Posts Tagged ‘City of Pensacola’
Miscellaneous Photos from the 1950’s …
Here are a few random photos from the 1950’s that I have not posted anywhere yet. They are from other groups or sets that I have posted somewhere – on my blogs or Instagram – but have never posted these exact ones. I will try to add what little I do know about each photo, so if anyone has anything to offer or remember being around when the image was taken, please feel free to jump on in and comment. Here we go …
This photo and the next are from the Fiesta of Five Flags Parade from 1955. I am sure this that the sponsor of this float was Coca-Cola, but I do not know who any of the people on the float are or what the theme of the float. Other than that is one huge Coke bottle! The buildings in the background are what draws my attention … the old San Carlos Hotel, the A&P Grocery Store on the left side of the frame and then the miscellaneous businesses in the buildings on the right. The photograph / scan is from a 4×5 negative, so you can read all the names of the businesses on the building. I just can not put that large of a file up on my blog for you read. Next …
This photo shows the Davy Crockett Foods push cart in the same parade. I guess that ol’ Davy had not sold enough “BearBurgers” or “CoonDogs” to justify springing for a parade float, so they opted for a push-cart that resembles an ocean liner. Or that is what it looks like to me. I like the little boys in the background following along with fishing poles trying to snag a bearburger or a coondog. Also, how about those to urchins that climbed up on the building above the Acme Stores sign for a better look? I wonder if this Acme Store sells the same Acme anvil that always flattens Willey Coyote in the cartoons? You have to have grown up in the fifties and watched cartoons on a b&w tv, kiddies, to get that reference. Next up is a celebrity photo …
This, boys and girls, is Denise Darnell, who stared in the classic 1950’s movie, The Strip Tease Murder Case. On my favorite app, IMDb, a fan – the only one posted, by the way – claimed that this movie is his nomination for ” Worst Movie Ever Made “. I won’t boar you with the rest of the revenue, you can go look it up yourself and read what John Howard Reid has to say in his post. In fact, I do not know why I even bothered to mention his name, since his review is the only one! One more interesting tidbit … the advertising poster claims that Denise Darnell is ” 6’7″ of Amazon Beauty “. And to be perfectly honest, this poster might be the best thing about the movie! But for those interested, you can go search for it yourself. Ms Darnell shows up in several of the photos that my father made and for some reason, I want to say that she might have been the “chaperone” for this group of celebrities that included Doc and Miss Kitty from Gunsmoke and Michael Ansara who played Cochise in the tv show ” Broken Arrow ” from the 1950’s. I only use the word chaperone very loosely, because I could not think of a better word / term – tour guide did not really seem appropriate. I am hoping that someone out there might remember seeing Ms Darnell here in Pensacola and will make a comment. I am not really holding my breath on any comments for The Strip Tease Murder Case, but who knows, all we can do is wait and see.
That does it for me. I am sorry that I missed posting something in December and that made the first month that I missed making a monthly post in years. I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday season in 2016. We got to travel to Seattle to spend time with Lauren, Lukas and Travis, whom we had not seen since Christmas before last in Southern California. I have posted some photos from this years trip over on my personal blog, Frank Hardy Photo Blog .
Thanks for looking and please comment regardless whether you know something or not … I just like hearing from you. I know that people are looking because I see the stats, it just does not tell me whom, but I do know where. Also, don’t forget that I post fairly regularly on my Instagram account: @frankphardy .
That’s all Doc … ( one more feeble reference to 1950’s b&w cartoons that I grew up on ).
Pensacola Pier ….
I ran across this negative years ago and just set it aside. Someone had brought me this print to copy back in the 1980’s and I made me an extra copy. This is the end of Palafox Street and I want to say that this is taken in the 1930’s. The strip of land on the back side would be where the Port Royal Development is built today. No idea who took the photo, but if anyone has any information on this image, please feel free to comment and share anything that you might know. Thanks for looking and please check back. One of my New Year’s resolutions for 2017 is to try and post several times a month. I have been busy with other ways to share my photography ( Instagram is the main one ) and have sort of ignored my two blogs. But no worry, I still have thousands of images to work through and post, so don’t give up on me yet.
