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En Vogue: 1944
February 1944. "Vogue: Florida Fashion." 35mm Kodachrome by Toni Frissell. View full size. Makes my elbow hurt just ... thing? [A comb. - Dave] En refrain: 1973 Kodachrome, give us those nice bright colors Give us those greens of summers ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 07/16/2023 - 8:03pm -

February 1944. "Vogue: Florida Fashion." 35mm Kodachrome by Toni Frissell. View full size.
Makes my elbow hurt just to look at herThat sharp rock, what an uncomfortable place to lounge at the beach! Maybe she was hoping nobody would see her with those ridiculous sunglasses. And what is that red thing?
[A comb. - Dave]
En refrain: 1973Kodachrome, give us those nice bright colors
Give us those greens of summers
      Makes you think all the world's a sunny day, oh yeah
Well I've got a Nikon camera
      Love to take a photograph
So Mama don't take my Kodachrome away ... 
-- "Kodachrome" ("There Goes Rhymin' Simon," 1973)
That bikiniThere's enough material there to make three today.
Model Behavior I guess that she had to take the rough with the smooth. I hope Vogue had good medical benefits in the '40s.
Snapshot"Toni Frissell began her career in photography in the 1930s, at first working as a fashion photographer for Vogue magazine. During World War II, she was, for a time, the official photographer for the American Red Cross,  and later, the Women’s Army Corps. Her work took her to Europe, where she photographed soldiers and civilians affected by the war, including a famous series featuring the Tuskegee Airmen at an air base in Italy. In later years, she continued a career of photographing both famous and ordinary people for decades, amassing a collection of some 340,000 images. In 1971, Frissell donated her photographs to the Library of Congress, preserving the images and making them available to everyone."

Not too different from nowI was surprised.  Her style of swimwear is not too different from our classic two piece that some wear now.  Nice colors.  And the style of sunglasses not too different from some available now.  I think it is great that we don't do changing styles every season so much now.  I'll be the quality of the cloth was better than easily available now.
OuchLet's lie down on some coral.
(The Gallery, Kodachromes, Florida, Swimming, Toni Frissell)

The Red Caboose: 1943
... Proviso Yard, Chicago. April 1943. View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano. Caboose Great photo, Jack takes ... ... Jack died 10 years ago at the age of 83. - Dave] Kodachrome Early Kodachrome looked so good. Color film these days has too ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 07/30/2012 - 10:02pm -

Chicago & North Western RR worker putting the finishing touches on a rebuilt caboose on the rip tracks at Proviso Yard, Chicago. April 1943. View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano.
CabooseGreat photo, Jack takes really terrific RR pictures, has he ever contributed to Trains or Railfan magazines?
[This picture is over 60 years old ... Jack died 10 years ago at the age of 83. - Dave]
KodachromeEarly Kodachrome looked so good.  Color film these days has too much contrast.
Re: Kodachromeyes, i have noticed most of the pictures taken in the 40s that i have seen on this site are more crisp than the ones taken now!
American railway jargon is aAmerican railway jargon is a bit of a mystery to me. Can you tell me what "rip tracks" are?
Rip tracksRIP track
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A RIP track (RIP is an acronym for repair in place) is a designated track or tracks in a rail yard where locomotives and/or railroad cars are set out for minor repairs without removing the units from service, sometimes without even removing a freight load from the car. In some yards, a RIP track may be used for staging locomotives or "bad order" cars for major repairs. Some yards may have more than one RIP track to serve both functions.
Jack DelanoJack Delano was not a railfan per se.  I am not sure he was even particularly a photographer by trade.  He was a beneficiary of government funds during the FDR era.   Fortunately he was sensitive to the drama of the railroads.
Interestingly, some years ago I attended a concert by a Cuban clarinet / saxophone player named Paquito d'Rivera.  The music was more or less jazz/classical fusion and one of the pieces was composed by Jack Delano, who moved to Puerto Rico after the war.  So Delano was a true artist in more ways than one.
Dave Nelson
(The Gallery, Kodachromes, Chicago, Jack Delano, Railroads)

Christmas P.J.'s: 1951
... work and sitting here reading the evening newspaper. Kodachrome mailer I believe there is a 20-exposure box of processed ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 12/25/2022 - 11:44pm -

"Christmas P.J.'s -- Dec. 25 1951." Grace and Sally clash  in the latest episode of Minnesota Kodachromes! 35mm color slide by Hubert Tuttle. View full size.
        Grace and Sally hope you had a very merry Christmas!
Behind the chairIs that Ralphie's Red Ryder 200-Shot Range Model Air Rifle?
You'll put your eye out!That looks like the barrel of a Daisy BB Gun sticking up behind the chair.
London Past & PresentThank you for the Beautiful Christmas Focus!
I thought Shorpy might appreciate seeing this:
"Christmas in London past and present: In pictures."
Happy Holidays to You and Yours!
Patty 
I wonder what her dress saysMy reading and writing of Japanese has been limited to nothing more than handwriting an invitation for dinner to one Japanese president, with assistance from a Japanese native.  At least my writing was good enough that he actually showed up.  A little might have been lost in the communication, though, as the first question he asked when I opened the limo door was if I'd gotten him a call girl and here I'd thought $25,000 worth of sushi around the Christmas tree was all I'd promised.  
I'd be curious what it says in the print.  Seems unusual at that time in America with Pearl Harbor a not very distant memory that a Midwestern woman would wear such a pattern.  My father never bought a Japanese car and apologized profusely to his last days for finally buying a Sony TV.
Actually, it makes me wonder if she may have been the wife of an occupying soldier.
On the contrarySally's collar matches Grace's pajamas beautifully. They are even color-coordinated with the drapes and lamp. The poor, pale, porcelain cat ...
Rifle, curtain rod, or something else?What's that propped against the entry door frame, behind the chair?  Perhaps a Red Ryder carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle?
The PJs of Saint Mary'sThose are the same pajamas she was wearing at the hospital.
A dog and cigarsJust imagining coming home from work and sitting here reading the evening newspaper.  
Kodachrome mailerI believe there is a 20-exposure box of processed Kodachromes on the table along with the cigars. The yellow box looks to be the right color and shape.
Crocheted doiliesYou don't see crocheted doilies on chairs these days. I wonder if they were handmade?
[Those are called antimacassars and yes, they were hand-made, usually by your mother or grandmother. -tterrace]
AntimacassarsApropos of which, I am reminded of a limerick from a long-ago New Yorker:
A voluptuous virgin at Vassar
Is knitting an antimacassar,
To induce her professor
to love and caress her,
And possibly even to pass her.
Conservative progressive?My first though was "1951? Really?" as such a dress pattern would not be out of place in the late 60's or early 70's.  
Antimacassars are still popular with the airlines. Now, there's a conservative industry, if there ever was one. 
So, once again we can see, if you do have got an attic, never dump anything. It might come back into fashion. 
Anti MacassarAntimacassars were developed to protect the chair fabric from the "evils" of Macassar Oil: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macassar_oil
A coordinated effortFrom the draperies to the wallpaper accents to the lamp to the upholstery to the slightly boho jammies and even down to the lipstick enhancing her lovely smile, Grace embraced the coral colorway with something approaching fanaticism. It's a happy shade that suited her well. 
Anti-antimacassarWould that be an oily-doily?
A little dab'll do yaMacassar was a particularly oleaginous hair dressing popular with males in the 19th Century.  It tended to stain fabrics, particularly the heavily napped upholstery on most Victorian furniture.
Though the product has not been around for years, several immediate generations of our antecedents were brought up to associate antimacassars with gentility, right up there with lace curtains.  They are also among the few things one can make to show off one's crocheting skills now that women's fashion has lost its fussiness.  In some quarters, I am confident, antimacassars  endure, a product without a need.
So nice to see Sally again!
No research other than Shorpy photos and commentsWe know that Grace and Hubert Tuttle are married, as are Maurine and Leslie Boler.
I think Grace's maiden name is Ringgenberg https://www.shorpy.com/node/18281 and Maurine is her daughter (mother-daughter resemblance, especially hair).
I think Grace's parents are Helen and Albert Ringgenberg (see St. Mary's photo) and she has a brother, Morris (in the photograph - there is a resemblance) and a brother, William (referenced in the newspaper clipping).
[Grace Ellanor True Cartwright had one child -- Donald Cartwright, from her marriage to Thomas Cartwright. She married Hubert Tuttle in 1936. Her parents were Bertha and Byron True.  - Dave]
AlmostAnother year almost done. Let's hope for 2023.
I've looked at this photo for years and just realized that I sit next to a table in my living room that's a twin to the one in the photo. It was my uncle's; he was born in 1902. I believe it was his father's.
Doilies and ashtrays.1950s and '60s staples. I can smell those El Producto Perus to this day. Those weren't even a good 5 cent cigar. 
YikesHaven't seen colors like this since The Shining.
Them There EyesI'm amazed, not a single comment about that owner-adoring Dalmatian.
The eyes say it all, no evocative sounds necessary.
Best festive wishes to all.
My eyes!This is another one of those photos that would look better in Black and White!
(Christmas, Dogs, Minnesota Kodachromes)

Hunting Party: 1958
... (1892-1963), president of Pacific Lumber & Truss. 35mm Kodachrome by Toni Frissell for the Sports Illustrated assignment "Shooting: ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 07/23/2023 - 2:24pm -

November 1958. "Waterfowl hunting (Nevada) -- Mr. and Mrs. Stanwood Murphy of San Francisco." The man at left is legendary restaurateur "Trader Vic" Bergeron; the DC-3 belongs to Albert Stanwood Murphy (1892-1963), president of Pacific Lumber & Truss. 35mm Kodachrome by Toni Frissell for the Sports Illustrated assignment "Shooting: California Waterfowl Hunting; Upland Game Birds in Nevada." View full size.
Flameless FlameoutFrom M2's link: "Crashed at Umbogintwini Beach, south of Durban on 28 December 1973 and was subsequently scrapped. The No. 1 engine stopped when the DC-3 was turning onto final approach. The gear was raised. Shortly afterwards, the No. 2 engine also stopped. Fuel valve selectors were switched, but to no avail. The aircraft was turned towards the beach and was ditched successfully."
Well, at least it escaped the dreaded Shorpy fire curse.
No Longer With UsDouglas DC-3 Registration Number N67000, S/N 1498 eventually went to South Africa, crashed at Umbogintwini Beach in 1973 and was subsequently scrapped:
http://www.dc-3.co.za/dc-3-individual-aircraft-history/cn-1498.html
CorneredBack when they still put square windows on airplanes..
What's in a name? I think Albert Stanwood Murphy (1892-1963) is somebody else.
The once president of Pacific Lumber Company and original owner of the Flying M Ranch was Stanwood A. Murphy.  I can't find a birth year for him but according to the New York Times, he died in 1972.  
(The Gallery, Kodachromes, Aviation, Cars, Trucks, Buses, Dogs, Toni Frissell)

Little Red Wagons: 1965
... as good a day as my niece and nephew. I shot this on 35mm Kodachrome. View full size. The Missing Behomeths Notice that the ... were taken on Kodak film with a 35mm Minolta. Was it the Kodachrome, the way you took them or the way they were processed, I wonder. I ... 
 
Posted by tterrace - 06/24/2009 - 4:53pm -

Diamond Bar, California, August 1965. The owner of the MG across the street isn't having quite as good a day as my niece and nephew. I shot this on 35mm Kodachrome. View full size.
The Missing BehomethsNotice that the usual big American cars are curiously absent.  There is a Rambler/American Motors(?) type station wagon in the driveway, a smaller Ford in the street, the MG, and a VW up the cross street.  I guess all the Pontiac Bonnevilles were parked at the office.
The neighborhoodIs that the Brady Bunch house up the street? 
Color, color and more colorI can't believe the gorgeous color that you've still got in these photos. Even the one of your mother's wedding just pops! I have photos from the 70's that are faded to orange and yellow that were taken on Kodak film with a 35mm Minolta. Was it the Kodachrome, the way you took them or the way they were processed, I wonder. I suppose you processed your own. We sent them out.
[One reason these look good is because they are scanned from transparencies (slides or negatives), not prints on paper. The other three reasons are Kodachrome, Kodachrome, Kodachrome. Plus of course it was taken by tterrace, the camera-ninja boy wonder. - Dave]
No punch backsPunch buggy green! My nephew hit me with that old line over one of those 'new' VW bugs.
No place like home, TotoHaving lived in California all of my formative years, I did not need a label to know where this was taken.  I think it has a lot to do with the sidewalks, "bike" ramps at the corners and, unfortunately, no trees.  Not gorgeous, but home.  Thanks for the refresher.
Flat.Tire slashing vandals in such a safe-looking, peaceful neighborhood?  I still have my 1969 MGB. Wish it looked as good is this one. With fully inflated tires, of course.
SubdivisionsAll the trees and bushes are small and paltry; they all have that recently planted look about them.
The concrete sidewalks look pristine, no cracks, no heaving, no stains.
The houses and the yards all look fresh and new.
The trees across the street in the hapless MG owner's yard still have guy wires to keep them up till the root system matures.
There's still mud in the gutters, implying there was still construction going on in the neighborhood.
I'm guessing the subdivision must have been pretty new. 
SlashedThat's what he gets for putting white walls on an MG. What's the keen green wagon on the left? Nash? Rambler? Stude? At first I thought International, but their quarter panels didn't look like that until the '70s. And the Travelall was taller.
[Hudson Rambler. - Dave]
Colorful attributionsThose wedding photos are from delworthio's eye-popping Kodachromes. (My folks' marriage predates the introduction of Kodachrome by three years.)
Then and NowWould love to see this same scene exactly as it is today. Possible?
Tire Slashing Vandals?...Perhaps the dastardly deed was perpetrated by some public spirited citizen who knew (as everyone did back then) that all MG drivers were leftist pipe-smoking History or English literature professors who listened to Miles Davis and always carried a well thumbed copy of "Quotations from Chairman Mao." They were also fond of wearing Harris Tweed jackets with leather elbow patches.(With matching tweed caps, naturally). Although wearing stringback driving gloves would be going too far!
Hmmmm....wait....this guy doesn't seem to fit the description. Oh well, I suppose it's more likely that the car simply hasn't run in months and the tires went flat from just sitting there.
Just ask the man who owned one.
New subdivisionThis was about two years after my sister and her family moved into their new place here.
KodachromeKodachrome, Kodachrome, Kodachrome indeed. The images taken with Ektachrome are all (with rare exceptions) fading into history. Kodachrome was a "dye-additive" processed film where the colors/dyes were added to the film matrix during processing. Ektachrome (and to a similar degree Anscochrome, Agfachrome et al) were "dye-subtractive" where unneeded colors were bleached out of the film during processing leaving behind only those colors necessary to form the original colors. Those 4x5 Kodachromes that Dave posts here are to die (or dye) for!
Diamond Bar NowView Larger Map
CriminalsFrom the looks on their faces, I suspect these tykes are just returning from a trip up the street to slash some more neighbors' tires. 
When California was actually affordable.Suburban homes like those in the picture are for sale out here in San Jose for sometimes over a million bucks. I wonder if working and middle class people back then would ever imagine that they would soon not be able to afford their own home if they had to buy it again. A shame.
"Made me sigh"Today on Lileks, tterrace gets a shout-out from the man himself.
New suburb smellAh, a freshly minted suburb - note the saplings with crutches, the kerbside landscaping and the dirt in the rain gutters. We often forget that every development - even the late Victorian and Edwardian ones in my own city - once had this raw look.
Slashed?I would think not. In those halcyon days we used to take the cap off and then sit there patiently holding the valve down until all the air was out. Slashing is a Gen X sort of thing.
MGBHad a '63 myself -- white with a red leather interior.
I'm of the opinion the thing has been sitting there since
the last time it ran and the tires went flat. 
Held my breathLileks says "You almost expect the ghost of the photographer to show up in the picture." To say nothing of the goose-bumps forming on the skin of the actual photographer.
The Old photoGorgeous! That could have been a pic of myself and sister in Pleasanton, 1969
FlashbackMy immediate response on seeing the picture was "Hey! Southeastern L.A. county, or northern Orange county."
Sure enough. I moved away nearly 40 years ago, but in an instant I was back again; except that I remember Diamond Bar before the houses started going in. (I grew up in Whittier, my father lived the last 20 years of  his life in La Habra.) Thank St. Eastman for Kodachrome.
Little red wagonI was just trying to explain to my wife last night about little red wagons, she's Filipina, and how my friends and I, when we were about the age of the boy in the pic, used to ride them down a hill that ended at the brick wall of my house's garage. Sure you could steer the wagons, sorta, and you could use your feet as brakes but often as not the rides ended with boy meets wall. Good times, so much joy to be had. Helmets?  Helmets were for fighter pilots and spacemen.
'63 MGB,I currently have a '63 MGB, and I tell you (honestly!), it's the most reliable car I've owned. (Wait, does that say more about me or the car?)
Anyway, that MG is, at most, two years old, and washed and everything. Someone was probably sending a message about buying those furrin' cars, or the owner is, in fact, an insufferable, rake-shaking, "get offa my lawn" prat and this is what he has reaped.
Weeding the lawn again?Is that a dichondra lawn? Insanely labor-intensive! Still, they used to be popular in the area, especially among those employing Japanese gardeners.
AmazingDo MG's actually run? I thought they just sat in mechanics' lots.
Then and NowHere we are today.  No MG in site so he either got it fixed or it was towed.  I took this from the street since I didn't want to stand on their front porch.  Looks like the tree's finally grew.  I'm not sure about the hill in the background, but our neighbor once told us that an enormous amount of dirt had been moved to make the high school.
Enjoy!

