Fellow Travelers: 1936

Or Charles Dierkop, Lee Marvin and Joe Walsh?

Corporal Maxwell Klinger (far right) should be in Toledo, Ohio while he is stateside!

I'm only mangling the chronology slightly to mention that when the El opened, the 3 cent coin was made of, and called, the "nickel", and the 5 cent coin was the silver half dime. The story is spoiled, since the original fare was 10 cents!

I don't suppose it had a telegraph clattering, not having a ticket window.

Stations on the NJ commuter lines had that, back then. Waiting involved listening to it. Also they had a very high dry heat on cold days that would burn your nose out.

The guy on the left is a ringer for the little Italian baker that Michael Corleone made stand on the hospital steps, with his hands in his pockets, to fake out any would be assassins of the Godfather.

with her back to Sam. The short man was fondling the Gat in his pocket in case Sam Spade was only pretending to warm his hands.

the mug on the left is packin' a rod.

Amazing to contemplate that there was once a time when a device could be built with the words 'drop nickel here' stamped right into the metal housing, secure in the knowledge that passage would always cost exactly 5 cents.

The caption is correct. This is not the current station at 72nd and Broadway, which is part of the first subway line in Manhattan.

The first two elevated railways in Manhattan were the Ninth Avenue El, begun in 1872 and which eventually ran from South Ferry to Jerome Ave in the Bronx, followed later in the 1870s by the Sixth Avenue El, which ran from Rector Street to Central Park. Once it hit Central Park the Sixth Ave El merged with the Ninth Ave El. The Sixth Ave El was torn down just a couple of years after this photo was taken, with the Ninth Avenue El going out of service in 1940.

This setting could have fit into an Edward Hopper painting.

Peter Lorre, Broderick Crawford, Margaret Hamilton?

Bring the Microfilm, make sure you're not followed.

There is an above-ground subway station at 72nd and Broadway (and Amsterdam) that looked like this at least through the 80s. Is that what jjdaddyo is recollecting? Perhaps this picture is mislabled.

While there is now a turnstile that accepts 5 cent coins, the old ticket chopper is still in reserve on the left side, now with a cloth cover.

That station was essentially unchanged for 70 years. It looked just like this when I was a kid in the 70s (minus the stove) and wasn't updated until about 10 years ago.

What a cast of characters. I love this photo. It's included in one of my wonderful Dover books titled New York in the 1930s.

A nickel! Plus all the free heat you can absorb.

Is that Klinger?

Enlarge the picture and enjoy the beautiful, creative window designs over the doors.