The Launch of the USS Pensacola …
This is almost a first me … I have actually done some research on the images that I am going to post today and I am going to include a link to more photographs for those of you might be interested in seeing more images. Two of the photographs are one’s that I have copied for a lady in the past and the other three are from the US Navy site that I am going to give you a link to at the end of the post. The first image is one from the Navy site that sort of starts the story of the USS Pensacola launch at the Brooklyn Naval Yard on 25 April 1926 …
You see all of dignitaries from the Navy and I know that there are several in this crowd from Pensacola … Harvey Bayless is one who was the City of Pensacola’s City Manager in the 1920’s and he could have even been Mayor at one time … who made the trip to New York and the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Now the next photo is one that I had copied and showed the ship at a lower level being sent off from the ways. I am surprised that the Navy does not have copies of the prints that I am going to show and I can only think that maybe the ones that I am showing were shot by a photographer that the City of Pensacola might have hired in New York to record this event for them. I have not seen them in any local archives such as the Historic Trust, so without further ado …
Interesting don’t you think? The next photo is a Navy photo showing the boat coming down the ways from out in the East River …
Here come the Pensacola out into the East River. The next photo is one that I copied showing the USS Pensacola completely out of the dry dock and off of the ways out in the East River. I believe that the bridge in the background is the Manhattan Bridge. It possibly could be the Williamsburg Bridge, but if I am wrong, I apologize. At least I have a fifty-fifty chance of accuracy and for me that is pretty good…
Look how many tugs it takes to move the Pensacola around! I could have retouched out all of the trash in the East River, but I am striving for authenticity here and besides since this is 1926, I figured that the US DEP would be pretty lax around a naval shipyard. I do not know if we even had a DEP in the twenties, so there goes my claim for authenticity in the last sentence. Next and last image is a Navy photograph of the USS Pensacola ( CA-24 ) tied up at the dock…
In fact you can see part of the bridge I mentioned earlier. There are a lot more images of the USS Pensacola on the Navy here.
I hope you have enjoyed this little bit ” visual ” naval history and how I tied it all together. Don’t get used to it because I will be back to my old self of just posting photographs along with a few unrelated comments. As I mentioned in earlier posts, I have been posting more to Instagram than my blogs, but I have unearthed a lot of new negatives that I have sifting through and will post in the months to come. If anyone happened to be at the Brooklyn Navy Yard when the Pensacola was launched and want to share it first-hand, we would love to here from you. You can find me on Instagram at: frankphardy . For some unknown reason it would not let me do FrankHardyPhotography so I used my middle initial “p”. But you can type “frankhardy” into search and I pop up. Thanks for looking and please check back … Frank
Pensacola Fire Department …
This is in the square at Palafox and Government Streets sometime back in the 1920’s. That is the Escambia County Courthouse in the background. Look at the facial expressions on the fire fighters … also look at all of the activity in the background. Everyone is busy and going someplace. Even though this is a black and white image ( toned actually ) it seems that black or some dark color is the predominant color for suits, dresses and cars back in the 1920’s. As usual I have no clue who any of the fire fighters are or what they are doing, but it doesn’t matter. Here is one more from a different direction …
Here you see the TT Wentworth Museum in the background, that at one time used to be the Pensacola City Hall. Even I can remember going down to the City Hall back in the late 1960’s and up into the 1970’s and doing business there. So it must have been in use up until the new City Hall down on Main Street was built back in the 1980’s. I have some photos that I took when they were building the new City Hall over on my other blog that I have showing my photography. If anyone knows anything about either of these two photographs, please feel free to comment. Thanks again for looking and please check back … Frank
Frank Hardy Made My Photographs Two 
You must be logged in to post a comment.