Archive for the ‘1950’s’ Category
Thanks To Deborah at ” Airports Made Simple ” …
I just wanted to take a minute and thank Deborah over at Airports Made Simple for asking me to to be her ” Guest Blogger of the Month “. She did all of the layout and design on her blog, all I did was supply the photos and some copy. She arraigned everything and added some quotes to really tie everything together to make the posts so interesting and readable.. She really has an ” eye ” that gives her blog such a professional look and feel. And all of the great information that you get from reading her blog is fantastic. I have learned so much from scanning her blog and seeing all of the informative comments that she receives from her readers are so great. She also does such a good job of connecting and communicating with her readers that I try to take something away from her in that area. I have received an increase in viewers to my site since see has had me on her blog and that sure has been nice to see a boost in hits. So thanks again Deborah for including me in your blog … Frank
Talking On The Phone …
I do not know anything about this photo ( as usual ), but I just thought that it and the one below where cute photographs. You can just barely see the black phone on the table to the girl’s left. I would say that these images were made in the early 1950’s. They could have been taken for Southern Bell, since my father used to take a lot of photos for them. You can tell that big sister is trying to ignore her little brothers … her being a teenager and everything. Here is the other photograph …
Those little guys just are not going to leave her alone. You can see the phone better in this photo. How many of you out there can remember seeing a phone like this? I believe that this style of phone was around for twenty or thirty years before Bell Telephone got around to redesigning it and adding color to the units. I have a photo somewhere showing the new style phone and colors somewhere that I will find to post. I am really surprised how long it took the phone company to come up with different styles of phones to offer the buying public … I guess that the public had other things in life to worry about and not the type or color of what phone they had in their house. Not today! You cannot even watch the Oscars without getting bombarded by the new Samsung cell phone. Times have definitely changed! Thanks for looking and please check back … Frank
Cole Wedding …
These images are from a ” Cole ” Wedding that my father photographed back in the 1950’s. I had posted an image of two twin girls standing in a hallway of the San Carlos Hotel in an earlier post. I am trying to catalog all of the negative envelopes that I have left, which is several thousand. I have cleaned my darkroom and I have been looking for some interesting negatives to print, also. I do not know what order I am going to post them in, so we will just have to see what I come up with …. here comes some images:
Here is the bride and groom in the reception hall at the San Carlos. The bride’s last name was Cole, since we usually save the negatives under the bride’s maiden name. The groom must have been Jewish ,,,I can not remember the name of the ” tent ” that the couple gets married under. The bride must not have been Jewish, other wise they would have been married at the Temple. Besides, Cole does not sound Jewish. Here is a couple out in the hallway that my father had photographed the twins in …
As usual, I have no clue these people, but it does not really matter. To me, that wallpaper and carpet really clash, but someone obviously thought that they went together. I would almost say that the decorating ideas came from Las Vegas, but this hotel was built before Las Vegas was even a twinkle in the mob’s eye.
Note my father’s 5×7 view camera is in the background. All of these images were from 4×5 scanned negatives, but he did take a 5×7 camera with him to weddings. I have a handful of 5×7 negatives from most of the weddings that he shot in the 1950’s. I thought that I would include this photo because of that camera in the image.
I can remember going to dances back in this reception area back in junior high school … this room was located on the top floor of the San Carlos and was a fairlly large room. The last one is of the girls standing by a wall-sized mirror out in a hall. You will recognize the two twins from an earlier post of them in the hall-way the couple above was photographed in …
I want you to notice how large the mirror is and the gold moulding used as a frame. When they shut down the San Carlos in the 1970’s, the owners sold off all of the furnishings through out the hotel. I remember someone telling me that he had bought some of the tapestries and ended up selling them to an antiques dealer in New York. I wondered sometimes whatever happened to the mirrors when I think about the tapestries.
That is all for now … if you have any comments about any of this, let us hear from you. Thanks for looking and please check back … Frank
The Maternity Ward at the Old Sacred Heart Hospital …
This photo of my mother and I was made on 14 Aug 53, I was born on 11 Aug 14, so I was 3 days old in this photo. This is the type of photo my father would take of the mother and her new born baby and would sell it to the mother or her family. I posted a folder in a much earlier post that he would insert this photo in … it has a photo of the front steps of the old hospital on the cover. So, he had a fairly lucrative photography ” side-business ” at the hospital while he was the x-ray technician. The next photo shows one of the nuns and several nurses standing around the bed talking to my mother and looking at me ..
