Posts Tagged ‘Pensacola Florida’
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
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
PHS Twirler …
I have several more of the these twirlers from the Pensacola High School Band of the 1950’s that I put up in the next month or so. I am not sure if she is a band majorette or a baton twirler, but I am sure someone out there will correct me and let me know who this is and the year. Thanks again for looking and please check back … Frank
Clubbs Baseball Team 1957 …
I have quite a few of these negatives from Clubbs Junior High School from back in the 1950’s and I will post more in the future as I clean them up. I have a lot of these type of images showing a few sports teams, the band and several other groups. I cannot believe that so many people see people that they know in these photos and I usually get a pretty good response out of posting them. I was only four when this photo was taken, so obviously no one looks familiar to me. If anyone recognizes any of these athletes, please feel free to comment. Thanks for looking and please check back … Frank
First Baptist Church in Pensacola Florida …
This was the church building for the First Baptist Church in Pensacola Florida back in the 1950’s before the new sanctuary was constructed in the mid-to-later 1950’s. I have an interior view somewhere that I will post later. Here are several of the new sanctuary below …
This last photo is church letting out from the first service held in the new sanctuary. I have several interior views that I will post later and also several events like the ground-breaking for this church and several from the Easter Sunrise Service that First Baptist used to hold over at Bayview Park on Bayou Texar. Thanks for looking and please check back … Frank
Florida Fixture and Cabinet …
It looks as if business was slow on the cabinet side of the business, the guys would just hammer out a boat or two. Now that is what I call real ingenuity!! The business or the building does not look familiar to me, but I a sure that someone out there will recognize the name or the business or might have even purchased a boat from them. Thanks for looking … Frank
Frank Hardy Made My Photographs Two 
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