Monthly Archives: March 2012

The Forgotten Man Responsible for Titanic Mania

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The Amazing Story of Titanic’s Last Surviving Crew Member

Titanic Survivors in Lifeboats © Philip Weiss

April 15, 2012 marks the 100th anniversary of the Titanic’s sinking. While the famous and infamous have had their Titanic stories told, one man’s remarkable story remains unexamined.

Walter Belford first came forward and identified himself as a member of the Titanic’s crew in 1955 to writer Walter Lord who was working on a book about the Titanic which would be called A Night To Remember.

When Belford had reached the age of 92 in 1962, he was believed to be the last surviving crew member of the Titanic.  On April 15 of that year he was interviewed by the the New York Times on the 50th anniversary of the Titanic’s sinking.

Belford told his story of seeing Captain E.J. Smith standing calmly on the bridge as the great liner was going down. Belford was the chief night baker of the ship and described how he was preparing rolls for the next day when the Titanic struck the iceberg. In dramatic fashion he told how after the last life boat had left the ship, the Captain addressed the remaining crewmen by saying, “Well boys, I’ve done the best I can for you. Now it’s in your own hands. Do the best you can to save yourselves.”

Belford then went over to the side of the ship and jumped overboard Continue reading →

Miss Bra Queen Contest 1954 and Albert Einstein Sticking Out His Tongue By Arthur Sasse

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Sometimes It Is A Slow News Day

News photographers take pictures that are assigned to them by editors based upon events that might merit coverage.

The caption to this January 5, 1954  Acme news phtograph is “Photographer Arthur Sasse was assigned to cover a contest for the title of Miss Bra Queen of 1954.”

The top portion of the photograph shows Sasse taking the photo that apppears in the bottom panel.  Miss Bra Queen was a bust as far as news coverage goes.

Sasse was an accomplished photographer and three years previous to Miss Bra Queen, he took one of the most famous photographs of the 20th century. Today, young people would probably think this was photoshopped, but of course it wasn’t.

It shows super-genius Albert Einstein had a humorous and mischievious side to him.  March 14, 1951 was Einstein’s 72nd birthday and he had just gotten into a car to be driven home with Frank Aydelotte and his wife. Sasse was asking Einstein to smile but Einstein had smiled many times that day for the photographers and was sick of it. So he stuck out his tongue instead. Sasse snapped the photo and the iconic image was captured.

Einstein loved the photograph after he saw it and ordered nine copies of it for his personal use. The original photo sold for $74,324 in 2009 at auction.

This is the scene in the moments leading up to the famous photograph being taken and the original uncropped version.

  

 

 

The Best Woman Presidential Candidate Ever

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Comedienne Gracie Allen Enters The 1940 Presidential Race

In this newswire photograph, Gracie Allen, the zany half of the Burns & Allen comedy team “tosses her hat into the ring” to run for President in 1940.

Gracie put out a very funny book after her tongue-in-cheek Presidential run entitled How To Become President (Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1940) which has enlightening chapters such as:

Government Jobs Pay Big Money

How Not To Offend Anybody

Buying A Good Used Platform

Secrets of Unsuccessful Speechmaking

Even though the candidacy was a plot line for the Burns & Allen weekly comedy radio show, Gracie did a whistlestop tour by train and over 300,000 Americans came out to hear her make campaign speeches in cities along the route.

After “dropping out” of the race in the middle of 1940, Gracie still ended up receiving over 42,000 write-in votes in the November election.

The forgotten story of her candidacy was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered. Click here to listen.

A Sport That Never Gained Popularity

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Jeeves, Get My Dirigible Ready!!!

The headline in the New York Times of March 7, 1909 proclaimed, Aerial Yachting Promises to be the Real Thing in Sport.  For some reason, this sport never took off – if you’ll pardon the pun.

Aerial Yachting would be for “the sport loving public who want the latest thing to machines that can be conveniently managed in the air and accommodate from three passengers up to half a dozen or so, making the trip socially pleasant apart from the novelty of the expedition.”

All you would need to participate would be a large sum of money to have a massive 100 foot plus dirigible powered by a motor constructed for you. Then of course you’d have to figure out how to fly the thing on your own because there weren’t too many aviators at the beginning of the 20th century.

