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Broad Street: 1907
Philadelphia circa 1907. "City Hall, Broad Street north from Locust." 8x10 inch ... the area shown from the side in the 1907 photo. The Philadelphia City Hall is the world's second tallest masonry building. It is ... the same view from October of 2013. (The Gallery, DPC, Philadelphia) ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 08/15/2012 - 3:54pm -

Philadelphia circa 1907. "City Hall, Broad Street north from Locust." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size. Unusual horseless carriageThose seem to be really small wheels on the car on the far left. I wonder what make it is? [That's an electric runabout. - Dave] Still a big building. I believe this shot shows the front of the area shown from the side in the 1907 photo. The Philadelphia City Hall is the world's second tallest masonry building. It is STILL the largest municipal building in the United States. The building is topped by an 11.3-m (37 ft), 27-ton bronze statue of city founder William Penn. The observation deck located directly below the base of the statue, approximately 500 ft (152 m) above street level, offers visitors an expansive view of the city and its surroundings. There appear to have been some significant alterations to the rooftop of the building since the 1907 photo was taken. A Few More Buildings Here's today's view from the same vantage point, thanks to Google Maps. I love doing these comparisons and seeing what's changed... View Larger Map Digital ClockThe box with the holes in it on the leftmost building. [We've since learned it's a carriage call. - tterrace] +106Below is the same view from October of 2013. (The Gallery, DPC, Philadelphia)
West End Trust: 1900
Philadelphia circa 1900. "West End Trust Co. building." This could be the ... Association which took place at Kugler's Restaurant, Philadelphia, on last Saturday night, and there is certainly no need of any one ... or anywhere else as long as such a good time can be had in Philadelphia. Good fellowship was the keynote of the occasion. From the ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 07/30/2012 - 4:36pm -

Philadelphia circa 1900. "West End Trust Co. building." This could be the corporate headquarters of Harry Potter Inc. 8x10 glass negative. View full size. Tomorrow lasted until 1925... when the North American stopped publication. GhostlyLots of people who are only half there in this one. I'll have a pint, pleaseAlthough I rarely go a day without checking Shorpy, I'm normally not so nostalgic as to want to go back in time. Life was simpler, you could leave your doors unlocked, street crime hadn't been invented yet, blah blah blah... I'll gladly stay in our modern world, with its antibiotics and labor-saving devices, and gaze upon the past through the window of the Internet. I would make a momentary exception to step into The Keg and order a pint of Tannhaeuser. I'd love to taste what America drank in the days when microbrew was the only kind, before Prohibition conditioned us to the flat watery stuff. It probably wasn't better than the Ranger IPA I'm drinking now, but you can't taste it from a black-and-white photo, and nobody alive today remembers that taste. Ritz CarltonThis building, at the SW corner of Broad Street and Penn Square was across from City Hall. It was designed by architects Furness & Evans and was replaced in the 1920s by offices for the Girard Trust Bank, now made over into the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Stairway to HeavenWow. This one really takes the cake. Faces peering out of windows, looming black empty panes just below Howson Patents, a stairway behind the restaurant on the left that appears to go straight up to nowhere. Even an early "ghost ad" for Lileks. Something going on at the fire hydrant but can't make it out. And what are those little jutting entrances all about on the buildings to the right? The very narrow building with the cuppola. If that's what it's called. Why did they build such a skinny thing? After all these years of Shorpy, you can still provide a great new favorite! Thanks Dave. >> The very narrow building with the cuppola. If that's what it's called. [Namesake of Francis Ford Cuppola. -Dave] Selective sunApparently, the sun shone only on the twelfth floor, since there are no awnings on any of the other windows. Textile humor is differentThose descriptions on the Cotton Yarn Salesmen's menu are real knee-slappers. [It's warped. - Dave] The Phila. North AmericanThere is special meaning to the billboard touting the North American - and its direction (pointed across the street to City Hall). During the 1900s, the North American was transformed from a minor paper with a few thousand subscribers to one of the most popular papers in town. During that time, its editors backed populism and reform movements, while decrying machine politics. For most of the decade, its views were at odds with the mayors and department heads in City Hall. In July 1908, after the "machine" regained control of City Hall with the election of Mayor John Reyburn, Reyburn swore out criminal warrants charging four editors and three cartoonists from the North American with libel. Reformers bailed them all out. VestibulesThe jutting entrances on the storefronts to the right and also on the bank building are vestibules, a double door entrance used in the winter to keep in the heat and keep out the cold when people are coming and going. They are temporary structures which can be removed when milder weather arrives. North American"It Is The Best Today - It Will Be Better Tomorrow," or at least until 1925, when it apparently ceased publishing. Kugler's MenuThe following includes a 1910 menu for Kugler's Restaurant. The alternate descriptions allude in some cryptic way to textile jargon. America's Textile Reporter, March 24, 1910. Cotton Yarn Salesmen's Banquet "A Night in Bohemia, or Why Go to Allentown?" was the legend on the cover of the menu of the annual banquet of the Cotton Yarn Salesmen's Association which took place at Kugler's Restaurant, Philadelphia, on last Saturday night, and there is certainly no need of any one going to Allentown or anywhere else as long as such a good time can be had in Philadelphia. Good fellowship was the keynote of the occasion. From the time the members sat down, about seven, until they left, shortly before twelve, there was something each and every minute to keep the attention engaged. Everyone who has been in Philadelphia knows what Kugler's can do in the way of a feed, and by this Banquet in particular Kugler's has established a new standard of excellence. The menu given below only partially tells the story, for no words can give an adequate description of how good the dinner was. Here is the menu just as printed and only those who have eaten the viands named cooked in true cotton yarn style really know what they ought to taste like. Menu. Manhattan Cocktail (75% mixture) Rockaway Oysters (2% off for shells) Celery (unbleached) Olives (net weight) Cream of Lettuce Soup (well carded) Filet De Sole, Normandy (well-water baned) Chicken Croquettes (nutaper cones) Peas (cross dyed) Filet of Beef with Mushrooms (roller cut) Parisienne Potatoes (mercerized) Lima Beans (gassed) Lettuce Salad (free of specks) Roquefort and Cream Cheese (binder warp) Neapolitan Ice Cream (a la random) Cakes (all mixtures) Coffee (fast black) Wurtzburger (wet twist) Cigars (rope twist) The 56 members and guests present were grouped at small tables in the large private dining room on the third floor. The decorations of evergreens were simple and effective and the best part of the whole affair was its lack of any formality. Those who were not well acquainted got acquainted at once. The fact that there were no set speeches kept any one from getting nervous, but about every one present was given a chance to say a few words. An orchestra added to the pleasure of the occasion and when the guests were not eating they were singing the popular songs, the words of which were printed on the menu. Backside of Wal Mart?Does anyone have an idea of what that massive block wall is between the two high rises? AdorationSo I've been visiting this site for years, I love it, but up until now I've remained a silent participant. This photo pushed me over the edge and I had to register in order to voice my absolute adoration (yes) for this building! Hats off to you guys, when you do it, you do it in style! Does anyone know if this building is still standing? (The Gallery, DPC, Philadelphia)
The Steel Pier: 1904
... on the beach again. However, an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the beaches were restricted in most Jersey ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 08/20/2012 - 11:08am -

The Jersey shore circa 1904. "Steel Pier, Atlantic City." Can anything compare to Atlantic City in the summer, and the feel of sand in your bathing-socks? 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size. Sand MosaicWow. At least three black families here. Great picture!There is a guy lying on the other guy's hip as a pillow -- now that's not something you would see today! Everyone is very appropriately dressed, not a inch of elbow or knee showing. How strange the Victorian era must of been. I suspect there is enough cloth in this one picture to dress the entire East Coast of beach-going folks today. What would they think?Suppose these folks woke up on a beach in Brazil and saw how the sunbathers looked nowadays. Misery Loves CompanyAnother miserable day at the beach according to these poor vacationers. Not a smile to be seen! An odd photoI'll give an internets for every smiling face you can find. Bathing Socks?I see exactly one pair of unsocked feet. Virtually everyone has enough clothes on to weather a Noreaster in November. Why go to the beach at all? Hot? Cold?I'd like to know what time of year this was taken. No shadows. Body LanguageFor the young couple by the black umbrella, there is nobody else on the beach. True GritIt always strikes me how REALLY well-dressed beach-goers could be in the early 1900s. They aren't just fully-dressed -- they're wearing suits and hats and white dresses for a day in the hot sun and gritty sand! What never ceases to amaze me is that few (if any) people bring a blanket or towel to lie on. There they are, in their nice clothes just sitting and lying directly on the sand. Many of the men (and some of the women) are sitting on suit jackets, getting them all mashed up and sandy. Way more surprising than that, though, is the number of women in white dresses and/or white blouses lying partially on newspapers (possibly because the sand is so hot). All I can think when I see THAT is that they must have newsprint ink smeared all over their nice white clothes! Got a laundress?The privileged classes employed a washerwoman to launder all of these clothes. Otherwise, you stoked up the fire on Monday morning and boiled and stirred all day long. Good old bluing kept the whites white. I, too, am always astounded at how heavily dressed our ancestors were in the heat of the East Coast summers. Prior to this time period, in the latter half of the 19th century, bathing machines were on the beaches in the UK. They looked like little sheds, and you went into them, disrobed, put on your heavy-duty bathing costume, and ejected yourself into the waves. No witnesses. So this photo represents a gradual pull away from that Victorian commodity. Peppermint TwistJoey Dee and the Starlighters did this song, not Chubby Checker. In the age of wiki and google, I kind of feel foolish pointing this out, but then I am also in an age where most people aren't old enough to remember this. Castles in the sandI like seeing "flip bucket" castles here and there. Some things never change! Back to SchoolThe Steel Pier. Atlantic City. This is where Thornton Melon (Rodney Dangerfield) developed and practiced his now famous "Triple Lindy" dive. Why go to the beach......if you aren't going in the water?? The people up on the pier must be enjoying the cool breezes without the hot sun shining on them! The view is just as nice above as below - so what is the attraction for the hot sand? More space maybe?? AND does anybody know what those big elaborate buildings house? Great pic - thanks again!!! No action?"How strange the Victorian era must of been." Well, Edwardian, to be precise. And all folks are doing is sitting, standing, or lying around. No activities of any kind. Isn't watching waves come in kind of like watching grass grow? Summer of '62Forty eight years ago, I watched Chubby Checker perform on the Steel Pier as he unveiled his second "twist" record, "The Peppermint Twist".. The "Pier" has an interesting history of storm damage, rebuilding, fires, rebuilding, diminishment, rebuilding, Miss America contest runways, cut-offs and add-ons. Seems like right now Donald Trump has made it an entertainment center once again. In 1904 when this photo was taken, my grandfather had just arrived at Ellis Island from Poland and in WW2, my uncle was stationed there, as Atlantic City was an Army training camp. A fascinating location, thanks Shorpy for the long trip down Memory Lane. Intergrated Too Couple hundred miles south and there would be a Blacks Only and a Whites Only beach sections. Good to see this intergration. [Yers. - Dave] What a coincidenceJust earlier today I was reading an older book entitled "Discovering America's Past," and looking at the section on Atlantic City's Boardwalk. The book also mentioned the Steel Pier, which is the first time I had heard of it. They didn't have a photo so I was glad to see one today. Seven inchesOf exposed skin in the whole field of view. I'm afraid I'll be underdressedHoney, where's my tie, vest, socks and garters and celluloid collar and second best coat? I'm going to the beach! Why go to the beach? Fresh air is the reason.We forget that most people lived in apartment buildings or rooming houses with few fans and obviously no A/C. It was common for people to leave their rooms for the day just to get out to where the air was fresh and a breeze might blow. In the summer months (at this time) in Chicago, people (whole families) slept in the parks at night if it was hot. In a time when illness was spread from living in close quarters people were encouraged to take the air to stay healthy. Given there was no TV or radio and few recordings in peoples homes - why not head out rather than sit in your stuffy rooms? Massacre!All those fully clothed bodies lying about on the beach remind me of corpses. Perhaps I have been watching too many cop shows. Oh Look! A ShorpyShooter!At least there's a camera on a tripod toward the front left, and who knows how much insight the cameraman has about future venues for his pictures! Steel AppearI watched Al Hirt's Steel Pier dance show on our black-and-white TV in the early '60s. It was like American Bandstand next to the ocean. I had no idea what a pier was, so I thought the show was called Steel Appear because it "appeared" on TV. (And I had no idea why the word "steel" was in the name, either.) Bathing suitsMy mother was telling me today my grandmother was scandalized by the appearance of men's bathing shorts. She felt that my grandfather's bathing suit, which in the 1920s consisted of a one-piece outfit with t-shirt length sleeves and cut mid-thigh, bordered on impropriety. My grandfather, a Presbyterian minister, wasn't the least concerned. Chicken Bone BeachThis is another in a series of images from Atlantic City. Last year Shorpy published a view that included a well dressed black family in the foreground. Now we find, in the photographic evidence, black families on the beach again. However, an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the beaches were restricted in most Jersey coastal towns, including Atlantic City. The story says that these beaches, presumably including "Chicken Bone Beach" in Atlantic City, were staffed with black lifeguards. A person quoted in the article says that "there were no signs saying colored-only beach ... you just knew your place." I think that the photographic evidence to the contrary is an inconvenient problem for some histories. The Diving HorseI was a young lad of about 6 when my parents took my younger brother and I to the Steel Pier in AC to see the famous Diving Horse. This was about 55 years ago. The horse didn't actually dive into the water; the front half of the platform the horse was standing on collapsed and forced the horse and rider to slide into the water from about five stories high. I felt sorry for the horse and worse later in life when I read that a few of the horses they used died of heart attacks from the experience. I also had to sit through a Vaughn Monroe performance and I'm not sure which was worse for a 6 year old. (The Gallery, Atlantic City, DPC, Swimming)
Ready or Not: 1912
... among arcade pillars" at the Overbrook School in Philadelphia ca. 1912. View full size. Geo. Grantham Bain Collection. ... (The Gallery, Education, Schools, G.G. Bain, Kids, Philadelphia) ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 09/08/2011 - 12:19pm -

