shorpy photos of all time. If there are any more with that amazing woman in them, I would love to see them, please. Unfortunate NameThe rise of Adolf Hitler prompted Studebaker to abruptly discontinue the name "Dictator" in 1937, resurrecting the Commander name, which had been dropped in 1935. For that reason, maybe you could get these newish cars cheap. Still, asking 1,300 hard miles from it was a risky proposition. The Pep Boys lost their case In 1938 The Pep Boys—Manny, Moe & Jack tried to prevent Pure Oil from using the term "Pep" in their advertisements, unfortunately for them they lost their case. The Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office reports: THE PEP BOYS - MANNY, MOE AND JACK v. AMERICAN OIL COMPANY, Cancellation No. 2870. In a decision rendered April 21, 1938 ( 163 Ms. Dec. 24 ), Assistant Commissioner Frazer held that American Oil Company, of Peoria, Ill., was entitled to register the term “ Pep ” as a trade - mark for gasoline and fuel oil for combustion motors, and that the registration which it had obtained should not be cancelled. The ground of the decision is that the petitioner for cancellation has not shown itself to be damaged with the registration and that the word is not descriptive of the goods. (The Gallery, Agriculture, Cars, Trucks, Buses, Jack Delano, Kids)
Winter Street: 1940
... Slum area where many shipyard workers live." Photo by Jack Delano. View full size. Grouchomobile That car just needs a pair of ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 02/05/2023 - 10:44pm -

December 1940. "Winter Street, Quincy, Massachusetts. A Syrian neighborhood near the shipyards. Slum area where many shipyard workers live." Photo by Jack Delano. View full size. GrouchomobileThat car just needs a pair of glasses and bushy eyebrows. Maybe a grease moustache. Don't see too many grille covers these days, even in the northeast US. [The car: 1937 Ford. - Dave] Lots still there! Watch mePark right next to the No Parking sign. There is gentrification going on nowIn the array of slums we have seen on Shorpy, this looks relatively livable. The house on the left is still there, recognizable below. If you move down the street, past the greenery on the right, whatever was there has been replaced by some nice, new apartments. If you go the the T-intersection and turn right onto E Howard Street, the old factory building disappears. "Home" is a four-letter word, tooThe phrase "slum" seems to have been used quite loosely here -- as evidenced by the number of buildings that are still extant, 80+ years later -- perhaps an ominous foreshadowing of the coming decades when "blight" became a catchall phrase to get rid of ... well, almost anything that someone in power didn't like. Worth a VisitI used to live in Quincy, and recommend a visit to The Old House at Peace Field, the home of Presidents John and J.Q. Adams and several later generations. Most Presidential homes feel like museums, but it's easy to imagine the Adams family puttering around Peace Field. Quincy also claims to be the site of the first Howard Johnson's restaurant; the location is now occupied by the Wollaston T station. My how times have changed!Personally, I think the slum shot shown above looks better than the slums today. Cold winter nosesThe curbside Ford's owner has provided its nose with a makeshift winter radiator grille cover to aid in faster winter engine warmups and better heat retention when underway. Happy owner now enjoys warm fingers and nose thanks to a comfortably temperate car interior. Concerns though, about the cold-nosed Kitty, clambering onto the the left front tire. Is it contemplating a way to access that enticingly warm, under-hood location provided by the recently parked, still warm '37? Be careful Kitty, countless tails and various other cat appendages have been mutilated or torn off in similar, deceivingly inviting, paw-thawing hideouts! Old housing yes but no slums there.The shipyard in the background is now long gone. The brick building was the headquarters of Bethlehem Ship Yard, owned by Bethlehem Steel. Later it was sold to General Dynamics. 7000, seven thousand men and women worked there in three shifts around the clock. They built Navy ships and in later years liquid natural gas tankers. It was the bread and butter for hard-working men and women. As to Winter Street, it may look old and rickety but it was a clean neighborhood of families and shipyard workers. It still stands today but the Shipyard is now a stinking parking lot for an automobile distributor. A waste of valuable land and deep water docking. Anything hiding under there?Inquisitive cat peeking up under the Ford's left front fender. Slum?What good is making a comment if it just gets tossed. Don't give me the so many comments talk, there were two or more comments submitted beyond mine and they were published. I'll think twice before I support this site. [No need to stop at twice. - Dave] Big things happening beyond the end of Winter StreetWhen this photo was taken, the Fore River Shipyards in Quincy were ramping up their operations in case the United States entered World War II. Construction was underway on the battleship USS Massachusetts (BB-59) and light cruisers USS San Diego (CL-53) and San Juan (CL-54) - all three of which were still afloat and in action at the war's end. Now a museumThe shipyard is gone. Not sure where shipbuilding is still happening, but it's not in Massachusetts. I think the labor costs for one of the most expensive metro areas in the country got to be too much, and the shipyards were deemed "inefficient". That was in the 1980s. The Reagan Administration hit the off switch in 1981. By 1986, General Dynamics shut this spot down. A sliver of silver lining. The yard has been repurposed for some local businesses, including dredging and chemical fertilizer depots. There is also a museum dedicated to the Quincy shipbuilding tradition. And yes, it is used as a car distribution lot for dealers - for American cars. The Google map view shows the vehicle awaiting a home are Chevrolets, Jeeps, and GMC trucks. Much smaller than ships, but still helping the US economy. (The Gallery, Cats, Jack Delano)
Bagdad: 1943
... between Needles and Barstow." Medium-format negative by Jack Delano for the Office of War Information. View full size. Bagdad's ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 09/05/2012 - 6:07pm -

