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
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
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
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.
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 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
Yes we know Brigitte Bardot is not a Hollywood fixture. She made almost all of her films in Europe but transcended borders as an international sex symbol of the 1950’s and 1960’s. So we can feature her here under the Classic Hollywood moniker. In this photo a very young Bardot wears a quasi ballet top with fishnet stocking ensemble.
Bardot had several years of dance training as a child Continue reading
And They Are Doing This Because?
On a hot July day, is there anything more entertaining than a contest featuring beautiful women pulling each others hair?
If you agree, then this July 11, 1940 news photograph entitled “Models in Hair Pulling Match” should fit the bill.
The caption reads as follows:
Palisades Park, N.J. – In the first official contest of its kind, two dozen beautiful New York models competed in a hair pulling contest at the Palisades Amusement Park on July 11th. Object of the contestants was to drag their opponents across a finish line by their lustrous locks. Here are Florence Goodman (top) and Alice Schinkel battling it out for championship near the finish line. Florence was declared the winner of the knock-down, drag ’em across contest. 7-11-40 credit: Acme
A street level photograph looking east on 42nd Street towards 5th Avenue on a chilly day in 1928. On the left side of the photograph and just to the right of the twin street lamp globes is one of the early traffic towers which would control vehicular traffic flow with colored signals. Continue reading
Dolores Erickson on Whipped Cream and Other Delights
The cover is the stuff of teenage dreams and yearning of older men to return to their youth. Innocence and come-hither looks wrapped into one alluring package.
If an album cover ever helped to sell mega amounts of copies, this was it. Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, certainly benefited from the album design of A&M art director Peter Whorf, and model, Dolores Erickson, gracing the cover of Whipped Cream and Other Delights.
The iconic album cover, which is best appreciated in its full 12″ x 12″ vinyl incarnation, can still be found for sale at many thrift shops, flea markets and garage sales for a couple of dollars.
The album released in 1965, went to #1 on the Billboard pop music charts and ended up selling over six million copies over the years.
Was it based on the music? While it is a good album of instrumentals, I am positive that the provocative cover Continue reading