"Blind children playing hide-and-seek among arcade pillars" at the Overbrook School in Philadelphia ca. 1912. View full size. Geo. Grantham Bain Collection. OverbrookThis school for the blind is still up and running here is a link: http://www.obs.org/page.php?ITEM=150 Overbrook IIhttp://www.obs.org/photoblog/?p=20 You can't hide broccoli in a glass of milk Overbrook tableauSurreal! Giorgio de Chirico meets Edward Gorey ... Overbrook: the AlbumWhat a beautiful picture. I could see this on the cover of a CD. Reminds Me Of An Escher Woodcut IcoLooks like the cover art for the game ICO. Scarily close, actually. [That cover art (below) is a tribute the the art of Giorgio de Chirico. Which might be where the name Ico comes from. - Dave] (The Gallery, Education, Schools, G.G. Bain, Kids, Philadelphia)
Wilmerding, O Wilmerding: 1905
... all carnivals at the time. It is possibly a Gustav Dentzel Philadelphia Toboggan Co. "Philadelphia Style Carousel" made in Germantown, PA. The side curtains are yet ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 08/14/2012 - 12:31pm -

Wilmerding, Pennsylvania, circa 1905. "Plant of the Westinghouse Air Brake Co." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size. Three Cheers for "Wilmerding"Thanks to Jano and Dave for recognizing that America is hardly bereft of good manufacturing jobs today, in spite of the rough economy! We should indeed celebrate those hard working blue collar workers. And shame on GMH for calling Wilmerding an "ugly" name! Without doing any research I am sure the town was named in great honor of a founder or "first father" of the town. And I'm sure those who carry the family name Wilmerding today are quite proud of it and are pleased to know there is a town named "for them". Wilmerding sounds like it was probably was carried across the pond with European immigrants... good, strong, old-school Germanic stock. It reminds me of the many Germanic names I heard as a boy visiting Cincinnati with my family. So three cheers for Wilmerding! Don't know whyBut the word embiggen pleases me no end. It has a nice Saxon ring to it, perhaps. Wilmerding is rather nice, as well, but it doesn't activate the pleasure centers in quite the same fashion. Wabtec CorpAs noted in the previous post, the factory is still there. Westinghouse Air Brake has morphed into something called Wabtec. View Larger Map Beauty is in the Ear of the Beholder?How can such a beautiful little town have such an ugly sounding name? (No offense to any persons who might bear that name and frequent Shorpy.) I wonder if life there was as beautiful as we imagine it 100 years later? If I could time travel, Wilmerding certainly seems a worthy place to visit. Beautiful buildingsThis would make a great jigsaw puzzle. Someone CaredSomeone cared enough to preserve these adorable houses. Current viewIs there a current - "today"- view of this same vantage point? The detail these old cameras captured is quite amazing. Good Paying JobsWhen the US had men and women working hard at good paying manufacturing jobs, people could afford to live like decent human beings. Today, the US hardly builds anything anymore, ergo poverty, ignorance, crime, dissolution of the family, and eventually the disintegration of society. All so a relative few offshore robber barons can get fabulously rich draining the accumulated wealth of the US. Very nice. ["Hardly builds anything anymore"? The United States is still the world's largest manufacturer. China, with four times the population, is a close second. The factory in our photo still exists, btw. The average person in the United States today enjoys living conditions vastly better than those of most people in 1905. The $15 trillion economy of the United States is, by far, still the world's largest. - Dave] Wilmerdinglooks like a bustling little community. Love that this photo was taken during the height of activity. Schloss WestinghouseDo you have any photos of the front side of the George Westinghouse Castle (that big pile with the clock tower)? [Click to embiggen. - Dave] It's MondayThe traditional laundry day. Every clothsline you can see is loaded! Re: Good Paying JobsThanks, Dave. I appreciate your succinct response regarding the manufacturing status and standard of living in the U.S. The woeful lack of understanding of basic economics and industrial history is evident in so many conversations I have, and not exclusively with those younger than my 50 years. When commenting on this site, I am more inclined to (attempts at) humor but I am also tremendously moved by the images of industrial settings that affirm how far we have come in terms of working conditions, yet the celebrate ingenuity, creativity, drive and work ethic of our forebears. I wish more people would look around to see that kind of vision and vigor today, and stop damning industry, whether soft or heavy, as a whole for the sins of a relative few. And, sorry to disagree with another commenter but "Wilmerding" has a certain ring to it! Marguerite Avenue & Frank St Clock TowerPresent day view of the clock tower on the far right of the photo. Amazing. View Larger Map Now we know!Now we know where the previouse Westinghouse Air Brake Co. picture was taken from! The viaduct that the Pittsburgh Railways streetcar line once ran on. You can see one of the B&O gondola cars and part of the WABCO house car in this photo as well. It kind of looks like a company town with all the townhouse style housing. And by-the-way I like the sound of "Wilmerding" after pouring poring through so many ancient air brake catalogs, parts lists and manuals. "Wilmerding" the name known around the world! Wilmerding, the VideoExploringI Love this picture - makes me wish I could go back and wander the streets exploring! Such a pretty looking city, even if it's an industrial one! Air Brake AvenueThat first row of houses in the distance is on Air Brake Avenue. Pretty girls all in a rowAs seen in the video, pretty girls worked for Westinghouse, and doing mechanical work. I thought they would be doing clerical chores. The soundtrack is very imaginative. I hear the squeal of Westinghouse air brakes and steel wheels on rails. Not to be overlookedWe would be remiss not to take note of the early beginnings of the "traveling American carnival" as seen in the photo center. The traveling carnival as we know it was but 12 years young in 1905 when there were 46 recorded traveling carnivals. These early shows traveled mostly by rail in unmarked box cars. Visible by the railroad tracks is the merry-go-round or "flying jenny" which was the heart of all carnivals at the time. It is possibly a Gustav Dentzel Philadelphia Toboggan Co. "Philadelphia Style Carousel" made in Germantown, PA. The side curtains are yet down but one set of wooden horses can be seen under the one rolled flap. There are at least visible four show tents set up on the street following the outline of the town square. The James E. Strates Shows is the only remaining railroad carnival today with all others traveling by truck. Wilmerding, and Wabco vs. WabtecWhen George Westinghouse wanted to relocate his factories to a new, larger site in the mid-1880s, he purchased land in the area of a new Pennsylvania Railroad "flagstop" that had already been named "Wilmerding" for Joanna Wilmerding Bruce Negley, the wife of one of the original landowners (I believe her mother's maiden name was Wilmerding). I doubt whether much thought was given to how it sounded, provided it sounded distinctive. Westinghouse Air Brake has not "morphed into something called Wabtec". WABCO was simply the initials of the Westinghouse Air Brake Company, but this trademark was retained by American Standard when WAB became independent again in 1990; to avoid paying a license fee to AmStand, the company's name was changed slightly, to Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corporation, abbreviated Wabtec. The company's headquarters is still located in Wilmerding, although some of the manufacturing has been moved to other sites (in the USA, not overseas). Wikmerding is still a "bustling little place", and a very pretty one; it has not changed hugely from the way it is shown in the photo, and visitors are welcomed at the "Castle", where they can visit the Westinghouse Valley Museum, and get a guided tour of the building also. Check www.wilmerdingrenewed.org/ for details. You Can Be Sure if It's WestinghouseIt's amazing how quickly America has forgotten the importance of some of its most illustrious inventors and corporate manufacturing titans. Men like George Westinghouse affected so much of our life and times -- his air brakes began powerfully slowing and stopping trains as early as the end of the 1860s in an era when the famed "Golden Spike" was driven at Promontory Summit. Brand new passenger cars shipped over the Union and Central Pacific railroads the following month came fitted with the latest Westinghouse Air Brakes. The Golden Spike alone was equal to the Wright Brothers' flight in terms of how it amazed the general public and sparked revolutions in transportation and commerce. The there's George Westinghouse the electric systems entrepreneur. We can thank him and his technicians (and lawyers, like it or not) for securing many patents on extremely strong and fast electrical motors so that fantastic wonders like high-rise "skyscrapers" fitted with elevators (powered by Westinghouse cable-winding motors!) could be put up in cities all across North America if not the world. Westinghouse motors also powered a wide array of electric streetcars, locomotives and simpler small things like electric cooling fans and bedside alarm clocks. How about we all join hands and summon the spirits of James Burke ("Connections") and maybe even ol' George Westinghouse? 3 Cheers for ShorpyA wonderful photograph and oh so much you could muse about. But just as wonderful is the many informative comments with added media as well as the casual reflections. I'm so glad I stumbled across this gem of a photo blog. Thank you Dave. My family history in WilmerdingMy Grandfather William Pugsley was the groundskeeper/gardener for the WABCO. He emigrated from England in 1903 and was hired by the company. In an enlarged photo you can see the house and greenhouse the family was given for their use. It is on the lower side of the hill just above the viaduct crossing to the town which went by the factory and over the railroad . There were eventually 8 children and their families who enjoyed reunions at this house. William was active in local politics as well and lived in the house until his death in 1954. When we children arrived at the reunion the first thing we did was climb the hill to the summit. the hill, Maple avenue, and all the development was removed for a freeway in the 70's I believe .Many happy memories of Wilmerding. Depression-Era WilmerdingMy mother was born and raised in Wilmerding. One of her girlhood memories of the Depression was out-of-work men going door to door looking for odd jobs to earn a few pennies for a meal. She recalled that her mother never turned anyone away; there was always a plate of food for anyone who asked. She said her parents were very frugal, and because of that they never went hungry and still had enough to share. Mother also recalled that government officials came to the high school to recruit graduating seniors into various government jobs that would support the war effort. Graduating in June 1944, mother signed up, and three weeks later was whisked away by train to Washington D.C. where she was placed as a secretary in the Pentagon. A Prized PossessionWilmerding is a fascinating town with an amazing history. The country's first planned community it did not take long to become a turn of the century hub for the railroad. I am the proud owner of the first photo of the town taken by the Wilmerding Development Company before a person or car or animal had stepped on its street. (The Gallery, DPC, Factories, Railroads)
White Flash: 1943
June 1943. "Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Women garage attendants at the Atlantic Refining ... Street at Markoe Street (now called Farragut St)in West Philadelphia, looking towards the large natural gas storage tank at 47th and ... Gallery, Cars, Trucks, Buses, Gas Stations, Jack Delano, Philadelphia) ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 09/30/2013 - 5:59pm -