March 1943. "Bagdad, California. Going through the station on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad between Needles and Barstow." Medium-format negative by Jack Delano for the Office of War Information. View full size. Bagdad's bonesAt one time Bagdad was a busy little community, but like many others along Route 66, it went bust as the interstate came into use. In 1991 the remaining schoolhouse and other buildings were demolished. All that remains is the rail siding, a tree, some broken glass and a lonely cemetery. Bagdad the BookRudy VanderLans made a book about the place, with photographs and an essay. By the time he got to Bagdad, all the buildings had gone, and only a stump remained of the palm tree -- could it be the same one in the photo? Aptly NamedThe environment here seems as bleak as that outside Baghdad, Iraq, which may have been the inspiration. Desolate though it may be, its not without its alleviations...that is if you like solitude, opressively hot days and a dozens of roads going off in every direction to nowhere. Every time I see the name Baghdad (or Bagdad) on the news I'm reminded of the intro. to a Johnny Cash song in which he says, "We're going to play an Arabic song for you: 'Oh, What a Bag Dad Had.'" Kiosk QueryWhat is the little kiosk there? No There ThereIf you look at Bagdad now on Google Street View, there's nothing but a dusty road winding out into the empty desert. Been thereNot far from Bagdad is Amboy and the Amboy Crater, an extinct volcanic cone. I looked for Bagdad when we visited the crater, but I'm not sure I really saw the spot. There truly is no "there" there... Shaking the dust outA trip via Google Earth also reveals some foundation outlines & a couple of ghost streets at Bagdad. However, its neighbor to the east, Amboy, is quite interesting. We always stop at Roy's to see whether or not they are currently in business. You never know. http://www.rt66roys.com/ Phone shantyThe six-sided kiosk is an ATSF standard telephone shanty. These were usually found at passing sidings and other remote locations where it was necessary for a train crew to contact the dispatcher or vice-versa. The lower quadrant train order signal in front of the operator's bay is missing both arms, so I'd assume the station has been closed and there is no longer an operator assigned here. The phone booth would still permit contact as needed. I saw Jack Palance......in a quirky movie in 1988 titled Bagdad Cafe. It took place in a very similar remote desert watering hole and had a strange assortment of characters, sort of reminded me of a Fellini film. If you want to know how it ends, rent the movie. Exercise Gallant Eagle '86I believe that this is at the northern end of Twenty-nine Palms Marine Corps Base. I was involved in a huge training exercise there, as an Army pilot, in 1986. As I recall, the 82nd Airborne Division was using Bagdad to load out their equipment. Newberry SpringsThe Bagdad Cafe as seen in the film of the same name is actually in Newberry Springs, also along Route 66. It was still open as of 2005 when I took my Route 66 trip. As mentioned already, nothing is left of the real Bagdad besides some flat spots in the desert. It was apparently the only town for miles around with a jukebox, which made it a very popular place for awhile. The alphabet between Ludlow and Needles...When the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad (later acquired by the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway) started putting in tracks they needed to set up quite a few watering stations across the desert for the steam locomotives. The first of these points (they all became towns of one form or another) was Amboy. The committee that named these stations got very clever and put them in alphabetical order, going from west to east: - Amboy - Bristol - Cadiz - Danby - Essex - Fenner - Goffs - Homer - Ibis - Java - Khartoum . Because Bagdad is close to Amboy, they often make Bagdad the B, although Bagdad is west of Amboy. People also make that mistake about Klinefelter, which was actually another name for Ibis (both names are used today). (The Gallery, Jack Delano, Railroads)
Maine Man: 1940
... Portrait of a shipyard worker. Bath, Maine." Photo by Jack Delano for the Farm Security Administration. View full size. Head start ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 02/03/2023 - 10:00pm -

December 1940. "War boom in a New England industrial town. Portrait of a shipyard worker. Bath, Maine." Photo by Jack Delano for the Farm Security Administration. View full size. Head start (and still going)U.S. entry into World War II was a year away, but Bath Iron Works had been building destroyers and destroyer-minelayers since 1934. It completed 83 of them by the end of the war with, at peak, a launch every 17 days. It tells us something about the magnitude of America’s industrial accomplishment that the Bath Works ranked 50th in wartime production contracts. Bath Iron Works has been in business since 1884, and is now owned by General Dynamics. It is still building battleships: the USS Carl M. Levin was delivered to the Navy on 26 January 2023 and will be commissioned in June. Response to responses: make that "battle ships"? "ships for battles"? "destroyers of other ships in battles"? I hope he had a decent place to liveAs we already seen with Mr. and Mrs. Leslie Bryant and by whoever lived in these trailers, and are about to see by whoever lived in this shack, housing in Bath, Maine in 1940 was hard to come by. Potatoes Again??That look on his face is priceless -- [He seems to be in a bar. - Dave] Not a BattleshipBut an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. Arleigh Burke was Chief of Naval operations in the 1950's. As a "Tin Can Sailor" at that time, I was privileged to salute him when he inspected our ship the USS Power DD839. Down a Peg or TwoNot to sink GlenJay's battleship, but the USS Carl Levin is a destroyer, not battleship. According to world authority on naval warships Milton Bradley: Battleships [BB] are 4-peggers Destroyers [DDG] are 2-peggers (were 3-peggers in the original version). GlenJay, Thanks for the info. Here's a link: https://news.usni.org/2023/01/30/bath-irons-works-delivers-destroyer-car... Not BattleshipsThe USS Carl M. Levin (DDG 120) is a United States Navy Arleigh Burke-class Flight IIA guided missile destroyer, the 70th overall for the class. Haven't built and battleships since WWII. No mo' BattleshipsThe last USN battleships were constructed during WWII. Several have served active duty since the mid-40's but no new BB's have been built, nor are they likely to. They simply cost too much in dollars and sailors and the need for very large ships of that size are not needed for anything other than shore bombardment (which worked nicely during the conflict in the Mideast) but are a very small part of our defense needs now. Even during WWII the aircraft carrier replaced the battleship as an offensive weapon. Current Bath Shipyard BuildThe USS Carl M. Levin (DDG 120) is an Arleigh Burke-class Flight IIA guided missile destroyer, the 70th overall for the class. (The Gallery, Jack Delano, Portraits, WW2)
Home Entertainment: 1943
... on the Indiana Harbor Belt Line." Safety negative by Jack Delano. View full size. The Human Comedy This immediately made me ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 07/14/2009 - 10:37pm -

