No information beyond the basics could be found on this gem.
We are looking east towards the East River at the Krappe family farm located at East 87th Street between Avenue A and Avenue B (now renamed York and East End Avenues).
I believe Gracie Mansion is on the left side of the photograph seen partially behind the trees. If anyone has further information, please share.
Why Go To The Museum of Contemporary Art or The Getty?
If you live around Los Angeles you may be too busy to go to a museum to see paintings. Luckily or unfortunately depending on your point of view, you can always get your fill of “art” while driving to work.
On the constantly congested 110 Freeway, one can take in up close the utter decay of the city every 6 to 30 feet. That is the range of distance between the supporting pillars of the freeway on the median. There you can admire the ugly, illegible scrawls of grade school drop-outs.
Paul Cornoyer (1864-1923) was an impressionist painter who worked primarily in New York City. This beautiful scene was painted in 1910 and is looking east across Madison Square Park, towards the tower of Madison Square Garden. Continue reading
1972 Press Photo- At Marilyn Monroe’s Crypt
As today is the 50th anniversary of Marilyn Monroe’s death, it is interesting to compare the elaborate ceremonies of today, with the understated manner in which a handful of fans sent flowers on August 5, 1972 on the tenth anniversary of her death.
The press photo reads:
8/5/72 Beverly Hills, CA. Motorcycle escort officer Si Mason of Westwood, Calif. looks over the many flowers sent to actress Marilyn Monroe at the Westwood Memorial Cemetery. 8/5 ten years ago, marks the anniversary of her death. The 36-year old actress was found dead in her Brentwood home of an apparent overdose of sleeping pills. (UPI)
Sometime during the evening or early morning hours of August 4 or 5, 1962 Marilyn Monroe died under mysterious circumstances at the age of 36. Even after fifty years to the day that she died, Marilyn Monroe may be more popular now than when she was living. Her movies are what propelled her to fame and are the way people today primarily become familiar with Marilyn. Her image is part of our popular culture. But books about Marilyn have helped her achieve a level of immortality that is not shared by any other star.
By a wide margin no other entertainment personality has been covered in books more than Marilyn Monroe. Elvis would run a distant second. Since 1953 there have been slightly more than 200 books in English that are directly about Marilyn Monroe. There are dozens more that have been printed in other languages and hundreds of others that contain chapters about her.
Her movie career spanned from 1947-1962, yet only six books were written about Marilyn while she was living, with various levels of cooperation from the star herself.
The first book written about Marilyn was published with little fanfare on October 29, 1953. The Marilyn Monroe Story by Joe Franklin and Laurie Palmer, (1953 Rudolph Field Co.) distributed by Greenberg. The book retailed in paperback for $1.00 and hardcover for $2.00. It is considered the rarest and most collectible book about Marilyn and very good condition paperback copies sell for upwards of $150 and hardcovers without the dustjacket fetch over $250 and with a nice dustjacket can sell for $500 or more.
So besides being the first book about Marilyn what makes it rare? In the early 1990’s I mentioned I owned a copy of his Marilyn book to author Joe Franklin and the longtime radio and television host told me quite a story about the book.
“I now don’t even have a copy of my own book,” Franklin said. Continue reading
New York Mets Official George Theodore Publicity Photo 1974
George Theodore looks more like an accountant than your accountant looks like an accountant.
True, the glasses and mustache he sported did not make Continue reading
Looking at this tree filled landscape it is hard to believe this is New York City. This idyllic scene was photographed on the morning of July 4, 1888. Until 1899, Broadway above 59th Street was known as The Boulevard. Continue reading
Rarely will my mouth hang open in disbelief. I’m too jaded. This photograph of the visual kei band Ensoku with the nightmare Disneyesque theme did not make my jaw drop. But their music video did.
I’m not sure if this is brilliant, Continue reading
Director Joseph H. Lewis
Peter Bogdanovich early in his career was a film writer for magazines. Over the years he interviewed many people in the film industry and continued to do so even after becoming a successful director himself. The interviews with directors are compiled in a great book: Who The Devil Made It Conversations With Legendary Film Directors by Peter Bogdanovich (Knopf; 1997).
He interviewed director Joseph H. Lewis (1907-2000) an adept filmmaker best known for his 1950 movie Gun Crazy, a precursor to Arthur Penn’s landmark film, Bonnie and Clyde (1967).
Bogdanovich asked Lewis in 1994, to “define the change that had happened in Hollywood.”
Lewis was able to clearly answer him:
“Yes, I define it one way. When I was a little boy I worked at MGM: I loaded film; from there I became an assistant camera boy; from there, an assistant cutter; from there, the head of a cutting department; from there I became a director. These things don’t happen today. A guy comes up and, yes, he has a script- he wrote it; he’ll let them do it, providing he can direct it. And they go for it.” Continue reading
I sometimes wonder if every photo of Nellie Fox shows him with a chaw of chewing tobacco bulging out of his cheek. Was he born with the chewing tobacco permanently attached inside one cheek? This photograph of Nellie Fox shows that ballplayers were much more accommodating for publicity photographers back in the 1950’s, as Nellie lies on his stomach on a tarpaulin in an empty ballpark. Continue reading