That's My HouseI've really enjoyed reading everyone's comments about our house.  
We moved to Diamond Bar in '62, and we were the first people on the street.  Everyone else's Including the photographer's, was still being built. In this picture, it is a brand-spanking new neighborhood.  That is my dad out in front looking at my oldest sister's MG. We also had a Pontiac that he kept for 13 years before replacing it. 
To solve the mystery, the MG had been slashed to bits... the tires and the tarp.  Here's the story;  We were going to the beach with the church youth group, and she parked the car at the DB Congregational Church.  While we were getting ready to go, there was a terrible accident on DB Blvd, which she witnessed.  When the police came, she told them who's fault it was.  When they left, we all went to the beach and when we came back, it was vandalized. We knew who did it, but could not prove it. 
The "now" picture from 2010 shows the house after the folks had passed away.  Dad in 2007, and Mom 11 months later. My nephew and his wife who were their caretakers, remained in the house for a while, and remodeled (as nothing had been done since my parents originally moved in in '62, the electrical was a mess as was the plumbing), and they sold it shortly thereafter.  
That hill was eventually leveled down to build Diamond Bar High School.  It was part of a huge piece of empty land, with a big gully in the middle of it. Like all the other hills in the neighborhood (including the one on our bank in the back yard), it has eroded into almost an even flatness.  The lawn is not dichondra, it was originally St. Augistine and I think my nephew replanted something else, but not dichondra. I saw it when it was growing in, and I think it may have been some sort of fescue. 
In the before picture; Yes the trees show the wires as the yard was just planted. He loved trees and planted one for each of us girls (4 of us) and one for Mom. They indeed grew HUGE.  Also missing is the huge bird of paradise that Dad planted right near the front "banister".  It was a huge eyesore, but he and Mom loved it. My dad and a neighbor put in the sprinkler system and the grass.  In those days all the neighbors took turns doing each other's lawns.  It was a great time.
So thank you for the pictures tterrace, and for another last look at my Dad.  I remember your family well, and always wonder what happed to Big Frank, (You should've seen him ride a skateboard) Rosemary, Jimmy and Mary Rose.  My Mom and Dad were The Ropers, Mel and Vickey who lived and died in that house for over 40 years. I'm Diamond Bar Girl.   
(ShorpyBlog, Member Gallery, Cars, Trucks, Buses, Kids, tterrapix)

Memorial Day: 1942
... The town hall is in the left foreground." Medium format Kodachrome transparency by Fenno Jacobs for the Office of War Information. ... the street, but town hall remains with little change. Kodachrome Kodachrome never ceases to amaze me. This photo looks like it was ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 05/29/2017 - 5:05pm -

May 1942. Southington, Connecticut. "An American town and its way of life. The Memorial Day parade moving down the main street. The small number of spectators is accounted for by the fact that the town's war factories did not close. The town hall is in the left foreground." Medium format Kodachrome transparency by Fenno Jacobs for the Office of War Information. View full size.
Baby carriage?Gorgeous scene. Is the blue suit wearing woman in the foreground pushing a baby carriage? It's very interestingly designed.
[It's a stroller. - Dave]
Southington From AboveThis aerial view shows Main Street (State highway 10) at Academy Street
Two newer buildings are across the street, but town hall remains with little change.
KodachromeKodachrome never ceases to amaze me. This photo looks like it was taken last week.
The detailI had forgotten the detail of medium format Kodachrome. When I first started as a photography student we still worked in with film. I was one of the very last classes to do so.
The world has changed so much in just over 10 years.
Parking for the ParadeParked along the fence, left to right, are a 1940 Chevrolet; a 1937 Ford; and a 1933 Oldsmobile (note the people inside watching the parade).
The first five cars parked along the parade route, starting at the yellow curb and working back, are a 1939 Buick; a 1942 Buick (which is not a Roadmaster model); a 1941 Pontiac; a 1934 Chevrolet; and a 1941 Buick.
The American Legion is marching behind the boy band.
The parade must be in the morning because the flag is still at half staff (it is raised to the top of the flag pole at noon on Memorial Day).
It looks like there used to be a circular driveway in front of the town hall.  The curb in front of the building has two ramps that go all the way to the street.
There are at least six children on top of the roof of the building next to town hall.  Another five are on the cannon in the parkway.  I saw them because I had my eyes examined by Dr. Duffy.
Parade plansSouthington News of 5-29-42. Front page article about the next day's Memorial Day parade activities. The whole newspaper makes for interesting reading.
Immaculate lawnIt's clear the war effort didn't keep the groundskeepers at town hall from doing their work, and doing it very well, I must say. 
This Is Why We Love Shorpy!I still can't get over the fact that this picture is 75 years old! The Kodachrome just makes it look like it was taken yesterday.
(The Gallery, Fenno Jacobs, Patriotic, WW2)

Chickamauga: 1942
... Dam powerhouse near Chattanooga, Tenn." 4x5 inch Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer. View full size. Miles of ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 08/06/2023 - 7:17pm -

June 1942. "Generator hall of the Chickamauga Dam powerhouse near Chattanooga, Tenn." 4x5 inch Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer. View full size.
Miles of TilesAll that tiling, for a room that's seldom seen. What's wrong with bare concrete?
Awe-inspiring picture, especially with the little bloke in the distance providing perspective.
Generational PrideThe tiling might be scored concrete or some other semi-automatic process, but the designers of this facility clearly obsessed over the appearance of their work. Although seemingly simple if not stark, all of the shapes and surfaces are carefully designed and highly finished to create a strong impression of ageless quality. Check out the almost "graphic" tool sets on the wall between each generator. Maybe they wanted to impress the visiting taxpayer or government official. 
Clean WorkshopOh wow - is that what they are?! Such perfectly arranged tools make this the cleanest workshop I've ever seen - almost surgically sterile.
Miles of tilesThe tiling on the floor and walls is not "scored concrete".  I know because I've walked on it.  It's real ceramic tile, used not for aesthetic purposes, but for practical reasons.  This facility was designed to last for a long, long time, and spilled or leaked generator lube oil would soften and weaken the concrete underneath the tile.  The tiling is also much easier to keep clean, and cleanliness is a requirement around the delicately precise equipment that this is.  I also observed the installation of the tile on the turbo/generator floor at Sequoyah Nuclear Plant north of Chattanooga, and wondered, at first, over the "obsession with appearance."   
(The Gallery, Kodachromes, Alfred Palmer, Industry & Public Works)

Naval Volley: 1951
From circa 1951 comes this unlabeled Kodachrome, part of a collection of donated slides that seem to have been taken ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 08/04/2023 - 7:08pm -

From circa 1951 comes this unlabeled Kodachrome, part of a collection of donated slides that seem to have been taken by a U.S. Navy officer with postings across Pacific, with many photos from Japan, Korea and Hawaii. As well as this shot of shipboard volleyball. View full size.
Out of BoundsWhen you go out there, it's game over.
DungareesMy dad was flying in the Korean War, I think at this time (I looked closely but he's not here). He always called bluejeans "dungarees" and always rolled the pant legs up like these fellows did, even when he was over 70. Dungarees were always worn when he was doing any work that had dirt or mud involved, never as casual wear.  He only kept one pair at a time and when they wore out he'd buy another one.  To be seen in public in ripped or shredded pants was unthinkable.
Spike ahoyThe wood deck planks and U-shaped openings in the metal strips are clues that this is an aircraft carrier, and the game likely taking place on an elevator.

Integrated gameIt is interesting to see that in 1951, only a few short years after the military was integrated by Truman/Eisenhower, these sailors would be playing an integrated game, presumably voluntarily.
(The Gallery, Kodachromes, Boats & Bridges)

Posh Lunch: 1954
... 1954. "La Coquille Club, Palm Beach, Florida." 35mm Kodachrome by Toni Frissell for the Sports Illustrated assignment "Sporting ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 07/17/2023 - 6:25pm -

December 1954. "La Coquille Club, Palm Beach, Florida." 35mm Kodachrome by Toni Frissell for the Sports Illustrated assignment "Sporting Look: La Coquille." View full size.
Callin' me yellow??It's a detailed-oriented man indeed who coordinates his socks with the tablecloth!
Perhaps he was afraid someone might drive by and see his ankles ??

 In the early days, there was a road interposed between the pool and the beach, so why take chances?
The fortunes of the Club first soared, then slowly ebbed. By 1986 the footwear of choice was heavy work boots...the kind wreckers wear.
Here's an ideaFor those with time on their hands ... match the guests with their car parked in the lot in the previous picture. 
By default ...or maybe by design, but it sure looks like whites only. 
I was 12 months old at the timeI Love Florida in the winter! And I simply ADORE a late lunch with cocktails on a patio! Does that blond woman have curlers in her hair?!?!
Nothing says "posh lunch"... like a hairy, exposed chest.
People ListenGuessing the guy in the brown shirt talking is E.F. Hutton.
Definitely by designIt's Florida in the mid-1950s. Race segregation was ubiquitous, and socially de rigueur. Most likely the only people of color that would have been allowed in that place would have been kitchen staff and maybe the groundskeepers. It looks like even the waitstaff are white. 
All changed in late '80sIn the mid-'80s I went to visit a family friend who lived in Palm Beach.  The family had a membership at La Coquille and one weekend we all went to the club.  It was showing its age but I loved the feel of old Florida.  
I went back a few years later to find that they had demolished it and built a much bigger place.  More "posh" but lacking in character.
(The Gallery, Kodachromes, Eateries & Bars, Florida, Swimming, Toni Frissell)

Five Guys: 1955
... in the Hamptons, Long Island's chic play spot." 35mm Kodachrome by Toni Frissell for Sports Illustrated. View full size. ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 07/26/2023 - 12:48pm -

August 1955. "Tennis in the Hamptons, Long Island's chic play spot." 35mm Kodachrome by Toni Frissell for Sports Illustrated. View full size.
Telltale red dust on the tennies.So the wealthy play on clay. These Kodachromes by Frissell are so rich and saturated, everyone looks tanned and healthy and the world invites us. Color photography just doesn't look like this anymore.
Safe for planesCanada Dry's "Hi-Spot" brand (whereas, presumably, "Hi-Jack" brand wouldn't fly).
Apparently still around, though I'm not familiar with it. (What??  That's not the first thing you noticed ??)

Something tells me it involved a girlHe's holding a page from a message pad, so someone called while he was playing and left a message and/or a callback number.  He looks amused and two of the other guys seem to be joking with him about it.  Toni Frissell thought it was interesting enough to photograph.  Will we ever know how it turned out?
Jocks in socks through the yearsTwo of these gentlemen are anticipating, in a do-it-yourself way, the move from crew socks to ankle socks, which accelerated through the 1980s. Next? No-show socks, already here.
Yale tennis togsThat fellow would have been a teammate of that season's No. 6 singles player (who would finish the season at No. 2), Dick Raskin of Forest Hills, better known later as Dr. Renée Richards.
Kodachrooooome!"It gives you those nice, bright colors; it gives you the greens of summer, makes you think all the world's a sunny day, oh yeah!"  Thus sayeth Paul Simon.
(The Gallery, Kodachromes, Sports, Toni Frissell)

Cold Duck: 1958
... -- Mr. and Mrs. Stanwood Murphy of San Francisco." 35mm Kodachrome by Toni Frissell for the Sports Illustrated assignment "Shooting: ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 07/22/2023 - 4:30pm -

November 1958. "Waterfowl hunting (Nevada) -- Mr. and Mrs. Stanwood Murphy of San Francisco." 35mm Kodachrome by Toni Frissell for the Sports Illustrated assignment "Shooting: California Waterfowl Hunting; Upland Game Birds in Nevada." View full size.
Two Months LaterMs. Frissell's photos from this assignment made it into print in the January 19 edition of Sports Illustrated.
Seems Like a Lot Of WorkFor some poultry. Living in New England my whole life I'm at the point where I want nothing to do with snow. Whether driving in it, shoveling it or paying $20+ a week each to get the cars washed so they'll at least last the life of the loan from all the chemicals used for safer driving. I guess if you're from Frisco snow would be a novelty. Though I'll take the snow over earthquakes, drought and wildfires, I guess.
Star ChiefToday's feature car is the 1955 Pontiac Star Chief sedan.  I restored one of this exact model several years ago and it was a great highway cruiser, thanks to V8 power and a cushy suspension.  It even had the Indian head hood ornament that lit up when the headlights were on.
Which of those two guest dudes is Mrs. Murphy?And where did Mr. Murphy learn how to pack luggage on the roof of the car? And does the California couple really own a car with Nevada plates? And for heaven's sake, why so much luggage for a hunting trip? (Too many questions.) 
[The Murphys aren't in this photo; the car is how they get from the lodge to their plane. The man on the right is restaurateur Vic Bergeron, of Trader Vic fame. - Dave]
RIPThose dogs are soooo dead.
Ahead of his time"Albert Stanwood Murphy, who took over the business [Pacific Lumber Co.] in 1931, argued that clear-cutting might lead to enormous profits in the short term but devastation in the long term. Murphy had witnessed the effects of uncontrolled logging that scraped all the trees off mountainsides, allowing the winter rains to erode the steep slopes, clogging streams, destroying salmon habitat and leaving the soil too impoverished to grow another generation of redwoods.
"Murphy vowed to treat his land differently, promising steady jobs based on selective cutting. And it worked. By the late 1980s, other local companies -- which had been clear-cutting their holdings -- had run out of timber, and Pacific Lumber was the only company with any trees left."
From the 1996 Washington Post review of THE LAST STAND The War Between Wall Street and Main Street Over California's Ancient Redwoods By David Harris Times Books.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1996/01/22/ax-now-pay-l...
(The Gallery, Kodachromes, Cars, Trucks, Buses, Dogs, Toni Frissell)

A Dame at the Races: 1960
... August 1960. Saratoga Springs, New York. An uncaptioned Kodachrome snapped by Toni Frissell for the Sports Illustrated assignment ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 07/25/2023 - 6:35pm -

August 1960. Saratoga Springs, New York. An uncaptioned Kodachrome snapped by Toni Frissell for the Sports Illustrated assignment "Saratoga: Where Horse Is King." View full size.
A Dame at the RacesWhat's next, Dave ... A Knight at the Opera?
A Short StoryOnly two of Ms. Frizzell's photos made it into print to accompany the one-page story in the August 7, 1961, issue penned by longtime SI writer William Leggett.
[Ahem. Frissell, not "Frizzell." - Dave]
Reminds me of the Pink LadySeen here:  https://www.shorpy.com/node/26990
Green GoddessOur girl again, after losing the glasses (and the dress).

(The Gallery, Kodachromes, Saratoga Springs, Toni Frissell)

Southern Style: 1944
... "Collier's, Florida. Woman 2 (Sherley on wall)." 35mm Kodachrome by Toni Frissell for Collier's magazine. View full size. The ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 07/20/2023 - 9:45pm -

May 27, 1944. "Collier's, Florida. Woman 2 (Sherley on wall)." 35mm Kodachrome by Toni Frissell for Collier's magazine. View full size.
The nails are not chippedbut reflecting the sunlight off the red enamel.  My mother, who would have been about the same age as this woman in 1944, also applied her nail polish to keep the lunula of the nail exposed as does "Sherley," something I never understood.  I suspect the gal is former debutante Sherley Smith, whose name occasionally appeared in the Palm Beach newspaper columns, and who, unsurprisingly, married well.  From the Miami Sunday News, November 26, 1950:

When Smoking Was ChicI remember my mother, in the 1940s, as looking just as stylish and sophisticated as the young woman in the photo. Mom smoked Pall Malls, and I remember her desperately trying to kick the tobacco habit years later. She managed to quit eventually, but the damage was already done to her heart and lungs.
Given the date, May 1944,with the world in flames, and the U.S. at war, this photograph seems especially frivolous.
[If only we had been there to guide them! - Dave]
Not addictiveBack in the ‘60s, my mother’s bridge partner was begging for a cigarette while under an oxygen tent in a hospital for a collapsed lung. My wife handled a lot of the litigation for the lawsuits. Terrible way to die, suffocating. 
Nails, and coffin nailsNicely turned out for Collier's photo shoot, except for the nails.
I'm no expert, but the chipped polish seems out of place.
And don't call me Sherley.
(The Gallery, Kodachromes, Florida, Pretty Girls, Toni Frissell)

Trade You for an iPod: 1979
... who had moved out of state sometime previously. A Kodachrome slide which, in keeping with the theme of nostalgic technological ... 
 
