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Posing Together Today

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I spent yesterday starting a big end of summer clean up of the apartment which sorely needs it. Kim pitched in and we had a reasonable day one cleaning, more to come today. I’d say I cleared about a third of what I need to off my desk, and in the process coughed up these two photos which are an interesting segue from yesterday’s post (it can be found here for those who missed it) and these make me wonder about my attraction to a similar composition of sorts. I know I purchased them online, however I do not remember who I bought them from so apologies to one of my sellers out there.

Unlike yesterday’s tintype, these are mounted cabinet cards and while yesterday’s ladies were seated in front of a faux landscape, today’s women are obviously really outside in front of this lovely house with a deep porch and that great striped awning. And of course, they are very much together in these photos unlike our ladies who turned away from each other yesterday.

Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.

The house is really the star here for me. The shadows from the trees make it clear that it is a shady, cool spot and the enormous overgrown boxes of ivy are so welcoming. The textures and patterns are amazing in this photo. There’s the horizontal siding on the house, the stripes in the awning, that jolly lattice work under the porch and an especially interesting design on the railing, all helping to make this more interesting. Taking that thought a bit further if you look at the top of the house the siding switches to a decorative wavy design (my neighbors in New Jersey have some mermaid style bits at the top of their house I love) and the closed shutters create something more interest for the eye too. Finally a careful look also reveals that the top of each of the porch columns has a decorative design.

The front door is an old fashioned (to us) double door – two glass paneled doors which I guess you could slip into half or open fully. Light is hitting the door and the window to the (our) left of it and shining brightly. The lawn around the women is grassy but littered with some leaves and those are what our eye really sees. There is a blurb of light and chemicals perhaps at the bottom of the phot which in no way takes away from it. (It is also where the photo starts to go out of focus as the lens of the day may have.) The photo is slightly underdeveloped in the printing and there is something else about the chemicals which has left tiny dots on the surface in places.

Finally, the two women are seated facing each other, one in a wooden rocking chair and the other in what appears to be a straight back chair – I assume these were likely taken from where they resided the porch; a careful look shows these chairs have twisty wicker backs. The woman on (our) right is somewhat younger and they wear their hair gathered in the same top knot. Their dark skirts and white blouses are also virtually identical. The older woman has a small purse in her lap.

Pam’s Pictorama.com Collection.

Moving to the other photo, we’re on the steps of the house. We’re closer to the front of the house and are on the stairs. The woman in the middle is the same older woman from the other picture but now she has these two different women in white on either side of her and, although it took a bit for me to see him, a man seated in a chair behind them – sort of there and not there at the same time.

The plants that I took for ivy at a distance actually appear to be enormous geraniums – or maybe geraniums and ivy or another trailing vine in these planters. (I too have geraniums – much smaller – on either side of my door in New Jersey.) The steps are old and sort of just this side of in need of repair. The striped awning in both photos is a bit askew upwards. The second photo is evidence that it rolled up unevenly rather than maybe blowing in a breeze.

The people in this photo are very centered although the railings to the house are a bit off the middle. The woman on the right seems to be a bit older. She holds a metal bucket with a top. I don’t know why but I think of it as the sort of thing you would have gathered berries in. The other woman, younger than both of the others by at least a little, is holding something I cannot identify – it is long and perhaps is metal. She holds it in one hand and something else in the other. If I make a wild guess I would say it is chimes of some sort?

The woman in the middle is the woman from the first photo. A very careful look reveals that she now has a man’s flat cap rakishly placed on her head. Her feet which we now see are in the leather boot-shoes of the day. Behind them is the man I mentioned, older, beard and mustache, seated. He wears a deep hat which sits to the side on his head. Close inspection shows this to be a sort of fun set up although no one is cracking a smile here.

These photos are faded and I imagine they spent time up or out somewhere over a long period of time. The gray cardboard they are glued onto has faded as well. There are no notes on the back about who this family is or when they were taken. When that happens I always imagine that the people were so central to the lives of those who had the photos that they couldn’t imagine not knowing who they are.

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Happy holiday weekend to you all! Next week, on Thursday, Kim and I depart for four days in Bethesda. He has a bunch of book signings and the SPX con, but also he will give a talk at the Library of Congress on Friday afternoon. (Let me know if you are in the area and would like information!) I hope to still log in for some sort of blog post but we’ll see what I can manage!

