Whimsical Windows - The Long Gone Traymore

Whimsical Windows/Delirious Doors returns with not so much whimsy, but a really more dignified look from yesteryear. The gentleman here is my Grandpa, Ralph (I was named for him) standing in front of an old (and long gone) Atlantic City Boardwalk icon, the Traymore Hotel. Taken I believe in October 1956, this is a dignity personified, dressed in an understated yet stylish tweed jacket, well formed English driving cap and wearing a camera,  he knows how to relax alongside the Atlantic. I chose the original B&W and sepia edit to show the 1915 hotel in its massive beauty before the glass and glitz of the modern casinos. A classy look at the past...

Whimsical Windows - Lake Shore Smiles

This week's edition of architectural meme Whimsical Windows/Delirious Doors takes us to a familiar subject, that of my Grandpa, Ralph I. Villers (1902-1981) of Steubenville, Ohio. He liked to take a lot of pictures wherever he traveled, perhaps to show others just where he had been. Here is the Summer of 1964 in the Windy City of Chicago, at the Lake Tower Motel. Long gone by a high rise condominium on the pricey lakefront on Lake Shore Drive, it shows a cool 1960s charm, with newer buildings way more glitzy but devoid of charm. Grandpa's smile in these B&W prints adds a element of his happiness in chronicling his travels...

Whimsical Windows - Bygone Boardwalk

Whimsical Windows/Delirious Doors has been and is still a fun architectural meme that allows us to admire portals and such of interesting places. Toby has been hosting this meme for many a year, and is handing it over to me to host, and I look forward to looking at as many examples of unique and/or interesting windows, doors and more from all over.

Those who have followed my posts probably have noticed that I look at photos, many of them old and with a unique backstory to go along with the pics - where windows and doors are present but occasionally backdrops to a tale. As for what counts for an entry from any participant - that's up to you!

Here is the famous Boardwalk in Atlantic City, NY. The time was July 1978 and the very first casino in that city, Resorts, was opened in an old hotel prior to the now many glizty glass and steel high rises of today. The people in these scenes are Grandma and Grandpa Villers. Always fond of the NJ shore and Atlantic City, this was probably the last time they were there, both passing away less than three years later. So we see not only windows and doors - but and a pair who were happily posing again in their favorite vacation spot one last time...

Whimsical Windows - Snowy Suburban

Winter is upon us now as it was 1963, and as I age I am not so fond of the season. Back then as a kid, it was very fun, especially the morning after a snowfall.

Thus, for the meme Whimsical Windows/Delirious Doors, I revert back a number of decades and the Villers children are frolicking under the sun at our East Hartford (CT) home. And under the watchful eye of Grandpa, aka: The Sage of Steubenville, pictures were taken by our Dad.

Grandpa most likely gave his complicated Dresden built Exa SLR Camera to Dad with the admonition "Don't touch anything - just push the button." The request/order was complied with :)

Whimsical Windows - Happy New Year 1964

For Toby's fun meme Whimsical Windows/Delirious Doors, I offer an old view and I think that I think I know what it is. As some know, I have been scanning a lot of old photos in an effort to digitize the Villers past. My Aunt Terry has been sending me old prints I don't have and I am compiling complete sets of old pics, maybe 2000-2500 in total, to put by subject into a series of CD/DVD slideshows. 

So what is this? I believe is New Year's  Eve 1963, my grandfather upstairs overlooking Times Square in Manhattan as the ball drop commenced at Midnight - check the clock on the Bond Clothiers as the big and little hands are both neatly lined up at the number 12...

How can I be reasonably sure of this? This pic was in a sequence that included our grandparents visit for the holidays in 1963 and they always went home via NYC. The Christmas tree was in the dining room of our new home in CT...and 1963 was the only year the tree was in the dining room. If my memory remains in working order over the past five decades :)

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 :)

Shadow Shot Sunday - Exempted

Shadow Shot Sunday 2 is back. I am constantly scanning the thousands of old photos taken by my grandfather that I 'inherited' in 1981. What prompts this has to do with a box of pictures sent to me by my Aunt Terry last year...here is his business car in 1955, a Plymouth of the same year, in a slightly different shadowy shot of a previously posted pic. He fixed police and fire department radios in many towns and hamlets in and around Steubenville Ohio and Weirton West Virginia from the 1930-1970s. With an emphasis on the police departments as we look at the next item.

Also in the same box was this item that may explain why he drove really fast...he had friends in high places. This letter was very carefully folded, as if it was meant to be carried in a wallet. Is is the proverbial get-out-of-the-speeding-ticket device that you present to a police officer? Grandpa Ralph, of course was a man of unquestionable character. So a mystery continues...

Shadow Shot Sunday - Shadows in Time

Both style and elegance ruled in the 1930s...

Shadow Shot Sunday 2 is back as are more archived scans, another one from the files of a gentleman named Ralph from Steubenville Ohio, of course my namesake grandfather. I scanned this recently and time has allowed this print to give a softness to both scene and shadow in this late 1930s print. Try doing a current search for the Kent House and the choices are endless. So I'll conclude that this obviously was a fine restaurant near the northeast Ohio college town of Kent. I will further assume that Grandpa asked the maître d’hôtel, valet or other staff to take the photo as he seemed to want to chronicle to his contemporaries that he was actually there. And in those days, nobody wore a hat into an eatery as so many more do today - it was a bit classier in style then...

Shadow Shot Sunday - Mesa mystery

Three well-dressed gentlemen in front of a mesa in the Grand Canyon State, (1937?)

License plate mystery solved?

 Shadow Shot Sunday 2 and my namesake grandfather - it's not necessarily new for me as I have been chronicling the distant family past for awhile now (as Patti knows :). Yet my father's sole sibling, Aunt Terry has been following these photo memes and sent me another box of old photos a couple of weeks ago full of photos I haven't yet seen...
Always interesting is not knowing the background of the shot at all - so I merely guess. 