Posted by tterrace - 06/30/2010 - 12:43am -

It's a sobering thought that this accumulation of consumer audio gear, though approaching high-end levels but not all that esoteric for the period, may look as archaic to present-day eyes as those examples of enormous, steampunk-like telephone and radio contraptions we've see here on Shorpy. Maybe if it was all black enamel rather than brushed aluminum it wouldn't look so old-hat, er, I mean retro. Of all this stuff all I have left is the turntable; a visiting friend recently took out his cell phone and snapped a photo of it in action, then emailed it to his daughter. He said she'd never seen a record playing.
Lest anyone think that some form of perverse, fetishistic self-absorbtion inspired this as well as Beam Me Up, I took these photos as a status update for a fellow audio and video enthusiast friend who had moved out of state sometime previously.
A Kodachrome slide which, in keeping with the theme of nostalgic technological obsolescence, was processed by Fotomat. View full size.
Ripping a CD --- 1,411 kbps>> my kids laugh when I tell them they should rip/download everything at 320 kbps for best available audio quality
Top Geezer, if you're ripping a CD, for best audio quality you should simply copy the native .WAV files off the disc, which is 1411 kbps. There's a setting in iTunes to let you do this.
I can't let go eitherI still have most of my LPs, though I did sell all I could part with when I moved from California.  Still Have my Linn Axis Turntable,  My Wharfedale Diamond speakers from 1983 are barely broken in, but my NAD receiver bit the dust just last week.  All this is up in the library along with my Nikon FE and my Rolleicord Twin-lens reflex.  I think I'll go cry now.
Jewel case #1When did you get your first CD player, and what was the first CD you ever bought? What did you think.
tterrace: An Audio OdysseySome curiosity has been expressed, so here goes: I got into reel tapes because of what I hated about LPs, primarily tracking-induced distortion, particularly inner-groove toward the disc center, the grab-bag aspect of pressing quality, and of course the ticks, pops and inexorable deterioration. I got out of reel tapes because of what I hated about them: hiss and inconvenience. Hiss* was mostly taken care of by Dolby encoding, but that came during the format's final death throes and then new releases totally dried up with the advent of the CD. My first was in 1985, and I have to say I haven't missed in the slightest all the things I hated about tapes and vinyl. Tapes all went when I moved into a place too small to house them. LPs lingered because I missed the window of disposal opportunity when they still had some value, plus I was lazy. What I've kept have either nostalgia value - what was around the house when I was a kid, and some of my own first purchases c.1962 - or things not yet on CD, plus the aforementioned quads. I have to admit that I retain a certain fondness for the ritualistic aspects of playing physical media, but were it not for inertia - physical as well as mental, both undoubtedly age-related - I'd probably jump whole hog into hard disc storage, computer-controlled access and data-stream acquisition. And I'm not totally ruling out the possibility of getting there yet.
*Desire to suppress tape his was the main reason I chose the Phase Linear 4000 preamp with its auto-correlator noise reduction circuitry. It kind of worked, but not transparently; I could hear the hiss pumping in and out. But it also had an SQ quad decoder that I eventually took advantage of when it was discovered that the audio tracks of some recent films on laserdisc and videocassette carried, unbilled, Dolby Stereo matrix surround encoding. By adding another small amp and two more speakers in back I amazed friends with Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark in surround sound well before it became a home theater mainstay.
BTW: my advice is to use the Apple Lossless Encoder when importing to iTunes if you want maximum quality. Like FLAC, it's a non-lossy compression scheme, so there's no quality difference vs. the CD original, and you use less hard disc space.
The past is the future which is nowHa! I still have my Pioneer PL-400 turntable, the same one I've been spinning on for the past 30+ years. Would love to have a tube amp, but honestly I can't beat the convenience of my early 90s Sony digital receiver. Eight functions/inputs, of which I use seven. To wit: phono [for the PL-400]; AM-FM tuner [built-in]; CD [Kenwood CD player - I don't even use it anymore]; DAT [Tascam TC-222 - has in/out so I can burn directly from vinyl to CD - and what I use to play CDs]; cassette tape [again, Tascam TC-222], video 1 [Sony DVD/SACD player - US region only]; video 2 [cheapo all-region DVD player]; and video three [MacBook or iPod]. My dad was an engineer for Motorola, and a ham radio and audio geek so I come by it honestly [thanks, Dad!] What I would give to have the reel-to-reel deck from our old living room! My kids are mp3 only, they think me a dinosaur, and laugh when I tell them they should rip/download everything at 320 kbps for best available audio quality. "It doesn't matter!" they say. I've worked in the independent record biz for 25+ years, and yes, it DOES matter. And only a house full of vinyl to show for it. The weirdest thing to me is the cassette revival these days. And some are doing it right, producing beautiful sounding reel-to-reel cassettes - metal reels, chrome tape, screwed plastic shells.
Anyhow....not bragging or anything, just wanted to share. What a great photo and post! Thank you!
Re: RippageThanx, Anonymous Tipster. I've looked in the preferences on my MacBook and found the import settings for WAV files, but I'm stalled there. What next?
Also, the whole system comes out through Bose 2.2 monitors set into the corners of my plaster-walled living room. Turns the whole thing into one giant speakerbox. My friends are always amazed at how the vinyl sounds, esp live recordings. Once again, thanx to Dad. He gave me the monitors for my 25th birthday many, many years ago. How I miss him.
[Anonymous Tipster notes that this is a setting in iTunes. So open iTunes. Preferences > General > Import Settings. Choose "Import using WAV Encoder."  - Dave]
My roommate had the "good stuff"We still listen to my Pioneer SX-780 receiver and my wife's Yamaha CR-420 receiver (both mid-70s) every day... mostly to NPR radio. The Pioneer also has my HDTV audio running through it in the living room. (I'm too broke for surround-sound, yet.) And with the help of an Apple Airport next to the computer in the other room and an Airport Extreme next to the Pioneer, we can stream our iTunes library all over the house. I can't argue with the true audiophiles here... the highest fidelity is lost on me these days (I'm wearing hearing aids, now). But ya can't beat the convenience factor of iTunes and a classic iPod for the sheer volume of songs you can have at your immediate access, not to mention building playlists or randomizing them--and it's all portable!
But back to the past... As for turntable cartridges, my old roommate and I were always partial to the Stanton 681-EEE. We used those at the album-rock radio station where I DJ'ed (1975-78); they were practically industry-standard. They would set you back a couple of bucks, and maybe they were better than the turntable we had them in at home. But they made everything sound really great.
It was my roommate, though, who had the Good Stuff. Top-of-the-line Pioneer gear, separate amp and tuner and a Teac 3340S R2R that used 10-inch reels. My tape deck was one of those unusual, slant-faced Sony TC-377 decks.
Between the radio station and my roommate and all my friends "in the biz", I always had access to really great gear. Sadly, it usually wasn't mine. But I still have a ton of vinyl.
Gimme that Old (High) School AudioYou know what I really, really, really miss about old-school electronic gear? Functions that had dedicated control switches or knobs, rather than being buried down several layers within one of an array of menus. Also, instantaneous response to switching or adjustments rather than digitalus interruptus, now made worse by HDMI wait-for-a-handshake.
Dave: you are my hero.
Very nice!I come from a long line of audiophiles, so even though I was only born in 1974, that all looks very familiar.  Our setup was very similar, but we also had an 8-track.
My current stereo setup has a fine-quality Dual record player I inherited from my grandfather.  Just this morning, my 6-year-old daughter did a convincing boogie to the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack.  She will totally grow up knowing the sound you hear when the needle first hits the vinyl, what we call the "crisp."
And I have to agree with an earlier poster -- that totally looks like a modern photograph.  How strange!
StyliShure V15 Type V replacement stylus (Swiss) on eBay.
[A few years ago I went to the local Circuit City (remember those?) and said I needed a new needle for my record player. The kid gave me a look like I'd asked where they kept the Victrola cranks. Finally the manager found one "in back." - Dave]
MagnavoxWe were Magnavox Dealers for many years. They had one great feature, they were price-fixed. It was one of the few lines we carried   that allowed us a full markup. Magnavox didn't have to police the sales pricing, we dealers ratted each other out if they were discounting. Now Magnavox is just another has-been brand (like Bell & Howell,  Westinghouse or Sylvania) that can be licensed to put on any product. It shows up every once in a while on a promotional brand LCD TV or compact stereo system.
Incidentally, tterrace, too bad you didn't live in Manhattan, you would have been one hell of a good customer.
Love this stuffI started collecting vinyl in the mid to late 90s. It never really went away but now it's really picked up. There is hardly a major label release that isn't offered on vinyl. They are also reissuing classics as fast as the presses can make them. I bought my neighbor a turntable last year. He's now a more avid collector than I am. 
The real trick is keeping the vinyl clean at all times. I made a vacuum cleaning machine out of an old turntable. It does a fantastic job reviving dirty records. After they are cleaned, I slide them into a new anti-static inner sleeve. I use an anti-static brush to remove dust before each play. That removes a huge amount of surface noise. Cleaning the stylus is also important.
To me, it's hard to beat the magic of a vacuum tube amplifier. I built my stereo amp from a kit about 9 years ago. You can build almost anything yourself with the kits being offered today. I build copies of classic vacuum tube guitar amps as well. I basically supply friends in  local bands with free amps since I don't play guitar. It's a great hobby and soldering is a useful skill.
There is just something about vinyl and do-it-yourself audio that gets you involved with the music. It makes it so much more personal. 
Those were the daysI used to have some stuff like that, and JBL L-100 speakers.
Nowadays all that sound is still around, just smaller and in the car instead of the living room.
Age vs. DolbyI don't have to worry about Dolby hiss anymore because my tinnitus is bad enough to where I hear the hiss in a silent room.
I never went through a proper audiophile period mostly because I didn't have the money, but also because I never had a place where I could really put it to use until it was a bit too late. I still have my turntable but, like everyone else's, it needs a new cartridge; and the place where the stereo sits now has way too springy a floor (you can skip a CD by treading too heavily, much less an LP). These days the stereo spends most of its time being the sound system for the DVD player.
My father went through his audiophile period in the fifties, and for a long time his system consisted of a tube amp whose provenance I do not recall, a massive transcription turntable and tone arm, and a home-built Altec cabinet with a 36 in. speaker (it was the '50s-- what's a crossover?). The speaker magnet weighed something like twenty pounds; the whole thing was the size of an end table. His hearing has gotten much worse than mine so he has been spared further temptation.
Weird but trueAddendum - my PL-400 has two speeds - 45 and 33. What do you get when you add them together? 78. If I hold the speed button halfway down between 45 and 33, it spins at 78 rpm! I use a C-clamp to hold the button between the two and spin my 78s and have burned many of them to CD to rip into my MacBook. My 78s are now portable on my iPod. How cool is that?
Phase Linear and Infinity Mon IIasBack in the mid seventies I was a service teck at a HI FI shop,  We were dealers for PL and Infinity. PL was the first high-power company out there. I fixed lots of 400s (200s 200b 700s and Series 2, too).
The larger Infinity speakers needed lots of power to drive. The 400 was up to it,  but the crossovers in the Infinitys were very hard on the amps. The PL "turn-on thump" wasn't very compatible with the speakers. The auto-correlator in the preamp took away lots of hiss and noise,  but also took away the soundstage. Plenty of tricks out there to "sweeten" up the sound of the 400, but not too many lived long enough.
ELO ("Lucky Man") and Supertramp ("Crime of the Century") helped us sell lots of PL and Infinitys!
I still own a pair of Mon IIas,   have a few friends that still have theirs.  Mon Jrs too!
On another note,  it was common to find audio nuts who were also camera crazy!
Never seen a record playing??Tterrace, I hope your friend's daughter catches up with the times.  Vinyl is in style again.  Just today I went shopping with some friends and we bought a total of 35 LPs.  
It's smelling mighty technical in hereWAV? On a Mac? Phf. (AIFF is the native uncompressed format on Mac.) If you don't have space concerns, use Apple Lossless format, which is about half the size of AIFF or WAV. But really, 320 mp3 or AAC should be more than good enough for kids listening on an iPod. Considering how all the pop stuff these days (if that's what they're into) is so compressed (aurally, not bitwise) and saturated, it already sounds bad on the CD, so why waste the space ripping it at a high bit rate?
[Lots of us (yours truly among them) are moving their CD collections onto hard drives or dedicated music servers. The .wav format has several advantages. - Dave]
The most common WAV format contains uncompressed audio in the linear pulse code modulation (LPCM) format. The standard audio file format for CDs is LPCM-encoded, containing two channels of 44,100 samples per second, 16 bits per sample. Since LPCM uses an uncompressed storage method which keeps all the samples of an audio track, professional users or audio experts may use the WAV format for maximum audio quality. WAV audio can also be edited and manipulated with relative ease using software.
AIFF is also PCM in its uncompressed forms. And since "top geezer" specifically mentioned he's using a Mac, it only makes sense to use a format that was made for and will work better on a Mac. That'd be AIFF or Apple Lossless if he wants something without the [possible] audible colorings of mp3, AAC, or compressed WAV.
Zero historyI recently finished reading the galley of the new William Gibson book, "Zero History." As with several of his earlier books (and about half of Pixar's films), it concerns itself with the relationship between humans and the things we create. We make clothes and stereos and computers, but then we define ourselves by these things as well, so which is really central -- us, or our things?  Zero History raised an interesting point about patina, in that some things become more valuable if they show signs of use and others are more valuable if they are mint in box. A stereo system, I think, would fall into the latter category.
Anyway, that's an eye-catching setup. Thanks as always for sharing.
Questions, questionsRetro-audiophile lust!
1. Brands and model numbers please.
2. Where's your Elcaset deck?
Ray GunI also have a nifty little anti-static-electron-spewing sparky gun, pictured to the right side of your "record player".
http://www.tweakshop.com/Zerostat.html
I BetBet your turntable plays 78s and 16s as well as 45s and 33s. I have a cheap Garrard changer of about the same vintage that does all four... which came in rather handy when I started picking up 78s at the local Symphony's book and music sale a few years ago.
Oh, OKNever had an Elcaset deck, nor 8-track. I do still have a MiniDisc deck, though.
Shelf-by-shelf going down:
Technics SL-1300 direct-drive turntable w/Shure V15 Type V cartridge; ZeroStat and Discwasher.
Phase Linear 4000 preamp; 10-band graphic equalizer whose details escape me for the nonce.
Concord outboard Dolby unit atop Pioneer RT-707 reel-to-reel tape deck.
Kenwood KX-1030 cassette deck.
Phase Linear 400 power amp.
Not shown: Infinity Monitors with the easy-to-blow-out Walsh tweeters.
Somebody tell me how to get a replacement stylus for the V15 Type V.
FashionsInteresting though that you -- the clothes and hair -- would fit in just fine today.  Men's clothes haven't changed much in 30 years. Sure there's newer styles, such as the stupid "falling down pants" with underwear hanging out and such, but the newer styles haven't replaced the old standbys.  We tend to think of fashions of the past lasting for a long time, but if you look at any 30 year time period in the pictures on Shorpy you'll see that the fashions change drastically.
All in all, the picture looks like it could have been a picture of vintage equipment taken yesterday.
Living it old schoolThe system here in my studio:
Pioneer RT-909 open reel (10")
Pioneer RT-707 open reel (7")
Pioneer PL-530 turntable
Pioneer CT-F1000 cassette deck
Pioneer SX-727 receiver
Elac/Miracord 10-H (turntable for 78s)
Tascam 106 mixer
Tascam 112 cassette deck
Sharp MD-R3 cd/minidisc
Kenwood KR-A4040 reciever
TEAC X-3 Mk II open reel (7")
TEAC X-10R open reel (10")
Otari MX-5050 (open reel (10")
KLH Model Six speakers
Infinity RS-2000 speakers
iPod 60gig (first generation)
Let me do some mind reading.The Fotomat you took your film to was in the parking lot of Co-op shopping center in Corte Madera.  Your stereo equipment was bought at Pacific Stereo in San Rafael. Or was it that high end place down at the Strawberry Shopping Center?
All very cool looking stuff. I have just broken into my old gear I bought back around 1975 at P.S. I'm currently listening to some old LPs that were my grandmother's. It's fun, and they do sound better than CDs. 
As far as the stylus goes, check around online. There is quite a bit of interest and information about this hobby.
Reel to reelI remember when "logic" was advertised as a technological breakthrough. I'm old.
Call me old schoolAll I need is a vintage Voice of Music turntable to fit in my restored 1950 Magnavox cabinet model 477P radio/record player. It never had the TV option installed so I put in an inexpensive small TV from Wally World, the cable box and wireless gear. 
www.tvhistory.tv/1950-Magnavox-Brochure3.JPG
I have the Contemporary in mahogany.
Mice had been living on the original turntable. Construction of the cabinet is first rate.
Sorry for drooling into your gearI always liked those Pioneer reel-to-reel decks, but still lust for a Teac. Nice Phase Linear stuff there. That's maybe an MXR EQ? Tiny, stiff sliders with rubber "knobs"? And a slide-out shelf for the turntable? But I think the real star here is the cabinet on the right with the neato doors.
Jogging the tterrace memory banksThank you sjmills, that was indeed an MXR equalizer, and exactly as you described it. I eventually connected it with mega-long cables so I could fiddle with it endlessly while sitting in my acoustic sweet spot. What's under the turntable is actually an Acousti-mount, a spring-footed platform designed to minimize low-frequency feedback from the speakers. I still use it. The outfit that made it, Netronics Research & Development, is still in business I see. The smaller cabinet at right was actually my first audio equipment cabinet; my folks got it for me c.1964. It was originally designed as a piece of bedroom furniture, and was solid wood, unlike the later composition-board larger one.
And rgraham, that's where the Fotomat was, and some gear did come from Pacific Stereo in SR, but the Phase Linears were beyond them; they came from some higher-end Marin place I've forgotten about.
The turntable plays only plays at 33 & 45. My online searches for replacement Shure V-15 styli usually only turn up outrageously expensive new old stock or alleged compatibles whose descriptions give me the willies.
Just within the past couple months my LP collection has shrunk from around 18 down to 4 linear feet. 
Tape squealWow, I was born the year this was taken, and when I was growing up we had one of those cassette players on the second-from-the-bottom shelf.  At least, it looks very similar to what I remember.
I hated it, though, in its later years while playing tapes it would randomly emit an extremely high-pitched, screeching, squealing noise.  My parents couldn't hear it so one night when my dad put in a tape and it started squealing, he didn't believe that there was any and just thought I was covering my ears and begging for it to be turned off because I hated the music, until my brother came downstairs and asked what that screeching noise was.
Gonna have to show this to the husbandHe will genuflect, then get a certain far-away look in his eyes.  
Shelli
Is that a static gun?Just bellow his right hand in the background.... a static gun for zapping away the snap-crackle-pop static before placing the vinyl record on the turntable. That WAS state of the art!
High School Hi-FiI will confess to still having my high-school stereo. Akai tape deck, Pioneer amp and tuner from 1977-78. The last of which I have duplicated (triplicated? Thanks, eBay) for Shorpy headquarters. Also some Sony ES series DAT decks and CD players. Acoustic Research speakers. Squirreled away in a closet, my dad's 1961 Fisher amp and tuner (vacuum tubes). Sold on eBay: Dad's early 1960s Empire Troubadour turntable. (Regrets, I've had a few.)

