The Original Yankee Stadium – Photographs and Memories

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A Reflection on The Late, Great Yankee Stadium With Vintage Photographs

I visited the new Yankee Stadium once in 2009 when it first opened. The feeling was a bit surreal. It was like being in Yankee Stadium, but it wasn’t. The main difference for me was the surrounding neighborhood and looking out past the right-center field bleachers and not seeing the apartment buildings and the Bronx County Court House.

The new Yankee Stadium is a glorified mall.

The old Yankee Stadium that existed from 1923 – 1973 was where the storied history of the Yankees took place. Even after the renovation of Yankee Stadium from 1974-1975 which included taking out the old wooden seats and the removal of the beams that could block your view from many of those seats, the stadium still retained some of the old charm, even though it lost a bit of its character. From 1976 -2008 the Yankees played in the same spot where Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Red Ruffing, Hank Bauer, Whitey Ford Joe DiMaggio and Bill Dickey saw action.

The Yankees of the last 35 years; Thurman Munson, Bobby Murcer, Ron Guidry, Mel Stottlemyre, Paul O’Neill, Don Mattingly and Derek Jeter could look around and seep in the history of this altered palace of baseball, even if there were heavy cosmetic changes to the outside and inside of the stadium itself.

There was no more “Death Valley” Continue reading →

Judas Priest Founder K.K. Downing Retires

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The Band Will Make Its Final World Tour Without K.K. – What Really Happened?

In late April 2011 when Judas Priest announced that Ken “K.K.” Downing was “retiring” from the band just before kicking off their final world tour, it came as a huge shock to most heavy metal fans. The reasons given for the retirement in the official Judas Priest announcement are somewhat vague.  Downing clarified his position in two statements through his own web site.  Downing said in his first statement on April 21 2011:

“Dear friends,

It is with much regret that I will not be with you this summer. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your concerns about my health. Please rest assured that I am O.K.

There has been an ongoing breakdown in working relationship between myself, elements of the band, and the band’s management for some time.

Therefore I have decided to step down rather than to tour with negative sentiments as I feel that this would be a deception to you, our cherished fans.

However I would urge you to please support the Priest as I have no doubt that it will be a show not to be missed.”

Downing the lead guitarist, who developed the band with the lone remaining founder, bassist Ian Hill, must have Continue reading →

Question: Why Do Some Garbagemen (Sorry, Sanitation Workers) Block New York City Streets and Not Give A Damn about Public Safety?

City Bus Must Pass Into Oncoming Traffic

Answer: There is No Good Reason

Some of New York’s Strongest, as the sanitation department has dubbed their workers, leave me scratching my head sometimes.

That is why I am going to call out this group of “New York’s Laziest” as there is a subset of sanitation workers who demonstrate their slothful ways with a complete disregard for traffic laws and public safety on a daily basis. I’m not talking about just backing up traffic on narrow streets by not fully pulling over and instead parking their trucks diagonally when they load garbage. I’m talking about something that is egregious.

Now when you can do something the easy way or the hard way, almost always you should choose the easy way, right?

Wrong.

On a busy crosstown block in Manhattan where there is two-way traffic; a school crossing zone; ( the school is one block away!)  a major bus route and lots of vehicles trying to navigate the streets in rush hour, these workers have consistently demonstrated their disdain Continue reading →

Marilyn Monroe’s 85th birthday

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Marilyn Monroe would have been 85 on June 1, 2011

An 85-year-old Marilyn would be difficult to imagine. She died at age 36 under mysterious circumstances during the evening of August 4 or early morning August 5, 1962, depending upon what version of her death you are apt to believe.

If she were alive today, I think she might look somewhat like her mother Gladys did at a similar age. Gladys died at the age of 81 in 1984.

 

The New York Post reported on May 31 that unseen Marilyn photos found at a garage sale in 1980 may soon be put up for sale. If they are, they will fetch a lot of money.

Marilyn was one of the most photographed people of all-time so there are always going to be “new’ photos of her popping up.

Random trivia: Andy Griffith was also born June 1, 1926.

For Marilyn’s birthday here are some photo’s that have not been seen as much as the standard shots you are used to.  Forever young.