June 1943. "Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Women garage attendants at the Atlantic Refining Company." The hard part here was figuring out that crazy clamshell hood. Photo by Jack Delano for the Office of War Information. View full size. It looks like aLaSalle. [Not even close. - Dave] I think it's a1942 Dodge. [Correct! -Dave] West Philly GasI would suggest the image is taken from the southwest corner of Chestnut Street at Markoe Street (now called Farragut St)in West Philadelphia, looking towards the large natural gas storage tank at 47th and Chestnut. The gas tank is gone, but a BP station remains where these ladies were checkin' under the hood. Gasoline and GasAnother great view of a gasometer right behind them. Would not want to be there if that thing blew up! Full ServiceI remember full service back in the day when the attendant would check your oil, clean your windshield and maybe even check your tire pressure. But the young lady with the whisk broom? What's she going to do, sweep out the interior? That's really full service. Rethinking West Philly "Gas"The gas stored in containers like these would be of the manufactured variety-- a by-product of a coal carbonization process that yielded a gas that was both toxic and heavier than air at atmospheric densities. In those days, manufactured gas consumers could and did asphyxiate themselves by simply turning on an unlit stove burner in their home. It was the toxic constituents in the gas that did them in. Save for legacy manufacturing sites subject to environmental remediation, manufactured gas has been almost totally supplanted by natural gas as piped to customers through distribution utilities. "Natural gas" as we consumers know it today comes out of the ground, is delivered through interstate pipelines, and is odorless until the mercaptan odorant is added for safety. Dress Shoes?Looks like the ladies are wearing loafers (without socks, too). I guess workplace regulations at that time did not require steel toe work boots. My mechanic says he would never work without them; he's lost track of how many times he's dropped something on his foot.... PantsLove the cargo pants part of the coveralls ... although the cuffs need work. Last Call for CarsThis would be one of only 22,055 Dodge Custom four-door sedans built in that war-shortened year (more may have been made for government use), but I'm sure it had Fluid Drive to absorb some of its 101 horsepower from a slightly enlarged flathead six. There was an even rarer (13,000 built) example of the less expensive DeLuxe sedans with the blacked out trim here in town as late as the 70's and I've always wished I'd bought it! Lost inspirationIf the writers of the "I Love Lucy" show back in the early fifties had seen this photo, there would probably have been a classic episode of Ethel Mertz and Lucy working at an auto service center. Oh well, you can always write your own. Bumper JackIf you enlarge the photo and look just left of the left knee of the lady on the right, you can see the reflection of the photographer, Jack Delano, in the shiny car bumper as he is taking the photo. That CornerHistoricAerials.com still shows those billboards on top of the Buick dealer on the northeast corner of 47th & Chestnut streets in 1950. The gasholder is on the northwest corner. (The Gallery, Cars, Trucks, Buses, Gas Stations, Jack Delano, Philadelphia)
Career Girl: 1943
... at one of the Atlantic Refining Company garages in Philadelphia. She was formerly a clerk in the payroll department of the Curtis ... couldn't get enough gasoline to drive from Washington to Philadelphia during this time of gasoline rationing. Wow! She's tall and ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 03/08/2014 - 1:10pm -

June 1943. "Miss Frances Heisler, pump attendant at one of the Atlantic Refining Company garages in Philadelphia. She was formerly a clerk in the payroll department of the Curtis Publishing Co." Our third look at Frances on the job. Photo by Jack Delano for the Office of War Information. View full size. D.C. TagShe must be filling up Jack Delano's tank. Most people couldn't get enough gasoline to drive from Washington to Philadelphia during this time of gasoline rationing. Wow!She's tall and beautiful enough to have been a model! I'm sure that, especially in that tough time, having Frances fill their tanks and wash their windshields brought a lot of smiles to people who really needed something to smile about! Don't forgetthe gas cap! Without the plastic attached fuel caps that we have today(some newer cars are even capless) you could easily forget the fuel cap. Service stations used to have lost and found boxes with tons of forgotten fuel caps. GuardedBack when bumpers would actually protect the cars body, those vertical guards (some called them "horns") prevented the other bumper from riding up over yours. Oh yeah, the young lady is interesting too. ReflectionI believe that round disc rising above the left side of the license plate is a reflector, not a tail light. Reflection #2Jack Delano x 2? Or a second person? Nerf nerf!I remember shopping for those bumper bars and finding them called "Nerf Bars" in the stores. Frances, We Hardly Knew YeFrances M. Heisler was born in 1924 in Pennsylvania. She married John Di Lullo. She died in 1996 in Norristown, PA Changing rolesMy grandmother (B 1900) in early 1942 was the first woman hired by an optical manufacturing company. It was so unusual that the local newspaper did a big article on her being the first woman at this company. By 1944, most of the workers at this rapidly expanding company were women. (The Gallery, Cars, Trucks, Buses, Gas Stations, Jack Delano, Philadelphia)
Mary Makes a Radio: 1925
... Ramsey)." A worker at the Atwater Kent radio factory in Philadelphia. National Photo glass negative. View full size. r.s.v.p. ... would suggest. (The Gallery, Factories, Natl Photo, Philadelphia) ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 09/04/2012 - 12:59pm -

1925. "Starting assembly of set (Mary Ramsey)." A worker at the Atwater Kent radio factory in Philadelphia. National Photo glass negative. View full size. r.s.v.p.Can someone please explain to a foreigner what the cat's pajamas means. [Click the link. - Dave] Radio makingPrinted circuits came into general use in the mid-1950s. For years Zenith was the lone hold-out advertising their TVs as "hand crafted" until labor costs forced them to quietly abandon this mantra and switch to printed circuits like everyone else. Today all electronic equipment is made of integrated circuit chips (ICs) using fully automated equipment. The radio assembly girl is long gone. Quality...Made to lastBoth the radio and the women. Wonder if anyone is taking photos of the people working on assembly lines today so they can be posted on Shorpy in 2090. ErgonomicsThe seating is certainly not designed for comfort. But the tools of the trade--soldering iron, side cutters, parts bin--haven't changed much. She's taken, boys.Although Mary is the cat's pajamas, the ring makes me think she is married or engaged. Pretty GirlI've always hoped my Atwater Kent 20c radio was assembled by a pretty girl. Nice smile!No wonder the photographer chose to take her picture. She's wiring the components, holding the radio chassis upside down, right? I know old vacuum-tube radios predated for the most part the use of printed circuits, and thus the components were arranged on a metallic chassis and then wired manually from underneath. I seem to recognize the electro-mechanical component used to select the frequencies at the left of the chassis; that would be the large knob you used to tune in your favorite station. Yes, that's the tunerYes, that stack of interleaved metal plates is the tuner. Back in the '70s there was a gentleman who lived in my mother's neighborhood, who was in his nineties at the time, and he had an Atwater-Kent tabletop radio. It was a huge thing, and he would lift the lid to show off the glowing tubes. And, it still worked! Variable CapacitorThe device on the left is a variable capacitor wired in either series or parallel with the coil (tube-shaped with wire wrapping) attached to it. The two in combination comprise a "tuned circuit," which can be varied in frequency. Well, now I knowwho made the radio 80 plus years ago I am working on restoring tonight! What a sweetie!Absolutely charming! Cat's PajamasThe cat's pajamas (and the cat's meow, the cat's whiskers) was a very popular expression in the 1920s, associated with the daring and unconventional jazz-age flappers, usually meaning, hip or fashionable. The lexicographers William and Mary Morris suggest that these "cat" expressions may have originated even earlier, first used in girls' schools. Other sources attribute coinage to Tad Dorgan, sportswriter and cartoonist. The original use was definitely American, but the cat's pyjamas, the cat's meow also caught on in England. Modern to this day.That sure must have been a nice modern place to work. No wonder the company showed it off in so many excellent photos. Note the modern conveyor belt configuration. Mary's counterpart works in this exact manufacturing configuration in (some of) the modern factories of China. An incredible example can be seen in Edward Burtynsky's recent outstanding documentary, "Manufactured Landscapes". 20 Big Box Across the AgesI have two of those AKR Model 20 (Big Box) Radios. Those where battery sets and there was two main models the 20 (4640) Big box and the 20 Compact(7570 or 7960)that was just a smaller version. (See: http://www.atwaterkentradio.com/ak20c.htm ) Its really neat to think that the radio in the picture may be one I have on my shelf. These are great photos of the AKR factory. I am impressed on just how clean it is. Also I really love the jig for holding the chassis upside down so you can wire it up. Gonna build one for myself. That's my Grandmother!How amazing to find this pic of my grandmother! Yes, she is charming, beautiful, sweet and was the most amazing woman I have ever known! I believe she is about 19 in this photo and engaged as the ring on her finger would suggest. (The Gallery, Factories, Natl Photo, Philadelphia)
Dark Passage: 1942
... removal but the primary function was a fire alley. Philadelphia row homes had an alley that ran behind houses and served two ... dad grew up in a row house at 3019 N. Franklin Street in Philadelphia. As a kid I remember visiting Grandma and venturing out her back ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 05/14/2017 - 10:16pm -

Washington, D.C., 1942. "Children on rowhouse steps, corner of N and Union Streets S.W." Note service stars in the windows and the curious narrow passage between houses. Kodachrome transparency by Louise Rosskam. View full size. Free Service StarsHere is an image of the form that ran in newspapers in 1942 for ordering free Service Stars. Blue stars indicate service within the boundaries of the United States. A silver star denotes service overseas and a gold star denotes a death while in service. Curious Passageway between housesThat was the only access from the street side to the rear of the rowhouses because the rowhouse probably took up most of the block. CURIOUS PASSAGEWAY BETWEEN HOUSESThe back door hadn't been invented yet! The back door!There were indeed back doors to these rowhouses. However, you couldn't get to the street from the back yard unless you went through the house so they would put in these passageways so that the back yards would have access to the streets without having to go through someones house. Most of the backyard gardens (as they used to call them) had a gate which opened onto a common path which led to the passageway. Not a lot of privacy in the back from your immediate neighbors. PassagewaysI was raised in a row house in Jamaca, Queens, Long Island in the early 40's, I'm 68 now. The houses were side by side as shown and back to back. If you were lucky each house had a little garden. If you were REALLY lucky, you had an alleyway running the length of the block between the gardens. Usually just wide enough for a one-horse cart or small truck to pick up garbage and coal ash (that's how most everybody heated, unless you were lucky enough to have gas). The garbage and coal ash always came out the basement door in the back of the house (note that there are none in the front of the houses -- we had our pride). So if you didn't have an alleyway, you had to get the garbage and coal ash to the front for pickup. And when they couldn't deliver coal directly to the basement by truck through a window, they had to bag it (100-pounders) and carry it back. I learned several new words from the carriers in several different languages. Got slapped with a wet dishrag (and that HURTS) every time I used one in the presence of my Mother. Excellent comment!Thank you for that truly informative and interesting comment! Everyone be sure to read "passageways" below. Addresses on Row HousesI am curious as to why the addresses are both "odd" and "even" on the same side of the street. Today the odds are on one side and the evens on the other. Address numbersStreet addresses, and how they are done are set by local law + the post office. Each house on my street skips 10 or so numbers. I suspect they were allowing for future streets and subdivisions. My own lot is 910 feet deep by 150 wide and could hold 12 lots of 110x75 aiming side-wise on my lot plus room for the street on the side. Some of these stub end street-subdivisions were done. I hate those "lattitude, longitude" areas which specify locations by the relation to some central spot. Many Northwest townships in In, OH, and IL are done this way. Not odd & even.Look again - the numbers are 469 and 471 . PassagewaysThe rowhouses in SW Washington DC had alleys for the removal of trash and still do. These houses for the most part are still standing today in 2007. The passsages were just for access to the back garden from the front, nothing more. The "Passageway" between housesServed many functions to include trash removal, garbage removal but the primary function was a fire alley. Philadelphia row homes had an alley that ran behind houses and served two streets for the same purpose. Without access to the rear of the houses fireman could not effectively fight an ongoing fire. Apparently the DC homes did not have a common alley therefore one was incorporated in construction to serve two adjoining houses. Cast Iron stoop.https://www.oldtownhome.com/2011/5/12/Cast-Iron-Front-Stairs---Step-One/ White DotsI suspect the white dots above the passageway may have been caused by throwing a rubber ball against the bricks. Having done that many times as a child, it is generally safest to do that where there are no windows! No Mom, it wasn't me! Stop!How many times do I have to tell your kids? Don't throw that ball against the wall above the door. Blast from the pastMy dad grew up in a row house at 3019 N. Franklin Street in Philadelphia. As a kid I remember visiting Grandma and venturing out her back door into her small garden area, then along the common footpath and out the alleyway to the street. I remember from childhood that whenever I read a story that featured someone walking down an alleyway, I pictured the dark, narrow passage I wandered through as a child. I have not thought of these experiences in about 45 years. Your photo caused a tremor in the cobwebs of my mind. Thanks so much! Comics ActionThe kid in the doorway showing his gran a comic book, possibly reading a Superman No. 1! Convenient to shopping! These row houses must have been right across the street from Shulman's Market, also at the corner of N & Union, as shown here: https://www.shorpy.com/node/117 Ghost AlleysOur neighborhood is an historic district just north of Washington, D.C. My house was built in 1926. There's what once was an alleyway behind our house, and the houses with fences don't encroach upon it. I've never seen a vehicle try to drive down it, but that might be possible. In our case, as with most of the other homes without a back fence, it's just treated as an extension of the back yard. We mow half and my neighbor in back mows the other half. In D.C., many of the old alleyways still exist and some of the carriage houses have been converted into trendy living spaces or bars. Alley racingWow, did this bring back memories from about 65 years ago (Yes, I'm a geezer). My family used to visit my Granny and Grandpop in Wilmington, Delaware, where the street kids befriended me (I being the youngest). We used to run through those "alleyways," as the kids called them, then flying down other back alleys all day. One day while out alone (either no one watched their kids then or my parents hoped I would get lost), I went into the "cellar" of an abandoned house and found a bag of iron WWI soldiers and a reel of film. After I dragged them home, my grandfather pulled out his projector to play the film. It was a home movie of sailors throwing their hats in the air at an Annapolis graduation from way back. Who knows what famous future Admiral was in there. Film finished, my grandmother handed the reel and the bag of soldiers to me, saying; "OK, now take them back to where you found them, they don't belong to us." "But Granny -- " "But nothing, march!" War Bond QuotaPatriotic family whose window sticker says they're setting aside 10 percent of income for the purchase of War Bonds and stamps. Tall enough for a man on horsebackThese tall narrow passageways can also been seen in the Soulard Historic District near downtown St. Louis. I was told in the early 1970s that the tall narrow passageways were built to permit a person to ride their horse out into the street from the stable behind the row house. [Back when horses were 18 inches wide. - Dave] AlleywaysI live in Philadelphia, and when I was a kid (60s and 70s), we always used the alleyways as a shortcut between streets. No need to walk all the way around the corner to get to the next street, just cut through the alley. I used to know all the alleys in my neighborhood, we played in them. Back then, we always kept the alleys clean. Now all the alleyway entrances have steel gates and locks on them, to prevent burglars and other bad guys from accessing the back of the houses. And a many are filled with trash and rubbish. Life really was different, Back in the Day. Google No MoreDon't try to find Union St in DC! Union Street was replaced by apartment buildings... (The Gallery, Kodachromes, D.C., Louise Rosskam)
Riding High: 1905
Philadelphia circa 1905. "The elevated railway at Delaware & South ... "Charles Blasius & Sons began their business in Philadelphia in 1855. Their warerooms were located at 1001, 1103, and 1119 ... of rails outside the Blasius plant? (The Gallery, DPC, Philadelphia, Railroads) ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 08/20/2012 - 1:31pm -