AnalogueryNo way would I trade old analog gear for an iPod. Any good audiophile will take vinyl or a good analog source over the compressed, squashed and mastered with no dynamics file formats that iPods handle.  I'm convinced that audio (recording techniques and gear) peaked in the '70s and '80s.  While we have some pretty impressive gear available in this day and age, I've got some vintage gear that sounds pretty good yet and is arguably better than some more clinical sounding stuff made today.
Vinyl is back as well. Local record stores are now stocking more and more vinyl.  Consumer electronic shows are full of brand new turntables and phono preamps.
I would love to have that Phase Linear stuff in my audio racks! Great shot.
We've come a long way.But wasn't all that stuff cool? I happen to love the before MTV days when listening to tunes was a great way to relax and reflect. I think music was better too, but then I'm showing my age!
I've got that same turntable.When I dug it out of the closet a few years back and needed a tune-up, I discovered I lived just a few blocks from what may be the last store of its kind.  He'll have your stylus.  No website and he deals in cash only -- pretty much the same set-up for the last 60 years.
J and S Phonograph Needles
1028 NE 65th St
Seattle WA 98115
(206) 524-2933
His LordshipI cannot read the text, or clearly recognize the person, on whatever is located to the right of the reel to reel unit but, the person looks a little bit like Lord Buckley.
Heavy Metal n Hot WaxI still have about 500 pounds of old Ampex and Marantz gear, and over a thousand vintage and new vinyl sides. Sold that stuff in the 70s and worked for a recording studio in the 80s. Always a trip to give the old tunes a spin on the old gear. With DBX decoding some of those old discs can give CDs a run for the money as far as dynamic range goes. But to say any of that sounds better than current gear is wishful thinking (remember the dreaded inside track on a vinyl LP?). Most any reasonably good, digitally sourced 5.1 setup with modern speakers will blow it away.
Those were the daysThis brings back memories of dorm rooms in 1978. First thing unpacked at the beginning of the year was the stereo equipment. Last thing packed at the end of the year was the stereo equipment.
Love the brushed denim jeans. I only had them in blue.
Back in the DayNothing could beat the sound that jumped off the turntable the first time a brand new LP was played.  Electrifying!
No tuner?Ah, the days of audio purity.  Am I missing the tuner, or were you a holdout for the best-quality sound, no FM need apply?
Great to see that stack of equipment.  I'm still using my Sony STC-7000 tuner-preamp from 1975; it doesn't have all the controls of your Phase Linear, but just handling it takes me back to the good old days.  Tx for the pic!
R2RI grew up in a household like this, and the reel-to-reel was my father's pride and joy. But can anyone name the recording propped up next to it? It looks like Eugene Ormandy of the Philadelphia Orchestra, except for the unbuttoned collar.  
Vinyl's FinalI've never been without a turntable.  Currently, I have a Rega Planar 3 with a Pickering XV15-1200E cartridge.  Bought my first LP in 1956 and I'm still buying new ones.  My receiver/amp is a Fisher 500B, a vacuum tube gem.  My speakers are highly efficient Klipsch 5.5s, which are great sounding "monkey coffins."
I've a Panasonic CD player and Pioneer Cassette deck for playback of those obsolete formats.
Further audio responseNext to the reel deck is the box for a London/Ampex pre-recorded tape, conductor Antal Dorati on the cover; can't remember other details. No tuner, as FM audio had too many compromises for my taste. I had a receiver in the video setup for FM simulcasts (remember them?), plus I ran the regular TV audio through it to a pair of small AR bookshelf speakers. In defense of the iPod (which I use for portable listening - Sennheiser PX-100 headphones, wonderful - and did you know Dr. Sennheiser died just last month?), it can handle uncompressed audio files just fine, plus Apple's lossless compressed format, so you're not restricted to mp3s or AAC. For what I use it for, AAC is perfectly OK, and to be honest, my ears aren't what they used to be anyway. Still, for serious listening I plop down in the living room and put on a CD or SACD, or some of my remaining vinyl. Among other LPs I saved all the matrixed Quad (SQ and QS format) which Dolby ProLogic II does a reasonable job of decoding. Finally, thanks to everybody for the hints about the Shure stylus replacements, I'll check those out.
Snobs!You guys and your fancy stereos.  Here's mine from back in the 70s.  Tuner and speakers were Pioneer I think.  No idea about the turntable.  Don't ya love the rabbit ears and the cord leading to the swag lamp?  And of course the whole thing sat on a "cabinet" made of bricks and boards.  
Is that you, Arturo?Perhaps the 7-track box cover is showing Arturo Toscanini conducting a Casual Friday concert?
Never saw it comingSo the future is here already? This story is both sad and frightening. Now I can't sleep without the lights on. Two-and-a-half questions:
Didn't your PL 400 get a little toasty under that shelf, pushed up against the side?
Did you have LPs up on the top shelf like that in October of '89? And, if so, did they stay there?
That is (was) some nice gear. I'm tearing up just a little.
DoratiThe tape is a 1975 recording of Antal Dorati conducting the National Symphony Orchestra in three works by Tchaikovsky. I knew I had it on LP at one time, but I had to resort to ebay  to identify it.
Vinyl livesWe still have a couple hundred LPs stored carefully in the garage (don't worry, they're safe from damage!). A few years ago, we had a yard sale and had the garage open but roped off. I had one guy nearly foaming at the mouth when he saw our collection.  I nearly had to physically restrain him from going in and grabbing everything!
We also have an turntable that's about two years old.  No, it's not top of the line, but my teenage sons LOVE the silly thing and DS#2 just bought a NEW Metallica LP!  He plays the *&$%## thing when he's doing the dishes. I sound like my mom: "Turn that racket down!"
The PlattersThere were around 2½ million vinyl albums sold last year in the United States, which would account for 1.3 percent of music track sales. So basically it's a novelty format, like dial telephones.
IncredibleMy father had everything you have in this picture, and it brings back some incredible memories I had as a child of the 70's.
1970's Man Cave!This guy had it going on.  
Reel too realSold off the last of my old stereo gear (nothing too impressive) at this year's neighborhood garage sale, but I've got that same Pioneer deck sitting next to me right now. Recent craigslist purchase, necessary to digitize some of my "historic" airchecks I've been lugging around for the last 40 years. Funny, I wasn't nearly as good as I remember but it is nice to have a piece of gear I always wanted!
Hi-Fi FarkAs night follows day, so Farkification follows tterrace.
Not to mention j-walkblog.
Love the systemReally nice system.   We have seven Telefunken consoles of different sizes and styles that we really enjoy.  Nothing sounds as nice as vinyl played through those 11 tubes, and the quality of a stereo that cost the price of a new VW back in 1958 is as good as you'd expect. Enjoy these "artifacts," since they (in my opinion) outperform even a new high-end Bose, Kenwood or other system.  
Vinyl, Shellac, and Garage Sales Rock!I got back into vinyl (and shellac) about 5 years ago.  There was a tiny hole-in-the-wall used high-end audio shop in my area where I got a gently used Technics 1200 series TT for $250.  Got a 30+year-old Sure V15III cart and new stylus for a lot of money, about $175!  I haven't looked back 3,000 LPs later, and if you've had a garage sale in SW Michigan, you've probably seen my happy face at some point!  :-)
Love having the artifacts in my basement, and love making MP3s out of them even more for portability.  Living in the present does indeed rock sometimes.  I can't remember the last time I purchased a CD...
(Sadly, Bill's Sound Center closed when they demolished the whole place for a snazzy Main St. Pub.)
Nostalgia never goes awayI'm not a technophile, but I know what I like...I'm going to go into the living room right now and fire up some Louis Prima on my old Benjamin Miracord turntable!
Recovering Open Reel FanaticBack in the late '70s through sometime in the early '80s you could still get current-issue prerecorded open-reel tapes. Probably very few folks were paying attention, but YES for a SINGLE PENNY you could get a dozen of them when starting your brand-new membership with ... (shudder) Columbia House. It wasn't long before they stopped offering open-reel for all their titles, but the ones in the advertisements were available in any format, and I still have the ones I got early on, and some of the automatic monthly selections. (Damn they are heavy, too. Like a box of iron filings.) Somewhere around here I have Steely Dan and ELO albums on open-reel tape. It became hard finding things I wanted to listen to, though, so I had to finish out my membership agreement by getting some LPs, and that's about the time I started to realize the things from the club looked OK but were made of inferior materials and did not always sound quite right. But of course I was about fifteen years old and it was an educational experience. 
It took me a few more years to get over my fascination with open reel decks, but I still have two corroding in the garage.
Anyone remembertape deck specs for "wow and flutter"?
Vinyl - jazz and bluesI still have the bulk of my jazz and blues vinyl collection, though I did unload some of it. Had to buy a new amp last month to play them after my old one gave up after at least 25 year service. Got a Cambridge Topaz AM1, not very pricey but does the job. Muddy Waters and Thelonious Monk rule!
Am I actually this old?This was stuff I longed for in the '70s, but never managed to afford. To me it still feels semi-contemporary and definitely impressive.
BTW, is the very concept of high fidelity now as out of date as this old hi-fi equipment? Judging from the execrable audio I've heard coming out of a series of cell phones I've owned over the last decade, I'm beginning to think that the basic ability to notice audio distortion may have been lost as interest in hi-fi was lost.
Reel-to-reel had an advantageOne could copy whole albums, and the length was for hours. In the late 80's, I knew some serious audiophiles who had Carver CD players, Nakamichi cassette players, and reel-to-reel players, on which they'd store hours of jazz music.
Turntable MemoryMy buddy and I have been mobile DJ's for close to 30 years.
Back in the days of lugging three large boxes of LP's and 4 heavy boxes of 45's, sometimes up flights of stairs, and index cards for  looking up song location, we had two QRK turntables we got from the radio station where my friend worked. 
One evening we were on the upper level of a hall with a very spungy floor. We didn't realize how much the floor would move until we started a polka and the dance floor filled with people. A few moments later the record skipped and we realized that we were bouncing, a lot. 
We grabbed a few quarters out of our pockets and put them on the tone arm, and then both of us pressed down with all our might to keep our stand from moving. 
We were very, very afraid to play anything uptempo.
I still have a turntable, a bunch of vinyl, and a Teac open reel deck. I'm converting some shows I did many years ago to digital.
(ShorpyBlog, Technology, Member Gallery, Farked, tterrapix)

Kodachrome Crowd: 1952
Everybody in the colorful kitchen has come through the door to join the rest of the gang in the more subdued dining room. Other shots indicate this was a going-away party for a son who had joined the Navy and was leaving for the East Coast. Py ... 
 
Posted by Vintagetvs - 12/06/2016 - 7:44pm -

Everybody in the colorful kitchen has come through the door to join the rest of the gang in the more subdued dining room. Other shots indicate this was a going-away party for a son who had joined the Navy and was leaving for the East Coast. Pyrex fans will note the missing yellow bowl. View full size.
Gadzooks!Look at angry boot boy, he and his sister look fit to be tied. Everyone else is happy to be there -- even the ghost Grandma mustered up a faint smile. 
OopsI was close, but no cigar.  Those were sandwiches being made in yesterday's picture, but not pinwheels.  Just crust trimmed finger sandwiches.  Maybe that's why the two kids on the left are so upset... they wanted pinwheels.  LOL.
A family affairLooks like three sets of parents here, and the women are all the siblings, based on resemblance to each other. It's fun trying to match the kids to their parents - I can't figure out who Brother and Sister Crosspatch in the front row belong to, though.
It's funny, the yellow Pyrex bowl was the only one I had for a long time - I found it in a cabinet in an apartment I moved into many years ago. The previous tenants must have left it behind. Now I've amassed a rather large collection.
Rebel with a causeThe grumpy boy on the left of the bench seems disgruntled and stubbornly refused to smile.  One of my sons also used to take on a similar persona if he was uncomfortable in his clothing, most especially his pants if they didn't fit perfectly, and his footwear.  This kid seems annoyed with both those items also.  In many of our family pictures he shows the same kind of annoyance, so similar to this boy that it made me laugh.  
Pyrex BowlsUsually 4 bowls in the set. I remember blue, orange, green and yellow-yellow being biggest. Mom still had these until 67-ish, the yellow was biggest and held the Friday night popcorn snack for mom, my brother and I. Pops was busy smoking and watching Friday night fights sponsored by Gillette in glorious 21" of black and white on the old Zenith.
(ShorpyBlog, Member Gallery)

The Sporting Look: 1954
... 1954. "La Coquille Club, Palm Beach, Florida." 35mm Kodachrome by Toni Frissell for the Sports Illustrated assignment "Sporting ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 07/18/2023 - 10:37pm -

December 1954. "La Coquille Club, Palm Beach, Florida." 35mm Kodachrome by Toni Frissell for the Sports Illustrated assignment "Sporting Look: La Coquille." View full size.
I wonder if they were part of a fashion show during lunch??The blonde is taller but the redhead has incredibly long legs!  Both trim, thin and elegant.
[More like a fashion shoot. - Dave]
Ten years later?About ten years later that look was all the rage. Enter Lesley Hornby, a.k.a. "Twiggy". 
And the less said, the better. I do remember wisecracks from less enlightened times than the present. 
Whiter thanThere was a comment concerning these recent Florida club photos about whether the place was whites only.
When I was growing up in Florida in the 1960s, the country club near my house not only excluded Blacks (except as employees) but also Jews. There were two country clubs on the same road--one white, gentile, and genteel, the other predominantly Jewish. (My family wasn't well-off enough for either.)
Nearly seventy years ago... those dynamite legs! It's after three in the afternoon: it's either a late lunch or an early cocktail hour for these two.
They're most likely long departed by now, but their beauty and elegance are timeless.
(The Gallery, Kodachromes, Florida, Pretty Girls, Toni Frissell, Travel & Vacation)

Tommy Bartlett's Show
... my father, Everett Harding, July 1953. Image scanned from Kodachrome transparency. Kodachrome strikes again Wow! Lookit that color! Kodachrome Agreed. ... 
 
Posted by smaileh - 07/06/2008 - 5:03pm -

The Tommy Bartlett waterskiing show at Wisconsin Dells.  Taken by my father, Everett Harding, July 1953.  Image scanned from Kodachrome transparency.
Kodachrome strikes againWow! Lookit that color!
KodachromeAgreed. What great film! My dad loved it and got me hooked on it when I was a budding shutterbug-kid.
Thankfully, Mom and Dad are still around. Might be fun to dust off the old projectors and have a few "slide shows" this summer. It'll be a pip trying to find my movie screen, but a good goal for this week!
(ShorpyBlog, Member Gallery)

La Coquille: 1954
... 1954. " La Coquille Club , Palm Beach, Florida." 35mm Kodachrome by Toni Frissell for the Sports Illustrated assignment "Sporting ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 07/17/2023 - 2:27pm -

December 1954. "La Coquille Club, Palm Beach, Florida." 35mm Kodachrome by Toni Frissell for the Sports Illustrated assignment "Sporting Look: La Coquille." View full size.
Very nice!Love the light blue Caddy with the soft top ! Thanks !
Cadillac AbuseIt's just a year or two old, but it sure looks tired. And what's up with all the Ford ragtops?
[Hertz Rent-a-Car. - Dave]
A Plethora Of Mid-Fifties Fords!A white '55 coming at us, an aqua '56 to it's its right, then a blue '56, and another aqua '56, all Sunliners. Then, coming in, are two more '55s, both Customlines, and exiting the lot looks like another '55 Sunliner. Finally the back end of '55 (56?) station wagon on the far left. Ford dealer meeting perhaps?
Given all the Fords I'm gonna guess the red roadster behind the trees is a T-Bird.
[They're Hertz rentals. - Dave]
WowWhat a nice assortment of cars! Through most of the 1950s and the early '60s my dad drove a Studebaker like the one in front of the red Ford. He loved that car.
Heard much about it.My late grandmother worked at La Coquille several winters, during the 1960s, as a chambermaid. She worked her entire life in the hospitality industry up North and, to hear her tell it, working here was as good as a vacation.
(The Gallery, Kodachromes, Cars, Trucks, Buses, Florida, Toni Frissell)

Lounge Act: 1948
... canary won't stay unidentified for long. Medium format Kodachrome transparency by Down Beat photographer William Gottlieb. View ... her so that's my guess. [Probably not. - Dave] Kodachrome Noir A photo more evocative of the 1940s than this one would be ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 02/01/2019 - 1:06pm -