February 1943. "Blue Island, Illinois. 2439 Orchard Street. Bobby Senise and mother listening to a radio program. Home of Daniel Senise, engine foreman on the Indiana Harbor Belt Line." Safety negative by Jack Delano. View full size. The Human ComedyThis immediately made me recall reading Saroyan's "The Human Comedy" except it's the Midwest rather than California. Watching the RadioThis scene reminds me of what Grandma Rose used to frequently tell us kids: "TV off! Use your imagination!" Souvenirs from Out WestI'm not a "know-it-all" as I cannot identify the two implements that are keeping Bobby amused, but I do know that the items in question were all keepsakes from the souvenir shops in the West and Southwest in days of yore. The pottery was simply a novelty planter made by American Indian or Mexican craftsmen out of clay, as was the sombrero which had a decal on the front of where it was from. It did not necessarily serve a purpose as "souvenirs" are often useless curiosities. The giant pinecone was from the California behemoth redwoods, the fiber or straw totebag with ethnic people pictured is from the Southwest and the trophy looks like a bowling prize. The comfortable affection between mother and son is very similar to Elvis Presley's easy, kindred, unconditional love with his mother Gladys. We need a lot more of this type of family relationship today. It's a great picture that really takes one back, thank you Shorpy. [Speaking of tacky tchotchkes, let's see if we can't work Elvis and Gladys into more comments. Well done! - Dave] The bad old daysDaniel Senise (who isn't even in the photo) and Bobby Senise get names, but Mrs. Senise is just "mother." If Jack Delano was working in 2009, instead of 1943, his editor would probably rip him a new one, with her bare hands. [Jack Delano took dozens of photos of the Senise family -- Betty, Daniel and their three sons and dog. He gives all of their names in the introductory photos and then as needed so we can tell the boys apart. - Dave] Strange objectsCan anyone identify those things Bobby is fiddling with? On the other hand, the thing on the table that looks like a ceramic sombrero is obviously a combination ash tray and citrus juicer. Wartime rationing strictures required that all ornamental devices also serve at least one, preferably two, practical purposes. UPDATE: Dave's close-up inspires this guess: a couple of Mom's knitting or embroidery implements? Or maybe manicure thingies? Watching the radioIt's interesting how people used to watch the radio. I also notice how much the Bible on the table has been worn from being read. My best guess for the thing on the table is an ash tray. My mother tells me that students were commonly taught to make ash trays in school over much of the 20th Century, so perhaps one of the boys made it. It would make sense, since it is on the same table as the ambiguous trophy. It looks like Billy has a twig in his left hand and some sort of plastic knife in his right, but I'm not sure if that is right for several reasons. I wonder what periodical Billy is using as a pillow. DadIs "Bobby" perhaps Robert L. Senise, father of actor Gary Senise (also born in Blue Lake}? [Interesting. Although Gary's last name is Sinise. - Dave] 2439 Orchard todayNice place. View Larger Map Mothers and sonsMy favorite thing about this photo is the comfortable affection between mother and son. It makes me think of my own kids and how they still like to cuddle their old mom on occasion, regardless of their ages. Great siteG'day all. Absolutely love this site, it's such a refeshing change from the doom & gloom of Main Stream Media. The clarity of the pics and the informed comments make it a must read site for me. John Melbourne Australia Mothers and sons III'm a new mom to a baby boy, and this shot really warms my heart. It shows that their relationship is a cozy and comfortable one. Funny, though, Ma looks more like Grandma or Aunt Bee to me. Pa seems too young for her. The worn Bible is a lovely touch, but what is that strange gewgaw next to it? Forget the sombrero; this is the doohickey I want to know about. It too looks like something one of the boys must have made in school: a three-legged creature with arms akimbo, carrying Christmas wreaths? Donuts? The radiois a Philco 40-155, sold in 1939-40. It's a quite nice large table-top radio, with 8 tubes, covering the AM broadcast band and international short wave bands. It had built-in loop antennas for both broadcast and shortwave. I am currently restoring one, and it's a quite good performer. They were lucky to have a relatively new radio, since production of radios for consumer use was halted shortly after Pearl Harbor. Repair parts were scarce, due to allocation of most production to the military; if your radio died and replacement parts could not be found, you couldn't just go and buy another one. Three-legged potI think the pot and the sombrero are both souvenirs of Mexico. The three legs and the lifting rings are typical of American native folk pieces, and it's decorated with the cactus motif expected by tourists. Oh JoeI know this is a little recent for Mr. Manning but hey Joe? Such a nice family, Mom always in apron, Dad hard-working. Hope Jack came home from the war safely. If we knew where they were now, wouldn't it be interesting to contact them and say "Hey, take a look at Shorpy"? These photos bring back such a flood of memories for me. My mom had nine brothers and they all served in WWII. One never made it home, two were badly wounded. I picture my grandmother sitting where this lady is, listening to war news. And by the way, I am proud to go by "Mom." I could not spell it...Loved your hilarious reply as I really wanted to use that word but could not figure out how to spell 'tchotchkes' as it was not in my 1975 dictionary. Found out it comes from both Polish (hooray) and Yiddish words. Nothing wrong with Elvis and Gladys, she too lived at Graceland, the motherlode of both tacky and tchotchke. "Pine" coneIf walking through a redwood grove every day of my grade school life, and then frequently playing in one on the school grounds itself make one a true Californian, then I'm your boy. Therefore, I can attest that the cone is from a pine tree of some kind, not a redwood, whose equivalent is a little dinky thing. The other item no one's mentioned is the thing under the basket on the bottom shelf of the table: could be a photo album, which should get Shorpy mouths watering. Norman RockwellThis brings back soooo many memories! Junior is clutching a rib and pulmonary artery recently plucked from his chest by the Mother-Goddess, who is going to make a sacrifice on her ottoman-altar just as soon as she fires up some incense in that Mayan firepot and tunes in the appropriate flute music. I love those curtains!!! Coulter pine coneThe giant pine cone came from a Coulter pine. This medium-sized pine tree is most prevalent in the coastal mountains of Southern California, but there are stands of it as far north as the Bay Area, and as far south as northern Baja California. Coulter pines produce the largest and heaviest pine cones of all species, and people working among them are cautioned to wear hard hats at all times. Curtains vs. drapesI was about to launch a pedantic tirade over A. Tipster's use of the term "curtains" in reference to what I'd call "drapes," but a simple online search proved that the matter isn't so simple. Everybody