This stereoscope view of lower Manhattan was taken from the St. Paul Building at 220 Broadway around 1900.
The development of steel skeleton buildings enabled skyscrapers to be constructed towards the end of the 19th century.
The 25-story St. Paul Building stood at the corner of Broadway and Ann Street. Continue reading
What is wrong with baseball telecasts today?
Just about everything.
Before cable television, baseball was usually televised only in your local broadcast area, if there was a major league team within your market. Otherwise you could tune into only one nationally broadcast game on Saturday, aptly named the “Game of the Week.” Continue reading
Marilyn Monroe is seen here with an unidentified assistant dresser, squeezing into an corset for the film River Of No Return.
Directed by Otto Preminger and Jean Negulesco, the film’s Continue reading
This 1933 promotional still of Fay Wray (b. 1907) from King Kong was taken by RKO Pictures studio photographer Ernest Bachrach.
The Alberta, Canada native began her career in the movies during summer vacations while attending Hollywood High School. Fay Wray was already appearing in bit parts in films at the age of 16. Talent was abundant in Wray’s family. Her grandfather, Daniel Jones was a prominent author.
Older sisters Willow and Vaida were both professional singers, but neither would pursue film careers. Fay Wray was signed to the stock company of Hal Roach Comedies in 1924.
Wray’s big break came Continue reading
Congress Hall Hotel, Saratoga Springs, NY ad 1886
Summer is underway. For many people summer vacation plans are in place.
Yet, vacations are something we take for granted and are a relatively modern notion.
What was leisure like in the late 1870s?
Your family lives in the city. Your job as a shipping clerk; pressman; dressmaker; bookkeeper; engineer; blacksmith; engraver or iron worker pays the bills, and you may be able to put a little money aside each month.
New York Sun Help Wanted ads 1872
Your work schedule: 10 hours a day, six days a week.
Days off?
One. Sunday. The Lord’s day of rest. Continue reading
This magic lantern slide offers a clear view of the oldest existing bridge in New York City, High Bridge which opened in 1848.
High Bridge spans the Harlem River from the Bronx to Manhattan. It was constructed to connect the city with water from the Croton Aqueduct. A pedestrian path was built and became a popular spot for New Yorkers to visit and take in the rural landscape.
Below is the 19th century hand-colored version Continue reading
Johnny Vander Meer c. 1939
It’s debatable what baseball records will never be broken. I don’t bet on things that I have no control over. But I would be willing to gamble that no pitcher will ever pitch back to back no hitters like Johnny Vander Meer did.
On June 11, 1938 the 23-year-old Cincinnati Reds lefty threw a ho-hitter over the Boston Bees in a 3-0 victory. In Vander Meer’s next start on June 15, 1938, at the first night game at Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field, Vander Meer repeated his no hit performance in a 6-0 triumph over the Dodgers.
In the second no hitter, Vander Meer was wild walking eight Dodgers. Continue reading
This undated publicity photograph from the 1940s shows Alexis Smith in a sultry pose.
There have been movie stars with the last name Smith. But the big studios encouraged promising actors named Smith to change it to something else.
The most successful Smith actor of all-time was arguably Gladys Smith. But she changed her name to the more glamorous sounding Mary Pickford. Continue reading
Nathan (Nat) D. Lobell’s Of Things That Used To Be A Childhood On Fox Street In The Bronx In The Early Twentieth Century is a memoir concentrating on a striving South Bronx neighborhood full of immigrants, primarily Jewish, Irish and Italian between World War I and the 1920s. Continue reading
Here are four photographs of a Hollywood contract player, several years before she became a well known MGM feature player in many films during the 1930s, 40s and 50s.
She was born on February 24, 1890 as Mary Tomlinson in Acton, Indiana.
Dressed to the nines – circa 1918
Photo via the New York Public Library. c. 1920s
Photo: Apeda studio possibly from the 1918 play “Yes Or No”
The next photo should give it away.
With actor Billy Bevan in The Wrong Road (1937)
Do you have it yet?
Yes, it’s the star of a dozen Ma and Pa Kettle movies, Marjorie Main.
Usually thought of as plain and matronly, Marjorie was attractive enough Continue reading