Tinned

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: A relatively small portion of my collection is devoted to tintypes, and out of those most are ancient pictures from fairs or seaside resorts of people posing with Felix the Cat or occasionally an off-model Mickey Mouse. I don’t seem to be compelled very often to acquire one like this, that just had an odd appeal and I snatched it up.

This picture comes via Instagram and my friend Mike Zohn over at @obscuraantiques. He has taken to doing a show-and-tell of recent buys for sale online. This has resulted in several purchases for me, most recently this advertising piece shown below which I purchased for Kim’s birthday. The post for it can be found here. (I actually spied the same piece in the antique annex in Red Bank a few weeks ago although in worse shape.)

Deitch Studio Collection.

I have written before about a rather beloved junk and antiques store Mike had on the lower eastside where I bought many photos, a display cabinet and many other treats. (A few of those posts can be found here and here.) Mike has been selling at a flea market in the city here over the summer but sadly we were in Jersey and missed him. I hope to eventually catch up with him here.

He was selling several tintypes and had divided them into a group with men and a group with women. This one caught my eye immediately. Hard to tell here but it is small, what would have been called a sixth-plate or about 2.5″x3.5″ image.

These two women are seated in front of a painted set of a landscape and as if they are seated outside in a fancy garden or on a veranda of sorts. I feel like we see the edges of the set, definitely at the bottom and perhaps at the top, which confirms that this is just a fictional background, perhaps even an indoor one.

Of course, it is the way they are decidedly turned away from each other, seeming to refuse to look at each other. As Kim said, you could easily write a story about it. Both are in summer dresses of the day and period. One is in white with a dark belt, with a dark parasol (a prop or hers?) leaning against her leg. She is looking downward. Her dark hat is hard to see clearly, and she leans on her arm with her other hand folded in her lap while she looks directly at the camera.

The other woman is in a wonderful summer-plaid dress with a white bib, also a dark belt and a very perky straw hat which sports something I thought was a feather but now I think is more of a flower or leaf. She is leaning on something which I thought might be the end of the bench they are sitting on, but I have decided it is something more in her lap. Both are wearing pretty bracelets which are hard to see without magnification. It isn’t a given but they could be sisters.

It is the space between them, the dark plant and the faux balustrade it is perched on that define the dark space divide created between them. Trees and clouds are in the painted distance which gives the image a sense of depth. At first I thought they were pointedly alienated from each other but spending time looking at it I think they are perhaps bored and not happy with being there and have placed themselves thus and are just sort of staring off rather than smiling for the camera. Nonetheless, the effect is as if they are somehow two halves of a whole, split down the middle.

Blasberg’s Grove, Hawthorne, NJ 1930

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I’m up and at it a bit late this morning – very welcome vacation days! Evidently I slept through a heavy and long rainstorm. I am writing this before I venture out to check for any damage to the more delicate flowers and plants in the garden – although in general they are grateful for all the water.

One of my New Jersey passions, developed in recent years, is collecting yard long and banquet style photos. I have mostly purchased New Jersey related ones (see posts from past summers here and here) and ones from seaside amusement piers (these in California here), although if I am being honest, I have another one to frame up of postal workers so there is some drift.

Currently for sale on eBay.

Today’s is a very real New Jersey theme, and full disclosure that my friend Larry Watson (www.larzfoto.com) did the initial research online. I sent the images to him as I know he shares my interest in these old photos and indeed he has some of his own that are family related.

From the damaged end.

Sadly, this photo is quite damaged and as I write it is pressed under some books upstairs to flatten it out. It isn’t so much the folds but the odd damage on the end, darkening part of it that is most troublesome. I bought it for $16 so I need to decide if I am investing (a not insignificant amount) in framing it or if I will tuck it safely in the flat files here for now. Still, I couldn’t not buy it and save it from the threat of demise. At least here it will at least be stored for future appreciation.

For all of that there are parts of this image I just love – the movement of some of the subjects, the sun shining. These men and boys are dressed up for this day in the country, likely imports from nearby New York City. As you will see, there is a lot of history attached to this photo. You all can weigh in on the frame or not to frame debate below.

My best attempt to show all of it.