can do their own, but the most interesting bit I found was etiquette maven Emily Post's 1950 fulmination over the word "drapes": "This word is an inexcusable vulgarism." Therefore, I instead commend Tipster for displaying a scrupulous sense of propriety. It's curtains for you, Mister.I grew up in a house with inexcusably vulgar drapes in the living room and dining room. In the bedrooms and bathroom we had curtains that extended only to the bottoms of the window cases. What gets me going is the modern fashion of completely naked windows, no matter how traditional the rest of the interior features might be. And in the Cosi Fan Tutte world of today's English, saying drapes instead of draperies is probably not the social suicide that it once was. Better Homes & Gardens' online site makes a practical distinction between curtains and drapes, courageously defying the Wrath of Post: Drape vs. Curtain When is a "drape" really a "curtain"? Although the terms drapery and curtain are often used interchangeably, there is a technical difference. Curtains are made of lightweight fabrics and most often are unlined and operable. Draperies extend to the floor, tend to be lined, and are sewn of heavier fabric. Cool ChairI love the chair and ottoman. Does that style of furniture have a name? (The Gallery, Jack Delano, Railroads)
Mr. Radio: 1942
... business for nine years, in the same store." Photo by Jack Delano for the Foreign Information Service of the U.S. Office of Coordinator of ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 01/25/2023 - 1:20pm -

April 1942. "Chicago, Illinois -- Negro business and professional men and women. William H. Green, owner of a radio and electrical store on 47th Street near Indiana Avenue. Mr. Green has been in the radio business for nine years, in the same store." Photo by Jack Delano for the Foreign Information Service of the U.S. Office of Coordinator of Information. View full size. Like father, like son?Chicago Tribune -- August 9, 1957: Name your priceI'll take all the Fada catalins you have Mr. Green. They'll be gold in 80 years. They glow in the dark!Some fine examples of tabletop radios. The old tube sets have a much better sound in my opinion. I was enjoying listening to my Emerson "All American Five" AM radio today ... a superheterodyne receiver, made in America and using five tubes. The days of glowing radioThe fancier radios had a real wood chassis. A backlighted front plate with radio stations from all over the world etched in. Want to tune in on the Beep? Press the short, medium or long wave button as needed, find "London" on the matching line on the front plate, turn the dial until the indicator was somewhere near "London" and then fine tune until the magic eye focuses. Presto, "London calling". Some places in Europe at the time you did not want turn up the volume too much, though. Previously on Shorpy --Russell Lee climbed to the roof of Mr. Green's shop for the photo Miracle Ham: 1941. (Technology, The Gallery, Chicago, Jack Delano, Stores & Markets)
Churches of Chicago: 1942
... for this one; it seems to be a Sunday. Acetate negative by Jack Delano for the Office of War Information. View full size. The Methodist ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 01/27/2023 - 1:49pm -

April 1942. "Chicago, Illinois" is all they wrote for this one; it seems to be a Sunday. Acetate negative by Jack Delano for the Office of War Information. View full size. The Methodist Book ConcernMy favorite titles amongst the “most widely held works” by the Methodist Book Concern are: The solemn warnings of the dead, or, An admonition to unconverted sinners (1802); Modern Pagans (1917); and Number Thirty: Being some relation of what happened to Chivvy (1920). You can’t make this stuff up. Huron & DearbornWe're looking east towards Holy Name Cathedral. The hotel and building just east of it are still standing at 62 W. Huron Street. Holy Name CathedralThe large church in the distance is Holy Name Cathedral at 730 N Wabash Avenue. I grew up in the suburbs, moved away over 50 years ago, but I'm sure that other than Holy Name, very few of the buildings making up the bulk of this photo still exist. Steps, Left to RightStepping up the block, from lower left corner of the image: 1st building: missing steps ("Quite a drop, Batman") 2nd building: wide steps 3rd building: ultra wide steps 4th building: no steps (ground floor entrance; Stairway to Heaven inside) Hard Hat AreaI'd give the Hotel with the turrets a wide berth! The one farthest from the camera looks like it's damaged. Here's the Church in the MiddleAt the corner of State and Superior. Get ready: Huron next !Sometimes you're all ready with your comment, and life throws you a surprise I'll leaf it to others to provide the punchline. The Sainte-Chapelle of ChicagoOver near the far left margin of this photograph, in the shadows between two taller buildings, stands the St. James Chapel of the Quigley Preparatory Seminary, a school belonging to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago. Completed in 1919, this building is clearly modeled on the Gothic Sainte-Chapelle in Paris (built 1242-1248). It is an unusually accurate example of French Gothic architecture revived in the eclectic period of the early 20th century. The building still stands at 835 N. Rush Street, but the school it was built for closed in 2007. Holy Name Cathedral is a mob tour mainstayHoly Name witnessed two notorious murders during the 1920s bootlegging gang wars. Across the street was Schofield's Flower shop, owned by North Side gang boss Dean O'Banion, the most powerful rival of the South Side's Johnny Torrio and his second-in-command Al Capone. The shop was O'Banion's headquarters and front for his illicit businesses. The shop was also the preferred flower vendor for big mob funerals. On November 10, 1924, Frankie Yale (a New York associate of Torrio and Capone) and two local mobsters arrived ostensibly for a floral funerary arrangement. They left O'Banion dead on the floor with bullets in his chest, neck and head. Hymie Weiss was O'Banion's successor as head of the North Siders. Schofield's was still the gang's lair on October 11, 1926 when Weiss was ambushed in front of Holy Name as he walked towards the flower shop. Tour guides will show you holes in the cathedral stones from the mob machine guns. Now a house of luxury residenceMost of what you see in 1942 between the hotel at 62 W. Huron Street and the Holy Name Cathedral at 730 N Wabash Ave has been replaced by One Superior Place Apartments, which, with their parking garage, engulf an entire city block. The small church at 56 W. Huron Street, where church was just letting out in 1942, is now the site of recently built luxury residences. Click to embiggen Almost survivedThe church is on the September, 2017 Street View. By 2018, it was replaced by an apartment building. The building was converted to a beauty parlor at least ten years before. The Small Church ReplacementI'll leave it to loyal Shorpy readers to opine if better or worse. (The Gallery, Chicago, Jack Delano)