New York circa 1948. "Jazz singer at the Onyx Club, 52nd Street." We trust that this canary won't stay unidentified for long. Medium format Kodachrome transparency by Down Beat photographer William Gottlieb. View full size.
Is it June Christy?It looks a lot like her so that's my guess.
[Probably not. - Dave]
Kodachrome NoirA photo more evocative of the 1940s than this one would be hard to imagine. Here we have the sultry blonde singer winning the rapt attention of the (likely) husband of the poised, sophisticated, bepearled, Bacall-eyebrowed smoker, who is engaged in conversation with an attentive, lacquer-manicured gent while the slicked-down, slightly scarred tough guy on the right stares menacingly at he camera.  All this scene needs is Humphrey Bogart.
Just a HunchI'm gonna guess it's Peggy Lee.
Girl drinksThe men are drinking some kind of golden-colored liquor (whisky?) on the rocks while the women have an amber-colored cordial in a tall stemmed glass, neat.  Wonder what it is.
I'm 99% sure it's Peggy LeeBecause I think the pianist is her husband of many years, Dave Barbour.  Google Image him and the face that comes up is a dead ringer.
[These are two different people, and Dave Barbour played the guitar. - Dave]
Album cover photoThis picture is used as an album cover photo. Possibly Julie London?
[Doubtful. - Dave]
http://www.elusivedisc.com/The-Wonderful-Sounds-of-Female-Vocals-200g-2L...
A bit of Lynch too!The red curtains look like the inspiration for David Lynch and "Twin Peaks"! Looking forward to finding out details. Is there a historic Down Beat website?
Studio ShotThis might be a posed photo for that album. Since several singers are listed, seems reasonable the producers would just want a shot that make the point about the different female singers. In other words, no featured singer on the cover of the album.
[This is not a "studio shot." As noted in the caption, the photo was taken in the Onyx Club. It is cover art for an album released in 2018. - Dave]
Wonder if there's a photo credit on the actual album? Think Vexman has a very good point.
[The photo credit is "Photo by William Gottlieb." - Dave]
Red HerringsIt's not someone on the LP set; they're all too young.  My vote is for Jeri Southern.
Helen Forrest?It rather looks like Helen and the hairstyle is one she sometimes wore as a blonde and brunette.  She was headlining at clubs and theatres in the late 40s after singing with the Harry James Orchestra, recording with Dick Haymes and appearing in a couple of movies earlier in the decade.
The Bartender's Standard CocktailsI'd bet the ladies are drinking Manhattans and the men Scotch on the rocks, two standards of my parents' generation. Of course my dad preferred the Old Fashioned, but the glassware is wrong for that.
That album cover has nothing to do with the music on the album. It was royalty-free art so it was used.
Another shot of this singer Note the mole.
Shorpy hive mind ...... is letting me down! It is killing me not to know who this is, because she looks so damn familiar!  It's not Frances Langford (my first thought), Peggy Lee, Martha Tilton, Helen Forrest, Helen Merrill, Jo Stafford, June Christy, Martha Mears -- augh!
Definitely Peggy LeePhoto dated 1950.
[I would have to say definitely not. - Dave]
Might not be a singer at allThis is quite obviously a posed shot. It might even have been done in a studio, though could have been setup in a club off-hours. Lighting is done purely for the photo.
[As noted in the caption under the photo, it was taken at the Onyx Club on 52nd Street. One of hundreds of similar photos taken by William Gottlieb for Down Beat magazine, none of which are "studio shots." Please READ THE CAPTION before commenting. - Dave]
Good a guess as any I supposeI'm thinking Evelyn Knight OR Eva Peron (okay, just kidding on that second guess but hey, the hair matches).
International Woman of MysteryIn 1948, following a gig at the Onyx Club in New York, the Exotic Esteleta Morrow played Cuba's Night Club in Asbury Park, New Jersey from August 1st to the 8th.  She was never heard of before, never seen since, and no photo ever found.  She gets my vote.
What a great mystery!I'm with dwig. The lighting -- evidently a strobe from the left behind the camera, the careful framing of the blonde -- point to that. Even the pianist doesn't really look like he's playing. Everybody is so compact and carefully placed. It's a shot for the magazine, not during an actual live performance. So who knows who the model for the singer is? Any other pix by the photographer that also feature that model?
[All of William Gottlieb's 1,700-plus photos in this collection were "shot for the magazine." They can be seen here. We can tell this was taken at the Onyx Club by comparing it with his other photos taken there. And yes, Gott did use supplementary lighting. Below, his photo of the Stan Kenton band. - Dave]
Could it beLee Wiley? If so, the piano player is her husband, Jess Stacy.
[Lee Wiley was born in 1908. - Dave]
How about Marion Hutton?I'm too tech-impaired to figure out how to upload the photo, but to me the woman in these photos looks very much like the woman in this photo:
https://loc.gov/item/gottlieb.08661
(It's one of a series of photos of Ms. Hutton with Jerry Wald, Mel Torme, and Gordon MacRae taken by William Gottlieb that ran in Downbeat in 1947.)
[Marion is missing the mole. She also has attached earlobes. - Dave]
Late entryAll about the NYC night club scene. Many pictures, just scroll down.
http://popspotsnyc.com/jazz_clubs/
I would say Norma JeanMarilyn Monroe did some singing along with modeling during her early career.
[If only this lady looked remotely like Marilyn Monroe! - Dave]
This lady's hard to find!I'm guessing Dottie Reid. Same photographer, same club, same ear lobes. Could the mole be make-up?
 https://www.loc.gov/resource/gottlieb.12551.0
[It's not Dot. - Dave]
Second GuessingRosemary Clooney?  Maybe she had the mole removed later?
[If this were some even halfway famous singer, she'd be named in the caption. (And if this were Rosemary Clooney, she'd look like Rosemary Clooney.) Does the answer await in some dusty back issue of Down Beat? - Dave]
I didn't look through old Down Beat issues but after some sleuthing I am confident it's Betty Grable. The ear lobes provided the clue. 
[That's not Betty Grable. - Dave]
The politics of itYou're doing a record album featuring female singers. Of course, you'd like to show a female singer doing her thing on the jacket. The problem then becomes, which female? How can you place one of the ladies from your album on the cover? That might cause issues with the other singers. If you photograph a lesser known singer [they have fans too] for the cover, HER followers will want to know why she isn't in the album.
My bet is that this mystery singer is no singer at all, but a generic "stand in" for the genre. There! Peace is maintained, and all of these talented women will be willing to work for you again in the future.
[Um, no. William Gottlieb didn't shoot album cover art. He was a photojournalist who took pictures for Down Beat magazine as well as other publications. - Dave]
A clue, perhaps?I may not be very good at 'em, but I can't resist a challenge!
I went over to the LOC site to get a closer look at the original, to see if any further details could be gleaned. Apart from what appears to be sheet music or a magazine on the piano, there's nothing that appears to give even an approximate date.
I don't know much about photography, but I noticed in the upper right hand corner what seemed to be some sort of identification number (367-33). Operating on the assumption that it identified the specific roll of film used, I went back to the main page and looked around for any other Gottlieb shots with that ID (or at least the first three digits). Sure enough, there's a day shot of 52nd with the Onyx right in the center, same ID number.
[This is sheet film, not roll film, and that's a lot number, shared by other exposures dated July 1948. - Dave]
Gottlieb was too far away and the Onyx's front was in too much shadow to see if there were any showcards, but it appears that one Harry the Hipster was on the list that day (if he wasn't a regular feature). But what *is* clearly visible is the featured artists over at the Three Deuces: Erroll Garner, J. C. Heard, and (Oscar) Pettifo(rd).
The Wikipedia article for Erroll Garner features another Gottlieb shot of the same marquee, identifying it as taken in May 1948 without any concrete attribution. Given the cool-weather dress of the good folk of New York in both pictures, however, early May or late April might not be an unreasonable assumption to make.
I think it would be simple, then, to pin down when Garner, Heard and Pettiford were playing the Deuces and then, perhaps, cross-check who was playing the Onyx on those same dates.
Whoever it may be, it's not June ChristyHow about Lennie Tristano in drag? No, wait a minute, Lennie's not a vocalist. I'll get back to you --
Wouldn't it have to be one of the singers on the album?Side A:
1. Cry Me A River - Julie London
2. Black Coffee - Ella Fitzgerald
3. --
[ The album is a compilation released last year. This photo was used as cover art because it was free. - Dave]
Not in Down BeatI'm afraid the photos from this shoot were not used by Down Beat at all, in 1948 at any rate. Today I went through the bound volumes of Down Beat from January 1948 to June 1949, without success. To err on the side of certainty, I read every single caption with a New York dateline, and compared every headshot of a female singer (there were several in every issue, mostly obscure) to Ms. Mole. Nothing.
Down Beat did have a regular feature "Where the Bands Are Playing" which listed some 200 or 300 bands and solo singers and the venues where they'd be appearing for the next couple of weeks (as DB was biweekly); but sadly it's alphabetised by name of act and not by venue!
[It might be worthwhile to look in the 1947 issues as well. The years on many of these photos are based on publication dates; the pictures may have been taken weeks or months earlier. In addition, some of Gottlieb's work appeared in the July 3, 1948, issue of Collier's. - Dave]
New Yorker no helpI looked at a bunch of 1948 New Yorkers but pretty much the only acts they listed for the Onyx Club (which they cover sporadically in Talk of the Town) were Charlie Parker and the Merry Macs (separately, of course). This woman doesn't seem to resemble either of the female singers with the Merry Macs at the time, Marjory Garland or Imogene Lynn, based on the very small number of pictures available online ... sigh.
Uncle!I give up. I've spent far too many hours on this. I looked at every publication of his at the LOC, and googled a myriad of search terms/phrases, and I just can't figure it out.  Please tell us?
June Christy, I thinkWith her mouth open and her eyes closed, it's hard to compare this to other photos, but there's one on Pinterest, "Miss June Christy: Live on Stars of Jazz (1957)", that shows her ear, and the comparison is strong.
Wikipedia says, "When the Kenton Band temporarily disbanded in 1948, she sang in nightclubs for a short time."  So the date fits.
[Below, June Christy and her attached earlobe circa 1947, definitely not the lady in our photo. - Dave]
Stumped, But More InfoI tried to ID the lady and could not. However, while doing that I learned that Gottlieb left Down Beat magazine in 1947. For what it's worth, either the date of the photo shoot is off or it ran in a later issue after he left.
[It may have been taken for another publication. The lot number on the transparency is the same as for other exposures dated July 1948. - Dave]
Not in Collier's None of the photos accompanying the Gottlieb article in the July 3, 1948, issue of Collier's ("Good-Time Street: The story of the most raucous and colorful block in New York" by Bill Gottlieb) were taken at the Onyx.
[Incorrect. The photo below of Harry Gibson, which illustrates the article, was taken at the Onyx. - Dave]
My apologies! I thought "Harry The Hipster" was the owner of another nightspot! I should have recognized those red curtains, shouldn't I?
Helen Merrill?Suggested earlier, but I also think she's Helen Merrill, b. 1930 in Croatia. Merrill was singing in jazz clubs at age 14, and the performer shown here certainly looks young enough to be 17-18.
[Helen Merrill has attached earlobes, real eyebrows and no mole. And the lady in our photo is no teenager. - Dave]
MoleThe mole means nothing. It was common for women of that era to paint one on their face as a beauty spot.
["Beauty marks" are something you're born with. And no woman would put a "beauty spot" in that spot. - Dave]
(The Gallery, Kodachromes, Music, NYC, William Gottlieb)

Amethyst Twilight: 1942
... of the Chicago & North Western R.R. at twilight." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano. View full size. Fantastic Shot ... the obvious, again All you have to do is do is google "KODACHROME DELANO." Library of Congress has many more. Indeed he was great. ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 12/15/2016 - 8:07pm -

December 1942. "Proviso departure yard of the Chicago & North Western R.R. at twilight." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano. View full size.
Fantastic ShotDoesn't matter how it was done, I wouldnt understand it anyway.
trick shot?yeah - i'm a big fan of delano, too...
but..
how'd he manage to have the lantern in the foreground be in sharp focus when it is in a field of soft-focus cinders?  odd.
shifted focusExposing for that scene would likely leave the lantern badly over-exposed. I'd bet that the lantern was masked and the focus adjusted mid-exposure.
Perhaps...... my favorite Delano shot ever. 
a touch of tiltLooks like he tilted his focal plane to keep the ground in focus off into the distance (note the top of the building is also out of focus)
Forgive my ignorance...I've seen a couple photos on Shorpy of railroad yards that have the same light trails like this one.  I'm assuming that they were captured by leaving the shutter open longer (hence the double image of the rail car on the left), but what were they created with?  Were they lanterns being carried around?  Was this a Jack Delano trademark?  In any case, beautiful photo, and one more example I'll be directing people to when I next praise this site.
[Yes, lanterns. - Dave]
Jack's lanternIf you look close you will see two lanters that left the trail of lights....One lantern has a freshers battery in it and thus produces a slightly brighter trail. One man was standing outside the shanty and the other was inside (probably getting a switching list, they both walked to the right where they were probably doing switching.
[The other shots show kerosene lanterns, not battery-powered. - Dave]
Nikon EM can achieve theNikon EM can achieve the same shot with given circumstances
Jack's Lantern"how'd he manage to have the lantern in the foreground be in sharp focus when it is in a field of soft-focus cinders?"
Photoshop maybe?
Just kidding. I'm guessing he did it by tilts.
Could the lantern have been flashing perhaps? This could prevent it from being overexposed. Or perhaps Jack knew when it was turned on and setup the exposure so that the lantern would be switched off for the first portion of the exposure and switched on for the second portion of the same exposure.
this is simply stunning. onethis is simply stunning. one of my favorite photos as well.
Jack DelanoThis is the work of a master.  That's obvious, but I had to say it.
LanternThat's a kerosene oil switchlamp.  No on/off switch.
The flashing lanternobviously on his other side from the camera.
Stating the obvious, againAll you have to do is do is google "KODACHROME DELANO."  Library of Congress has many more.  Indeed he was great.
Master of lighting KodachromeJack Delano, wiley photographer. Beautiful image. Most color films tend toward blue with long exposures, with Kodachrome the reciprocity effect goes more toward this gorgeous indigo/violet.
I think this is a double exposure: a short one with the lamp lit and the boxcar nearer (fainter image) and a longer one after the boxcar was moved. If there had been a longer single exposure I would expect the boxcar to show a gradient rather than two states (think of electron field probability diagrams...) He clearly used a small aperture as focus is maintained through a fair depth of field (at least on the longer second exposure). I doubt he used any tilt--not a significant feature on Speed Graphics of the era (I use one), and rise (pretty limited) would not help with the Sheimpflug effect.
(The Gallery, Kodachromes, Chicago, Jack Delano, Railroads)

0001, 0002, 0003 . . .
... in North American Aviation's sheet metal department." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer, Office of War Information. View ... [Color photography got its start in the 1890s. Kodachrome color film made its debut in 1935. - Dave] Re: Kodachrome ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 08/05/2012 - 6:38pm -

October 1942. Inglewood, Calif. "Parts are marked with this pneumatic numbering machine in North American Aviation's sheet metal department." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer, Office of War Information. View full size.
Coloured PhotosI love these early coloured photos, they just make this time period so real and, well, normal. Sometimes it's hard to imagine the early 20th century without thinking that everything happened in sepia. Was the 1940s the earliest decade to have coloured photos like these?
[Color photography got its start in the 1890s. Kodachrome color film made its debut in 1935. - Dave]
Re: Kodachrome"Kodachrome color film made its debut in 1935."
Or as I refer to it, the year colors were invented.
Time lagInteresting that all of my professionally-taken baby pictures were hand tinted in the early 30's.  Wonder why they weren't in color to begin with.
[That would have been well before color print film (and developing) was available for the average camera. Kodachrome was a transparency film, first used for 16mm movies and then slides. It was not a print film. - Dave]
Palmer's LightingOne interesting thing about these great old war production photos that Dave's been posting is the lighting.  It looks like they kept the rest of the production area dark and then just lit the immediate working space.  It would be fun to see a "making-of" shot.  
Ummm . . .What a doll.
Foy
Las Vegas
Pneumatic DollsDo you think S. California was really a magnet in the early years of the film industry for attractive people hoping to become stars (and who later found themselves, cute as they were, running pneumatic numbering machines)?
More LikelyWhile it's true that Hollywood was a magnet for attractive young women who would find their way into war work it think a couple of other factors are at work here. I have a suspicion that the photographers were looking very hard for attractive women for the photos. I suppose it's possible that Palmer might have found the two prettiest girls in the department to pose for this photo. 
The other factor is that many of the women who worked in the war plants were the young wives of soldiers, sailors and airmen for whom California might be a long-term base before being shipped out. I don't suppose it would be unheard of for them to come to California while their husbands were based in the area and then gravitate into the war plants after - or even before - they shipped out.
Lighting[A preliminary note: We know that Alfred Palmer used floodlights for at least some of these large format Kodachromes. Hand-held floodlights and cabling are visible in a number of his photographs. - Dave]
Kodachrome, back in the day, was an absurdly slow film; that was one of the many prices you paid for shooting in color.  Shots like this one were done with flashbulbs, and quite large ones.  (My educated guess is that this was shot with one large bulb in a large reflector, off to camera left.)  That was done, in part, to provide the necessary *amount* of illumination, but also to provide the right *color temperature* light - the floodlights in a factory would have made everything look horribly yellowish or orangeish, and light coming in through skylights and windows would likely have been too blueish.
You can still get the same look today with slide film, a high-powered flashgun, and a camera with a leaf-shutter that synchronizes flash at high speeds: well-lit subjects in foreground, inky blackness in the background.
Quite aside from the technical and aesthetic effects, this technique meant - for the wartime Kodachromes you see on Shorpy - that you only got to see the parts of the factories that, frankly, the government wanted you to see.  No need to worry overly about accidentally disclosing wartime secrets off in the background of a photo when everything but the main subject is shrouded in darkness...
Unsafe, but I look fabulousShe's wearing jewelry on a pneumatic press machine?
Egads!
The parts on the table are rib sections; these fit between the longitudinal spars of a wing or control surface. The parts in the rear are fuselage formers; you can see the notches for the stringers that run down the side of the plane. North American Inglewood built both B-25 bombers and P-51 fighers during late 1942; judging from the size of the formers, these are probably P-51 Mustang parts. 
(The Gallery, Kodachromes, Alfred Palmer, Factories, WW2)

The Pink Heap: 1957
... Mass. Jock Gifford's 'Pink Heap' beach buggy." 35mm Kodachrome by Toni Frissell for the Sports Illustrated assignment "Nantucket ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 04/18/2023 - 5:55pm -

August 1957. "Nantucket, Mass. Jock Gifford's 'Pink Heap' beach buggy."  35mm Kodachrome by Toni Frissell for the Sports Illustrated assignment "Nantucket Essay." View full size.
Cook's Cycles is still in business!At the same address I found in a 1952 Boston Globe ad. It's been around since 1933.
Yes, it is a CJ2AThe CJ2A was the civilian version released after WWII. There was a CJ1 or CJ1A, but only a few were made. It was more of a prototype. The WWII Jeeps were Ford GPW and Willys MB. They were absolutely identical for parts interchangeability, except for various stampings that might have said Ford or Willys. Early versions of the Ford had the brand name stamped above the left rear taillight, but the US government made them stop, as no military vehicle was supposed to carry advertisements. Bantam (They made something that looked like the Roger Rabbit car) had won the primary design contest, except their engine was too weak. The Bantam Jeep was modified with the Willys engine, and that was given the go. Willys became the primary contractor, but was unable to produce the volume needed. Ford was called in to duplicate the exact model with their superior manufacturing facilities. Bantam got to make the little trailers that were towed behind Jeeps.
Proto-PreppyThe first J. Crew catalog is 26 years in the future. Where did these kids buy their J. Crew clothes? Who taught them to pose like J. Crew models?
Pink JockJock Gifford went on to a career as an architectural designer, conservationist and restaurateur. Plus he was on episodes of This Old House! Here is another view of the Pink Heap from his restaurant's Facebook page.
C-CAm I the only one it bothers that the sign uses a common "C" for words with hard and soft "C" sounds?  Yeah, I figured I was.  Just something about it...
Still the spot!You get off the ferry at Steamboat Wharf, walk down the street to the right of the ticket building, walk past some other bike shop until you get to the corner at South Beach. You walk to the right, past some tennis courts on your left. The next corner building with an awning, that's Cook's Cycles. Now you're set to go exploring. Best bet? Surfside during the day, Eel Point in the evening. Nantucket has a magic all its own!
Now we need some pics of the Vineyard!