Located in Hawthorne, New Jersey, I gather Blasberg’s Grove (or Blasberg’s Farm) was a popular locale for all sorts of outings – family reunions, weddings and community events. They entertained groups of hundreds of people at a time. Founded in 1910 it functioned this way for decades (not clear if it was also or previously an operating farm of some kind) until ultimately it was sold and subdivided into housing which bears the (somewhat ignominious) name of Blasbergs Farm Subdivision. Further poking does seem to point to fruit farming associated with the area in subsequent decades but not a lot of information there.

Clearly this is a sizable gathering. It is noted that it is the annual gathering of the Frank Vezzatti Assn. Light research shows that it was likely one of many political organizations – mysteriously called pleasure clubs in some of the research, which makes me think of something else frankly. There aren’t a lot of tracks about Frank Vezzatti except to say it was likely an Italian American political group of some kind in New York or urban New Jersey. Evidently loyalty of voters (notably men here although women had the vote – some younger boys got to go too) was perhaps ensured with food laden days in the country like this.

Worth noting that attire here is largely suits, ties and of course hats. Not really what we think of as clothes for a day in the country admittedly. Nonetheless, it is a documenting a glorious day! The sun shines through the trees and the light reflects and dapples on the ground.

The men, largely wearing (straw) hats, almost all in collared shirts and ties, frequently sporting jackets, all look at their leisure, many smoking cigarettes or cigars. One of the fellows front and center is blurred – that spot usually reserved for an honoree or important person so sort of odd that he is blurred, almost giving the photo a strange sense of movement.

Apologies for the late posting time today. Vacation intervened and an opportunity to take Kim to Asbury for the afternoon appeared and I left this unfinished. More about our adventures in Asbury next week!

Musical Togs

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: This just showed up in the mail recently, in the last batch I picked up from New York I think. It comes to me via Heather Hagans on Instagram (@marsh.and.meadow.home). Over time I have purchased many bits and pieces from her. (Some other posts of items from her accounts can be found here and here. Although these are both jewelry posts.) Arguably it is an unusual photo for my collection, but it caught my eye.

You can probably tell from the shape that this is an actual photo and not a photo postcard. There is nothing written on the back and no real sense of the year.

This young girl is in a great costume although for what we know not. Somehow it feels more theatrical than Halloween. She’s wears shiny silk black heeled shoes, one white stockinged leg up and the other with a bit of some sort of petticoat or pantaloon showing on one side – a very careful look shows a bit of musical notation there too. However, it is the trim of her white skirt with lines of music along the bottom that really sets the tone for this outfit.

Her black top has cut out shoulders and exposed arms, making it a bit racy really. She sports a patterned scarf around her neck and, best of all, a crown with a large G clef in the center. She holds a white fan and she’s pretty hotsy totsy. I don’t know why but I imagine she went and performed after this – she has the right attitude to be a performer I think, but what instrument did she play I wonder?

The room she is in doesn’t appear to have anything to do with performing – fireplace mantel with a vase or urn, another side cabinet with a vase behind here. There are what appear to be sheer curtains on the windows and a very faded carpet on the floor. There is also what we’d think of as an old-fashioned radiator on her other side.

So just a snippet of a post today. I have a few other Jersey treats in the works – we brought several paintings to live down here and I will be sharing those too I think.

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Dahlias, cosmos and zinnias. They are enjoying the rainy weather even if I am not so much.
Hard to see with the green on green but we have a great many peppers on this one to enjoy!

It is a rainy day here in New Jersey, but I have snapped a few pictures of the flowers – which have enjoyed all this rain – and my bumper crop of jalapeno peppers. Hot peppers seem to be my best crop this year so far.

Vacation in the Air

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Today is the first day of vacation. First thing this moring I wandered outside in my pj’s, admired the dahlias and some just emerging zinnias and popped a few ripe strawberries in my mouth while the coffee finished perking in the kitchen. I have fortified myself with one of my friend’s popover, provided earlier this week, and now I sit with my second cup of coffee (coffee so good this morning I texted a friend that I felt like I was swilling it) and share this new favorite card with you.

Strawberry plants offer a few nibbles every morning.

I purchased this postcard just before we left New York and it has just made its way here from Britain. I haven’t acquired one of these big kitty chair photos in a very long time. This cat chair is a bit smaller than some and sitting sidesaddle on him seems quite easy. My very favorite part is the way she is holding onto his (her?) little round cat ears!