The three gentlemen, Grandpa in the middle, are obviously on the way to someplace special since they are wearing nicely tailored suits - in the desert? Maybe this is on U.S. 60 west from New Mexico?

More interesting are the two license plats on the car. his usual Ohio 'RV' plate and another - his radio license? The second photo, taken in 1977 or 1978, may explain that - the 1937 Ohio tag and...the 1937 radio license? I cannot say - however, along with the shadows, I do like a mystery...

Shadow Shot Sunday - East Hartford Easter Edits

Shadow Shot Sunday 2 is back on a snowy day, today's 7 inches (18 cm) ironically is exactly one month since the Blizzard. Beyond complaining about the weather, I am trying to fix damaged film prints from the past. Easter in the past is what is presented here. The prints are from 1968, my Grandfather dressed up for the Holiday, included the well blocked hat. To the right is my sister and a neighbor both dressed in their retro back then Easter finest. Grandpa was the photographer and brought two German SLR cameras (an Exa and an Exacta, built in Dresden) and so took B&W and color shots at every visit...the prints may be in bad shape - but never the memories!

Whimsical Windows - Ralph at play

In 1955, Ralph looks to be ready for a round of golf

It is not this Ralph as the subject for Toby's Whimsical Windows/Delirious Doors...

Actually it is my grandfather who this day is not at his normal business of leasing and fixing police and fire department radios in local towns in OH and WV. In his play clothes looking as if he was about to attack the front nine at the Steubenville Golf Club even though he didn't play. Windows involved are in his 1955 Plymouth work vehicle and the 1920s houses along Oregon Avenue. He looks like a million amid the neighborhood windows and doors...

SOOC - Tinsel (and then some)

SOOC - Straight out of the Camera - takes me back to the days of yore and that steelmaking city of Steubenville. Grandpa liked big Christmas trees full of tinsel - this example that sits in the middle of the living room certainly describes the big tinsel-y tree quite well...Given the picture of Aunt Terry on the modern for the day television, I'll guess this was taken around 1957 or so. I believe this view is straight out from his German Exa SLR camera - a proud tree decorator he! A merry and happy Christmas to all!

Whimsical Windows - Long ago and far away

Toby hosts the fun meme Whimsical Windows/Delirious Doors. Our task is to find interesting architectural gems. As many know, I have posted this before and still like the old scanned pics from distant eras.

The time is 1956,  the place is the New Jersey shore, the pre-superstorm Sandy and pre-casino Atlantic City. The hotels built long ago have an architectural charm, such as opening windows and no air-conditioning in the rooms no longer seen. And the names, such as Brighton and Traymore seem a throwback to a simpler time, and both long gone. The gentleman is my grandfather who trekked often from Ohio for a family visit to the briny paradise. Casinos seem more a draw than the wavy Atlantic...

Shadow Shot Sunday - Jersey Shore

The scanned and archived is for this week's Shadow Shot Sunday 2.The time is 1956, the place 23rd Street in the seaside island hamlet of Brigantine New Jersey. 

The house was small, guessing about 925 sq ft (86 M sq). It was one block from the bayside beach, three blocks to the Atlantic. Grandpa always lamented that he should have bought the house for vacations (the grandkids these days, looking for an inexpensive holiday today, would not have minded if he had :)

The cast today includes Michele (2-1/2 years), myself (1-1/2), Aunt Terry (14) and the timeless photo impresario grandfather (ageless). The playtime outside was provided by Terry, watching the kids at play while interlopers stopped by to chat...

After a day at play, the kids are dressed and hopefully winding down to slumberland, soon hopes the parental units. Grandpa was ready to chronicle the sleep ready children, the smiling kids equally...I chose to not crop out the date stamp on one picture - as if the era really needed description.

The home might have been small - but plenty big for toddlers...

The photographer is shown in the front of many long gone hotels in nearby Atlantic City sans casinos...

This was the casual gentleman dress with a wool sport jacket, plaid shirt (buttoned), wool driving cap and Exa SLR. Stylish and refined manor with a satisfied look that meant this family visiting to NJ was a great trip - with shadows inside and out. Thanks for this fun meme to all our hosts!

29 Days - Memories are made

An interest in photography bug was perhaps inherited from my grandfather (as I was named after him)

So on day 22 of Tina's 29 Days, I offer this sepia view was in Atlantic City NJ in I believe the late 1940s. He later had an Exa SLR camera in the 1950s, made in Dresden Germany. It could make photographic art of film.

Yet, the camera for him was not art - it was to capture the memories of special times. Like here, standing in front of the posh Traymore, a luxury hotel facing the Atlantic Ocean. Notice that he is holding a box camera - always good to carry around while searching for those memories...

Whimsical Windows - Old Hotel

Whimsical Windows-Delirious Doors is a fun meme hosted by Toby. And these pictures have a whimsical family history behind them.

Grandpa liked to take lots of pictures at vacation time, and that included this hotel in the old (pre-Casino) Atlantic City, long gone Shelburne hotel. Today the Boardwalk is full of glass and steel casino hotels, and portals like this are not included. I guess each photo was taken from the mid-1950s (R) to the mid-1960s (L). I remember our large family of kids were witness to this phenomenon.

I never knew what the fascination was for Grandpa. However, a couple of years age my Aunt Terry explained it to me: “Grandpa liked to think that he could hang with the wealthy. The Shelburne Bar was a wealthy hangout. So, he always had his picture taken there, but didn't always go in to have an expensive drink”. So that explains it! I kind of wish the old seaside resort town were there now instead of the new…

Also posted as part of Tina's 29 Days meme