Unfortunately this is an undated photograph with no location or news slug to identify any of the specifics. The photo appears to be from the 1950s based upon judges and participants hairstyles and outfits.
Obviously it is a best legs competition. Unlike many other Continue reading
Lady With Pipe
London- Josephine Yorke, actress now appearing in the cast of the perennial musical, “Chu Chin Chow” has an answer to England’s current shortage of cigarettes. She smokes a pipe. Here she enjoys a smoke in her dressing room. PASSED BY BRITISH CENSOR credit photo: Acme, 8/15/1941
Smoking is not necessarily in vogue these days in England or most places for that matter. Vaping is what attracts potential new nicotine addicts.
Tobacco pipe smoking has also been in steep decline over the last few decades. Maybe not so for pipes filled with other illicit substances like weed, hash, crack, and opium. Continue reading
A not very festive scene at City Hall. As the news slug explains: Continue reading
Annual Macy Parade For Thanksgiving
New York: Photo shows “Uncle Sam” as it passed through 34th Street, in front of Macy’s. photo: Acme 11/21/1940
As isolationists wanted the United States to stay out of World War II, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1940 had a patriotic balloon of Uncle Sam. The balloon was not a statement of being pro-war, Continue reading
Even if you know little about publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst you may have inferred a few things about him from Orson Welles film Citizen Kane (1941), “loosely” based upon Hearst’s life,
Hearst, an inveterate collector, loved all animals. He could not stand to see any animal suffer. Mice and even rats were to be caught and released. Continue reading
Buoys And Girls – In New War On Drowning
New York – These lucky buoys are embracing the quartet of pretty maidens who assisted at the tests of a new life preserver at the Park Central Hotel pool today (Tuesday.) The device is said to be of one third the weight and three times the buoyancy of the present cork life vests. The belts are the invention of Jesse W. Reno, well known engineer who also invented the modern escalator or moving stairway. The girls are, left to right: Dorothy Day, Pat Hughes, Prudence Edgar and Sherry Pelham. photo: International News Photos 5-3-1932
As this old news photo confirms, getting publicity for a product usually works when you have pretty women pose with it.
Engineer Jesse Wilford Reno has an extremely short biography on Wikipedia. Reno’s entry says he invented the escalator and claims it was first installed at the Iron Pier at Coney Island in 1891.
But when Reno died at the age of 85, his obituary Continue reading
While both of these double entendre postcards would be considered risque around 1900, the photographs are quite different.
This first postcard of “Practice This Piece With Me” from 1907 implies making out during piano practice time.
The second postcard goes a bit further. Notice where his hand is. Continue reading
While standing next to Brian Aherne at a party one day, Gary Cooper said quietly out of the side of his mouth, “How tall are you?”
“Six foot two and a half,” Aherne answered.
“Me too,” said Cooper. “Never admit to six foot three!”
A few years later at a party in Washington D.C., General George C. Marshall asked the identical question in the identical way.
“I used Gary’s line to reply six two and a half, never admit to six foot three,” Aherne said. And the General replied, “Me too!”
The point is Continue reading
This photograph by Percy Loomis Sperr shows the Ninth Avenue El looking north from the west side of 23rd Street.
We can see the entire corner from 23rd to 24th Street has been cleared in preparation for the construction of the London Terrace apartment complex. London Terrace has 14 buildings stretching from Ninth to Tenth Avenues. Continue reading
JUST CHARMER NOW, NO SNAKE
Paris, France – She was “Nita”a snake charmer in a traveling circus, who thrilled the audience with her five foot rose python snake form Brazil. But she was also Nicole Vaissiere, six-year-old. So she’s been taken out of her animal trainer step-father’s side show by a court order. Nicole’s on her way to school where the three R’s aren’t all in the word wriggle. Credit: Acme photo by New York staff correspondent David S. Boyer 12/29/1949
And what else? That’s our usual question to a news story like this.
Checking the news outlets of the time did not yield much more information. United Press International did report some additional facts. Nicole’s snake act Continue reading