The woman is wearing a white dress and sandals and she is dressed a bit differently than the general sort of togs we see in these holiday photos. (Early examples from my collection can be found in posts here, here and here for comparison.) The woman is smiling sort of placidly – a good sport but not embracing it quite as much as I think I might have given the opportunity. (I would have been bouncing with excitement!)

Meanwhile, Kitty is a bit bowlegged which gives him an especially cheerful look. He has a ribbon around his neck and a Steiff-y sewn on nose and mouth. We can barely see it, but kitty has a big fluffy tail up behind her. There is some vegetation in the background and what appears to be ivy climbing up a stone wall. This doesn’t have the seashore feel that some of these have and as I said before, this appears to be a somewhat smaller cat so likely a different location although obviously it is a resort area of sorts. This card was never mailed so we don’t have any sense of date or precise location. Oddly it has a narrow fold at the very top like maybe it was kept in a book and sticking out just the slightest bit.

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The dahlias in the garden have either gone plumb wild or not come up. It’s an odd year.

I am savoring the delicious moment of my entire vacation stretching ahead of me. All things are possible at the beginning, and it is a cool morning here in New Jersey which beckons us outside. My dahlias are blooming and the red ones in particular are attracting my favorites, the hummingbirds. (I have not captured them in a photo and am unlikely to as they are so mercurial.) Evenings under the fairy lights are ahead as well as good food and friends visiting, cats to be fed and petted. More to come but enjoy this grand kitty chair for now.

Summer Day

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Pam’s Picotrama Photo Post: As I write I have the pleasure of being on an immobile NJ transit train, having sacrificed breakfast to hop on it and now am just sitting. They have informed us that we are held for an indefinite period. There is a young man who has taken off his shoes and is playing loud music on his phone – he thoughtfully turns it off for the overhead announcements about not know how long we will be here. For some reason he also keeps yanking his trouser leg up to obsessively scratch his calves.

I stayed in New York last night to have dinner with a friend who is sick and it was a rare chance to see her so I cannot regret it. Dinner, after a rather biblical rain last night, ran too late for a train back to New Jersey but now I am regretting not trying for it.

Friday commute into NYC. A better day.

All that being said I have whipped out my laptop to share this recently acquired treat with you. This family was having a far superior summer morning in England some time about 100 years ago. This card was never mailed and nothing has been written on it.

Shortly after writing that it became clear that no trains were leaving Penn Station for the foreseeable future and the lack of internet on the train, making further decisions difficult at best, meant that I packed myself up again and went back upstairs. What followed was a series of mishaps, breakfast with a friend who lives nearby and a hot more or less five-hour journey on a very hot day to our house in New Jersey, less than an hour and a half away under normal circumstances. Not sure if it was breakfast, dinner the night before or the heat, but my tummy started to scream in protest. All this ended in bed and a book for the remainder of the day after getting home and sadly, no Pictorama Post for you all. My sincere apologies!

This photo postcard deserves our full attention, however. It has been long time since I bought a Felix photo card and this is a worthy entry.

Dahlias this morning.

Our featured family is in clear focus while the rest of the scene is a soft blur. The sun is pretty high in the sky it seems – a rare sunny day on a British holiday we’ll assume. Dad looks a tad uncomfortable dressed in a full suit and tie, complete with dark socks and heavy shoes, sitting in the sand nonetheless. Somehow mom looks more comfortable in her layers of dress and hat despite the many layers which we would never sport at the beach, although it does keep sun exposure to a safe minimum. The smaller of the two children has got Felix by the ear and may even be holding him up. This Felix, while very jaunty, he is even tinier than the kid.

The older boy, who I assume was the primary architect of this magnificent sand structure, is also in a jacket along with his short pants, high socks and cap. He looks very pleased with himself.

Popped one strawberry in my mouth but several others ready soon if I can beat the birds and animals to them.

The sandcastle is more pyramid than castle, aside from its decorative topper which I somehow assume was a sand mold or toy with a sort of castle scene on it when you look very carefully. The tunnel under the structure makes me think of cars passing through.

Mom perches on a beach chair, other chairs are scattered about. There is a sort of mysterious stack of planks (?) behind here, other beach goers are behind them (also in hats and British layers) off into the distance – I see a little girl digging to the far left. All the way to the back is a high wall.

A banana peppers a brought in this morning. Animals appeared to attempt to eat them but found them too hot.

The registration number is would have been tracked by is both in the upper left and lower left corners – presumably how the family’s card found its way to them. The card has been sloppily placed to the right side of the card with a fat margin on the left but very little on the right.