The Clement-Bayard ship illustrated in the accompanying article below, was 175 feet long and had made successful flights over Paris.  Mr. Adolph Clement the builder of that dirigible, planned to open an agency at his automobile showrooms in New York to promote dirigible flights.

This was the dawn of aviation and World War I would see the dirigible used extensively for military purposes. The luxury aspect of dirigibles as a sport, never really caught on with the wealthy.

Original Times Article March 7, 1909 – click to enlarge

 

The New York Mets 50th Anniversary: A Look Back At Casey Stengel

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Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game?

Casey Stengel photo © Niels Lauritzen

Writer Jimmy Breslin claimed that “Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game,” was Casey Stengel’s lament during Casey’s first year managing the Mets in 1962. Breslin later admitted he made up the quote. But it would have been an apropos summation of the Mets first season. Continue reading →

Old New York In Photos #16 – Sixth Avenue Jewelers 1937

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Gold & Silver – Highest Prices Paid – 1937

The year is 1937 and we are looking north on the west side of Sixth Avenue.  The Sixth Avenue Elevated in the background will soon be torn down. Sitting out in front of Roxy Jewelers is a man trying to drum up business to “sell your diamonds, pawn tickets, gold, silver, jewelry & antiques for the highest prices paid.”  The Great Depression saw many people selling off whatever valuables they had to pay the rent or just have enough to eat. Continue reading →

A Photographic Trip To Green-Wood Cemetery Part 3

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Monuments And Odds & Ends

The focus for the final installment on Green-Wood Cemetery are monuments and some interesting things that I took note of.

Dogs

Dogs are not permitted to be buried in human cemeteries. Somehow though fourteen years after inventor Elias Howe’s death, a dog “Fannie,” was buried at the family plot in 1881. That is the exception.

For many people, their dogs were like members of the family. Continue reading →

Yankees Spring Training 1963

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Mickey Mantle Bunting

The opening of the 2012 baseball season is only weeks away. It is a time to practice skills that may be needed during the regular season.

In this photograph from 1963, Mickey Mantle is attempting to bunt against the Cincinnati Reds in a spring training game. Mantle would bunt frequently during the early years of his career, many times to try and beat it out. But as his knees went through wear and tear, he would rarely attempt to bunt for hits in the 1960’s. So a spring training game was a good time to get in some bunting practice.

Here he appears to miss the drag bunt as Elston Howard watches from the on-deck circle.  The Yankees lost this game 4-2.

A Photographic Trip To Green-Wood Cemetery Part 2

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Do You Know That Name?

Continuing the journey through historic Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn the next set of photographs concentrates on some names from history, some remembered today, others forgotten.

DeWitt Clinton

DeWitt Clinton has many things named after him in New York including a town, a high school, and a park. Known as the father of the Erie Canal, Clinton was a ten term mayor of New York City. Under his stewardship in 1811 the grid plan for the streets of New York City were instituted. He was also a United States Senator and Governor of New York State. Clinton lost the Presidential election of 1812 to James Madison by less than 10,000 votes and 29 electoral votes.

Clinton was moved to Green-Wood in 1844, sixteen years after his death. Continue reading →

A Photographic Trip To Green-Wood Cemetery Part 1

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A Different Way To Spend The Day In New York, Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery

When I’m asked by people visiting New York what are some of the things they should do while they are here, my answer usually results in incredulous looks. “Go see Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx or Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.”

Most people will never visit a cemetery unless their relatives are located there. Even then, most people dread going to a cemetery. This is a mistake from a cultural standpoint. Cemeteries, especially historic ones like Green-Wood, possess landscape and architectural treasures that you cannot see in any museum.  They also contain a history told in granite, marble, bronze,  slate and limestone through an array of monuments, mausoleums, crypts, sarcophagi and tombstones of the permanent residents of Brooklyn.  As Green-Wood describes itself on its web site:

Green-Wood is 478 spectacular acres of hills, valleys, glacial ponds and paths, throughout which exists one of the largest outdoor collections of 19th- and 20th-century statuary and mausoleums. Four seasons of beauty from century-and-a-half-old trees offer a peaceful oasis to visitors, as well as its 560,000 permanent residents.

The rural cemetery movement began in 1831 with the opening of Mount Auburn Cemetery in Massachusetts, Continue reading →