Yesterday's News: 1940
... office on Christmas Eve." 35mm Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano. View full size. Fedoras Your best bet finding them are in ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 03/28/2018 - 8:56am -

December 1940. Brockton, Massachusetts. "Men and a woman reading headlines posted in window of Brockton Enterprise newspaper office on Christmas Eve." 35mm Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano. View full size. FedorasYour best bet finding them are in Hasidic neighborhood stores. Anthony UtoI think the sign reads "Enterprise Barber Shop." I have no doubt tho that the sign was changed to something that did not resemble the imperial battle flag! Still AroundUnlike the Seattle Post-Intelligencer or the Rocky Mountain News, the Brockton Enterprise will still deliver a physical newspaper to your home. I find that comforting. You two, yeah you, get out of the wayI really want to know more about problems with the schoolbooks, but those two guys are in the way. Twitter 1.0Just a few short words on a subject, broadcast for all the world (if the world happens to walk by that window) to read. Japanese Barber ShopThis picture was taken in December 1940. I'd be willing to bet that one year later "Anthony Uto's Japanese Barber Shop" was no longer in business. ["Japanese"? I think you're misreading the sign. - Dave] It Comes Full CircleI was wetting my pants in 1940 and here we are back in the same mode, its deja vu all over again. Brockton EnterpriseThe Enterprise of Brockton is still there: http://www.enterprisenews.com/ And it still resides at 60 Main Street in Brockton. And W.B. Mason (2nd Floor) is still going strong as well. R.I.P. Billy HillBilly Hill, Boston native, wrote a number of popular songs including The Last Round-Up, Wagon Wheels, Empty Saddles, In the Chapel in the Moonlight, The Glory of Love. At the age of seventeen he went out West and spent the next fifteen years working at various jobs including dishwasher in several roadhouses, cowpuncher in Montana, payroll clerk at a mining camp in Death Valley, and band leader at a Chinese restaurant in Salt Lake City. Sadly, Billy "lost his battle with alcohol" on Dec. 24, 1940. You can learn more at www.americanmusicpreservation.com Staying connected to your world.Wow! I wish we had a place to go today to read news headlines. Enterprise Barber Shop?Is that what is says? Although, when I saw the "Empire of the Sun" sign, my first thought was "Japanese" as well. School Board,not schoolbooks. The past is prologueInteresting how the formatting of newspaper pages on the window presages the formatting of information on the screen of my iPod Touch. Quake?There was an earthquake? Indeed, two? In Massachusetts? Many years back I read that there is a fault line running under Manhattan. I suppose this may be connected. EarthquakeThe USGS website confirms the headlines in the window. A magnitude 5.5 earthquake struck the Lake Ossippee region in New Hampshire on December 20th and 24th of 1940. It reports that aftershocks were felt throughout the northeast. News FlashToday this would be replaced with the news "zipper" like in Times Square, New York. Evergreen street tree?Is that a Doug Fur or Canadian Hemlock in the corner of the picture? It looks like there is an ornament on it, which would make sense, but it seems like an odd place for a Xmas tree that size in the middle of the sidewalk. Keeping an eyeWas everybody a private detective in those days? Hatzoff, Fedora ManAs I grow older (and balder), I find myself coveting those fedoras. Gonna go find me one, somewhere... Get Your News HereUnlike today, there were no text messages, no blogs, no CNN, only newspapers and radios. There were no all news stations but there were morning and afternoon papers. Things changed much later on and I believe we are all the better for it. FedorasGosh, I really like the look of a man with a nice hat on. I remember that growing up in the 50's and 60's, practically all men wore them. I don't know why they stopped, but they sure look elegant. SantaI like that even back then they were "tracking" Santa and that he might not finish up his route until Christmas morning! Men Without HatsThe style changed, I believe, with John F. Kennedy, who was the first U.S. President to regularly go hatless. This encouraged a lot of other young men of his generation to follow suit (but not hat). Then there was the disastrous collapse of the once-mighty Japanese-American barbershop industry, which has yet to be fully documented. Not by me, though. Still, the familiar Kabuki barber in his garish makeup and flowing silk costume used to be a fixture in American cities from coast to coast, like Howard Johnson's restaurants and motels. For some reason or other, they never made a comeback after 1945. Maybe it was because, as my WWII veteran Grandpa used to say, "I'll never, ever trust one of those little guys with a razor again!" Since the average customer wasn't getting shaved bald any more (except for the traditional Samauri topknot, on request), the hat was no longer needed. [Disclaimer: If you don't think that real history is entertaining enough, you can always make up your own]. Marciano and HaglerBrockton is indeed home to boxing great Rocky Marciano. It is also home to another boxing great, Marvelous Marvin Hagler! Window vs. Web LogsBrockton, Mass. Who knew it was the birthplace of blogging? This is also a very early use of Windows Media. The Brockton BomberWasn't Rocky Marciano from Brockton? Eaton CuttersSomething about Eaton sounded familiar. The Eaton Cutters post for the army shoe workers is a reference to the Charles A. Eaton Shoe Company founded 1876 in Brockton, eventually adding their golf shoes to its line. In 1976, the company changed its name to Etonic. Read all about itAs a newspaper editor, this photo is evocative of a time when people truly treasured their daily or weekly newspaper, read it religiously, wrote letters to the editor, subscribed for generations, and hungered for important news as it was packaged in those days--on paper. Sure, they listened to H.P. Kaltenborn, but they still read all about it. Just a year later, when I was a month old, the Japanese struck Pearl Harbor, leaving our generation to question why anyone in 1940 used a rising sun motif for their outdoor advertising! Nowadays, our industry is on the ropes, but I'm glad to see that the Brockton Enterprise is still going strong, right where it started. For how long, though? Reading is becoming a lost art, alas. Re: As a newspaper editorRe: As a newspaper editor, this photo is That's saying this photo is a newspaper editor. I thought it was reporters who fell into the trap of the dangling modifier, and the editors were the ones who pulled them out! Oops, ya got me!Anonymous Tipster is so right. Those dangling modifiers are pernicious. What is missing are the words "I find" from my original draft, inserted just after "editor," and just before "this." Good catch! I know who caused the earthquake!My dad, who would have been 14 at the time of this picture, grew up in Manchester, NH, and told me this story several times: One day he and his younger brother were in their upstairs bedroom doing nothing in particular while their mother was in the kitchen. Suddenly the dishes rattled and the cupboard doors shook. Mom marched to the foot of the stairs and shouted, "YOU BOYS CUT THAT OUT!" They looked at each other, then replied, "We weren't doing anything." (They were fond of fighting and wrestling, so Mom had every reason to blame them.) "You rattled the dishes down here!" "It wasn't us, honest. It must have been an earthquake," they countered. Well, that was ridiculous because earthquakes just don't happen in New England. However, when the next day's paper reported an earthquake, they all had a good laugh, and Mom was reassured that her boys weren't lying. The EnterpriseThe Enterprise is no longer at 60 Main Street in downtown Brockton. Delano's photo shows where the old Enterprise offices were, where the city of Brockton water/sewer offices currently reside, I believe. 