Philadelphia circa 1905. "The elevated railway at Delaware & South Streets." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size. Such good childrenUnder the trestle, there appears to be a young father who is solely in charge of at least six young children (possibly eight). One has to admire a man who can keep all those kids in order, close by and behaving admirably with not a single one "acting up". Wonder what he knew that the rest of us do not? Posing"Come on honey. The light is much better over here for photography. Right in front of the cow manure." [From the infamous feral cows of Philly? - Dave] The ElThis section of the Market-Frankford elevated was called the ferries branch--as it went down Delaware avenue to serve the ferry terminal seen at the far right (and also seen in several posts on this site). Despite the building of the Delaware River Bridge in 1926, and the discontinuance of the ferry, the spur survived until 1953. Everybody out!Clearly, this is the end of the line. GreetingsOn the right, the young fellow and the fellow with the derby seem to be giving some sort of Ministry of Funny Walks secret "Hello!" Piano ManI noticed the Blasius Piano wagon on the left. My grandparents had one of those (pianos, not wagons) and enjoyed playing it at family get-togethers. "Feral cows"You cracked me up on that one, Dave. I've heard that feral cow meat tastes quite "gamey". Screeeeeeeeeeeeech ! !'nuff said. Feral CowsDave... You have finally succeeded in cracking me up with that remark. I am trying to picture cows that only come out by moonlight in the darkened streets of Philly and unload. Maybe they hide by day in the darkened recesses of the alleys? Thank you for the chuckles... DatingThe El arrived at the South Street Terminal in 1908 and was torn down in 1939. High-zoot pianosBlasius pianos were top-of-the-line instruments. A restored 1909 example recently sold for $20,000. http://www.antiquepianoshop.com/online-museum/blasius-sons/# Many images of the factory, which was across the river in NJ, can be found at http://www.hagley.lib.de.us/libimages/Blasius.html According to the Hagley Library, "Charles Blasius & Sons began their business in Philadelphia in 1855. Their warerooms were located at 1001, 1103, and 1119 Chestnut Street. In 1887 they bought the trade name “Albrecht,” which had belonged to one of the oldest piano makers in the United States. Blasius also made pianos under the firm’s own brand name as well as the “Ideal” and “Regent” names. Sometime between 1913 and 1918 they were bought by the Rice-Wuest Company, which continued making pianos until it went out of business at an unknown date." Also, can anyone explain the street full of rails outside the Blasius plant? (The Gallery, DPC, Philadelphia, Railroads)
Mad Men: 1959
... its sole distributor was the Macbeth Arc Lamp Company of Philadelphia, PA. There Google helped me, and they were indeed suppliers of ... 
 
Posted by tterrace - 09/29/2011 - 6:24pm -

c.1955 c.1959*. Ad men at work with a gizmo. My uncle, at the time vice president and production manager at the Foote, Cone & Belding advertising agency's San Francisco office, is at left. The gizmo is a "Chromocritic," a term which up to now returns zero hits on Google, so here's another first for Shorpy. It's obviously something used for viewing color transparencies under differing lighting conditions; the switch at the lower right toggles between "Daylight" and "Artificial." Extreme magnification reveals that its sole distributor was the Macbeth Arc Lamp Company of Philadelphia, PA. There Google helped me, and they were indeed suppliers of precision-calibrated lighting devices for the graphic arts industry. The graphic itself is in classic mid-50s illustration style. From an 8x10 print in a stash of my uncle's memorabilia I just acquired. *Thanks to Dave and others for narrowing down the actual dating. View full size. McMann and TateGentlemen, as you can see here, Darren has as usual incorporated his wife Samantha into his ad campaign sketches. Try Google BooksFrom "The Lithographers Manual" - Charles Shapiro- 1974 The Macbeth Chromocritic Viewer contains two light sources that can be mixed and measured and the pair of readings can be given to the lithographer by his client for each color transparency. This enables the lithographer to view the job in the same light in his own plant Looks like a viewer for color separations in a controlled way so as to ensure accurate color reproduction. Foote, Cone & Belding stashDid your uncle still work for F,C&B two years later, in 1957? If so, do you have any photos or ephemera involving their Edsel account? I assume Ford Motor Company worked with a Detroit or Dearborn based crew, but the ads they made ran nationally, so SFO might have had some role in the western states campaign. F,C&B was their 1957 and 1958 ad agency. A whole lot of current Edsel owners will drool all over their keyboards if you do. ElectropunkGotta love a transparency viewer that has meters and a giant knob. The device protruding from the top section looks like it could be a spirit level, but that wouldn't make sense on such a machine. Perhaps it's some form of light detector to help you criticize the chromaticity of the image. The AdFrom 1959-60, on eBay. Thanks to willc for the clue. Somewhere between Chromocritiquing and the final artwork, the arms and legs were shifted a bit. That's Very Nice,but get me a martini. Make it a double. Curiosity killed the cat Having been around advertising people on the east coast from 1959 until about 1963, I remembered that Foote, Cone and Belding had offices in S.F., Chicago, N. Y., etc. but could not remember their clients. DoninVa (another commenter) I believe is on the right track with the tanning lotion theory. There used to be a lotion called "Man Tan" around that era, but my search turned up nothing so it apparently no longer exists. I did find the history of the advertising agency and it is enormous, the oldest and largest and most prize-winning ad agency with offices around the world. We always seem to learn something new every day because of Shorpy and I thank you for yet another trip down memory lane. Market conditionsWhen I worked for a major food company, they had a special room with mockups of supermarket shelves, and in which the lights could be switched among the number of different modes found there. The idea was to see how the packages grabbed the consumer under various conditions. This may be something similar. Or not. Pay attention!"Edgar! look at the picture!" "I can't Fred...those cartoons have bikinis on, and it makes me feel funny..." Name this productLooks to me the ad is for a tanning product. Woman goes from pale to tan while hunk holds a clock. ColorblindNot to many years ago I worked for an apparel manufacturing company and we had a machine called a Macbeth box (or something). As I recall it was a four foot cube with the front face open and lighted on the inside. The folks who could tell the difference would use its precisely calibrated light to evaluate the color of fabric samples. Not being able to tell one shade from another, calibrated light or not, I never touched it. It's Tanfastic!Something about that ad artwork tipped over the big junk bin in my head, and out came the product name "Tanfastic." Here is a 1961 ad for that product that ran in women's magazines like Glamour and Seventeen. I tried Googling "Chromocritic"Five hits now, every one of them straight back to this post. On this side of the pondMacBeth are best known for densitometers, devices for measuring the density of negatives as part of the printing process. For all you young'uns, negatives are what we used to use before memory cards became the fashion!! Function over formThose were the days in which machines were still designed by engineers, not stylists. This thing shouts FUNCTION, with its 'clack-clack' switch levers, Flash Gordon dials and ventilation slots you can slice cheese with. Love it. WowBoth the ad and the machine within 24 hours. Shorpy fans are simply the best! FCBI worked for them. But that's way before my time. Foot Corn & BunionIn the book "The Edsel Affair," the author worked for with the Foote, Cone & Belding agency, which was referred to as Foot Corn & Bunion by its own people! Macbeth Artificial Daylighting Co.1915 Macbeth Artificial Daylighting Company started in New York to provide daylight fixtures to retailers in New York City. 1918 The Munsell Color Company founded in Boston to supply color standards with Munsell notations. 1922 The Munsell Color Company moves from Boston to New York and continues to sell color books and charts, Munsell Crayons and high-grade tempera to artists and teachers for color instruction of schoolchildren. 1923 The Munsell Color Company relocates from NYC to Baltimore. 1946 Gretag AG Established in Switzerland. 1955 Macbeth relocates to New Windsor, NY. 1965 Kollmorgen Instruments Corporation and Macbeth merge. 1970 Kollmorgen acquires the Munsell Color Company, the internationally recognized manufacturer of precise color standards. 1979 Gretag Color Control Systems becomes an independent profit center within Gretag AG, focused on color measurement and color quality control products. 1984 Gretag Color Control Systems produces the first portable spectrophotometer. 1989 Macbeth acquires a German-based manufacturer of spectrophotometer systems. 1997 The Gretag Color Control System Division of Gretag AG merges with the Macbeth division of Kollmorgen Instruments Corporation. 1998 Gretag Macbeth GmbH acquires LOGO Kommunikations, a developer of color management software. 1999 GretagMacbeth acquires Talia Tecnoequipe, a software company focused on the textile industry. Viptronic, a manufacturer of hand-held instrumentation, acquired by GretagMacbeth 2001 Gretag-Macbeth Holding AG becomes Amazys Holding AG 2003 GretagMacbeth announces acquisitions of SheLyn Inc., a textile software and applications provider and Sequel Imaging, a graphic arts solutions provider. 2006 X-Rite Incorporated acquires Amazys Holding AG and all its holdings. Cone, Belding and FooteThat's the order they're in l>r in this photo from my uncle's stash. He's not in it, but for you Mad Men fans we do have the drinks and the cigs. Emerson Foote at the right is smoking, which is particularly interesting in light of his later history. He also seemed to have inspired a film character. I've tentatively dated this from about 1948. A companion shot, with Fairfax Cone smiling, was used in a number of trade publications Macbeth lampsTechnical Arcanery: The machine is a whiz-bang version of a lightbox, used to view the color in the transparency under different lighting conditions, and probably also to suggest color corrections for the artist. Don't know what all the controls do, but probably just for all the different light conditions and intensities. In sequence, this color viewing step is way ahead of the color separation process. Macbeth (originally Macbeth Arc Lamp Company) did indeed make densitometers, but its primary product for years was the high powered lamps used in graphic arts cameras and platemakers, pre Macs and Pagemaker. The company's biggest competitor was NuArc. Every camera I ran (geezing alert) had NuArc or Macbeth lamps, as did all of the platemaking equipment I operated. Ford, Corn & BunionC. Gayle Warnock, the author of "The Edsel Affair," who died in 2007, did not work for Foote, Cone & Belding. He was the PR head of Ford Motor Company, and worked with FCB on the Edsel account. Man TanAs I recall, Man Tan was one of the first, if not the first, tanning liquid that required no sun at all. Gross stuff, creepy and bizarre results. Link, pleaseTo Bobby Darin's newest 45 single, "She's Tanfastic." "She's Tanfastic"http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/window/media/page/0,,72889-594798,00.htm... Bobby did this one for the money. (Use IE since my Firefox doesn't seem to want to play it.) iChromocriticThanks for this post and for all coments! Ad-mazing! Just for completenessThere's a note about a demonstration of the Macbeth Chromacritic [sic] in the January 1949 issue of the Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers. (ShorpyBlog, Member Gallery, tterrapix)
Out of the Ballpark: 1914
... 1914 World Series from rooftops overlooking Shibe Park in Philadelphia." View full size | A look back at the lookers the ... Also, noticed on the look back link that both the Philadelphia Phillies and Athletics shared this park from 1938 to 1954. Must ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 02/08/2019 - 5:15pm -