Now, looking at this photo, you get the impression that they were in my mother’s room standing around talking and enjoying themselves. Well, back then, there was no such thing as a ” private ” room ,,, you were in a ward with other mother’s and their babies. The next photo shows after everyone had left …
Yes, that is another mother and her baby separated by a cloth curtain. I wish I knew who this mother and her baby are … notice that the mother has her purse sitting on the night stand next to her bed. I wonder how many mothers today would like this arrangement? Yea, I did not think that many would. Back when I had my tonsils taken out in 1959 at the old Sacred Heart Hospital at the tender age of six, I was stuck in a men’s ward with ten other men. It was the worst experience that I had ever had up to that time, but that is another story in itself and I do not have any photos from that time. Also, it would take me forever to give you the full run down and I hate to type anyway so you will be spared that story. I also have a bill that my mother received from her stay at the hospital that I will have to find and scan ,,, you will enjoy the simplicity of the bill. I think they charged her twenty cents for two aspirin was one of the lines on the bill. If you have been in the hospital lately and received a bill, you will wish you were back in the good old days … sort of, for a moment anyway.
Thank you for tuning in and I hope you enjoyed the program … this is sort of like looking at old episodes of the Andy Grifith Show, only minus Barney and Goober. Thanks for looking and please check back. If any of you can remember your stay in a hospital ward, let us hear them … Frank
East Hill in the Snow …
I decided to post a few more of these snow scenes from back in February 1957 to show how much snow Pensacola received …Now on 1/29/14 we have an ice storm and everything comes to a stand-still. The Interstate is shut down and almost all of the bridges in the surrounding counties have been closed, so essentially you cannot travel anywhere between Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties. The photo above is a scan from a transparency of the park on 12th Avenue and Gonzalez Street in East Hill. I have posted other views of this park that my father had made from this time in earlier posts, but I do not believe that I have posted this exact one before. You can see the old Winn-Dixie grocery store at the other side of Gonzalez Street. On the far left side, you see a corner of the old Sacred Heart Hospital … I have recently run across a photo that my father had taken of a group of nurses standing outside in the snow that I have not posted yet, but could not find the folder I placed it in. I will spend a little time looking for it this afternoon later, it is a cute photo of a group of nurses having fun in the snow. Here is one more new snow scene …
This is corner of Cervantes and 14th Avenue, back when Cervantes was a two lane road … the house on the right is still there on the corner, I am not sure about the one on the other side of the street, but I am inclined to say that it is. I have some more photos from California that I will post in the next day or so and I have some other random images that I have worked-up of Pensacola. I hope that everyone made it through the ice storm without any damage. Thanks for looking and please check back … Frank
UPDATE: The white house in the bottom photo is no longer there … this is just a vacant lot now with a huge oak tree what looks to be about the center of the lot. Someone had emailed me about this when I posted these images. There does not appear to be a For Sale sign in the lot, so I guess that the oak tree sits in such a way that you cannot build anything on the lot, but I am not sure. Thanks for the comments … Frank
California Bungalow …
I have found some more negatives recently from one of my father’s trips out to California in the 1940’s and 50’s to visit his sister, Lucille. I have no idea about the history behind these two images, other than the fact that they were made somewhere in California … could be Los Angeles, maybe Modesto … who knows. But it looks like the type of place that you would find Humphrey Bogart walking out of after received a call in the middle of the night from an unknown stranger that said he would find a blond hair starlet lying dead across the bed if he went to this bungalow off of Sunset Boulevard. I guess that I have read too many detective novels or have seen too many black and white films form the 1950’s. Here is one more view …
Maybe someone out there might recognize where this is … I have really been surprised of all of the people from Modesto California that have viewed this site and commented about certain areas in the past. This place just looks like a generic photo of a California motel / apartment from the 1950’s, so I do know really expect much. I is just fun to speculate and imagine some story behind these old photographs. Thanks for looking and please check back … Frank
The Corner of Baylen and Government Streets …
I found this image years ago and just set it aside … it really did not do anything me until it dawned on me that the Professional Building was torn down to make the new Court House Annex / Clerk’s Office. Also, this George’s Grill was popular with the Downtown Crowd. I have no idea why my father made this photograph, but I am sure it was for an insurance adjuster … must have been a bad accident here at this intersection. You are looking east toward Palafox Street and you see Mayes Office Supply and Printing business next to the Professional Building on the north side of Government Street. I can still remember when Mayes and the Professional Building were there in the 1960’s and the 1970’s, but I do not remember George’s Grill.