60 Main is to the right, on the other corner. The building has been sold to a developer and the presses were dismantled and removed in 2008. In October 2008, part of the newsroom operation moved to a nondescript office on the city limits. Flying SantaThe "flying Santa Claus" referred to was Edward Rowe Snow, a local historian who every year, with the help of the Coast Guard, delivered Christmas packages to lighthouse keepers and their families. You can find more about him here. Grandfather Uto's barbershopThis was not a Japanese barbershop. My grandfather Anthony Uto came to this country from Italy in 1899 and opened his shop under the Enterprise building in the early 1900s. Until his retirement in the late 1960s, that was his shop. (The Gallery, Brockton, Jack Delano)
Potty Mouth: 1941
... in New Brighton, Pennsylvania." Medium format negative by Jack Delano. View full size. No trap Did it flush into the sewer or a ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 12/22/2018 - 11:06am -

January 1941. "This is the only toilet in a two-family house in New Brighton, Pennsylvania." Medium format negative by Jack Delano. View full size. No trapDid it flush into the sewer or a cesspool? A familiar sightWe live in a 1925 house in NJ that has one of those toilets in the basement -- luckily, not the only toilet in the house. Sometimes, it comes in handy. I almost missed the enema bagOh sweet Jesus, to make matters worse the enema bag hanging behind the top step surely would have brought nightmares to any kids in that house. It made me clench when saw it. [Also note the newspaper/TP. - Dave] Pittsburgh toilet"A Pittsburgh toilet, often called a 'Pittsburgh potty', is a common fixture in pre-World War II houses built in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. It consists of an ordinary flush toilet installed in the basement, with no surrounding walls" -- Wikipedia Paging Thomas CrapperThat toilet is ancient even for 1940. The conical hopper bowls went out in the 1890s, I think. It also appears that the freshwater supply burbles up through the tank, which would be a potential cross-connection, a major health hazard. MemoriesThis reminds me of growing up in the Bronx in the '40s. Your parents didn't say "flush the toilet", they said "pull the chain". Pennsylvania WintersPrimitive as this seems today, it was a better option than our coal-patch outdoor privy! Realtor's nightmareI'm surprised that any of these survive, but Esandrof says that they do. What would a realtor would say when showing a home with a Pittsburgh Potty? Is it possible to put a positive spin on this feature? MAGAYep, let's take America back to the 1940s. If basements weren't scary enoughAn architect explains that they were a sort of relief valve for early sewers. A beautiful composition Rather an untoward photographic subject for the era, but I like to imagine Jack Delano being shown around this house and not being able to resist the way the light illuminated this scene. [The light, as in most of Jack Delano's interiors shots, was supplied by Jack Delano. - Dave] (We have a toilet in the basement in our Victorian-era house in Boston - while whatever was there originally has been replaced with a contemporary model, I imagine it served the same purpose as the Pittsburgh potty.) How does it flush?It may seem hard to believe that such an ancient piece of plumbing could have an automatic flush valve, but there appears to be one attached to the rear of the seat. I went to a Vancouver, Canada, high school that was built in 1905. It was three storeys high, and the only men's washroom was in the basement. When I attended this school in 1966, it still had the original toilets. The wood seat, the same as you see in the photo, was always raised slightly. When you sat down, it armed the flush mechanism. When you stood up, the flush valve opened and the water flowed. My Vancouver neighbourhood has a few of these basement toilets. Flushed with pride?I boarded in a house with a Pgh. toilet. It got the most use when another boarder used the sole bathroom from thirty minutes to over an hour at a time, and in spite of other residents' pounding on the door and calling for him to give others a chance. Someone once asked him what on earth he did in there, and he said, "I was *reading,*" as if that were not only obvious but logical. I remember how someone would yell, "I'm going downstairs!" when headed for the creepy Pgh. toilet, letting everyone else know privacy was needed. In reply to Mattie's question, I believe the one where I boarded flushed into a sewer. Someone told me that the basement flooded a year or two before I lived there. She said the flood came from the sewer; clean-up was most unpleasant. Unique, water-waster designI haven't seen a toilet like this since I went to camp as a kid. If you look closely, there isn't a 'trap'; the water/waste goes straight down! See how the seat is slightly 'up'? That is because when you sit on it, that opens the water valve to the bowl, and it continues flushing for as long as you are seated! This freaked me out when I was a kid, and to this day, I hate it when an automatic flush toilet goes off while I'm sitting on it! (The Gallery, Jack Delano)
Maine Train: 1940
... in Caribou, Maine." Medium format acetate negative by Jack Delano for the Farm Security Administration. View full size. The Trains ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 11/01/2022 - 12:27pm -