October 9, 1914. "Watching the first game of the 1914 World Series from rooftops overlooking Shibe Park in Philadelphia." View full size | A look back at the lookers the previous year. George Grantham Bain Collection. Cheap seatsVery interesting that on top of the apartments they have built bleachers to sit on. Do the landlords collect for the privilege? Also, noticed on the look back link that both the Philadelphia Phillies and Athletics shared this park from 1938 to 1954. Must have been a challenge for scheduling. Spite FenceThose crowds eventually led to the construction of what was called the 'Spite Fence" at Shibe. During the 1934-1935 winter (as at the point both the Phils and A's were horrible teams an thus a bad draw at the gate) Jack Shibe and Connie Mack raised the fence from 12 feet to over 50 feet to deliberately block those views from the rooftops. Worse, they did it 'on the cheap' with tacky looking corrugated metal, which not only looked ugly, it caused all sorts of mayhem on the field as lefthanded hitters lost run production plus should a ball bounce off the thing, its path depended entirely on chance as to what direction it would ricochet off into, causing fielding nightmares. Philly being Philly, they've held a grudge about it ever since. (The Gallery, G.G. Bain, Philadelphia, Sports)
Broad Street Station: 1900
Philadelphia circa 1900. "Broad Street Station of the Pennsylvania R.R." 8x10 ... trains back and forth between the Market Street and North Philadelphia station stops, hustling sandwiches as he raced through the cars. I ... looks like a medieval cathedral! (The Gallery, DPC, Philadelphia, Railroads, Streetcars) ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 07/30/2012 - 4:34pm -

Philadelphia circa 1900. "Broad Street Station of the Pennsylvania R.R." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size. A small detail to the rightAs a newcomer, I have just started viewing the images on Shorpy. I'm amazed at the clarity and detail of these photographs. So much is not noticed until viewed in hi-res. I had missed the "thing hanging out the window" and had to go back and look again. Another detail that presented itself upon expanding the pic was the figure on the roof peak on the near building to the right. (about 3/4 the way up the photo) He looks as though he's on break and will soon be performing some maintenance deed requiring skill and agility. His boots and hat being necessary to the task. Thanks for all the photos. Thing hanging out the windowwas more likely a blue-line (blueprint) copier. Outdoor exposure was the only way to go back then. Love your site! [That explains it. You've solved a mystery from another post showing similar panels on the roof of a surveyor's office. - Dave] Printing FrameA piece of glass holds the original and the sensitive paper tightly together, and allows sunlight to pass. The Division Engineer's office is probably on that floor. The alternative would have been an arc lamp, and if they only wanted to make one it might have been too cumbersome to set it up. No halogens, Xenon arcs, or UV fluorescents in those days. Besides, sunlight doesn't require sending money to the electric company. Another hometown shotI love this, a shot from my hometown of Philly. This is a view from the upper floors of City Hall (all those statues are a dead giveaway), looking west down Market Street, I believe. Broad Street Station was actually at the corner of 15th & Market, as City Hall itself stands at the intersection of Broad and Market. But what is that thing, hanging out the 5th floor window, at the rear of the building, next to what must have been the train shed? [A solar collector for hot water? (Well, no. Scroll up for the answer.) - Dave] Walled InUnder the train shed to the left you can see the beginning of the infamous "Chinese Wall"--the stone viaduct that carried the tracks out of terminal to the Schuylkill River. I suppose it was named for the Great Wall of China, even though it (and much of the station) was designed by Frank Furness. Too slow!and verbose. [Hm? - Dave] "SANGWITCHES!! Get your Sangwitches here!!!"Back in the days when the Broad Street station functioned as a regular station stop on the old Pennsylvania RR through trains, an enterprising fellow would ride the trains back and forth between the Market Street and North Philadelphia station stops, hustling sandwiches as he raced through the cars. I can still hear him now. I miss his call as much as I miss the sight of the old "Chinese Wall" RR right of way that bisected the city until the 1950s. Wilse Thing hanging out windowNow you are making me feel really old, while taking drafting in the late 50s we had to develop blueprints this way, only we had to go outside and stand in the hot Saskatchewan sun. ThinkingI love the details on these buildings! I found the togaed Thinker (a la Rodin) on the building on the right. Does anyone want to go with me and count all the cool stuff on these buildings? I have to askThe building from which the photo was taken has some of the most unbelievable statues and stonework imaginable, is this building still standing? if not, were any of the adornments saved? Cathedral of Commerce It amazes me how much this looks like a medieval cathedral! (The Gallery, DPC, Philadelphia, Railroads, Streetcars)
Military R.R.: 1865
... built by the Richard Norris & Son locomotive works in Philadelphia, and was acquired new by the USMRR on February 18, 1863. Sent to ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 08/01/2012 - 8:53pm -

City Point, Virginia, circa 1865. "Gen. J.C. Robinson" and other locomotives of the U.S. Military Railroad. From views of the main Eastern theater of war, the siege of Petersburg, June 1864-April 1865. Wet plate glass negative. View full size. Robinson ahead by a nose Seems that the Lt. Genl. Grant is running a close second. The named locomotives are from the Wm. Mason Machine Works in Taunton, Mass. The engine ahead of both seems unnamed. Might be an "American" locomotive or a Wm. Mason. LocationThe terrain and the enormity of the facilities in place makes me almost certain that this was taken at City Point, Virginia, the Union's main supply depot for the area at the time. [Another clue would be the first three words of the caption. - Dave] Who's DrivingThe engineer is definitely not Buster Keaton. Any ideawhat the black things are in the upper right hand portion of the picture? When I looked at the blown up picture it looked a little bit like a lot of black socks hanging on a clothesline but that's obviously incorrect. [It's a scratch in the emulsion. - Dave] A bigger nameHard for me to see, but appears to be "Lt Gen. US Grant" on loco behind the Robinson machine. I am amazed at the hillside, ships and living conditions of the period. Grant's Iron HorseSaturday we saw Grant's horse "Cincinnati;" today we see Grant's Iron Horse, "Lt. Genl. Grant," on the left. Union IroncladA turret of a Union ironclad can be seen in the background over the top of the pier-side warehouse. This could be the USS Onondaga, which was stationed at City Point to prevent Confederate ironclads from breaking out of the James River and attacking the supply base. The problem is that the USS Onondaga had two turrets and I only see one. Grant and Lee There is a photo so similar to this one in the book "Grant and Lee" by William A. Frassanito that it must have been taken about the same time. It is in the City Point chapter view 8. The tents and buildings on top of the bluff were part of the Railroad Hospital. The wharf shown is a replacement for one that was blown up by saboteurs on August 9,1864. The explosion killed 43 laborers and according to Mr. Frassanito narrowly missed General Grant who was in front of his headquarters tent at the time. His books have photos taken during the Civil War and then the same scene in modern times. IroncladIn regard to the comment by Excel08 about the ironclad. Also according to Mr. Frassanito there would be about 200 vessels anchored off of City Point on any given day by the fall of 1864 including the ironclad ram "Atlanta" with one stack. Poor LightingAmazing that all the headlights on these locomotives were a kerosene lamp in a box with a magnifying lens. Spectre-visionNifty ghost in front of main tent! Hillside erosionAttention troopers! Gen. Grant has authorized the issuing of hazard pay due to the hillside erosion and the location of the outhouse. It is further recommended that only those soldiers who know how to swim should make use of the facilitiesafter dark. Buster Isn't ThereI'll bet he is out visiting Annabelle Lee. InterestingAlmost as interesting as the locomotives are the view of the ships in the harbor. OopsHow did I not see that? Boy, is that embarrassing. Hey youget back to work. 25 years of progressIt amazes me to think that these beautifully turned out engines are only one generation away from the dawn of American railroading (think Tom Thumb and iron-plated wooden tracks). A person born in 1820 grew up with horse, foot or canal-boat travel, when 50 miles was a good day's journey. During their adult years, they saw the rise of well-established railroads that could travel fifty miles per hour. This, together with the telegraph, was the dawn of the "shrinking world." The Third LocomotiveThe locomotive moving forward between the "Lt. Genl. Grant" and the "Genl. J.C. Robinson" is the "Governor Nye." This 4-4-0 was built by the Richard Norris & Son locomotive works in Philadelphia, and was acquired new by the USMRR on February 18, 1863. Sent to North Carolina in 1865 to work on the USMRR, it was still in the USMRR inventory in April 1866. Another photo taken within minutes of this one shows it in the yard. Watch that last step...I don't think that cliff-side staircase meets any imaginable safety regulation. Bridge Of Beanpoples & Cornstalks General J.C. Robinson 4-4-0 (Construction # 124) Formerly known as the USMRR locomotive General Haupt and acquired new by USMRR on January 17, 1863. Renamed General J.C. Robinson. Sold to the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in 1865. http://www.nvcc.edu/home/csiegel/USMRR%20Locomotives.htm "That Man Haupt has built a bridge over Potomac Creek, about 400 feet long and nearly 100 feet high, over which loaded trains are running every hour, and upon my word gentlemen, there is nothing in it but beanpoles and cornstalks." Monitor identityThe monitor noted by others is most likely a Passaic-class ship and probably the Lehigh. The primary assumption is that the ship is perpendicular to the line of sight (as are the other ships). In that case comparing the monitor's funnel (tall thin light-colored tube to the left of the turret) to the turret, they are signifiicantly closer spaced than would be the funnel-turret distance for a Canonicus-class ship, the only other type which fits what is visible. This marks it as a Passaic. To identify it as the Lehigh is the stretch. At least three Passaics were known to have been in the City Point area at this time; the Lehigh, Patapsco, and Sangamon. The Patapsco and Sangamon were both confusingly identified as having a white ring at the top of the turret/base of the rifle shield. There is no ring visible on the turret of this monitor. The Lehigh was all black. O Scale model Civil War model railroadBernie Kempenski is building a model railroad with these kinds of locomotives, etc. His is dated 1862. http://usmrr.blogspot.com (The Gallery, Civil War, Railroads)
Metropolis: 1925
... 1925, another scene from the Atwater Kent radio factory in Philadelphia. National Photo Company Collection glass negative. View full ... in the room. (The Gallery, Factories, Natl Photo, Philadelphia) ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 08/05/2012 - 10:57am -

Circa 1925, another scene from the Atwater Kent radio factory in Philadelphia. National Photo Company Collection glass negative. View full size. Safety first, watch those fingers.No guard covers on the motor belts. Electrolytic!I always wondered how they made all those capacitors. Shades of the Triangle Shirtwaist CompanyLooking for the fire exit ... Hmm ... Maybe it's behind the guys in suits? CapacitatedLooks to me as though they're making capacitors - strips of metal foil separated by an insulating strip - all wound into a cylinder. Used for filtering they allow AC current to pass, but prevent the passage of DC current. BrazilThis is the first of these shots to remind me of Terry Gilliam's movie "Brazil." Just needs to be a little less well lit, but the machines are as imposing. Who needs Fire Exits?There IS a fire extinguisher in the room. (The Gallery, Factories, Natl Photo, Philadelphia)
Radio Room: 1925
... radios together at the vast Atwater Kent factory in Philadelphia. View full size. National Photo Company Collection glass ... (Technology, The Gallery, Factories, Natl Photo, Philadelphia) ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 07/23/2012 - 10:51am -

