Posts Tagged ‘San Carlos Hotel’
Pensacola in the 1950’s …
The first photo is one of Ginn’s Restaurant that was on the corner of 12th Avenue and Gonzalez Streets. You see the old Winn-Dixie Grocery Store to the west and the old Sacred Heart Hospital would be across 12th Avenue to the east just out of the frame of the photo. This photo is a panorama image made with a Wide-Lux camera that my father owned and was burnt up in the fire, which will be another post very shortly. Here is the image …
How about that old Cadillac parked out front on 12th Avenue? The next is just a parade shot from a Fiesta Parade back in 1955 … nothing spectacular about the image ( the Cadillac in this image is carrying the then Governor of Florida – LeRoy Collins ) and I have a better view somewhere in this blog already. But the reason that I am mentioning that here and now is that I just found movie film that my father shot of the 1953 and 1954 Fiesta Parades. Not the three inch reels , but full ten inch reels. And in Color! No sound though. I know that it can be transferred over to digital, but all of the quotes have been in the hundreds of dollars per reel and I am not that interested in spending the money right now. However, that does not mean that I won’t in the future … we will have to just wait and see. Here is the image …
Just imagine all of those horses and riders and cars moving across the screen in COLOR! For the time, this will have to do … but who knows what the future will bring? I have posted quite a few images from this vantage point ( ground level ) that my father has taken in the past. If you type ” LeRoy Collins ” in search field above on the right side, it should pop up … I have not tried it yet, but I am pretty sure it should because I know it is posted somewhere on this blog.
Thanks for taking the time and looking … I have been busy lately and I have neglected this site and my personal photography blog, but I have several ready to post and will get around to posting them shortly … Thanks for all the comments also … 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
Another of the San Carlos Hotel …
Someone gave me this photo of the old San Carlos Hotel sometime back and I just got around to cleaning it up recently. My dad did not make this photo and I rarely post other people’s photo, but what makes this photo interesting is ????? Can you guess …. I will give you another couple of minutes. No little Johnnie, this is not the best photo of the front of the San Carlos showing the Fiesta Lounge that I have, although that is a good guess. No little Suzy, not because there is no wheel-chair access ramp at St. Michael’s Catholic Church. You are correct, Cleroy ( that would be Leroy, but with a “C” … a Southern name ) this photo shows the Christmas decorations that the City of Pensacola used to put out back in the 1950’s. In fact, I can remember these same decorations being used up into the 1980’s, maybe even the 1990’s. How is that for some mileage? I am sorry Cleroy, but my budget does not allow to give you a prize, but if you go down to City Hall, I bet Mayor Hayward and the City Council would dig around and they could probably find some of these decorations for your yard. Good luck, Cleroy and thanks for looking … As usual, all comments are appreciated.
San Carlos Hotel Stairway …
This is the stairway in the San Carlos Hotel that led from the lobby to the mezzanine. I have several views of this stairway and I posted one earlier of a bride throwing her bouquet from the top, which must have been the thing to do since I have several brides throwing their bouquet from there. Thanks for looking …
A Before and After …
I thought that I would show a before and after photo, so you can see what I start out with and then what I do in Photoshop. My father made this image from a window across the street from what I call the old Masonic Lodge. It was located above what at the time was White and White Men’s Store, which later became Douglas Allen, which is now Vinyl Music Hall. In the photo below, I removed the telephone lines from above and I cropped the image to focus on the San Carlos Hotel. This photo was made around 1955 … note the covered bus stop in the lower right of the photograph.
And here is one that I cleaned up that shows more of the surrounding area … note that the two-story building in the back left of the image is the old Pensacola Catholic High School on the corner of Garden and Baylen Streets.
On the bottom view, you can see up Palafox up to the Southern Bell Tower, which is about four blocks up. When I first found this negative, I was only interested in the San Carlos Hotel. But after I got to looking at the whole image, I saw how much of downtown Pensacola is included in the image, I thought I would just re-do the image and show the whole frame. If anyone has any stories about the San Carlos or downtown Pensacola during this era, you are welcome to comment. Thanks for looking …
Throwing The Bouquet at The San Carlos Hotel …
One more wedding reception photograph at the San Carlos Hotel. This was ” THE PLACE ” to throw the bridal bouquet when the reception was held in the ballroom upstairs. I do not know how these girls caught the bouquet while they were holding their own bouquets. The little girl in the front looks as if she could care less about what is happening …
Wedding Photo at the San Carlos Hotel …
I do not know who the two young ladies are in the photo. The envelope just says ” Cole Wedding ” and I did not write the date down. The reception was at the San Carlos Hotel upstairs on the 5TH floor … I believe it was the 5TH floor, but I could be wrong. That is some rug and wall pattern. It looks like it was at some Las Vegas hotel and not one in Pensacola. At least the girls are pretty! As usual all comments are welcomed …
San Carlos Hotel …
Another one of the San Carlos Hotel from around 1955 or so. This is probably the best photo of the exterior of the hotel that I have. This is cropped tighter than what is in the original negative and I will post it later when I run across it. Pensacola was sure a active and vibrant city during this time after World War II. Soldiers were coming back and getting out of the service and staying. The housing industry was growing, looks like people were buying cars and spending money … times were good! This is also one of my favorite images from this era that I have run across and cleaned-up. I will do some research on the San Carlos Hotel down at the Pensacola Historical Society and share it with you in the future. Thanks for looking …
San Carlos Hotel in the 1940’s …
This is a photo that my father made sometime in the 1940’s … note that the front of the hotel facing Palafox Street does not have the” San Carlos” sign on the top of the building that you see in the photo from around 1955. Also notice that people are walking / crossing in the middle of the street. It is as if the center median just extended across Garden Street. The traffic at this intersection must not have been busy enough to bother these people walking in what seems all directions, although there seems to be quite a few cars on the road.
Frank Hardy Made My Photographs Two 
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