I am better this morning and it is a pretty day here in New Jersey – making up for the journey yesterday! My pepper plants (green peppers, jalapenos and banana peppers) are full of peppers, the tomatoes are trying their best and the dahlias are blooming. The recent hard rain damaged some of the nascent blooms but they are coming back! Here’s to a quiet summer day at the Jersey shore and in the garden.

Fish Daily

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: A quick post as we head to the Jersey shore later this morning. I purchased this from a vendor who had it in a pile of Monmouth County postcards and I purchased a few. It was mailed to and from locally, so it seems like a fair assumption although there is nothing identifying it really on the front. It has the right feel though – pure Jersey shore. Sadly this card is damaged, folded along the bottom but that did not stop me from paying up a bit for it.

A hand-painted sign advertises Sale and Retail Fish-Daily and we have this group piled together in various stages of beach wear and summer dress – and undress.The fellow in the middle appears to have googles on (I’m thinking driving not swimming) with his swimsuit. He has women, one in a dress and the other possibly in a swimsuit, on the other side. On the far ends, a woman in a pretty flowered dress and hat and on the other side it is hard to see the fellow with the white hat and what I assume is a swim suit.

The back row is four people, a combination of men (hat and even bowtie on one and collared shirts on the others) and all the way in the front a kid in a sort of sailor shirt, looking annoying. I can’t figure out what that little wooden structure is – it looks like the cabin of a boat which maybe it could be if they are actually on a pier.

The big news is a really careful look reveals that they are actually all perched on and around an absolutely enormous fish! It took a long time looking at this card before I realized that there is a huge fish tail hanging out the bottom. The kid in the sailor shirt is holding out a fin and below the man in the white hat is the gaping mouth.

Back of the card. No room wherever they were staying!

A tiny bit of the ocean can be seen in the upper right, a wooden shack near that and two cars help date the period of the picture. However, this card was mailed and therefore we have a postal cancellation. This card was mailed from Farmingdale, NJ on August 28 1930 at 5 PM. It was mailed to, Harold & Floyd Woolly, Box #1, Toms River, N.J. It says, We set up our own camp. The didn’t have room to hold us all so they scoured the country and got us cots & tents and gave us the dryest, finest place of all under the Elms. I have a little private tent of my own up here. Adolph. No mention of the big fish!

This photo scratches at the back of my brain for looking like family photos from the same period and place. I think it is going up on a wall in the house this summer, returning more or less to its place of origin for a few more decades of Jersey summers to come. More next week from the other side!

Impish?

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: As we ease our way out of the month of July this summer, I thought I’d share this card made in July of 1918 – as noted and underlined in the white handwriting (probably) of the photographer when printing in the lower left.

At first I thought these were a dozen devils, but not quite. These kids are each in pointed cap hood but (most) grasp lanterns and not pitchforks. Just as I thought Imps! I saw it written in white next to the date in the lower left as above. Some of the kids look pretty happy about the situation and others less so. I’m going to assume that it was less hot and humid there than it would have been here which would have made them all quite miserable.

They are posed on a small, covered riser or stage and in their midst, behind the child standing out in front, is some sort of stuffed dummy, clad in a hat and scarf – a bit overdressed for the time of the year. they are posed in front of these open French doors and in front of a brick facade with some climbing plants on either side (ivy on one?) of the doors. I wonder what kind of presentation they were preparing for or just completed.

I believe that this is not an Owers photo but shows us Southsea, clearly a shore resort town.

In the lower right corner, fairly hard to read in drop out white, it says Owers Southsea. Thanks to the always amazing internet, I found that Oscar Owers was a Southsea (England) photographer of photo postcards at the dawn of the 20th century. He did local scenes, sporting events, weddings and the like and evidently things like whatever was being gotten up to in this image. He’s captured this nicely in how they are grouped and their variety of expressions and positions. This postcard was never mailed and I think we can assume that it was either one of a kind or a limited few printed for those who hired him.

I found this one is by Owers and I guess was the sort of meat and potatoes of his local work.

I am keeping things a bit brief today – we are packing up for our New Jersey bivouac tomorrow. Cats have been put on notice with their carriers out and there is a flurry of art supplies and books being packed by Kim and a fridge that needs to be emptied and other household bits for me. Wish me luck and more in the morning before we depart!