Classic Hollywood #4 – Theda Bara

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The Vamp in a Classic Role

“The Vampire,” Theodosia Goodman otherwise known to the world as Theda Bara in her 1918 starring role The Forbidden Path with (I believe) Hugh Thompson, her co-star.

Theda Bara was one of the first sex symbols of the screen. Her name was supposedly an anagram of “Arab Death.”  (that is completely fabricated along with many other “facts” of her life.)  Bara became a star in 1915 as a “vampire” (not the blood sucking kind – a notorious woman who drives men wild with desire using her wiles and charm and wreaks havoc in their lives) in A Fool There Was. She cemented immortality in 1917 with her portrayal of the title role in Cleopatra.  Bara was pretty much typecast as the vampire (later shortened to “vamp”) and her film career stalled by the end of 1919. She appeared in only three films in the 1920’s and never made any sound films, retiring in 1926. She died in Los Angeles in 1955 at the age of 69.

While some today would not necessarily consider Bara a beauty, there is definitely something very appealing about her. A naturalness that comes through. In a lot of ways she represents more real women of that age and much more than her modern Hollywood contemporaries of Angelina Jolie or Scarlett Johansson representing today’s woman.

Bara’s  heavier legs and abdomen are shown in her movies and photos. Would modern lead actresses be permitted to display extra poundage in our hyper-perfect-looks media without being skewered a la Oprah or Kirstie Alley?

Some photos of Bara when she was at the height of her career:

Paul Gauguin Painting Attacked at the National Gallery

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Lunatics Among Us

This story of a woman attacking the Paul Gauguin painting “Two Tahitian Women” on April 1, 2011 got skipped over in a lot of newspapers or was a blurb in others. The 1899 painting is worth an estimated $80 million dollars.

What was even less covered, and I thought was worth commenting on, was what the suspect in the attack, Susan Burns said in her statement to the police. “I feel that Gauguin is evil. Continue reading →

Old New York in Photos #4 – Park Avenue

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Park Avenue – 1935

For a brief period there was a park in the middle of Park Avenue. This is not it. When road lanes were widened in the 1920’s the pedestrian plaza with benches were removed and replaced with a park like median which is surrounded by fencing and has no public access.

Looking north from around 38th street, Grand Central Terminal is in the middle of this photograph and behind it is the New York Central Building (currently called the Helmsley Building.) Continue reading →

Guess What? The World Is NOT Ending May 21

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People Believing In Strange Things

Maybe you’ve seen these people?

The New York Times front page story on the people who believe in Harold Camping’s prophecy about the return of Jesus on May 21 and the end of the world on October 21, points out that the children of these doomsayers are somewhat confused by their parent’s strange beliefs.

The idea of knowing doomsday’s arrival by interpreting or unlocking the secrets of sacred text has been around for a while.

The Times has a second story about a New Yorker who gathered about a dozen believers to prepare for the end of the world in 1925.

The United States has quite a history of biblical Doomsday prophets. A very notable occurrence happened Continue reading →

The First Baseball Strike – May 18, 1912

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An Unlikely Catalyst Causes a Baseball Strike – Other Players Rally Around the Unpopular Ty Cobb

On Wednesday May 15, 1912 The Detroit Tigers were playing the New York Yankees at Hilltop Park in upper Manhattan when one of the most infamous incidents in baseball history occurred.

Ty Cobb, the star outfielder for the Tigers was incited by a fan to go into the stands and pummel him.

The fan, Claude Lucker (alternately spelled by contemporary papers as Lueker or Leuker) worked as a page in the office of Tammany boss “Big Tom” Foley.  From the onset of the game Lucker was being particularly obnoxious according to all accounts. Cobb and Lucker exchanged nasty barbs and Cobb warned Lucker to stop calling him names or he would come into the stands to take care of him personally. By the fourth inning Cobb had had enough and he jumped into the left field stands and started administering a beating and no one seemed to interfere.

Sticks and stones were probably not as harmful to Cobb as the names which could hurt him – especially when the racist outfielder was called a “half-nigger” by Lucker, which was what apparently drove him over the edge.

It should be noted that Lucker had a machine press  accident when he was younger and was missing one hand and had Continue reading →