The JeepAn original WW2 Ford or Willys?
Pretty in PinkThe jeep looks like a just postwar CJ-2A. The headlights and fuel filler are the giveaway.
That is aWillys CJ2A, made from late 1945 to 1948.  BTW, it is pronounced Willus, not Willies.
The JeepI believe it's a Willys. Ford's body had a grab bar across where the Willys fuel opening was behind the driver's side, and more grab bars around the body.
Found It!1945-49 Willys-Overland Jeep CJ-2A.
Those pockets on the sideThe WWII Jeeps had indentions and pockets under the driver's side to place an ax or shovel. I have seen people try to put those into the pockets on the CJs, but that is wrong. 
They were for holding the top bows, which are still on this Jeep. If you were to take it all apart, those bows would fit perfectly into the little steel pockets on the side.
Said for once without irony:"The prettiest sight in this fine, pretty world is the privileged class enjoying its privileges."
-- Macaulay Connor
JockI thought of This Old House when I saw the photo and thought it would be funny if there was a connection, and here it is! 
(The Gallery, Kodachromes, Bicycles, Cars, Trucks, Buses, Kids, Toni Frissell)

Cunningham Drugs: 1942
... mount for this street scene -- the latest (and earliest) Kodachrome from hotrodder-shutterbug Don Cox -- is bereft of notation regarding ... Douglas and Yates in Victoria, B.C Canada! Tags + Kodachrome These two together narrow the probable date range to 1946-47. ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 03/23/2021 - 5:37pm -

    UPDATE: The view here is of Douglas Street in beautiful Victoria, British Columbia!
The slide mount for this street scene -- the latest (and earliest) Kodachrome from hotrodder-shutterbug Don Cox -- is bereft of notation regarding location. Where are we? View full size.
Cunningham Drugs, based in Detroit MichiganCunningham Drugs was a chain of stores founded in 1889 operated primarily within the state of Michigan. I remember them well from my childhood in Detroit. They had a soda fountain and served a great hamburger. Michigan locations closed and reopened as Apex Drug in 1982 and were later sold to Perry Drug Stores. They finally sold to Walgreens in 1991. Tip of the hat to Wikipedia.
[Wrong Cunningham Drug. - Dave]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cunningham_Drug_(Canada)
Northwest Corner of Douglas and Yates, Victoria, BThe building is still there, minus the top of the turret: https://goo.gl/maps/kPwwNQzq1MXjcAM2A
Location for 3/21 photoI found mention of a Cunningham Drugs in Victoria, British Columbia.  There was a postcard on ebay with the words "Peter-Pan-Cunningham-Drugs-Douglas-St-Victorai-British-Columbia-postcard-1950s".  The bus' destination in this photo says "Burnside Marigold" which is an intersection in Victoria.
Never ...ever step back to admire your work.
Victoria British ColumbiaAppears to be 1300 Douglas Street.
We're in CanadaTo be more precise, we're in Victoria, British Columbia. Cunningham Drugs on the corner was located at 1300-1306 Douglas Street; the building still exists, the drugstore does not.
Victoria, B.C.Next to Cunningham Drugs is McLean's Bakery, which was located at 1304 Douglas Avenue in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
Here is the Google Street View of these storefronts as they appeared in May 2018.

Something tells meThis is British Columbia's capital city, beautiful Victoria.
Victoria BCDouglas and Yates in Victoria, B.C Canada!
Tags + KodachromeThese two together narrow the probable date range to 1946-47. Almost all photographic film and equipment, at least in the US where Kodachrome was made, was reserved for the "war effort". Consumers had difficulty purchasing any photographic materials until well into 1946.
When my dad came back from the war, he wanted to buy a new camera to replace the one he inherited from his father who used it during WW1. He had to wait until 1947 before the Kodak Vigilant 620 was available with the faster f/4.5 lens he wanted. Only the version with the simpler f/6.3 lens was available earlier, and that not until 1946.
[This exposure is from a batch of slides taken in the Pacific Northwest, many of them dated 1942. Don Cox was a Navy photographer's mate. One of his previous images is this Kodachrome from 1943. - Dave]
Good info. A Navy photographer's mate would have had access to materials, Kodachrome in this case, that the average civilian wouldn't have had.
Victoria, BCI believe this to be Victoria, British Columbia - Cunningham Drugs was a well known chain in BC during this time and Burnside/Marigold on the bus is another clue - Burnside Rd, Marigold Park.
Location Victoria Island Coach Lines LTD. The street sign Points to Sidney, BC. 
Looks like it's Victoria BCThe bus company initials - Vancouver Island Coach Lines Ltd. (15 November 1928 - 1950) and street sign pointing us to Sidney, which is where the BC Ferries now dock, tells me this is probably Victoria, BC.
Not Danforth & Pape... but rather Douglas & Yates, in Victoria, British Columbia:

Douglas Street runs concurrent with Trans-Canada Highway 1 in Victoria.  In fact, the Zero Mile Monument is not far from this intersection.
North of the BorderA quick search for that Burnside-Marigold bus brings up an archival photo from Victoria, B.C.: https://search-bcarchives.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/burnside-marigold-bus-on-b...
Victoria, British ColumbiaThis picture is taken at the corner of Douglas and Yates in Victoria, B.C.  Google streetview shows that most of the block is still there.  Names like "Copp the Shoe Man" and "Cunningham Drugs" were well known B.C. companies.  I worked for Cunningham Drugs for a while as a teenager in the 1970s.  
The bus in the picture is Vancouver Island Coach Lines and its route is Burnside - Marigold.  And the dark blue sedan in the middle of the street looks like it might be a 1929 Auburn.
Looks to me like ...Vancouver, B.C. 
Found itThe location is 1302 Douglas Street in Victoria, British Columbia (corner of Yates and Douglas).  The spire and the some of the parapet on top of the Cunningham Drug store are gone now but otherwise the street is remarkably the same.
"For the unrelated Canadian chain, see Cunningham Drug (Canada)."
TagsThe only years B.C. did not use front license plates were 1942 thru 1947, as a wartime metal conservation effort. So we can date this photo from during World War II or just after.
Douglas Street, Victoria B.C.Cross' Marketeria was at 1310 Douglas in Victoria, BC. Here's what it looks like today:

Douglas Street, Victoria, BC, Canada?Just a guess. I know United Cigar Stores LTD was a Canadian retailer, V.I.C.L., Ltd on the bus I guess to mean something like Vancouver Island Coach Line, the direction sign points to Sidney which is a town near Victoria, Douglas Street seems to be a good main drag downtown to put hotel on. St James Hotel counters my reasoning but you can’t have everything. 
At the far right ...... we see the Douglas Hotel at 1450 Douglas Street and the Victoria City Hall at the corner of Douglas Street and Pandora Avenue, an example of Second Empire-style public architecture.
That 'scaffolding'The day before OSHA was created.
Accident waiting to happenWow. Two men on a sagging scaffold with people under it. 
Rock steady!Is there any way to know whether Don Cox used a tripod for his photos? If not, then he could certainly hold still when he needed to.
Laurel and Hardy on locationI don't recall Cunningham's signs being any color but green, maybe it is a Canadian Thing.
The sign painters' physiques, the bow in the scaffold plank, the can of paint and the pedestrian below in trench coat and hat.  It is a fine line between tragedy and comedy. 
Curiously familiarThis looks very much like R Crumb in Kodachrome.
(Most) Trades workers of YoreSeemed to survive:
No hard hats
No gloves
No safety harnesses
No safety goggles
No ear protection
No high visibility jackets
No steel capped boots
No traffic and pedestrian control monitors
No pedestrian bypass barriers
No proper scaffolding
No safety inspectors
No license (usually) required to close off part of street/sidewalk
No dust or chemical spill controls
(The Gallery, Kodachromes, Cars, Trucks, Buses, Don Cox, Stores & Markets)

Mint, Sage, Caraway and Thyme: 1942
... and kitchen utensils in a house in Birmingham." 4x5 inch Kodachrome transparency by Arthur S. Siegel for the Farm Security ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 01/19/2023 - 8:38pm -

July 1942. "Birmingham (near Detroit), Michigan. Herbs and kitchen utensils in a house in Birmingham." 4x5 inch Kodachrome transparency by Arthur S. Siegel for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.
Point of orderI found myself wondering why the caption was in a different order than the bottles, but then I deduced that this was taken in Scarborough.
Secret IngredientThe wad of chewed gum on the shelf is a nice touch.
Secret IngredientI sure hope that is gum on the shelf!!!
Well used toolsI like the patina of age and use on the various cooking utensils. The handles tell that these have been used often to make meals for whomever they belonged to, and their family. The small pan was probably used to melt butter or lard.
Nice rackSomeone had to say it.
"Nice rack" - ?No. Actually, no. Nobody had to say that. 
I see fiveI think there's a dab of spearmint visible, too.
Still in useChange the handles of some of those utensils to red and white and you can find them in my kitchen.
Metal and mintI love photos like this, which provide a glimpse of daily life in the past. Those are great utensils!  Looks like they had all ready been around for quite a while, by then, but still had lots of use left in them. I watch secondhand stores for such things, and have several I use. I'd like to know how she used that mint. I'll bet it was from her garden!
Utensil RingsThe four utensils on the right had an identical threaded metal ring screwed into each handle end to allow it to hang on a hook. The ring on the end of the small skillet was too big for the hook, and it appears a bit of force was used to make it fit. This was clearly a time before stainless steel. I like the detail of the rough plaster wall - I'd love to see the rest of the kitchen. Any related images?
NostalgicI'm pretty certain some of those utensils are probably still in use by someone. Some of my favorite kitchen gadgets are those that belonged to my mom and grandmother in the '30s and '40s.  They are still in great condition, whereas a lot of what I bought when I got married in 1969 only lasted a couple of years.
Wabi, sabiPerfect examples of the Japanese qualities of wabi and sabi. The enjoyment of the slight imperfections in objects which are in everyday use, especially those which are hand-made, and of the honest wear which accumulates on such objects. 
Scarborough Fare?They must've run out of parsely and rosemary.
These old implementsThey remind me of my grandmother's 'polenta' paddle, which I still use for stirring pasta. Polenta is basically corn meal mush. The paddle is a wooden device similar to the spatula-like thing third from left, but made of wood and about 2 inches wide by 1/4 inch thick. The one I have is over 100 years old, as my grandmother got it when she was first married in 1908. I got it when I moved into my first apartment in '73. 
Can't remember how many times I got my butt warmed with that paddle!
(The Gallery, Kodachromes, Arthur Siegel, Kitchens etc.)

Pie Town Dugout: 1940
... home at Pie Town , New Mexico." View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Russell Lee. Another example of the dugout-style ... of the season. [Addendum: This picture was taken using Kodachrome sheet film (5 inches by 4 inches) and (probably) a Graflex Speed ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 08/30/2012 - 12:01pm -

October 1940. "Mr. Leatherman, homesteader, coming out of his dugout home at Pie Town, New Mexico." View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Russell Lee. Another example of the dugout-style structure used for the homesteader dwellings and church in the Dead Ox Flat photos. Before industry and technology gave us sawmills and frame houses, this is how the average person lived in much of the world. The dugout or pit house, with sod roof, log walls and earthen floor, is among the most ancient of human dwellings -- at some point in history your ancestors lived in one. Especially popular among 19th-century settlers in the Great Plains and deserts of the West and Southwest, where trees and other building materials were scarce, dugouts were warmer in winter and cooler in summer than above-ground structures; just about anywhere in North America the ground temperature three feet down is 55 degrees regardless of the season. [Addendum: This picture was taken using Kodachrome sheet film (5 inches by 4 inches) and (probably) a Graflex Speed Graphic press camera. The image you see here was scanned from the positive transparency itself, not a print.]
Pole & Line in BackLikely a dipole antenna for a small radio in the home.  Note what appears to be a runner going towards the ground from the mid-point.
Similar Aleut-style dugoutHere is an 1899 photograph from the Harriman Expedition of a barabara, a semi-underground Aleut dwelling on Unalaska, in the Aleutians Islands, Alaska. Not quite the dugout captured so well in Pie Town by Mr. Lee, but the principle is the same: the temperature below the ground’s surface remains fairly constant.  In the fiercely windy Aleutians the advantage of below-ground structures is even more enhanced.
Denny Gill
Chugiak, Alaska
HmmNote--the photo is in color. Not real?
[This is one of our most frequent uninformed comments. When do people think color photography began? The answer is that it goes back to the 19th century. Kodachrome film went on the market in 1935. And of course we've all seen Technicolor movies from the 1930s -- The Wizard of Oz, Gone With the Wind, etc. - Dave]
Color photography goes backColor photography goes back a lot further than October 1940. No reason to believe it's fake.
What is the pole and line in back?It seems to have a line or wire running from the pole into the tree, then on to another tree.
Aha!That must be why the first structure ever built at my alma mater looked just like this!
Speak for you own selvesNot MY ancestors!
I love it!I want mine in my backyard so I can go down there with my neighbor!!!!!!  Uh huh. I bet I'd still live in one of these babies if my community would allow it.  Holy Sh*t!
ColorizedUhm ... Both The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind were filmed in B&W.  It wasn't until later re-releases that they were colorized.
[Sigh. Where do people get these ideas?? GWTW (which won an Oscar for color cinematography) and Wizard of Oz were of course both filmed in color. Wikipedia articles on Technicolor and Gone With the Wind. - Dave]
OzThe Wizard Of Oz started filming in 1938. The book's silver shoes became ruby slippers because the movie was one of the few films made at the time to be filmed in color, and MGM wanted to show off the color process. At the time, most movies were filmed in black-and-white thus those parts of the movie were meant to be reality, and the color part was meant to be a dream.
By the way, all this information can be found on the internet, so look up things before you say something because instead of being an expert instead you sound like an idiot.
History of color photographyThe history of color photography.
The Wizard Of OzThe main reason people think the movie "The Wizard Of Oz" is colorized is because 'faded' copies of that film is usually shown on tv. This movie has been recently restored frame by frame to its original look by Warner Studios and even some extra footage has been added. I have that restored movie on DVD and it is visually outright spectacular. Just take a preview look at this here [Warner Bros.]: http://thewizardofoz.warnerbros.com/
Wizard of OzWrong.  Wizard's first few minutes and last few minutes were in B&W but the majority of the film was originally in Technicolor!  
Wizard of OzActually, you are all wrong.  The Kansas scenes were filmed in Sepiatone, which is actually color film.  The Oz scenes were filmed in Technicolor.  
Blair Frodelius
http://ozmapolitan.spaces.live.com/
Oz, Part 23573"The Kansas scenes were filmed in Sepiatone, which is actually color film. "
Well, just to carry this off topic argument further... sepiatone is not a color film.  It is a coloration applied to black and white images resulting in a brown and white appearance, but not a color film in any normal sense.
Looking ForwardDare I say it? There might come a point when these people appear to be ahead of their time. Imagine how much less energy we would use if we took advantage of some of the ground's natural advantages---of course balanced with modern technology to make it a whole lot more comfortable.
Oz ad nauseamUnless someone can prove otherwise, I am convinced the black and white portion of Wizard of Oz was shot on black and white negative.
The Color portion of Wizard of Oz was shot on THREE black and white negatives.
Black and white and sepia are all colors.
You mean I've been in Kansas all along?  I saw all of you there though.  Were you thinking? Maybe you weren't really there.
But in short, the intro and epilogue was black and white, and the OZ portion was Technicolor.
And the prints seen in theatres, I assume were all printed on color positive stock, although it is posible if there was a reel change, the intro and epilogue actually COULD have been printed on black and white stock.
The real question is... was the sepia toning of the black and white portion originally there, in the theatre prints?  Watching the movie on TV growing up, I would say it was not, unless the networks decided to pump away the sepia technically. When the film was restored for video release since 1980, sepia toning of the black and white portion was probably done.  Electronically. You know, to make it look old.  I haven't watched the film since its first 'restored' vhs release, except to listen to Dark Side of the  Moon.
Sepia toning usually takes place on paper prints (such as via bromination) either as a accidental by-product or intentional archival technique.  It generally was not used for movies presented in the theatre, even in cases where it could have been technically possible to fudge the look when printed to color transparency.
And it is cool/hotto live in a hole in the ground.  That doesn't make it that feasible for an entire population however.  The majority of houses are, and have historically been, ABOVE ground, because it is simply easier to build them that way.
Root cellars were common, to keep stored food at a more constant temperature throughout the year.  And beer was often  made in caves, as was the mash for whiskey, for similar reasons.
Ad nauseam indeedFrom the Department of Dead Horses:
"The Wizard of Oz" was indeed released theatrically in 1939 with sepia toning to the black-and-white sequences.  MGM, for reasons I don't know, used sepia toning rather often in the late '30s. The b/w Oz scenes were shot on b/w stock; the Technicolor sequences were, as described, shot using the Technicolor process, which produced three separate b/w negatives.  But the was not originally printed on color "positive" stock; however, but using an imbibition process, which is too complicated to go into here; try this link: http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/oldcolor/technicolor6.htm. 
As for toning of films, it was EXTREMELY common during the silent era, as opposed to "generally not used."  Try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_tinting
Honestly, how do people manage to speak with such authority about things they clearly know nothing about? 
I never knew,  This is aI never knew,  This is a great website.
Oh man...Progress IS fast. I cant believe that people used to live in those...
progress?I agree that we've progressed in the sense of no longer having dirt floors, and tiny houses, but there are certainly advantages to that style of building that we have regretfully left behind.  Part of the looming fossil-fuel energy crisis has to do with our dependence on convenient energy, rather than efficiency, in keeping our homes climate controlled.  I'd say a similar tradeoff has been made with respect to transportation.  Instead of living in close-knit dense communities, we require freeways and cars.
I love seeing stuff like this picture, because it's a reminder that there IS a way to live without energy-rich technological solutions.
[The people of Pie Town, living as they did out in the middle of nowhere, all had cars. - Dave]
FloodingI can't imagine they stayed there very long.  What happens when it rains?  I don't think there were many sump pumps then.
Photographic HistoryThe first color photographs predate WWI.  Even those aside, it's fairly trivial to colorize an existing black and white photo if you feel the urge.
These structures are indeed ancient -- they were common in Japan as early as 400 AD (that's off the top of my head) and elsewhere in the world even earlier.  
Interesting to see that they were used in the USA - though it shouldn't shock anyone.  The depression wasn't in full force in 1940 but the USA wasn't something a modern resident would recognize.  Times were hard. 
Great photo.
:(my ancestors were monkeys and couldn't even afford a house like this
I'll give you a "hell yeah"I'll give you a "hell yeah" on that one !!
I thought everyone who grew up watching that movie would realize the significance of the color part of the film.
think we need to put down our game boys and read books again.
Dugout HouseMy mother's family lived in a dugout house near Elida, New Mexico, in the 30's and 40's. They were not poor, and they found the life to be just fine.
Nice dipole antennaI wonder what kind of wireless equipment he has in that shack...
"not my ancestors"where did you come from? obviously not earth...
PlaggenhutIn the Netherlands, these dugout homes or pit houses, 1900 circa, were called "plaggenhut" (sod house or turf hut). They were found typically in the north-eastern part of the country, e.g. in the province of Drenthe. 
Vincent Van Gogh visited Drenthe from September till October, 1883. In a second letter, dated around September 15th 1883, to his brother Theo, he wrote:
"I am enclosing a sketch of my first painted study from this neighbourhood, a cottage on the heath. A cottage made entirely of only turfs and sticks."
In Drenthe he painted several studies, the so called third series.
One of them is "Cottages," Oil on canvas on cardboard(?), F17/JH395, 35.5 x 55.5 cm."