Smiling Card

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: This is a sort of genre of Pictorama cards – beautiful woman in a photo collage or otherwise manipulated, sometimes on the moon, but today is bubbles being blown and bubbling up from a clay pipe. (It’s a loose category but have a look here, here and here for a few others to get the idea.)

This one has the added appeal of a pampered looking kitten being held by the woman who is looking at it adoringly. (Likely a studio puss who earned his daily keep but has a natural look of feline entitlement.) She is in an absurdly befrilled hat, dripping in ribbons, lace and feathers. (One can only imagine how long before kitty wanted a go at the feathers; you’ll notice she is holding onto his paws.) She sports a gold necklace, rings and a bracelet. Even her dress seems to have feathers at the neck. Her make-up is evident, heavy lipstick and eye make-up which probably was considered a bit tarty for the day.

Somehow the illusion has been created that she is in a bubble – in fact her image in the bubble is repeated in the different size ones to make four on the card creating the illusion of bubbles floating out of the pipe. If I were to guess I would say maybe they started with a photo of a reflecting ball like you might have in a garden. (Or the witches balls I have discovered more recently that hang from the ceiling, usually in a window – to show that witch already lives there so that witches just move along – or so I am told.)

The photo is hand painted with a swath of pink on her and green and yellow around her. The smaller bubbles just get a dollop of yellow, the smallest remains in just black and white. The pipe is in black and white. It appears to be a clay pipe and I don’t know much about them. I wonder about what appears to be a hole in the bottom and how that worked with bubbles or even to smoke – but maybe it created a better flow of air somehow.

The postcard maker has a very tiny emblem in a circle also, in the lower left corner and a serial number (464/20) on the right. It is a stylized NPG which seems to stand for Neue Photographische Gesellschaft, an earlier German maker of photo postcards. Arthur Schwarz founded the company in 1894 and helped create the photo postcard boom of the 1900’s. The company was interested in technical advancements, color photos and without knowing more than this, I would say this is a good example.

Pams-Pictorama.com Collection. Well, actually Deitch Studio Collection.

Without noting the maker when I posted about this, today I discover that this postcard I gave Kim for his birthday a few years ago is made by this company as well. I show it above and the post about it can be found here.

This postcard was mailed and it is postmarked April 6, 1909 from Jacksonville, Florida and mailed to a Miss Ora F. Wagner, Noblesville, Ind 170 S9h. I can’t quite read the top of her message – it might read, Peeps and then says, This is a dark and gloomy day so I am sending you a “smiling” card. Yours HOH.

Back of card.

I like the sentiment and being a bit out of sorts after a long week at work it seems appropriate and like a good shot in the arm early this Saturday morning, many decades later.

Jersey Summers

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: I bought this clutch of postcards for a few dollars at the recent postcard extravaganza. They all depict the early days of the shore area where I grew up and now have my mom’s house. Like most areas it has largely been built up and built over, but some of the buildings remain or did during my childhood. All of these postcards appear to be from approximately the same period. Only the one from Rumson at the bottom was mailed and that is dated 1910.

If I had my way we would have spent a lot more time in Asbury Park when I was a kid. It was on hard times in the ’60’s and early 70’s and generally we migrated to things north of us rather than south of us in Monmouth County. This pier, as above, remained and even back then I was fascinated by it. It was somewhat derelict although still in use. There was a carousel in another building that I never got to ride. To my knowledge that remains – it was used in the recent Bruce Springsteen bio pic (which for a Jersey girl like myself was a wonderful compendium of places I grew up hanging out at) so I assume it is in reasonable repair.

The boardwalk is in all its glory here with women in long white cotton dresses of a turn of the century or early ‘teens summer. Parasols and hats abound. The amusements are largely hidden although there is a place for your photo to be taken and where film is sold. (Sadly absolutely no evidence that you could have your photo taken with a giant Felix doll. It just doesn’t seem to have been a thing in the US.)

The North End Hotel is the large building in front of us and below it is identified as Boardwalk and North End Hotel. Asbury Park, N.J. North End Hotel or not, I’m pretty sure the lower pier is what goes out toward the water, the boardwalk above and the sand leading to the water to our right below. I assume some of the long building was bath house space where you could rent a locker for the day, change and leave your things. Although the pier in Long Branch existed into my young adulthood (it was eventually consumed by a fire), it is the only one of the long piers into the water I remember – although maybe Asbury did or does still have one. I am scheming to get there for an ephemera sale this summer if possible and to spend the day checking it out.