1925. "Condenser assembling department." Another view of workers putting radios together at the vast Atwater Kent factory in Philadelphia. View full size. National Photo Company Collection glass negative, Library of Congress. Erector set buildersAll those little nuts and bolts and plates to put together! Now the radio-tuning task is done with a semiconductor diode. The new factories are full of billion-dollar machines and the workers just keep them fed. Could They Fill That Shop Today?I really wish the US had all that manufacturing going on today. I do wonder if we could fill those jobs though or whether the employers would have to look for illegal immigrants. Once thing is for sure, we're a soft and spoiled bunch compared to those folks. Ship Shape ShopYou'd think this type of work would make people out of shape, but other than the lady in the foreground, not a single person in the picture can pinch an inch of fat. They are all perfectly slender. But then again, none of these people had Big Macs for lunch and dinner at Appleby's. Economics 101"I really wish the US had all that manufacturing going on today" You're right--imagine how our economy would look if when you walked into a Best Buy or Circuit City all those products were made in this country--all the wealth being kept here. [If all those products were made here, there wouldn't be a Best Buy or Circuit City. - Dave] (Technology, The Gallery, Factories, Natl Photo, Philadelphia)
Tune In Tomorrow: 1928
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, circa 1928. "Assembling room, Atwater Kent radio ... in the '20s? (The Gallery, Factories, Natl Photo, Philadelphia) ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 05/02/2016 - 11:24am -

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, circa 1928. "Assembling room, Atwater Kent radio factory." National Photo Company Collection glass negative. View full size. Getting in tune The subject of this photo, an attractive young woman, looks to be assembling an adjustable (or tunable) capacitor. The metal plates of the movable half would move in and out from between the plates of the fixed half, thus changing the frequency that would be received. She looks to be working on the movable part. I Like My Girls and Capacitors Variable Assembling the variable capacitors which were the heart of the tuning circuit of radio receivers and transmitters for decades. One or more plates were mounted on a shaft which rotated the plates between a set of plates fixed on a base. Your pocket 9 volt AM transistor radio had them, but they were a lot smaller. With a few minor exceptions, micro chips have relegated variable capacitors to the electronic buggy whip bin. RxCarpal tunnel waiting to happen. Amazing. You mean people used to work in factories, in this country, in the old days? And I thought everything was always made in third world countries. Wow. [From the Shorpy Chamber of Commerce: Electronics manufacturing and assembly today employs many more people in the United States than it did in 1928. Below, workers at an Intel fabrication plant in Lehi, Utah. The biggest producer of manufactured goods on Planet Earth is not China or Japan but the good old U.S. of A.! - Dave] Variable caps, or ??It looks like both the large disks and the smaller (spacer?) washers are circular. That won't work for a variable capacitor, as the rotating set of plates needs to present more or less extension in between a fixed set as the shaft turns. These could be Selenium rectifier stacks, for an AC-powered radio. Variable NameNow more aptly named capacitors, up until at least the late '50s they were known as condensers. "Amos 'n' Andy"went on the radio in 1928 and sold more radios than Uncle Miltie did TVs in 1950. I'm sure Atwater-Kent, Philco, Zenith, and all the radio makers plus Pepsodent Toothpaste were most appreciative for that jolt in sales. As Andy may have said "A'int dat sumpin!" Variable CapacitorsThey'd be called variable condensers then. I thought that's what they were but the plates seem to be complete circles, which won't work for a variable capacitor. Capacitor vs CondenserIn this debate I look to that eminent Time Travel pioneer "Doc" Emmett Brown. (see 'Back to The Future', 'Back to The Future II, and 'Back to The Future III') His revolutionary Flux Capacitor clearly shows that the term "capacitor" was accepted well before November 5, 1955. Not a rectifierThis photo predates the invention of selenium rectifiers by 5 years. It was some time in the late 20s to early 30s that indirectly heated cathodes were invented to allow the filaments to be powered by AC electric. Otherwise, they had to use batteries which was inconvenient with the high current requirements of early triode vacuum tube filaments. Around the same time, more efficient pentode vacuum tubes were invented. They offered more gain which helped improve reception and reduced the number of amplification stages required in a receiver. re: Capacitor vs CondenserYou may be right. In fact, we both may be right. Or, less likely, I may be wrong. In any case, happy clear-channel receivings to you. Variable Cap for SurePhotographer posed capacitor so rotor plates could be seen. Atwater Kent produced Model 42 radio in 1928 which used three variable caps ganged together. Model 42 used a tube in the power supply and not a selenium rectifier which were not produced until the early 1930s. See picture of top view of Model 42. It's a variable capacitor / condenserSelenium rectifiers weren't invented until 1933 so assuming the date on the photo is accurate it couldn't be a selenium rectifier. Close inspection of the magazine holding the parts for assembly and the assembled parts in the back ground lead me to believe they are indeed "D" shaped and therefor a variable capacitor / condenser. Re: "Doc" Emmet BrownNot only did he know it was a "capacitor", he knew how properly to pronounce "Gigawatt"! Dave (carefully de-splitting my infinitive) BobsDid any woman NOT have a bobbed hairstyle in the '20s? (The Gallery, Factories, Natl Photo, Philadelphia)
Academy of Music: 1905
Philadelphia, 1905. "American Academy of Music." With two examples of that ... She was great. (Technology, The Gallery, DPC, Music, Philadelphia) ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 02/01/2022 - 1:59pm -

Philadelphia, 1905. "American Academy of Music." With two examples of that latest thing in signage, the electric carriage call. 8x10 glass negative, Detroit Publishing Co. View full size. +108Below is the same view from October of 2013. Echoes of OrmandyNot to mention Stokowski. Street lightGlad this magnificent building is still there. Anyone know what type of street lighting is in use? Carbon arc rods DC? Top left hand corner. Years ago ...I remember seeing Linda Ronstadt at the Academy of Music. She was great. (Technology, The Gallery, DPC, Music, Philadelphia)
Greetings From Atlantic City: 1904
... brother and sister Sam and Hazel are behind. They were Philadelphia residents and an excursion to Atlantic City by ferry and train was ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 08/13/2012 - 8:43pm -

Atlantic City, New Jersey, circa 1904. "Boardwalk from the beach." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size. Phillips for Your Photo in ACMy paternal gradmother, Emma, and her kids had their postcard format photo taken at the Phillips studio, 1619 Boardwalk, about a dozen years after the "Greetings" photo. My father, Bill, is in front with the shovel, while older brother and sister Sam and Hazel are behind. They were Philadelphia residents and an excursion to Atlantic City by ferry and train was a typical summertime activity. Imagine my surprise when I saw the Phillips photo studio included in the Shorpy scene. There he is!I found Waldo. He's right behind the dude from Village People adjusting his wedgie. That lifeguardHe looks very familiar. Japanese goodsA google search shows an Emanary business in NY specialized in Japanese goods. We can indeed (barely) read "Japanese" on that S.Emanery shop window. http://www.14to42.net/16street2.html Hey you with the camera I think this less-than Shorpy photo is a continuation of the one posted; the "ry & co." to the left seems to be a part of the S. Emanary sign. Anyways, that ACB Patrol gentleman looks awfully wary of the camera. The LifeguardAlthough they look fairly similar, I don;t believe they are the same. The Handsome Rake (on Brighton Beach) from the other photo looks a few years younger and this photo was taken the year before the other photo. https://www.shorpy.com/node/6901?size=_original Scandalous!The young man in the middle-ground right side is about to touch the big-toe of the woman next to him with the tip of his index finger. He was probably forced to marry her after that. 3 Men...where's the baby?Is that Tom Selleck's Grandfather scratching his leg? Under the boardwalkI'm always surprised to see that people used to use the place under the boardwalk for shade. Any time I'm down at the shore, especially Atlantic City, I try to avoid going under the boardwalk, imagining that there's unpleasantness of various sorts under there. And too, the beach there at Atlantic City is so deep, you'd never touch the sea if you stayed under the boardwalk. The girl in the sailor swim suit is so pretty. What cheekbones! 100 year old wedgieIs that the lifeguard from a previous post adjusting his trousers? Form factorNot an overweight person in the crowd. My how times have changed. Under itWell, now I understand the song, "Under the Boardwalk." Those chairs would appear to be comfortable perches from which to watch the peopled world go by. The white canopies above the chairs are apparently to catch sand and trash that fall through the cracks. Sandy bottomsI wonder when some unsung genius thought up the idea of sitting on a towel while at the beach. All of these old seashore images show everyone's bathing costume caked with scratchy sand, but they look as if they are happy as pigs in the mud. "Types"So many in this century-old scene! Jocks, the Pretty Girl, the Clueless Dork, the Twins, Dude Checkin' Out the Ladies. Plus of course lots of Old People. Re: Form FactorI now amuse myself when pictures of crowds and kids' classes come up by counting the comments before someone declares, "And nobody in the picture is fat!" Getting to be quite a theme! Re: TypesClueless dork? Can't think which one you mean! That's too funny. Bathing Suit lawsThis was back in the day when male chests had to be covered in public by local ordinances and laws. [In addition to swimsuits! - Dave] And I thought it was only in the cartoonsLook at the two little tots standing on the boardwalk upper left. I had no clue children really dressed like this. I remember watching Bugs Bunny cartoons with kids dressed like this holding a lollipop but I never really thought it was the norm. I itch just looking at this photoIt apparently predates the invention of the giant-size beach towel. Just imagining the combination of damp sand and salty-wet woolen swimwear makes me squirm in my seat. (And is it just me, or is something odd going on in the front of Mr. A.C.B.'s trunks?) (The Gallery, Atlantic City, DPC, Swimming)
Market Street: 1910
Philadelphia City Hall ca. 1910. "Market St. west from 12th." An embarrassment ... capture. (The Gallery, Cars, Trucks, Buses, DPC, Philadelphia) ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 07/19/2012 - 12:45pm -

Philadelphia City Hall ca. 1910. "Market St. west from 12th." An embarrassment of riches for you signage buffs. 8x10 inch glass negative. View full size. Broadly speakingThis is indeed Market Street and not Broad. Thanks to the eagle-eyed commenters who spotted the error. Pile in road?Is that a pile of ROAD OYSTERS just behind woman crossing road? They must have employeed an army of street sweepers to gather the horse droppings. [Excavation rubble. - tterrace] Rent A DeskThe sign bragging "Desk Room For Rent", is really renting the address of the building. I knew a guy, a lawyer, who did just that, in Manhattan he used 505 5th Avenue as his address, he had no office there, but rented a "desk". He went there only to pick up his mail. He met his clients at their homes or businesses. He scored a few lucrative accident verdicts and eventually rented an office in another 5th Avenue building. +96Below is the same view (Market Street, west from 12th Street) from July of 2006. SubtletyI love the gaggle of young men in the right hand corner eyeing the approaching woman in absolute synch. Such a great capture. (The Gallery, Cars, Trucks, Buses, DPC, Philadelphia)
Hotel Flanders: 1905
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, circa 1905. "Hotel Flanders." 8x10 inch dry plate ... the same view from October of 2013. (The Gallery, DPC, Philadelphia) ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 08/14/2012 - 8:50pm -

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, circa 1905. "Hotel Flanders." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size. No Mo' HotelThe hotel, at 15th and Walnut, was demolished long ago, as has much of old Center City. The Union League Building, the Second Empire style building seen behind the hotel, still stands, at least. Miss DimondI wonder what she was selling? Dresses, millinery, possibly foretelling the future? Also the plaque to the left of her window shows a Cross on what could be a coffin, I'm pretty sure that was part of the architectural ornamentation. I tried Googling the image but couldn't find an exact match. 12th & Spruce!Still there! http://www.alexanderinn.com [The skinny building at 12th and Spruce is not the same as the one in our photo. - Dave] Bank of AmericaJust another modern building at the location. It looks as thought the building next to the old Flanders on Walnut is still in place, but with its front drastically altered. Not in the street view, the old Victorian - I think it's a Victorian - with the gabled roof, on 15th is, thankfully, still present. No Trace LeftWow, what a photo. I used to work in a building at the southwest corner of 15th and Walnut (the current home of Stephen Starr's Butcher & Singer, which is the former home of Striped Bass, as seen in the "The Sixth Sense." From what I can gather, the Hotel Flanders used to be on the southeast corner of 15th and Walnut, with the main entrance on 15th. Later known asThe Hi-Diddley-Hotel Flanders. Here's the Skinny - Nine stories tall and no wider than a two car garage - I'm surprised a strong wind didn't knock it over! Hotel FlandersA review from many years ago rated it as "okely-dokely." As always...A tip pf the Hatlo hat to Shorpy. The architecture of this era was so richly detailed - you could spend 8-10 minutes examining that photo. At the same time you could imagine how incredibly expensive it would be to maintain, if it had been preserved. All that ornate masonry, in a freeze/thaw climate zone. Fuggetaboutit - there are not enough tuck-pointers in existence to keep such a structure in good form. However, just down the block215 (South) Walnut is still there, now an Applebee's. Victorian Down the StreetBelow is a shot of the Victorian that Downer mentions in a previous post. You can see it peeking out further down the street past the Flanders. Neat building! From head to toeChiropody, Manicuring and Hair Dressing - that about covers it all. Not The Union League BuildingThat's not The Union League Building behind the hotel. It was, at the time, the 5th District Police Station. +108Below is the same view from October of 2013. (The Gallery, DPC, Philadelphia)
Detroit Opera House: 1904
... their ritzy patrons. Below: this one compared to ones at Philadelphia's Nixon Theatre and Academy of Music . Update: Thanks ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 07/19/2012 - 10:23pm -

