Shadow Shot Sunday - Classic tarmac shadows

Last week I found an envelope of 8x10 photos in a file cabinet in the garage, and I think this might have been stored since 1997-1998 or so. There were a lot of pics therein from the 1940s on, and I found the second of a cool B&W photo which I am using for this week's Shadow Shot Sunday 2.

This is likely from March 1970, the person is my father returning from London, the place being the tarmac at JFK Airport in New York and the big subject in the background was the then brand new Boeing 747. On a sunny day in the Borough of Queens, the shadows are quite strong. The reason that he went down the steps that the 747 was so big that loading bridges to the plane were not yet installed at the Pan Am Worldport terminal.

On the back of the photo is a caption "Pan American World Airways, JFK Airport, New York" so this was when all was good...Pan Am passed away in 1991 and the Worldport terminal was razed in 2013. But four plus decades ago, the sun was bright and here is a picture of an optimistic future - I love the surprising discovery of these long-lost historical pics

TBT - 1940s Army Air Force

As I have been dabbling in the Throwback Thursdays, perhaps a blog of the FB post is now in order...

FB Post Here  

The other day, in a filing cabinet was an envelope of quite a few 8X10 pictures was found. And many pictures I do not remember - so scanning commenced.

Lower right is dad, in the USAAF (United States Army Air Forces;  the USAF was created in Sept.1947) is on the lower right, Grandma Villers (Agnes) standing behind him. As he enlisted in the USAAF in Oct 1945, I believe that this is in the Summer of 1946.

Are the three stripes for rank of Private 1st Class? I guess this to be in Steubenville, Ohio. Would love to know more!

Shadow Shot Sunday - Fathers, Kids, Shadows

Tomorrow is Father's Day, perhaps a faux holiday to some, but not to this dad! The weekly meme Shadow Shot Sunday 2 allows for father's day shadows where I found a couple that include myself and the each child - not necessarily of the same era, but shadowy at least :) 

One is our first-born, Allegra, in her first days in our then Derby home, maybe a month old, January 1989. The other pics is son Cameron, where he was a college student at the University of Hartford at age 19 in 2010. Both have the requisite shadows, a dad and a kid. I like this holiday!

Whimsical Windows - Labor Day movement mystery

Toby's fun meme Whimsical Windows/Delirious Doors is back the day before Labor Day in the US and Canada (Labour Day?) and windows are peripheral to the scene which is a mystery to me. So I guess that this pic of my day amidst a labor type event in Steubenville in 1938 with my father, aged nine. Dad looks winsome as that man in white looks irritated withe my photographer grandfather (I assume the guy kept walking...). Of course in front of the building's windows and doors is a labor demonstration of a sort with the FDR era NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) signs displayed. Who was Clyde Armstrong and why the demonstration on a hot Summer day? These are myriad mysteries - however I enjoy the look back at this long ago event...

Whimsical Windows - Sibling Skyline

Toby hosts the fun architectural meme Whimsical Windows/Delirious Doors, and we scout around to find the many interesting detailing we find, in any era. Here is in the New York City, borough of Manhattan and its always impressive skyline. I believe this to be from a rooftop in 1961. It is my father (the family lived in Bayside Queens 1960-1963), and sister Aunt Terry visiting, and a visit often usually included a tour of the city. I do not know the building (at UPI where my father worked on 42nd Street), but the spread out city below is amazing. Always...

Whimsical Windows - Old hotel by the sea

Grandma, 1946?

Dad and Terry, 1948?

Grandpa, October 1956

Grandpa and Terry, July 1969

Toby hosts the fun architectural memes, Whimsical Windows/Delirious Doors. And we look for architectural gems from here, there or anywhere. Or any era - since Aunt Terry sent me a box of old prints last year, the scanning continues. One theme of vacations in the old Atlantic City, far away from today's glass and steel casinos, was the Traymore Hotel. Through many decades, Grandpa wanted to take family pictures with this as a backdrop...The old hotel was demolished in 1972, so the 1969 pose was near the end of the once stately backdrop. At least we have spanned the eras in pictures...

(With all the artifacts I have, there has has to be a book in this somewhere :)

Whimsical Windows - Oregon Avenue back then

Toby hosts the fun architectural meme Whimsical Windows/Delirious Doors - we look for portals of interest. Those who follow my blogs know that I often refer to the past for inspiration as I have scanned maybe 1,000 or more old B&W prints since I inherited the JB Scotch box of photos when he passed away in 1981. And last week, my Aunt Terry shipped a box of old pictures to me for scanning and archiving, and these two jumped at me. Taken in 1947 (according to the license plate), it is in front of my grandparent's house at 1645 Oregon avenue in Steubenville, Ohio. My aunt is a well-dressed girl and her brother, my dad, dressed in a very stylish suit. The house is as I recall as a kid, and it remembered it up to 1981. It sits in a neighborhood that I assume, or at least hope, is still lined by these neat row houses are just as I remembered...

Whimsical Windows - The city that never sleeps...

That of course is the terminology of New York City, more specifically Manhattan Island. For Whimsical Windows/Delirious Doors, Toby's great architectural meme. This is from 1939, my father at age 11, and I believe by the docks along the Hudson River - perhaps on the famous Staten Island Ferry. The skyline is from well before the huge glass and steel edifices we now see. I have been advised that the building with the spire was then the Bank of Manhattan Building on Wall Street now the Trump Building. This is a link to the distant past, and no doubt then an impressive place to be when visiting from small town Ohio. Actually, it still is impressive...

Tina's Pic Story - Old

Tina's Pic Story reappears, and we add the picture to complement Tina's chosen theme, which today is Old...This view is old to our eyes in 2012. Yet the subject, my father, is not at all and rather young as he is photographed in the middle of the crowd. The place is unknown (Steubenville?), the time perhaps in the mid-late 1930s given ths sign that says NLRB. As to what defines 'old' vs. 'not old' may depend on our own point of view...