Boardwalk at New Point Comfort Beach, Keansburg, NJ. Fronting the three largest hotels.

Keansburg was north of us, however I was (sadly) never taken to the beachside amusement pier there. It too still exists in some form. (There used to be ads for it on local television – Keansburg Amusement Park.) I don’t think any of these beachside hotels still exist however. To my knowledge only the tinier waterside homes still stand in that area. I have to admit I have never been on their boardwalk, although I spent much time in neighboring Highlands and even Matawan where my sister lived for several years.

This is what the towns of Long Branch and Sea Bright would have also looked like, the shore dotted with large hotels and rooming houses on the water which largely no longer exist. The trip down Ocean Avenue between Sea Bright and Monmouth Beach and then to Long Branch is still lined with some of the old single-family mansions overlooking the ocean and somehow surviving both tides and progress, mixed with new construction and the occasional beach club.

Until just a few years ago, the highway referred to in this photo of a swath of Atlantic Highlands would have been the very same one which people routinely walked over in order to go to and from Sandy Hook state park and connecting to Sea Bright. A new much higher and larger highway was installed to much construction mess, expense and fanfare. I guess you can still walk (and bike) across the new one, but it is vastly larger for more cars and most importantly, more boats below it. (It is no longer a drawbridge.)

Scene from the scenic highway highest point on the Atlantic Coast Highlands, N.J.

While likely more crammed and with contemporary stores and some more modern homes, my guess is that this view has remained somewhat the same with small cottages dotting the shore. This would have the Shrewsbury River just in view to the left with the bay to the ocean (and New York City in the distance) behind the viewer. The ocean is just on the other side of the tiny spit of land that is Sandy Hook and Sea Bright and the photographer, standing on the highway, could easily have seen all these things by turning around.

There was a time when this was a major stop on passenger pleasure cruises heading south and I assume for day trippers, even as it is by ferry in the summer today. (I could take the ferry today but beach traffic will snare on the weekend so instead I will take the train which will leave me closer to the house.) One of my ancient novels had a stop there on a cruise which I enjoyed finding immensely.

Finally, I get to my hometown of Rumson. There was a time when I knew the length of Rumson Road like the back of my hand from years of being a passenger traveling up and down it. A major artery running not just through the town but connecting the beach communities with the rest of the area, it is fairly long and famously heavily trafficked. (The Sea Bright bridge at one end was also a drawbridge and traffic during the summer would back up for miles for boat traffic. That bridge has also been replaced recently, leaving only the Rumson bridge in a state of sad decay and planned replacement.) Having said that I am puzzled by this view. While small water tributaries create a number of manmade and natural ponds and streams throughout the area, I am stumped by one of this size. (I wrote about a photo of a small pond near my house in the town of Fair Haven here.)

Glimpse of Rumson Road Lake on the Rumson Road, N.J.

I am wondering if this was ultimately filled in to make the golf course or country club. I will ask some of the folks who have lived there longer than I have. For all of that I like this card because it captures the feel of Rumson and Rumson Road. In the fall it is the most beautiful drive lined with old trees, leaves turned. It has always been a sort of millionaires’ row of mansions, old and new, despite being a few blocks in from the river which you would think would be more prime real estate. Perhaps the flooding discouraged the largest homes perching there and I grew up on an inlet of the river, a block off this road. If I calculate correctly though I lived much further east, where Rumson Road begins at the Sea Bright bridge. This would be on the western part as you head into the town of Little Silver, my current home in Fair Haven where these three towns connect.

As noted above, this card was mailed. On the back it says (in one run-on sentence), suppose you have been after chestnuts before this wish I was there to go along Harold. It was mailed to Miss Mary Crawford, Pine Bush, Orange Co, NY. It was mailed from Sea Bright, NJ on October 13, 1910. (Until a few years ago the post office in Sea Bright would have been this one. Sadly a larger and more modern building replaced it too.)

As I head out today I am tucking these in my bag to take with me. I will round up some frames for them and put them up at the house where both local images, beaches and piers in general and wider New Jersey images rule. (Some of those posts can be seen here and here – I have a passion for panorama photos but they are hard to document!) Keep an eye on Instagram for some garden pics. My project for the weekend is to acquire and plant some tomatoes.