October 1940. "At the railroad terminal in Caribou, Maine." Medium format acetate negative by Jack Delano for the Farm Security Administration. View full size. The Trains in Maine ...Stay mainly in their lanes? Can't get theah from heah ...Well... I think you'll have to wait a bit longer, and ride an open boxcar hobo style. Today, the passenger service from Boston only comes up as far as Brunswick. That's a good five hours south from up these neck of the woods. And keep yer eye out for moose young fella, especially at dawn or dusk ... they're much bigger than your car. Pin the tail on the railroad trackHere is the railroad terminal in Caribou, Maine today. You can't tell much from a Street View because of trees and vegetation. The terrain in the distance supports Jack Delano was facing north (top of photo). But I cannot find an arrangement in the tracks that match the 1940 photo, or where that arrangement might have been. I'm attaching a photo you can embiggen if anyone feels like figuring it out. Down south, Down East styleThe "Historic Aerials" overhead for 1953 shows a telltale trio of tanks -- say that three times fast ! -- on the eastern edge of the yard, which together with configuration of buildings, suggests the shot was taken from the vicinity of Hancock and Limestone Streets (they no longer intersect) looking south. Mr. Willie, you're supposed to be in the boxcarThis is a fantastic composition. If it had been in color, the power of the photo would be lost. Facing SouthI agree with Notcom; the view is toward the south/southwest; based on the shadows it's late morning. The crossover track just behind and to the right of the engine is still there. Foundations for the long row of warehouses for potato storage on the right in the photo are still visible. The passenger station's still there; now it's Theriault Lawn Care. Engine 403 was one of the last steam locos on the Bangor and Aroostook, retired in 1956. (The Gallery, Jack Delano, Railroads, Small Towns)
Agri Culture: 1942
... activities among farm people." Acetate negative by Jack Delano for the U.S. Office of Coordinator of Information. View full size. ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 01/24/2023 - 4:27pm -

April 1942. Madison, Wisconsin. "Members of the Blue Shield Country Life Club of the University of Wisconsin visiting the studio of John Steuart Curry. One of the aims of the club is to bring about greater participation in cultural activities among farm people." Acetate negative by Jack Delano for the U.S. Office of Coordinator of Information. View full size. Oh yeah, let's pretend we like art ...You know it's them socks that makes a man wanna take art class! On Wisconsin!They may well be seeing materials related to Curry's "An All American," which he painted in 1941. The painting's hero is Badger football's David N. Schreiner, who would be All-American in 1942. (Schreiner was killed on Okinawa in 1945.) Curry's job at Wisconsin sounds like something I would have liked to have. According to the famous editor William Allen White, Wisconsin hired Curry when no institution in his home state of Kansas made him an offer. As White wrote, Wisconsin "turned him loose without much schedule and are making him an influence rather than an instructor. He teaches little and talks a lot, paints when he wants to." In other words, having students crawling around his studio was more or less Curry's academic job. (N.B. his middle name was Steuart, not Stuart.) Captivating CaptionI'm looking only at the caption. I promise. Artist in residenceIn 1948 the UW Press published a book showcasing the life and work of thirty non-professional Wisconsin artists who participated in Rural Art Exhibitions held at UW-Madison Memorial Union and lists all works on display at the 1940-1948 series of Rural Art Exhibitions. The book was written by John Rector Barton. During his 25 years at the UW, Barton was heavily involved with many clubs and organizations devoted to agriculture and rural life. One of Barton's major interests was rural art. His work with John Steuart Curry, U.W. Artist in Residence, and his annual rural art shows, led him to produce the book Rural Artists of Wisconsin. Barton also served on the committee which selected Aaron Bohrod to serve as Artist in Residence after Curry's death in 1946. (The Gallery, Agriculture, Education, Schools, Jack Delano)
Streets of Baltimore: 1940
... Baltimore, June 1940." Medium format safety negative by Jack Delano for the Farm Security Administration. View full size. For the ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 07/23/2012 - 6:45pm -

"Row houses, Baltimore, June 1940." Medium format safety negative by Jack Delano for the Farm Security Administration. View full size. For the love of old cars.The immaculate black 1937 Ford Touring Car was a rarity at that time and scarce today - valuable indeed. The last car is a similar vintage Chevrolet. Would someone please identify the car in the middle of the scene. ShuttersI don't think I've ever seen shutters on doors before. You usually see them on the windows of coastal cities for storm protection but unless the doors were primarily glass the shutters would be more ornamental than practical. AntennasI'm always fascinated to see rooftops without TV antennas but I'm seeing shortwave "longwire" antennas aplenty here. Radio truly was the mode of communication back then. Work dayIt must be a workday -- no one is stoop-sitting. Baltimore was famous for marble steps on its row houses, but these look like wood. LocationAnyone know this intersection? Hear the drums?Gene Krupa! ShinySo that's what they looked like brand new! Bazooka Bubble GumI bet those kids are reading the Bazooka Joe comics from the gum they just bought. Gene Krupa, July 2Wow! There's a band date I would have liked to attend. Baltimore Row ApartmentsAll those incredibly narrow apartments with the flimsy wood stoops. They can't be much more than 12 or 14 feet wide. Is this an old Baltimore solution for cheap housing, or do some other Eastern cities have these as well? They all look neat and well scrubbed, but my dad would have called them "cribs." Meeeeeeooooow!You can almost hear that kittycat on the stoop wailing to get back in! Graham-PaigeThe middle car would appear to be a circa 1934 Graham-Paige, possibly a Blue Streak or Custom Eight. Quite a machine. Fond memories are mineThese are not apartments! They are individual homes. Many had small back yards on the alley. Some even had garages. Many residents would turn their "stoops" over at night. Virtually every step was painted annually, and was washed every day. Most of the rowhouses were on "land leases" over the whole city. The ground lease was typically for 100 years. Philadelphia and St. Louis also had many rowhouses. What's the larger structure in the background? That would place this on the money. I think this is north of the harbor. Marble stepsIt looks like there are some of the famous marble stairs by the first parked car in the background. I imagine this looks fairly similar to my dad's boyhood home on Kennedy Avenue in Bawlmer -- He'd have been about 4½ when this picture was taken. Cross-ventilationThe shutters were on the front door for ventilation. The row houses I knew had solid front doors. The front door was opened; the shutters were closed and latched. Typically the front door was at the bottom of the steps to the second floor. The windows would be opened at the back of the house on the second floor. Voila; natural ventilation. Shuttered doorsShutters are common all over the Caribbean and in South Florida, and exist in many places in the south. They were popular in pre-air conditioning days, so