(The Gallery, Kodachromes, Pie Town, Russell Lee)

Lionel Lines: 1946
From circa 1946 comes this 35mm Kodachrome of Jim and Jack Hardman and their Christmas train set in Upper ... 
 
Posted by Sparkplug - 12/24/2022 - 3:19pm -

From circa 1946 comes this 35mm Kodachrome of Jim and Jack Hardman and their Christmas train set in Upper Montclair, New Jersey. View full size.
Olfactory memoryThe smell of ozone still takes me back to Christmastime on the living room floor with our oft-shorting electric train set. Nobody ever thought to get a photo of anyone in the act of playing with it, but at least there's this color shot from December 1954, complete with old sofa cushions for hills.
AccessoriesThere's a plastic tray for a hopper car to dump its load into but I don't see the special magnetic section of track that activates it; on the other hand there's one section that seems to have five rails rather than three, which perhaps is an early version of it.
Those are standard O-27 curves.  If you have a whole-room floor layout, you can get O-72 curves, which have double the turn radius.
The three rails fill out voids in the track left by having few ties; American Flyer had the disadvantage that the track looked very empty by contrast.
I can smell the smoke pill from the engineOzone and the smell of the artificial smoke pill is still in my mind's nose from my 1955 Lionel train set.
No Ping-Ponguntil next year!
Without a NetThe ever-useful Ping-Pong table. Its surface served at so many different functions.
"The Blue Haze"My first train was a used Marx set that the older boy across the alley from us was selling for $10 because his family was moving. It was the little black Commodore Vanderbilt streamlined tinplate engine, with three tin freight cars and a caboose, and a set of four little green tinplate passenger coaches.  The 027 gauge diamond track layout was mounted on a 4x8 sheet of plywood, and I would run that thing on the floor after school and on weekends until the whole basement was a blue haze.  And yes, as others have said, I can still smell the ozone, and I loved it! It was a smell that meant FUN!  And that little Marx engine ran like crazy and lasted a long, long time!  I'll bet my mom wished it would finally burn up, but it didn't. The little engine wore out the brushes until it wouldn't run anymore! 
1946 set 2111WSThis is a 1946 set from Lionel numbered 2111WS.   The Baby Ruth boxcar is an extra not included in this set as sold.  What is important to Lionel collectors is that the work caboose is a two tone grey that is normally attributed to a different set in 1946, No. 2115WS.  The caboose in the near foreground is prewar, which implies that the young engineer in the picture, or his older brothers, had trains from before WWII.
Here is the set, fourth from the top. Click to enlarge.

Hot!I still remember the stench of the transformer.  After about a hour of play, it got so hot Mom would be screaming to "turn it off before you set the house on fire!"
My Lionel TrainMy 027 gauge set from 1947 doesn't have the log car but I did have a refrigerated boxcar that unloaded small cubes of merchandise and it used the five parallel tracks to activate the unloading process. This track section is also used to activate the knuckle couplers to disconnect a car. 
My locomotive (#2020) appears to be the same as the one here. It is a replica of a Pennsylvania Railroad steam turbine locomotive.
One more trivia item. This locomotive/tender combination is also seen in the TV Series "Young Sheldon" when he is playing with his train in the family garage.
Sales were goodLionel sold thousands of that locomotive, a copy of the Baldwin/Westinghouse Steam Turbine. Baldwin only sold one; it looked like this when it left the shops. BTW this layout is O-Gauge, not 0-27. A circle of track is 31 inches, 0-27 is 27. I'm waiting for someone to do a count of all the Lionel accessories in this photo; there are a lot!
Ah, them was the daysI had that same 2-6-4 engine, the dump car, the crane car, and the work caboose. My dad had a friend who collected Lionel stuff and we made an annual trip to his house across town and always came home with a pair of switches, some track or a couple of cars.
Had a lot of fun with that stuff. Ended up giving it to my nephew.
Thanks for the photo.
Hazy MemoriesI remember the train sets with the smoke tablets, but I also seem to remember having a set that had the smoke caused by drops of 3-in-1 Oil put into the smokestack. Or maybe one of my friends came up with that approach.
Red Baby RuthGrowing up in the 1960s I inherited a Lionel set that my brothers used when they were younger. It also had a Baby Ruth boxcar (my favorite) but it was a dark red color. I can only assume it was of later vintage than these pale orange ones shown. 
Wish I knew what happened to that set.
Smokin' the TrainLong ago my iron horse Lionel engine would smoke after you dropped an aspirin down the stack.  
The Red Pill We had an American Flyer.  They only used two rails, and appeared more realistic than the three-rail Lionel sets.
 The smoke generator took a red pill that was filled with some liquid that was squirted down the smokestack.  The pill was made of some sort of rubber and had a narrow end that was to be cut off so the liquid could be directed without spilling.  It resembled a CO2 cartridge, but was significantly smaller, about an inch long.
Future employers20-plus years later I worked part-time after school and a few summers for these brothers, and their small (about 40 employees) industrial adhesives business in nearby Belleville.  It had been a family business for 3 or 4 generations, and they were quite friendly with the employees and generous with the perks. 
Neat train setThat family must be fairly well off because that train set cost a tidy little bit.  I had a Lionel set in the mid 50s but all it had was a figure eight. 
What's that smell?When I was a young boy, my father liked to take us on hours-long Sunday drives. I found these almost unbearable, sandwiched between my two older sisters (yes, I was raised with three mothers) and my mother riding shotgun and trying to keep order in the back seat.
Unbeknownst to me or anyone else, I failed to completely turn off the train transformer before we embarked on our excursion. It was on low, not enough to supply power to move the locomotive, but enough to keep the transformer powered up.  We arrived back home and were greeted by the pungent odor of an oily sort.
My father and I hurried to the basement to be almost bowled over by the aroma. Fortunately, there was no damage, only a huge Lionel transformer hot enough to cook an egg. 
I no longer have that train set. It was put into storage right after this, because it COULD have caught fire and we would have come home to something I still cannot imagine. To this day when I am finished with a train set, the transformer is unplugged from the wall.
I was an American Flyer kidBut I appreciate and enjoy all toy trains.  My dad got me a basic AF set up as a kid.  Over the many years I've added quite bit to it, and made a few custom S gauge trains too.  Wonderful fun for kids of all ages.


Smoke 'em if ya got 'emAnd now a few words about Lionel "Smoke".
The first version of that turbine had a smoke bulb, and used a pill that worked poorly, and corroded the engine.  The bulb would heat up, and melt the pill.  It lasted a year, and then was replaced by the smoke pellets.
The pellet was paraffin that went down the stack where it melted on a small heater coil -- wire wrapped around a piece of mica. 
I've heard the aspirin trick, but don't think it was as satisfying as the real pellet.
3-in-1 Oil?  Yikes, it would work, but it would run thru the engine.  (More on that later)
The problem with the postwar Lionel smoking engines is that there was no "off" switch.  You had to keep feeding it pellets, or the element would burn out.  But if you overfed it, it would stop smoking as well. If you find one today, most times you can get them to smoke by scraping the sides of the stack.
Lionel stopped making the pellets in 1974.  But wait!  There's more!  A hobby shop in Atlanta (they are online) has reproduced the paraffin pellets for your 1954 smoker!
These days Lionel makes smoking engines that have a resistor down the stack and some fiberglass batting and a small well.  These engines smoke when a smoke fluid (mineral oil, some of it now scented) is dropped down the stack, AND there is an on-off switch, to preserve that resistor when there is no smoke fluid.  
n.b. The postwar pellet smoke units can use the modern fluid, but with no reservoir; use only a few drops or it will run out the bottom.
Now everybody with trains in the attic, basement or under the bed, get them out for Christmas, oil them and run them.
Speaking of SmokeI believe the little log cabin on the lower left may actually be an incense burner.  A friend of mine had one.  The roof came off and you could put a little cone of incense in and the smoke wafted out the chimney.
Straight outta RockwellNorman of course.
Lotsa memories hereMy father brought home a very similar Lionel train set for Christmas, probably 1946 or 1947. As a youngster I have a lot of great memories helping him set it up every year for the holidays.
My O27 layout has the same 2020 Steam Turbine Locomotive and Tender, Baby Ruth boxcar, Sunoco tank car, gondola, log car that would dump the logs and a red Pennsylvania caboose. My layout has the same trestle, and a yard light tower and a collection of "Plasticville" buildings. I still have it safely stored in my basement. The track is still on the plywood board that my father mounted it on. I set it up several years ago for the memories. 
I also noticed that "Young Sheldon" was using "my" locomotive. 
No. 1 Christmas memory everWhen I was 4, I woke up on Christmas morning to find a big piece of plywood on sawhorses set up in the living room.  It was covered with newspapers.  As I watched, the papers started moving and a Lionel train appeared.  Over the years, I expanded the layout to 4x12 and, with the help of my dad, attached it to the garage wall where it would fold up when not in use. I finally sold it to help pay for my first car 12 years later.
Inherited CurvesI inherited a 1930s Union Pacific M10000 streamliner which required double-radius o72 curves so always had as a kid a full-room layout for every other Lionel train too.  I suppose Lionel figured out that there wasn't as much of a market for the quadruple-sized layout areas required and scaled down quickly.
I never should have opened that presentWhen I was 5, way back in the ancient times of 1970, I got a very special train set for Christmas. It was a replica of the Disney Monorail. Considering that about 10 years ago, I heard that an unopened box set went for $250,000 I'm beginning to think I never should have opened the box. Actually, though, my father had already opened the box and he and my brother set up the train and mounted it on a large piece of plywood. All that's left of it now is the 12v-18v variable power supply. I remember spending hours with that train set. Of course, now I can play with a train set again... virtually. I have software that lets me mimic any train and any location or scenery, but somehow it's not the same thing.
Lionel was the greatest!Best part was I learned basic electrical circuits as a pre-teen.  Besides all the fun, it was a learning experience.  Not only for me, but also for all my Lionel cousins!

Color CoordinatedThat has to be one of the most complex color coordination scenes I've seen. Even the boys' clothing matches everything else.
I'm sure they had plenty of fun with that amazing train set up.
Still with usFrom what I can tell through Ancestry and general internet snooping, both "boys" are still with us.  Jim would have been about 10 here, and Jack would have been about 7.
[It was Jim who posted this photo. Click his username to see his profile. - Dave]
(ShorpyBlog, Member Gallery, Christmas)

Army Mechanic: 1942
... transport fleets in operation." View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer for the Office of War Information. ... above the photo was on location. The 4x5 inch size Kodachrome 10 film was usually used in a Speed Graphic camera with individual ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 07/24/2012 - 9:38pm -

June 1942. Fort Knox, Kentucky. "A good job in the air cleaner of an Army truck. This Negro soldier, who serves as truck driver and mechanic, plays an important part in keeping Army transport fleets in operation." View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer for the Office of War Information.
Motor MechanicA much better job than being shot at, and directly transferable to civilian life.
Studio?Maybe this has been asked before, but would this have actually been a studio shot?  The smooth blue background makes me wonder.
[Outdoors. All of these were on location. The OWI and FSA programs were documentary photography, if not exactly candid. A lot of the large-format Kodachromes were posed and used auxiliary lighting. But the people in them weren't models and weren't in studios. - Dave]
4x5 KodachromesRobcat asked if this was a posed or studio photo.  As mentioned above the photo was on location.  The 4x5 inch size Kodachrome 10 film was usually used in a Speed Graphic camera with individual "cut film holders."  A sheet of film was placed into the holder whilst the loader was inside the darkroom.  A "dark slide" was slipped across the open side of the film holder to protect the negative.  When the photographer was ready to make the picture, the "dark slide" was pulled out and usually placed into a pair of spring clips on the back of the ground glass shield of the camera.  Then the camera lens was cocked, the various exposure settings were calculated, and the photograph framed in the viewfinder.  Then the photo was made by tripping the shutter release.  The dark slide was then replaced and the film holder removed by sliding outward to the right.  It was then placed into the photographer's pouch on the side reserved for "exposed."  The dark slide had a black stripe on the side so that you could look at the holder and determine if the film had been exposed.  Unless you forgot to flip the slide around from the black stripe to the silver stripe and vice versa.  Next, during the actual exposure of the picture, most times, a #25 flashbulb was used; the Speed Graphic had a tubular flash holder and reflector.  This was called "fill-in flash" and was used to eliminate deep shadows, which Kodachrome 10 didn't particularly portray (there would be a black muddle).  Remember also that the film was "ASA 10" Speed.  Today we use the ISO system, and your usual digital camera exposes at about an ISO 200 rating.  ASA 10 is many times "slower" than an ASA 100 film, which would have been Black and White, since there were no high speed color films in those days. The granularity ("grain") of Kodachrome 10 in 4x5 inch size makes possible huge enlargements upwards of 5 feet by 8 feet in size.  You will notice that these photos are amazingly "clear" and have a robust depth to them.  This is due in part to the very fine grain of the film and the fact that it was done with large format film.  An equivalent in a modern digital camera would be about a 25 to 50 megapixel image.  There were larger format cameras, up to 11x14 behemoths.  Almost always, the negatives from 5x7, 8x10 and 11x14 inch view camera were "contact printed," that is the transparency was placed on top of the photo paper and held down with a sheet of glass (usually an old window pane).  Then light from the enlarger or the room lights wold be flashed on and off for a second or two.  Once you see a contact print made from a fine grain 8x10" Kodachrome 10 which was processed to a negative rather than a positive, you will not be able to take your eyes off of it.  Stunning in its depth.  I used to do certain types of laboratory photos while I was in the US Army and used a Sinar 8x10 view camera.  Today, you couldn't afford to buy the film for it .. something like $25 per sheet for a color negative film. Hope anecdote helps .. I've been a photographer for a little more than 50 years.  I use a Canon Rebel digital now and it is the Cat's Meow, to be sure!
Amazing!I've yet to see anything coming out of a digital camera that looks like this.  This image, and the other Kodachrome images on this site simply achieve the vibrant colors of the skin, the fabric, and the texture of shiny metal .. and worn industrial parts that transports the viewer to a different time and place .. with a realism that evokes a feeling lacking in modern two dimensional images .. it certainly changes everything I've come to know and appreciate with digital capture.
We all travel different roads in photography, perhaps the digital highway is not as scenic as that already traveled with film.
KodachromeOriginal Kodachrome was known for its bright and posterish colors, fine grain and stability.  I have 50 year-old Kodachrome slides that are as bright as the day they were taken, while a good many of my Ektachromes from that time have faded to red.   As fine as 35mm slides were, 4X5 transparencies are incredibly detailed, just because they are big.  Kodachrome was reformulated and introduced as Kodachrome II in 1961. It was ASA 25 and had more accurate color than the original, but retained its fine grain and stability.  When I shoot film these days, though (mostly in one of my old 3D cameras), I prefer Kodak Elite because of its brighter colors.
KodachromeKodachrome was a very special film in my estimation. When I was serious about photography years back I shot some with the Kodachrome that was available at the time (25 and 64) and was always stunned by the quality of the colour. Most of the time I shot Ektachrome (cost and film speed considerations) and Kodacolor for prints and there was no comparison between them - Kodachrome won every time.
WowIf it weren't for the date on the bottom of this photograph, I would have thought this shot was taken a lot more recently. I didn't know that older photographs could look so vibrant.
But the subject 1942 and they still feel it necessary to point out his color. Had the subject been white, I doubt more than his name would have been cited. Perhaps the authors sought to popularize the idea of enrolling amongst the Negro population, many of whom were questioning how patriotism and Jim Crow could co-exist. But volunteer they did, in droves, while the Tuskeegee Airmen were heaped with well deserved praise, American Blacks served in all branches with distinction. My dad owed his life to an African American soldier who dragged him into a foxhole during a Japanese attack.(Thank you Walter, I wish I knew your last name.) 
(The Gallery, Kodachromes, Alfred Palmer, Cars, Trucks, Buses, WW2)