The Detroit Opera House circa 1904, starring an electric runabout out front. 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size. Detroit Conservatory MusicWhat, they were too cheap to spring for an "of"? Digital sign againI've noticed that each time we've seen one of those "digital" signs it's been on or in front of a large theater, opera house or concert hall, the type of venue you'd expect the upper classes, rather than the hoi-polloi, to frequent. My speculation: it's something used to signal carriages for their ritzy patrons. Below: this one compared to ones at Philadelphia's Nixon Theatre and Academy of Music. Update: Thanks to TomHe for confirming my speculation. High Bridge?Look in the window of the Pennsylvania Lines shop. Is the picture on the easel that of the High Bridge of recent memory? [Unfortunately, no. - tterrace] Videochas PicThat's Horseshoe Curve, near Altoona, PA Makes My Heart SingWhat a lovely building! I was born in the wrong era. I come to Shorpy everyday and I'm never disappointed with the photos here. I would hope this building is still standing. I absolutely love the honeycomb glass transom at the entrance door. I wish buildings of today had the details of old world craftsmanship. Sigh. [Demolished 1966. - tterrace] What is that thang?Sharp eyes as usual from tterrace, but I can't make out just how this configuration of three identical sets of light-bulb "dots" could be lit to form letters or numbers. The mysterious device's Academy of Music installation, at right, appears to include some kind of identifying signage on the end of the clapboard base beneath it. Dave, is your highest-res tiff file of this photo sufficiently clear to read that information? [Not clear enough on the full LOC tiff, unfortunately. - tterrace] Pennsylvania LinesThe Pennsylvania Railroad was a late arrival in Detroit, not gaining a direct entrance there until 1922, and then only by trackage rights on the Ann Arbor, Pere Marquette and Wabash Railroads. The Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad was chartered in 1854 to build a line from Fort Wayne to the Straits of Mackinaw through Grand Rapids. It became part of the Pennsylvania Lines in 1869. It too had no direct connection to Detroit, relying on a connection with the Wabash in Ft. Wayne to get to the Motor City. Identify car?Great picture! Can anyone identify that nifty little car? The proverbial needleConcerning identifying the automobile, unless it was built by a select few makers, I doubt it can be positively identified. During this period there were around a thousand automobile manufacturers in America alone. What we do know is that it's an early brass era runabout with tiller steering, semi-eliptical leaf springs at each corner, and wooden spoked wheels. That should narrow it down to about 50 manufacturers, some of which existed for only a few years. Re: The proverbial needleI think I have identified the car. It's an AJAX ELECTRIC. I have attached a photo from an advertisement from 1903, for visual comparison. [Here they are together. Among other differences, note the absence of front leaf springs. - tterrace] Wright & KayThe jewelry firm of Wright & Kay (big sign atop building) was formed in May 1906 by Ohio native Henry M. Wright (a Civil War veteran as a member of Co. B, 85th Ohio Volunteers) and John Kay, who was born in Scotland. They were jewelers, opticians, importers and dealers in watches, clocks, diamonds, marble statuary, silver and plated ware and fine stationery, and they manufactured watches and other products under their own name. Recently some Wright, Kay & Company watches were auctioned at Christie's. About that haystackMy first thought when I looked at the full-size image was Studebaker. After further research the answer will have to be no, they were building a Runabout with very similar bodywork and proportions in that era but it had major mechanical differences from this machine. As BradL said, this was a time when literally hundreds of companies ranging from blacksmiths, to buggy shops, to established manufacturers of sewing machines and other mechanical equipment, all took a fling at the automobile. MysterymobileI'm almost certain it's a Waverly Runabout, built in Indianapolis. I have a current-day photo but it's somebody's property. Note its steering is via a front tiller whereas the Studebaker has its tiller on the side. Re: Digital sign againA carriage call indeed. Picture below shows numbers lit. WaverleyDon Struke has it, I found a vintage Waverley advertisement that certainly seems to match the mystery car closely. HorsesCalm and unaware that they were about to be unemployed in very short time. (The Gallery, Cars, Trucks, Buses, Detroit Photos, DPC, Performing Arts)
Yin and Yang: 1928
... workers at the huge Atwater Kent radio factory in Philadelphia. View full size. National Photo Company Collection glass ... and bawdy songs. (The Gallery, Factories, Natl Photo, Philadelphia) ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 09/11/2011 - 4:26pm -

1928 or 1929. Production workers at the huge Atwater Kent radio factory in Philadelphia. View full size. National Photo Company Collection glass negative. Where's Scoob?I've always preferred Velma to Daphne. Yin and YangA bit harsh David. I'm disappointed. ["Harsh"? - Dave] Milk and waterThe so called good-looking one looks insipid to me, milk and water. The plain girl looks like she has a bit of life in her. Anyway, glasses make anyone look less attractive. David!I find it hilarious that someone called you David- like a mother calling her child's first AND middle name when they break a window or something... Anyway- I don't find it harsh at all, there was no inference that one is better than the other. As stated, some prefer Velma to Daphne! I still vote for Yin, though! The one with glasses...is very cute. Dustin HoffmanHe was doing Tootsie way back in the 20's? Beautiful on the insideNo, the nose does not come off with the glasses, but being the oldest living person on the planet, I would bet my life that the less comely girl on the right was a loyal and devoted friend and a family-loving faithful relative to her loved ones. Yes, we all believe that a "pretty" exterior means that the interior matches the pleasing countenance. I can verify that such is not always the case. The homeliest woman I ever met was also the most wonderful, caring, giving and trusted woman I ever met. Do not judge a book by its cover. Just so you knowOld "Dave" is quite a joker as he himself added the diagram of the internal organs to my lowly comments, just to spice things up. It reminds me of the cuts of meat diagrams at the butchers with the chuck roast, kidneys, round steak, etc. Thank you Dave for always being witty and a sport. I really am addicted to Shorpy in case you didn't notice. Live long and prosper. NecklaceI would LOVE to have that necklace that woman is wearing. Miss Yin, Miss Yang1) To: The Gentlemen who are able to see beyond the cover, your comments lightened my heart. From: A good, old ugly book. 2) To further support the yin and yang, I borrowed from Wikpedia: The concept of yin and yang describes two opposing and, at the same time, complementary (completing) aspects of any one phenomenon, object or process. Yin -- shady place, north slope, south bank (river); Yang -- sunny place, south slope, north bank (river), sunshine"; From me, you can't have one without the other. SpectacularThe girl wearing the eyeglasses may or may not appear as attractive, but she does look smarter. Judy In DisguiseI guess I'll just take your glasses. Quick to judge...I find it funny to read comments that rush to the defense of the woman in the George Burns glasses - it's like people feel sorry for her or something. For all we know, she may have been a terrible person named Hildur, and been the office pariah. Or perhaps she was a saint in disguise. Who knows? Most of the time we have absolutely no idea what these people were like - but it's certainly fun to try and fill in the blanks! Anyhow, I think the woman in the center of the image is very beautiful with that gorgeous skin and the hint of a smile. I'll BetIf Velma and Daphne were to go out together on a Friday night, all the boys would initially fly over to Daphne, quickly be bored to tears by her and spend the rest of the night buying drinks for Velma, who would keep them entertained with clever jokes and bawdy songs. (The Gallery, Factories, Natl Photo, Philadelphia)
Three Indians: 1915
... take it up and carry it over the second lap which ends in Philadelphia. From there the route across county is via New York, Albany, ... July 19: 6:00 AM, Washington. D.C. to Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Poughkeepsie, Albany, Utica, Syracuse, Rochester to: ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 04/06/2013 - 11:57am -

