Harpo Marx of the Marx Brothers married the beautiful actress Susan Fleming in 1936. She promptly retired from acting and from all accounts they had a terrific marriage until Harpo’s death in 1964.
Unable to have children, Harpo and Susan adopted four children, three of whom are seen here. From left to right Alex, Jimmy & Minnie.
Upon reflection, years later in interviews, the children concurred Continue reading
Some of Lou Gehrig’s Baseball Belongings and How They Remained Hidden For 70+ Years
1927 Yankee Infield Autographed Photo from L-R Gehrig, Lazzeri, Koenig, Dugan – @ Heritage Auctions 8 4 11
Lou Gehrig’s story as told in The Pride of The Yankees, the 1942 Hollywood version of his life, made it seem like there were no other women in Lou’s life except for his mother Christina and wife Eleanor.
In the August 2, 2011 New York Times is a story of how Lou seems to have dated at least one other woman. That relationship apparently lead to the woman, Ruth Martin, having a friendship with Lou’s mother Christina for many years, beyond her relationship with Lou. After Christina passed away in 1954, Ruth Martin inherited some of Lou’s possessions. It is an interesting story.
Jeffrey Quick, Ruth Martin’s son, is selling these one-of-a-kind artifacts at Heritage Auctions on August 4, 2011.
The Most Exciting Play in Baseball Was Accomplished by Rod Carew Seven Times in 1969
Rod Carew’s 2nd steal of home in 1969 – April 19, 3rd inning vs. California Angels. Harmon Killebrew is #3.
It’s a play you hardly see anymore- the pure stealing of home plate. Not part of a double steal or a failed suicide squeeze attempt.
At the urging of Minnesota Twins manager Billy Martin in 1969, second baseman Rod Carew swiped home an astonishing seven times in one season, tying the major league record of Pete Reiser of the Brooklyn Dodgers set back in 1946.
You’d think that Carew must have stolen a lot of bases that year considering his constant stealing of home. Amazingly, Carew stole a total of only 19 bases that year!
Carew, the future Hall of Famer, told the story of how he perfected the steal of home in his 1979 autobiography Carew by Rod Carew with Ira Berkow (Simon and Schuster ,1979) which is excerpted here.
Carew stole home his record tying seventh time on July 16, 1969 in the second inning against the Chicago White Sox in the first game of a double header at the Twins home park, Metropolitan Stadium. The Twins ended up winning the game 9-8. Continue reading
Who is this gentleman? No it is not a sketch from Monty Python, such as a man with a tape recorder up his nose. Continue reading
The Louis Comfort Tiffany Mansion (above) circa 1886 at the corner of 72nd Street and Madison Avenue designed by McKim, Mead & White.
The Joseph Pulitzer Mansion (below) 1903 at 7 East 73rd Street (just off of Fifth Avenue) designed by Stanford White of McKim, Mead & White.
Louis Tiffany’s home was built starting in 1882 by his father Charles Tiffany, but the elder Tiffany never lived there. The 57 room mansion took three years to complete.
Right around the corner, Joseph Pulitzer, owner of The New York World newspaper also hired the architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White in 1900 to build his home which was completed in 1903.
Pulitzer lived in the house Continue reading
The Prices of Fancy New York Apartments and Where You Could Live on a Decent Salary
As I continue to look through the Sunday October 10, 1926 New York Times real estate section, I wanted to get a better understanding of what a dollar could buy when it came to apartments.
First I did some income research.
According to FRASER (the Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research) , a little over 4 million individual tax returns were filed in 1926.
The average net income on those returns was $5,306.43.
The average amount of tax liability was – get this – only $176.11!
So you might think that everyone was doing Continue reading
How To Advertise a House – 1926 Style
This is an ad from a copy of the October 10, 1926 Sunday New York Times. An odd choice of words to sell a home.
Larchmont is a wealthy suburb 25 miles north of New York City.
This ad has me pondering numerous questions:
I wonder if this home sold quickly because the H.M. Williams copywriting team knew the word “pretentious” would appeal to that special, up and coming snob who wanted to live in a pretentious home?
Even in 1926 wasn’t it demeaning if you admitted that you lived in the most pretentious home in Larchmont? Maybe it was bad, only if other people said it about you or your home?
If this house still exists in 2011, do the current owners know how it was once advertised?
Does anyone out there from Larchmont recognize the house and if so can you drop us a line with the street address?
Looking North up Fifth Avenue from 52nd Street.
Church steeples are among the tallest structures in the photo. The closest steeple belongs to the original St. Thomas Episcopal Church on Fifth Avenue and 53rd Street, which was destroyed by fire in 1905. Continue reading
When Baseball Teams Had Their Own Unique Songs
When my Dad and I would drive places at night in the 1970’s, my father would put on the Baltimore radio station, WBAL-AM to hear the Orioles games. At night the radio signals were stronger and you could pick up most of the bigger radio station’s broadcasts within a 400 mile range, so he would listen. I vividly remember the upbeat song that used to be played to start the O’s broadcast. I searched the internet and have had no luck finding “Orioles Baseball” which is what I believe the title was. But I have collected a number of baseball theme songs and thought I would share them.
For every baseball fan who can remember…
(click on link to hear the mp3 of the song)
In the 1970’s when I was listening to the radio, before the start of every ball game, the New York Yankees would have their theme played. The Yankees announcers, Phil Rizutto, Frank Messer and Bill White would eventually talk over the song and it would fade out. At the end of the game they would play the theme again. The Yankees still play a truncated version of the song at the beginning and conclusion of games on the radio, but they rarely play this version with the lyrics.
Musically well constructed and simply the best song ever written for a team with its catchy lyrics. The “Meet The Mets” song still holds up nearly 50 years after the Mets introduction to New York. This version is the original version. (ed note: strangely enough I wrote this article on June 30 and originally scheduled it to be posted on July 5. I moved it up to July 3 after seeing that the writer of the Mets theme song Ruth Roberts passed away Friday, July 1 at age 84.)
If you grew up in Chicago you may remember “Hey, Hey Holy Mackarel” which was the Chicago Cubs song.
Now, if you were a Chicago White Sox fan, the song dear to your heart would be “Let’s Go, Go, Go White Sox.”
In the late 1960’s this is what the Detroit Tigers were playing – “Go Get ‘Um Tigers.” Continue reading
Although I somehow never made it to the Ben Franklin Bookstore in Worcester, MA, I have been in many shops like it and they are just all going out of business slowly but surely.
Worcester used to have many used book shops including a great one owned by Manasha Bilsey, Another Story Used Books, which he closed in 2003 because as he put it “the Internet has made used book stores not salable as a business model.” Metropolitan areas have a hard time sustaining these types of businesses unless the proprietors of the store also own the building. This is often not the case, as buying the building is usually not a financially feasible option. Even owning the building is sometimes not enough to prevent the inevitable in what is becoming a vanishing occupation, proprietor -used book shop, open to the public. Continue reading