Meats Coke Fruits: 1942
... of Shulman's Market on N at Union Street S.W." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Louise Rosskam. View full size. Thanks for ... article by Andreas Feininger about the super qualities of Kodachrome when it was 10 ASA (ISO) and came in 8" X 10" format. Apparently, he ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 05/16/2017 - 2:54pm -

Washington, D.C., circa 1942. "Car in front of Shulman's Market on N at Union Street S.W." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Louise Rosskam. View full size.
Thanks for the color!Never mind the color naysayers. The color photos are amazing. Keep 'em coming! :-) 
colorized??I'm sorry, anyone thinking the color shots have been "colorized" must have issues with their vision. 
You do understand though, this is not 2042. I'm just sayin'...."Shorpy - The 100-Year-Old Photo Blog" and all...not that I mind the color or the more "recent" pictures. They are all fascinating. Long live Shorpy!
Love the carAnother great picture. Interesting to see how worn the car is. 
By the way, do you have Prince Albert in a can? Then you better let him out!
James clerk MaxwellI read an account that maxwell stumbled into and 'lost' an apparent color process. Sorry it's an unsourced and unqualified assertion; i cannot remember where i saw that.. :(     but that there is surviving examples  
My God, I can't get over theMy God, I can't get over the quality of these....I don't think I've ever seen any color photos this old look as good as these do. If the year hadn't been posted, I would've thought these were taken on some recent movie set or whathaveyou. Absolutely gorgeous!
Colors areColors are gorgeous!
Interesting to see the graffiti scratched into the store window. A store in this same location today would likely have the same vandalism.
Love Shorpy! An everyday stop for me now.
GraffitiSomeone soaped the windows -- scribbled on them with a bar of soap. What kids did back before spray paint. And thanks -- Shorpy loves you too!
What short memories we haveDoes anyone remember that The Wizard of Oz was released in 1939? The first movie shot in color was The Gulf Between (1917). 
Color Pictures in 1942At the date of this picture, color was widely available but was a premium process that was expensive.  But if you've ever seen naval war footage of 1942 it's mostly in color because the Navy began using it, interestingly the Army in Europe didn't.
Very nice sceneNice, very nice shot. It's amazing how the image is sharp. How is the photographer that took it?
[Louise Rosskam died in 2003 at the age of 93 - Dave]
N and Union: 1942Wonderful shot. Colourised? Colorized? I sincerely doubt that anyone has that degree of virtuosity, although Photoshop ace Tom Maroudas comes pretty close. (See http://precodecinema.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_archive.html and http://precodecinema.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html for details.) 
I remember reading an article by Andreas Feininger about the super qualities of Kodachrome when it was 10 ASA (ISO) and came in 8" X 10" format. Apparently, he took some Kodachrome pictures in that format back in 1937, and once developed he put them in a drawer in his darkroom where it was permanently dark and arid. In the '80s he was cleaning out his darkroom and found the perfectly preserved pictures is the same condition as they were over forty years before. The colours were vivid and the contrast had not changed. Amazing film. I hope that the digital medium can come within hailing distance of this marvelous film. (And as an advocate of digital, I am not holding my breath.)
Soaped WindowsLooks like they "soaped" the car windows, too.  Although it appears they used paraffin wax, not soap.  It came in blocks and was used to seal the top of jams & jellies.  Doesn't come off with water - you have to use gas or kerosene, or a razor blade.  Kids caught doing this when I was young got the "pleasure" of removing it, too (not that I have any personal experience or anything... ;^)
And is that a picture of Hitler in the window?
The carThe car in this picture, a Model A Ford, is 10 to 12 years old.
Old color photosThis is such a magnificent photograph.  I remember, as a child, assuming the whole world was colorless, since all the"old" photos I saw were b/w.
Here is a link to WW-I color photos, they are incredible.
http://www.worldwaronecolorphotos.com/
The CarYou have the age right, make wrong.  It's a 1931 Chevrolet. Wonderful shot, Shorpy!
Pictures in the windowNot sure about old Adolph in the window of Shulman's Market, but I do recognize Il Duce - Benito Mussolini on the left side. Maybe and advertisement for some magazine or some sort of patriotic screed against the various "rats" the US was now at war with.
Rationing stickerThe  windshield has a gas rationing sticker, the letter "A" on the passenger side. That was the basic gas allowance, "B", "C", etc, allowed more gasoline to be purchased by the car owner. I believe the "A" allowance was 5 gallons a week and ration stamps were required.
Colorized?Why would people think that these were colorized? seriously, how dumb can you get? XD
So vibrant back then; I love the little boy just wandering about...
So little has changed.It's amazing, some of DC still looks so close to this that I could almost imagine this photo being taken today. In fact, I'm almost up for going to that corner to see if those building still stand. Even the painted blue is the same color you see almost everywhere today. 
[Good luck finding that intersection. - Dave]
Color Film from KodakKodak's new color film for home photographers was first displayed and demonstrated, but not sold, in the "Palace of Photography" at the 1935-1936 California Pacific International Exposition in San Diego. It went on the market the following year. More than 400 natural color film processes were patented, and many of them marketed to the public, from the 1890s through the early 1930s, before Kodachrome dominated the market with its superior quality and relative ease of processing at Kodak labs. 
New ExcitementSeeing these pictures of N and Union Streets has brought out a whole new range of excitement for my family.  We were raised on N Street, at that corner, and spent all the wartime years living there, through all the blackouts and air raid drills, and day-to-day living.  We got groceries at that store, played street football on that corner, played Kick the Can on those sidewalks, and lived harmoniously in the racially mixed neighborhood, not realizing at the time just how "rich" we really were. Thanks a million for producing those pictures.
Love these Old DC photos. Love these Old DC photos.  This one's getting close to the neighborhood of my great-great grandparents. They lived there in the 1870's - early 1900's. I'm looking for photos during that period in the vicinity of 1513 Half St., SW, 1506 First St., SW; 1342 & 1346 Half St. SE; 62 N. St., SE? My G-G-Grandmother, Mary E. Hunt and Sons Wallace and Newton Cornwell bought property between Half & 1st. Sts, and M & N Sts. SE. and had a brick making business there. My G-G grandparents James & Isabella Storey lived on the SW side of Half Sts.  Their daughter Jane and Newton Cornwell married. They are my G-grandparents. We had know idea of them or where they lived until I recently started researching our family tree.  Anyone who can help, my email is:  ae-mitchell@hotmail.com.  I love this site! 
Herb's MarketI was born in D.C. 1941 and grew up living over my dad's grocery store, a DGS:  Herb's Market, 621 Seventh Street N.E., between F and G.
Any photos around  besides my few  taken with my Brownie Hawkeye?
Buddy Shulman,  the owner of the store in the photograph, was a "cousin" of my mother, or a relative of Buddy's. Also, I think related to Max Shulman.
AntennaIt looks like the bottom of what might be an antenna on the roof. The photo pre-dates TV, but I didn't think they used rooftop antennas for radio.
Is that what it might be? Or is there something else more likely?
[Rooftop radio antennas go back to the 1920s, with many examples here on Shorpy. -Dave]
Corner stores from the pastAs a kid growing up in 1950s Baltimore, the corner stores were part of daily life. Embedded in the corners of block-long row houses, our stores were specialized: one provided groceries, another was a meat market; there was a bakery (oh, the smells!), and a pharmacy with an oldtime soda fountain.
Today, Baltimore's corner stores have been replaced by liquor stores or simply abandoned -- along with many of the row houses. 
Many inner urban neighborhoods now complain of "food deserts".
It was a different world then. 
Cheap rent & MeowYears ago when I was in college I rented an apartment above a store. I liked watching the world pass by below.  Sometimes I could just stare out the window for thirty minutes, it made me feel like a cat.
--great photo.
God bless KodachromeI'm always amazed and impressed with the Kodachrome shots shown here at Shorpy. Especially the large format shots in 4x5 and 8x10" formats. Kodachrome was tough to work with given its low ASA/ISO speeds but the sharpness was second to none. The reason that Kodachrome colors are SO stable and don't fade with age is because it was a "dye-additive" film as opposed to films like Ektachrome which were "dye-subtractive". Simply put, Kodachrome's colors were put onto the film during processing and were extremely stable and not prone to fading. Go look at a 50 year old Ektachrome and you'll see the result of dyes fading.
Union StreetUnion street is long gone. I found it on a map from 1893.
The Car is Not a Model A FordI have been restoring a Model A Ford for 12 years now, with a lot of study of the years they were built 1928-'31, and I was at first taken in by the similarities, however 1. there is no gas tank filler cap (which should be in the center of the windshield on the metal cowling) 2. the cowling shape is '30-31 3. the headlights are '28-29 on a Model A. 4. the hood stamping looks different, and length appears longer than an "A". Even after this, I can't identify the car. Cars built during these years shared many similarities in design.
(The Gallery, Kodachromes, D.C., Louise Rosskam, Stores & Markets)

The Dawn of Botts Dots: 1969
... dots were installed on a California highway, I took this Kodachrome going south on US 101 at the Alto interchange in Marin County, ... 
 
Posted by tterrace - 03/06/2023 - 7:00pm -

Three years after the first Botts dots were installed on a California highway, I took this Kodachrome going south on US 101 at the Alto interchange in Marin County, California. This was when it was still a full cloverleaf, with its hair-raisingly overlapping entry and exit lanes below the overpass. Off to the left, Belvedere and Tiburon; to the right, Mill Valley. Again, this is the era of Volkswagen Beetle ubiquity: there are at least three visible here, one in its favorite habitat, the fast lane. View full size.
Neat ideaThis first time I every saw those dots in 1974 I was astounded. I was visiting my grandmother in San Francisco and we were driving late at night. On the highway I saw an amazing sight, you could see all the lanes marked out with these green glowing dots just as well as if you were driving during the day. Right away, I wondered why didn't somebody think to do that back home. Why even in thick fog you would be able to see and stay in your lane without any trouble. If was obvious. Then somebody pointed out to me that with, back home in Canada, winter storms dropping a foot of  snow on the highway and then snow plows scraping everything off the roads after they might not work quite as well as in California. Back to the drawing board and you know what? Almost 40 years later, they still haven't put any on the highways here! Go figure.
[Here in the Northeastern U.S., they embed the reflectors in the pavement so that they're flush with the surface and can't be scraped off by plows. - Dave]
Before Better BottsThe first generation of Botts Dots, I learned, were nailed to the pavement.  After working free, they'd puncture tires.  Later they were glued to the roadbed.
Ahh, CaluhfourneyeayeWhat a gorgeous looking day. Photoshop out the highways, cars, roads, bridges, people, stoplights, and signs, and you have an Ansel Adams photograph.
Rule(s) of the BeetleOne of which was "the brighter the color, the more obnoxious the driver," which we see illustrated here. Is that a Fiat just behind it? It's hard to tell, but I think that's another VW in the northbound slow lane, just under the overpass from our point of view.
Otherwise a nice selection of Detroit iron: a Thunderbird, a Cougar, and a couple of Oldsmobiles in the southbound lane, plus something I can't make out. Northbound, another Beetle, a Dodge truck that may be an armored car, GMC pickup, and what looks like a '70 Ford but is probably a '69 unless this was quite late in the year, plus several others obscured by guardrail, other vehicles, or distance.
And you can actually see the pavement, instead of wall-to-wall sheet metal, in the daytime! Those were the days.
Reflections on a dotTo this day most Botts dots are non-reflective, so they don't show a whole lot better at night than painted lines.  You can see a standard recessed (and snow plow friendly) reflector in the space between every other grouping of Botts dots in the picture.  There are some technologies that give them reflectivity, but I'm surprised that they haven't standardized a technique that embeds glass beads into the surface for good reflectivity like with most road paint or thermoplastic striping.  
Am I the only one who keeps mistyping it as Botts dotts?  
re: Pre-BottsWow, Steve Stephens, nifty! That's when it was called the Alto Wye, which I hazily remember along with the Corte Madera Wye just to the north. The days when four-lane divided roads like this were called superhighways.
Pre-Botts Dots daysA circa 1955 photo, also looking south at the same spot, when the cloverleaf interchange in the main photo was in the process of being built to handle ever increasing Marin County traffic.  I moved here in Sept. 1957 to start high school and can attest there have been a lot of changes here since then, and not for the better.
Reflector dotsHere in the non-snowy parts of California, the reflectors placed between the groups of Botts dots are also raised. Even those become less and less reflective as they become scuffed, abraded, dirtied and chipped. A glass-beaded surface on the Botts dots would lose its reflectivity pretty quickly.
Lou JudsonHey, this was MY turnoff! I lived in Strawberry Point, over the hill on the left, from 1957 to 1971. All those hills except the top of the farthest one are now covered with houses! I nearly burst into tears when I came over the Alto hill and saw that they had chopped off the top of the hill on the right to build a development called Enchanted Knolls - with streets named after English poets (Yet I have never heard a poem as beautiful as a hill).
Personally I love cloverleaf interchanges. The skill it takes to negotiate them should be a driver test requirement! I feel they have been changed to stoplight intersections due to the stupidity of the common driver - and the offramp to the right now has four lanes and still backs up over the hill behind the pov.
At the time of this photo I was commuting to SF State College in my 58 VW bus from Strawberry. Twenty years later I was coming over the top of the Alto Hill when the Loma Prieta earthquake happened. I did not feel it because I was in my fourth VW bus, but saw the transformers on all the power poles in this picture explode in blue-white light as the grid went down and left us in the dark for a few days.
So many memories!
Sparse carsI imagine it's been many a day since that road has been that lightly traveled. 
Rolling HillsThanks for another Marin Memory, tterrace. I navigated  this turnoff daily when I lived in the Strawberry district of Mill Valley from 1969 to 1971. 
I'm also very familiar with the surge in development described by other posters that has taken place here over the last four decades. Both sides of the freeway beyond the overpass are now crowded by shopping centers, car dealerships, and gas stations.
But there's also good news to report.
The reason the hills in the distance have escaped development is that they were set aside in 1972 as part of a sprawling urban park called the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The area, now known as the Marin Headlands, is under stewardship of the National Park Service. 
TailgatingI drove a VW bug for 17 years and noticed an unfailing rule which is also evident in this picture: People always tailgate you when you drive a Volkswagen in the left (fast) lane, even if you're speeding yourself.
Botts update.I've been meaning to take this shot since seeing this image, but I just don't go in that direction as much as I used to. I had to use my iphone, as I forgot to bring my "real" camera. It gives an idea of how things have changed. The shot was taken well after the commute time, and seems not much different than the original shot. It was a gray day, so I decided to sample the original clouds to spruce things up. The Prius has replaced the Volkswagen in these parts as the people's car.
1930sThe Redwood Highway (southbound) swung hard right here and went west of the big hill on the right back in the 1930s.  I think about the time the bridges were being built (BB and GGB, 1935-37) the highway cut was made through here and connected with the then-new Richardson Bay Bridge, itself made of redwood and replaced in the late '50s when the freeway was built.  
1931 PicHere is a classic shot of almost the exact location of tterrace's 1969 picture. This is well before the Golden Gate Bridge was built.  All traffic at Alto Wye had to turn right and travel through Mill Valley to continue on towards Sausalito and then San Francisco via ferry.  
More detail:
http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt1v19q6ff/
(ShorpyBlog, Member Gallery, On the Road, tterrapix)

Fish Camp: 1958
... The North Woods circa 1958. "Jim Baker and Mike." 35mm Kodachrome. View full size. A good day fishing! Wow, what a cool ... Minnesota or Wisconsin is a good bet. Sensational Kodachrome Kodachrome doing what it does best - impressing with its color ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 08/05/2022 - 4:02pm -

The North Woods circa 1958. "Jim Baker and Mike." 35mm Kodachrome. View full size.
A good day fishing!Wow, what a cool picture!  It reminds me when I was a kid in Maryland and dad was doing a lot of freshwater fishing.  Is the fishing camp in Wisconsin?  Dad probably has Field and Stream tobacco in that pipe and I like the fact that he wears an undershirt under his undershirt!  Are they good Catholic boys?  It almost looks like the boy on the left has a rosary around his neck.
[Mike's family is Lutheran, and that's a fish stringer. - Dave]
Yes, I know what a fish stringer is and a rosary doesn't look like one!
[Mike has one, too. With fishes. - Dave]

I bet Mark Trail is nearby and not to be left out, he's got two rosary stringers!
Baker's got it goin' on!Baker (?) was certainly gearing up for any number of eventualities when he got out of bed that morning: two shirts, high boots, and - oh! - that hat! Somebody tell me the story of that hat! And don't get me started about the pipe. Hope it was a fun day for all.
[Jim is the youngster wearing stripes. Pipe Guy might be his dad. Below, more M&J. - Dave]

Sizzling in that cast iron frypan as we speak.Sure wish I was there for that dinner. Looks like it's going to be a good one.
Dad picked up a straw Yeddo hat on the way to the camp... and for a couple of bucks he could vacation in style. Or not. 
As I remember, they were pretty weird looking, but perhaps my fashion sense wouldn't be fully developed for another ten years or so.
Out of curiosityI've been waiting for someone to comment about what kind of fish they're catching.  So, now I'm asking.
Walleye Fillets coming up!Those look like really nice, "eatin'-size" walleye pike.
Not the easiest fish to catch, so they are good fishermen.
Judging from the popple or birch trees in the background, Northern Minnesota or Wisconsin is a good bet.
Sensational KodachromeKodachrome doing what it does best - impressing with its color and contrast.
A work of art in each snapshot, amateur or professional.
(Camping, Wisconsin Kodachromes)
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