Washington, D.C., July 1915. "Motorcycle team, relay to Frisco." Frank S. Long, F.L. Leishear (whose Indian store we saw here) and Josiah McL. Seabrook. National Photo Company Collection glass negative. View full size. California, screamin'They sure did take a circuitous route (NYC and then way up to Albany). The stretch from Reno down into Sacramento must have kept the lads awake with fear if that lap's bikes had no front brakes either. The first time I drove from Reno to Sacramento - and this was on a road they could not dream of, I-80 - one item that caught my eye was a sign, "Caution. Downgrades next 40 miles." Light fantasticThe one smart enough to put the light on his bike will win it for them. Gold mineThe guys from "Pickers" must be drooling. Maybe they could find out who these men are and see if their families have these bikes behind the barn. Safety first!At least for the fellow with the tossled hair. He has on his protective gloves! Rudimentary brakes.Emergency stops much have been pretty exciting on those old bikes- I don't think they even had front brakes. No stoppies for them! Nice!I've been sitting here soaking up this picture. Just fabulous! Great shot, great clothes, great bikes! Wish I could go for a ride with them. Thanks again Dave. Handsome BravesBeautiful bikes! These have many, many similarities to this amazingly restored model, snapped last spring in Charlotte, North Carolina. They may be a bit newer, with kick starter, no leg-power pedals, skirted fender, hand-grip clutch, an electric headlamp on the rear bike (as opposed to Prest-o-Lite [acetylene]), and "soft-tail" rear suspension. I guess any of this could have been optional equipment. DatingI believe that the date of this photo is probably 1916 and not 1926. The Indians pictured appear to be 1915 models. I believe that 1915 was the last year of the inlet over exhaust engine (which these bikes have)and the first year of the kick starter. [You are close -- the year is 1915. - Dave] World's Fastest IndianWhen you see these bikes it really is incredible that Burt Munro took a similar model, a 1920 Scout, modified it and drove it to several land speed records. In 1967, with his engine punched out to 58 cu.in. (950cc) he set a class record of 183.586 mph. To qualify he made a one-way run of 190.07 mph, the fastest ever officially recorded speed on an Indian. The hogs of their dayLaugh at the funny horn if you like, but those bikes are Indian "standards" with 1,000-cc engines. Too bad they didn't add front brakes until 1928. Murder Inc.Maybe these fellas were part of the traveling team of hit-men for Murder Inc. They sure look like they want to kill something. a-OO-gah!Although the braking wouldn't be the greatest, at least they'd be able to clear a path with a mighty squeeze of the horn. Silent RIt was Shorpy that taught me that these are "Motocycles." 119 Hours to FriscoWashington Post, July 18, 1915. RELAY RACE TOMORROW Motorcyclists to Carry Message From Capital to Pacific. START FROM WHITE HOUSE Three Washington Men Will Cover the First Lap, From This City to Baltimore -- Expect to Make Cross-Continent Run in 119 Hours -- Secretary of War to Start Riders. With all arrangements for the transcontinental motorcycle relay race completed, the riders for the first lap of the long journey await the starter's word. The start will be made from the White House at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning. They will carry a message from the President to the officials of the Panama-Pacific exposition at San Francisco. The Washington team, which will cover the first lap, will be composed of Frank S. Long, F.L. Leishear, and J. McL. Seabrook, mounted on Indian motorcycles. These men will carry the message from here to Baltimore, where another team will take it up and carry it over the second lap which ends in Philadelphia. From there the route across county is via New York, Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland, Chicago, Davenport, Des Moines, Omaha, Cheyenne, Salt Lake City, Reno and Sacramento to San Francisco. Fast Time Is Scheduled. On account of the absence of the President, the message will be handed to the riders by Secretary of War Garrison. It is due on the Pacific coast 119 hours after leaving Washington. The riders in the Eastern part of the country will have little difficulty in keeping up with the schedule on account of the good roads, but some of the Western relays are more than 200 miles in length. The longest lap will be between Elko and Fenley, Nev. This stretch is 274 miles long. One of the purposes of this relay is to demonstrate the utility of the motorcycle for military use. The relay is intended to show that the motorcycle is capable of delivering messages under all conditions of road and weather. There will not be one minute from the time the message leaves Washington until it is delivered to the officials of the exposition that it is not moving, day and night, rain or shine. The motorcyclists of this country have been as one volunteering their services as dispatch bearers, and it has been a task for John L. Donovan, chairman of the competition committee of the Federation of American Motorcyclists and manager of the relay, to select the riders. HornyThe furthestmost bike from us has an electric horn, but the others have the bulb variety; I'm guessing it was an optional extra or later add-on. Also interesting to note that heavy cardigans seemed to be the outer garment of choice for moto-cyclists at this time. I wonder when and why the black leather jacket took over. Front SuspensionIt's called a trailing link suspension as the arm pivots ahead of the axel axle. Not too common at all. I believe some early BMWs used this type for awhile as well. In All It's Its GloryHere is a picture of a restored bike that is exactly like the ones in the picture. Note the kick start is on the left side and there is no gear shift to the left of the tank. Apparently slightly later models had the space occupied by the kick start mechanism replaced with a transmission that included a gear shift from it to the left side of the gas tank. Front SuspensionThe Indian front suspension was designed so there was caster to the wheels. According to the old guys I knew 60 years ago, this caster made for very secure handling and less tendency to high speed wobble. You haven't lived until you have experienced a case of high speed wobble!!! UnpunctualThe messages were delivered 36 hours late according to the article below from The Salt Lake Tribune from July 26, 1915. Research indicates that the riders were trying to show that taking a dispatch on a motorcycle across the country would be faster than placing the same message on a train. As originally scheduled, the race would have gone through Sacramento during the national Federation of American Motorcyclists (FAM) convention in Sacramento, but this did not happen because of the belated arrival of the dispatch rider. The FAM was the organization behind the race. All riders were asked to conduct a rehearsal ride on July 11th. The purpose of riding in teams of three was to ensure that if something happened to the primary rider or his motorcycle another rider would be immediately available to continue the mission to San Francisco. Of the three riders pictured here, Seabrook punctured a tire before reaching Baltimore, and he dropped out; Long ran into a pile of rocks in Baltimore, and he was injured; so Leishear became the only man to make it to the first transfer point. By Bryan, Ohio, near the Indiana border, the racers were five and a half hours late because of rains and bad roads. By the time the riders reached Chicago they were 12 hours behind schedule. Some time was made up on the way to Moline, Illinois as the deficit was reduced to just eight and a half hours upon arriving there, and seven hours at Des Moines, Iowa. In Nebraska the lead rider had an accident, but the other riders were far behind him. Consequently, by Rock Springs, Wyoming the riders were 19 hours behind their scheduled arrival, and at Ogden, Utah 18 hours overdue. I did not find where the other 18 hours were lost, but many sources mention the 36 hour late arrival. The official route, dates, and times as originally scheduled were shown in the Ogden Standard (Ogden, Utah) on July 17, 1915. Note the earlier start time than what actually took place. July 19: 6:00 AM, Washington. D.C. to Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Poughkeepsie, Albany, Utica, Syracuse, Rochester to: July 20: 12:45 AM, Buffalo, New York to Erie, Cleveland, Toledo, Bryan, South Bend, Chicago, Sterling, Davenport to: July 21: 3:15 AM, Victor, Iowa to Walnut, Omaha, Columbus, Kearney, North Platte, Julesburg to: July 22: 3:15 AM, Cheyenne, Wyoming to Pine Ridge Station, Rawlins, Rock Springs, Evanston, Salt Lake City, Ogden to: July 23: 12:45 AM, Kelton, Utah to Cobre, Elko, Rye Patch Station, Battle Mountain, Tenley, Reno, Colfax, Sacramento, Tracy, to San Francisco. (The Gallery, D.C., Motorcycles, Natl Photo, Sports)
North From Locust: 1907
Philadelphia circa 1907. "Broad Street north from Locust with view of City ... good living. Then it started to change for print media. Philadelphia lost two of its four daily papers and magazines skyrocketed in ... and I got out. (The Gallery, Cars, Trucks, Buses, DPC, Philadelphia) ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 08/25/2014 - 10:06am -

Philadelphia circa 1907. "Broad Street north from Locust with view of City Hall." 8x10 inch glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size. +106Below is the same view from October of 2013. Advanced Vaudeville?I noticed the sign for Advanced Vaudeville. Is there such a thing as beginning vaudeville? Nice shot of the 2013 view. [1907 poster for Klaw & Erlanger's "Advanced Vaudeville". -tterrace] Ah! Thanks (baxado) NewsstandIn 1974, I purchased the newsstand that you can see in the 2013 photo. Stayed there for ten years and earned a very good living. Then it started to change for print media. Philadelphia lost two of its four daily papers and magazines skyrocketed in price. The handwriting was on the wall and I got out. (The Gallery, Cars, Trucks, Buses, DPC, Philadelphia)
South Fifth: 1938
Spring 1938. "Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Cars on South Fifth Street." Medium format nitrate ... Paul Vanderbilt. View full size. Looks Like The Philadelphia version of Santa Monica Blvd. in Hollywood. Wonder if they're ... a 1933 Plymouth. (The Gallery, Cars, Trucks, Buses, Philadelphia) ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 10/30/2017 - 2:02pm -

Spring 1938. "Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Cars on South Fifth Street." Medium format nitrate negative by Paul Vanderbilt. View full size. Looks LikeThe Philadelphia version of Santa Monica Blvd. in Hollywood. Wonder if they're goin' for pink slips. Street DragsDrag racing at its finest! North 5thDon't know about South 5th, but growing up in Philly in the early 50's, North 5th St was a commercial district. In winter you could buy warmed chestnuts and pretzels from cart vendors while shopping from store to store. CarsOn the left is a 1931 Hupmobile and on the right a 1933 Plymouth. (The Gallery, Cars, Trucks, Buses, Philadelphia)
Bellevue-Stratford: 1905
Philadelphia circa 1905. "The Bellevue-Stratford Hotel." As is often the case ... ten floors. 19 = XIX. -tterrace] (The Gallery, DPC, Philadelphia, Streetcars) ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 07/19/2012 - 12:59pm -

Philadelphia circa 1905. "The Bellevue-Stratford Hotel." As is often the case in these architectural views, the most interesting bits are at the periphery. 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size. LegionnairesThe home of Legionnaires' disease. Lions and Tigers and Gargoyles, oh my!One of the best pics of a 19-story building I've seen on Shorpy. MemoriesThis photo brings back memories. I stayed at the Bellvue-Stratford during the Bicentennial celebrations of 1976 and had a wonderful time. The following week is when they had the outbreak of Legionnaires' disease. A QuestionWhat was in the attics of these ornately-roofed buildings? Some utilities, I imagine, but were all those windows and balconies and railings there for apartments, servants' quarters, offices, or just trim fronting unfinished space? IXThe 19th floor is now a pretty cool bar. You can sit on those century old balconies. [If it was in ancient Rome, you'd have to walk up the rest of the ten floors. 19 = XIX. -tterrace] (The Gallery, DPC, Philadelphia, Streetcars)
Keiths New Theatre: 1907
Philadelphia circa 1907. "Entrance to Keith's Theatre." When was the last time ... bodies. (The Gallery, Cars, Trucks, Buses, DPC, Philadelphia) ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 07/30/2012 - 10:08pm -

Philadelphia circa 1907. "Entrance to Keith's Theatre." When was the last time you patronized your local vaudeville house? 8x10 glass negative. View full size. Megaphone and BellAll the tools needed for your modern bus driver. That and muscles like Popeye to steer the darn thing. Grand EntranceThis is such a beautiful entrance! It's over the top, but I LOVE it. I hope its still around. We have lost so many beautiful buildings and have either a parking garage or a Plain Jane block building with no architectural interest. [Demolished in 1971. More here. - Dave] StrippedIf you look at the photo in the article that Dave lined to, you wouldn't know that it was the same building. By 1968 (when "Ice Station Zebra" - the movie that was showing in the picture - was released) the building had all of the features of the magnificent French Renaissance style facade stripped off or hidden behind the sort of "modern" glass and steel that was popular at the time. We've all seen too many great old buildings ruined by owners and developers who were "improving" the appearance of their building, said improvements falling out of fashion as rapidly as they came into style. I hate to say it but tearing down this building was more of a mercy killing than anything else. What made it special had died long before. RKO Radio PicturesGimme a K as in Keith's. Amazing detail and spiffy derby hats too! This photo has so much wonderful detail - you don't know where to look first. I can't believe this was over 100 years ago! I bet the inside of the theatre is just as gorgeous as the outside! Where was itDoes anyone know what address this was? It's extraordinary! [1116 Chestnut Street, according to the page linked to in the "Grand Entrance" comment below. - Dave] Gertrude Hoffmanwas an exotic dancer who toured on the Keith-Albee vaudeville circuit for a number of years. Her name at the top of the bill in this pic probably caused more than a little curiosity since some of her dances apparently flirted with — and at least one Kansas City judge declared, overstepped — limits of moral decency. She was married to composer Max Hoffman who, incidentally, was musical director of the Ziegfeld Follies of 1907. Gertrude dropped out of the public eye by the late 1920s/early 30s as vaudeville faded. She died in 1955. Sadie My Creole LadySheet music from 1902 - words and music by Max Hoffmann and sung by Miss Gertrude Hoffmann. LocomobileThe car is a four-cylinder 1905 Locomobile Model E Touring with side-entrance tonneau. This was the year that Locomobile discontinued all of its rear-entrance tonneaus in favor of "double side-entrance" bodies. (The Gallery, Cars, Trucks, Buses, DPC, Philadelphia)
A Ton of Bricks: 1904
Circa 1904. "The Philadelphia Bourse, Fourth and Ranstead Sts." 8x10 inch dry plate glass ... see the symbols they left behind. (The Gallery, DPC, Philadelphia) ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 07/09/2019 - 8:55pm -

Circa 1904. "The Philadelphia Bourse, Fourth and Ranstead Sts." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Photographic Company. View full size. ConnectionsSomething I have never figured out is how those arc lights, with their apparently exposed connections, worked in the rain. I'd think those lights would have all shorted out. Or have I missed something? Another Buteful Building Butful Building, not like modern crap, such as Boston City Hall [I'm thinking of having these bronzed. - Dave] Another Buteful Building Butful Building, not like modern crap, such as Boston City Hall [The Second Lamp of Architecture. - Dave] Another Buteful Building Butful Building, not like modern crap, such as Boston City Hall [The First Lamp of Architecture. - Dave] AT&T at the BourseMy maternal grandfather worked in the Bourse from the mid-'20s until after WWII for AT&T, which had a large interchange there. Is that an antenna?Or is it some sort of a brace for wires? There wouldn't be too much wireless reception of any kind in those days. [Wireless telegraphy was going strong then, and many urban skyscrapers had such masts. Search "wireless" here on Shorpy for more examples. -tterrace] [The function of the tower seems to be meteorological-horological. - Dave] Now, a ton of old bricksStill lookin' good! View Larger Map After WorkWe can run down to the Entertainment Bureau or the My Little Bourse Saloon, your choice, I'm open to whatever. Aliens Were HereYes, you can see the symbols they left behind. (The Gallery, DPC, Philadelphia)
Union League Club: 1905
Circa 1905. "Union League Club, Philadelphia." With a nice carbon-arc lamp out front. 8x10 inch glass negative, ... the same view from October of 2013. (The Gallery, DPC, Philadelphia) ... 
 
Posted by Dave - 08/19/2012 - 10:33am -

Circa 1905. "Union League Club, Philadelphia." With a nice carbon-arc lamp out front. 8x10 inch glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size. Tower roof and crestingThe tower's mansard roof and ridge cresting have been restored as well as the cresting on the main roof. These were replicated based on historical photos. Bunting hooks Most every window has at least one hook on the outside of the sill, hanging flags or bunting I presume? Third ClassTo the right, across the street, is the 'Third Class Messenger Office'. Urchins please apply? Looks exactly the same todayAnd it inspired my screen name, although I am not a member! The building behind it is the Union League Annex (1909), designed by Horace Trumbauer. SymmetryI bet the second arc lamp that shows up in the later images was originally on the street corner just out of the picture. A building that symmetrical would have been annoyingly out of balance if it wasn't. +108Below is the same view from October of 2013. (The Gallery, DPC, Philadelphia)
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