One more thing, this is my 300th post on this blog. I never made it this far when I had it over on Blogger. I hope to keep this going for quite some time because I still have thousands of negatives and photographs that I can post. One of the most important things that I have learned is that just because an image does not have any “meaning ” to me, someone out there on the internet usually recognizes someone in the photo or the location in the photo and will comment. Making me glad that I took the time to post the image. One such image is the one that I titled ” First Methodist Musicians “. I have received some nice comments and a few calls about that image … and I sat on those images for years before I posted them. So thanks for looking and as usual, all comments are appreciated and I do respond to all of them, even though it might take me a while to getting around to writing. Please check back … Frank
Wholesale Furniture Warehouse …
This business was located on the north side of Mobile Highway and you saw it on your right when came over the viaduct that crossed the railroad tracks from Brownsville. In fact, I believe, that this building is still there. Obviously, it has been remodeled and reconditioned since the 1950’s when this photo was taken. I have no idea who owned this business / building and I was also curious if this owner had anything to do with the furniture stores over on “T” Street. “T” Street has become the flea market and antique haven for Pensacola in Brownsville. Please notice that I did not refer to them as ” junk stores”. I have driven by on “W” Street on Saturdays and almost end up in a wreck with cars pulling into the parking lots, so that can get to stores on “T” Street. It has been years since we have gone ” shopping ” over on “T” Street … we are at the stage of trying to get rid of all the junk, I mean antiques, that we have accumulated through the years. Thanks for looking and please check back … Frank
Guest Blogger at ” Airports Made Simple ” …
I want to thank Deborah over at the blog Airports Made Simple for allowing me to be a guest blogger. She had seen this blog and was interested in the airport / airplane images from the 1950’s that I have shared with everyone. I apologize for the title of this post, I could not think of a title that had a better ring to it than the lame one that I wrote in the headline bar. I am sure that I will change it when I give it some thought. Her blog has a lot of information for people that fly on a regular basis … various airline pluses and minuses, airport tips … too much for me to write here. I included a link to her post on my Liberace photos, so once you get to her site, you can navigate around and see what she has and is interesting to you.
The photo above is one of several that my father made of an Eastern Airline plane on the tarmac at the Pensacola Airport back in the 1950’s. I have posted a few other images from this ” set ” before, but I never got around to working this image until recently.. So this is a new image and for those of you who used to fly into Pensacola back in the 1950’s, I hope that it brings back some fond memories. If anyone that reads this has some photos of the interior of the Pensacola Airport from back in the 1950’s and 1960’s, I would be interested in seeing them. Especially the restaurant and the check in counter for Eastern and later National Airlines. I ran across some photos that I had made from back in the 1970’s when then had remodeled the airport and I will post them later. The thing that sticks out the most to me are all of the cigarette ash tray holders through out the airport … pretty considerate! Thanks again for Deborah for asking me to be a guest blogger and please check out the link that I included in the first paragraph … she has a large readership with experienced travelers, so if you have any questions, this would be the place to ask them. Thanks again for looking and please check back … Frank
Romana Street in the 1950’s …
This panorama was made in the 1950’s, not sure of the exact year. This is looking west on Romana Street toward downtown Pensacola. On the left side of the street you see a Pittsburgh Paint Shop and then you have the Pensacola News Journal Building which takes you to the end of the block. Across the street is the Morrison Cafeteria building. I have some posts earlier where I show some interior shots of the kitchen and the table areas. Then I had several exterior viewsof Morrison’s before they renovated later. Local businessman Quint Studer has just purchased the Pensacola News Journal building and is planning to tear it down. I believe an article in the local PNJ in the last week or so said that he plans on constructing housing in it’s place and possibly some offices. Pensacola is really going to be going through some new changes in the next few years … we will just have to wait and see how all of this pans out. I am still not convinced that what was done to the end of Palafox Street was worth tearing down the old Municipal Auditorium. Most of the buildings that they built at the end seem vacant, however they are very nice and attractive. Thanks for looking and please check back … Frank
Frank Hardy Made My Photographs Two 
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