Annual Macy Parade For Thanksgiving
New York: Photo shows “Uncle Sam” as it passed through 34th Street, in front of Macy’s. photo: Acme 11/21/1940
As isolationists wanted the United States to stay out of World War II, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1940 had a patriotic balloon of Uncle Sam. The balloon was not a statement of being pro-war, Continue reading
Even if you know little about publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst you may have inferred a few things about him from Orson Welles film Citizen Kane (1941), “loosely” based upon Hearst’s life,
Hearst, an inveterate collector, loved all animals. He could not stand to see any animal suffer. Mice and even rats were to be caught and released. Continue reading
This view from the southwest corner of 28th Street looking south along Broadway was taken by the Detroit Publishing Company circa 1908.
Let’s take a closer look at this photograph.
On the left is the eight story Hotel Victoria stretching from Broadway to Fifth Avenue along 27th Street. President Grover Cleveland would use the Victoria as his headquarters whenever he was visiting the city. The hotel began operations in 1872 and was razed in 1914.
You are not contemplating suicide when on the third floor, but there is a man standing on the hotel’s window ledge. He does not appear to be cleaning the windows.
In the background Continue reading
Joan Blondell (left) plays Mary Keaton and Bette Davis is Ruth Westcott in the1932 film Three On A Match.
The story is about three women (Ann Dvorak completes the trio) who attend high school together and how their lives intertwine when they meet again years later. Three on a match is a superstition – don’t light three cigarettes from one match, otherwise you will have bad luck. As you might figure out from the movie’s title, bad luck does ensue.
This unusual production still taken at Santa Monica beach has the co-stars standing on a platform with a large microphone. Continue reading
Buoys And Girls – In New War On Drowning
New York – These lucky buoys are embracing the quartet of pretty maidens who assisted at the tests of a new life preserver at the Park Central Hotel pool today (Tuesday.) The device is said to be of one third the weight and three times the buoyancy of the present cork life vests. The belts are the invention of Jesse W. Reno, well known engineer who also invented the modern escalator or moving stairway. The girls are, left to right: Dorothy Day, Pat Hughes, Prudence Edgar and Sherry Pelham. photo: International News Photos 5-3-1932
As this old news photo confirms, getting publicity for a product usually works when you have pretty women pose with it.
Engineer Jesse Wilford Reno has an extremely short biography on Wikipedia. Reno’s entry says he invented the escalator and claims it was first installed at the Iron Pier at Coney Island in 1891.
But when Reno died at the age of 85, his obituary Continue reading
October 29 is an important anniversary date that many do not remember because they did not live through it. On that date in 1929 the stock market crashed to an astonishing level.
Major media outlets are praising Aaron Ross Sorkin’s forthcoming book 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History–and How It Shattered a Nation, (Random House, November 4 2025).
Coincidentally I was just finishing an older book about the same subject. It is among the best books ever written about Wall Street.
The Day the Bubble Burst: A Social History of the Wall Street Crash of 1929 by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts (Doubleday, 1979) is a masterful work of storytelling.
While John Kenneth Galbraith’s 1955 book The Great Crash 1929, remains the seminal work on the economic causes of the crash, Thomas and Morgan-Witts examine the human aspects of the financial calamity which ushered in the Great Depression.
Threading together the lives of movers and shakers of Wall Street and the ordinary citizen, the authors lay out stories that resonate today. Events unfolding before us now, have similarities to the great crash of 1929. Continue reading
I heard this story recently and in my experience, sets a record for holding a grudge against a business.
22 years ago along with her two toddlers, a steady customer went into her local upper east side pizza shop, to buy a slice.
She gave the pizzaman cashier a twenty dollar bill.
The change received was for a ten. Continue reading
New York City has a lot of beggars with children. It always has.
If you look up from your phone you’ll see them weaving through subway cars or standing or sitting mid-block or on corners with children close by. Continue reading
It’s an historical artifact that seems quite self-explanatory.
Yet, when I first encountered this photograph there was no slug on the back explaining the setting or other identifiers.
A general internet search did not provide any clues. And proving once again that AI is worthless on millions of situations, Google was only able to transcribe words on the memorial which did not need transcribing as they are quite legible.
My assumption was that this bronze memorial plaque was once located at Christy Mathewson’s home field: The Polo Grounds of the New York Giants. If so what became of this memorial? Surely it would be preserved somewhere after the demolition of the Polo Grounds in 1964.
This is why you can never assume. I was completely wrong. Continue reading
Pitching Prowess
New York: Bullet Bob Turley limited the Milwaukee Braves to four hits in the sixth game of the World Series here, October 9, winning the tilt for the Yanks, 3-2, and thereby knotting the series at three games all. In this combo, Turley, without benefit of a windup, gets set to fire a pitch plateward. credit: United Press 10-9-1957
Turley pitched magnificently although he did give up solo homers to Frank Torre in the fifth and Henry Aaron in the seventh. But besides Continue reading