you could get let a breeze in with the window or door shaded to stop "heat gain" and a wood barrier is slightly more security than a flimsy screen. In a urban setting like this, the bigger appeal may have been privacy, even with the door open. Yikes,This is funThe tracks were for the #27 Streetcar line. The building in the background was the Carroll Park Shops. This was an absolutely enormous facility that did virtually all of the heavy overhaul and maintenanc for Baltimore's streetcars. Found this on Wikipedia: The Washington Boulevard streetcar line, which started operating in 1905, was designated No. 27. This was converted to electric trolley buses in 1938. Ground RentNot called "land lease" but "ground rent." It made it possible for people with not a lot of money to buy a house without buying the land. The rent is fixed and rather low. The system is so old and antiquated and the deeds were so poorly unrecorded that people who bought a rowhouse would sometimes not know they were on ground rent. Until they didn't pay for X years and had their houses taken away from them! The Baltimore Sun did a series on this in the last couple of years and laws have been reformed to make this impossible. Too bad there are no visible house numbers, that would help narrow it down a lot. You can see it was on a streetcar line. It appears to be fall or spring, not hot enough for the man in the background to go without a jacket, but the kids are okay without one. [Another clue is in the caption, where it says "June 1940." - Dave] So tidyYes, those are actually wooden steps. I think marble would be seen on a slightly higher class house (or later). These look like "alley" houses, the smallest of the rowhouses, usually built for working folks. I just looked through a book at BCPL on Baltimore Alley Houses, and they showed a lot of pictures of houses with shutters on the doors and windows, to actually use in hot weather. Seems like it would be so handy. They do look about 12 feet wide in this picture, which is pretty common. Judging from the Italianate styling, I'd guess late 1800s. They do have rowhouses in other cities. Washington, Philadelphia, and the narrowest ones I've ever seen were in Georgetown (DC). MemoriesGrowing up in Bal-mer in the 50's and 60's, these places are my memories. We lived in the burbs although all my family lived in places like these. And yes, even in the burbs we were paying ground rent! Just a way of life and I've never heard of it anywhere else! Horton"Horton" (or Morton) would be the company that painted the sign. HortonDidn't they sometimes used to put street names on corners of buildings back then? I wonder if Horton is maybe the name of that side street. Just a thought. Hortons Nortons and MortonsI checked them all via local.live and google maps. They're alleys with nothing like this scene. The street has streetcar tracks, so it's at least a halfway important street. But Baltimore had tons of lines. The big structure in the background looks like a church nave to me, the front of the church facing the photographer, so that would put the church on a corner. [This is from a series of photos taken on U.S. Route 1, Baltimore-Washington Boulevard. - Dave] I think it's a LincolnI think the spiffy droptop on the street is a Lincoln Zephyr, which would've looked a lot like it's poor cousin, the Ford. The teardrop shaped headlamps are the clue. [The car is a Ford, not a Lincoln. - Dave] Found it: Carroll ParkThanks Dave for the clue about US 1. View Larger Map This is at the corner of Washington Boulevard and Bayard Street. The opposite side of the street is Carroll Park (which probably explains why the car has such a long shadow). The big roof in the back ground is not a church like I thought, but an old carbarn for the streetcars. The long monitor roof along the ridge of the carbarn has been removed and the building is now a bus maintenance garage. Of course, being Baltimore, the whole row is covered in FormStone or PermaStone, whatever you want to call it. You see one of the sad things about FormStone: all the great wood cornices are chopped off so the FormStone can be installed. Charm CityGreat shot--it's June, the two kids are hanging out at the corner store, the cat on the steps, the car--a nice moment in time. Trackless TrolleysYes, these are in fact trackless trolley wires. You can clearly see where the B.T.C. simply added a negative wire along side the existing positive street car wire. There is a Baltimore trackless trolley sitting inside of the car barn at the Baltimore Street Car Museum. It was built by the old Pullman Standard Car Mfg. Company of Worcester, Mass. I grew up in BaltimoreIn the 26th Ward, in a rowhouse just like these. I'll never forget Saturday mornings and my mother scrubbing the white marble steps. Although we lived on the southeast side, I passed this intersection daily making deliveries to the old Montgomery Ward building that was the next block down!! MemoriesI grew up in Baltimore and my grandma lived on East Monument Street and she had marble steps. All the neighbors would wash their marble steps and keep them looking white. And everyone sat outside at night to chat. Pigtown Historic DistrictThis scene is indeed at Washington Boulevard and Bayard Street, facing south. It is within Pigtown Historic District. The hip-roofed building at the end of the row appears to have been constructed after 1914 and been demolished by 1951. It stood at 1463 Washington Boulevard, and was a filling station by the December 1951 Sanborn map. The 1914 Sanborn shows the lot owned by D.M. Larkin, Contractor. None of the buildings depicted look much like the hip-roofed structure in the photo. The Carroll Park Shops, on the far side of Bush Street from the mystery building, were constructed c. 1899. The United Railway & Electric Company hired B&O architect E. Francis Baldwin to design a single, centralized shop for repairing and rebuilding streetcars. Two huge one-story buildings (each covering an entire block) went up on the southeast side of Washington Boulevard, between Bush and Elk Streets. Each structure is lit by four long roof monitors that run the entire length of the building. Today, these turn-of-the-century facilities still stand as the repair shop for MTA buses. The buildings were never three stories high, however, and couldn't be the structure depicted in the photo. Of the houses in the photo, they were built in 1888 by Cornelius H. Saffell (or Soffell), and have typical Queen Anne-style decorative brick door hoods; first floor windows have segmentally arched lintels made up of a double row of header bricks, with the upper row alternately projecting to create a decorative effect. The late Italianate-style cornices have jig-sawn friezes. Saffell was one of many German-born builders to construct buildings in the district. Indeed, many of the residents were German immigrants working in the butchering industry. +74Below is the same view from July of 2014. (The Gallery, Baltimore, Cars, Trucks, Buses, Jack Delano)
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