Category Archives: Books

A Rarity – Summer Vacations In The Late 19th Century

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19th Century Summer Vacation?

For Most People There Was No Such Thing.

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 →

Book Review – Of Things That Used To Be, The Bronx In The Early 20th Century

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A Step Up From New York’s Tenements

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 →

Book Review – “Brothers” Alex Van Halen

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The Quiet Van Halen Speaks Of Family, Music, Life, Love And Loss

The band Van Halen share their name with its two founding members. So when speaking of Van Halen sometimes it’s important to distinguish if you are referring to the band or personnel. Frequently it was interchangeable. The band Van Halen or the guitarist Edward Van Halen. Infrequently was the reference to band co-founder Alex Van Halen.

Sitting behind a drum kit for over 50 years made it possible for Alex Van Halen to be in the background rather than the spotlight. Continue reading →

Classic Hollywood #168 – Carole Lombard In A Candid Photo On Set

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Carole Lombard Laughing Between Scenes Of Fools For Scandal – 1938

Carole Lombard and Fernand Gravet (Gravey) starring in director Mervyn Leroy’s Fools For Scandal (1938) are apparently amused by something during a break in filming. The candid photograph taken by Otto Dyar perfectly displays Lombard’s exuberant personality.

During a war bond drive. Lombard, along with her mother, died tragically in a plane crash on January 16, 1942. She was 33.

Kyle Crichton’s biting memoir of literary. political and celebrity attachments,Total Recoil (1960) Doubleday & Company, gives a brief portrait of Lombard. Continue reading →

How We Lose Our Liberty -1946

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Henry Luce Founder Of Life Magazine On The Threat To Liberty When The Government Tries To Fix Social Problems, Rather Than The People Fixing Them- 1946

Henry Luce photo via: PBS

Henry Luce, the founder of Time, Fortune and the modern Life magazine was prescient in what might become of the United States in the future if we rely upon the government to solve social issues.

While reading Lloyd Morris’  Postscript To Yesterday – America: The Last Fifty Years,  (Random House) 1947, I came across this passage describing Life magazine and Luce’s views: on the matter. Continue reading →

Books About The General Slocum Disaster

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June 15, 1904: The Steamer General Slocum Is Consumed By Fire At Hell Gate Killing Over 1,000 People, Mostly Women and Children

Crowd gathered around the recovered body of a child from the General Slocum, North Brother Island, New York City, June 1904 photo George Ehler Stonebridge / NY Historical Society

This year marks the 120th anniversary of a tragedy that has been mostly forgotten, the General Slocum Disaster.

If you are unfamiliar with the General Slocum and the inferno that killed over 1,000 people, we  previously wrote about it here.

Delving deeper into full length accounts of the General Slocum, you have several choices.

A total of eight books and two government reports are solely devoted to the tragedy and encapsulate the story thoroughly. Continue reading →

Harlem In the Teens & Twenties As Seen By Frederic A. Birmingham

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Growing Up In Bucolic Harlem Before And After World War I

Frederic A. Birmingham’s 1960 memoir of New York, It Was Fun While It Lasted (J.B. Lippincott Company), describes a Harlem which few New Yorkers would recognize today.

The action takes place from approximately 1915 -1925, when Birmingham was between the ages of 4 and 14. Continue reading →

From Hollywood’s Golden Age To Ho-Hum or Why Most Films Today Stink

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An Insider’s Observations On Hollywood’s Decline

If you feel frustrated by the lack of quality films being produced over the last few decades, you are not alone. Anyone who watches Turner Classic Movies regularly rather than seeing recent films probably feels the same way.

But is there a simple explanation as to what has changed about the movies?

One legendary Hollywood veteran working behind the scene’s had a strong opinion as to what happened.

Sydney Guilaroff, MGM hair stylist

Sydney Guilaroff (1907-1997) is a name you will see in the credits of hundreds of films Continue reading →

Irish New York 1964 – From Earl Wilson’s New York

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A Vanished Irish New York Described By Columnist Earl Wilson

The Bronx, Gaelic Park, Irish Bars and Dance Halls

Earl Wilson (1907 – 1987) was a New York Post based nationally syndicated columnist (It Happened Last Night). Wilson also wrote several books during his nearly fifty year journalism career.

Among Wilson’s best books is an atypical guide book to New York called Earl Wilson’s New York (Simon and Schuster, 1964).

While Wilson covers some of the usual touristy things to do, such as where to stay and eat, he also writes about “Where To Find A Psychiatrist For Your Dog” Continue reading →