GOLD COAST ARTS CENTER, 113 MIDDLE NECK ROAD, GREAT NECK , LONG ISLAND. 516-829-2570
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Postcard story from New York – GREETINGS TO WOOLWORTH’S FROM THE 1939 NEW YORK WORLD’S FAIR
Postcard story from New York – GREETINGS TO WOOLWORTH’S FROM THE 1939 NEW YORK WORLD’S FAIR
August 10, 1pm, 1939
To: F. W. Woolworth Co
Bellefontaine
Ohio
Hell-o Everybody! Surely having a nice time. Waited 1 hr 40 min. to get General Motors Building. I am sitting here where I can see millions of peple waiting to see Billy Rose Aquacade. We are going to tour N.Y. City to-morrow. Will see you soon. How is the kitten?
Katherine
Description: Demonstrating a new form in theater construction, the Hall of Music uses the flowing lines of functional construction throughout. Two and a half thousand spectators daily fill it’s auditorium to hear and see many of the great musical presentations of our times. Architects – Reinhard and Hofmeister.
– Bellefontaine, (Logan County) Ohio in 1939 had a population of 9,800 people. Today it has approx. 13,200.
– The 1939 NY World’s Fair opened on April 30, 1939, a very hot Sunday. The April 30 date coincided with the 150th anniversary of George Washington’s inauguration as President in New York City. President Theodore Roosevelt and Albert Einstein gave opening speeches.
– Television was seen my most people for the very first time in a transparent set to show it wasn’t trickery and really technology.
– The General Motors building Katherine waited so long in line for was actually called ‘Futurama’ and showed life in the future 1960 with vast automated highways and expressways all done in a futuristic art deco-like style.
– At the World’s Fair Music Hall a visitor could be entertained by Bill “Bo Jangles” Robinson and a cast of more than 200 other performers in Michael Todd’s “Hot Mikado.”
– The famed Aquacade show was produced by Broadway celebrity Billy Rose (once married to Fanny Brice) “a brilliant ‘girl’ show of spectacular size and content.” The amphitheater seated 10,000 people and looked out over the water towards a stage 200 feet deep and 311 feet wide. Eight thousand gallons of water a minute poured into the making of a man-made Niagara which stretched 260 feet and rose forty feet in height. The art deco 11,000 seat amphitheatre was at the north end of Meadow Lake. The pool and the 300 by 200-foot (61 m) stage could be hidden behind a lighted 40-foot (12 m) high curtain of water.
– The inaugural Aquacade that Katherine saw starred Olympians Eleanor Holm, Johnny Weissmuller (later replaced by Buster Crabbe) and newcomer Esther Williams. The show contained 500 dancers, actors and swimmers. Gertrude Ederle, a Flushing Queens resident and the first woman to swim the English Channel was an Aquacade star. Queens Borough President Donald R. Manes dedicated the pool to her in 1978.
– The New York State Marine Amphitheatre was sadly torn down in 1996 because of local opposition to renovating the asbestos-contaminated structure as a concert venue.
– The Woolworth Bellefontaine, Ohio location is today a Footlocker.
– And . . . how was the kitten doing that the workers at the local Woolworth‘s had taken in??
Here is a rare silent video of the 1939 show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na3z6K1j83w
Photo of the day: ZEN TAG
Photo of the day: ZEN TAG – Seen in the side streets of the west 50’s in Manhattan, was this service entrance gate to a grocery store. Being so cold outside I was walking at a brisk pace but my eye still caught the Zen Buddha up ahead. But as I passed I noticed something clever. One of the grocery clerks had gotten creative with his pricing gun and created a ‘price sticker Buddha’ and place of Zen in an otherwise dreary garbage filled side alley. Namaste.
Photo of the day: NO SMOKE MARIJUANA HERE
Photo of the day: NO SMOKE MARIJUANA HERE – Since this sign went up in the staircase of mom’s apartment building, she’s just going to have to find another place to light up . . .
Photo of the day: HANS VON RITTERN in PHO-TO-GRAFFS EXHIBIT !
‘PHO-TO-GRAFFS’ OPENING NIGHT RECEPTION MARCH 16, 3-6pm
Photo of the day: HANS’ EXHIBIT ANNOUNCEMENT at GOLD COAST ARTS CENTER!
– March 16, Sunday, 3-6pm. I will be one of the photographers on exhibit for the “Pho-to-graffs” show – celebrating images of Hip Hop, Graffiti and Urban Culture. I am most honored and very excited to be asked to be a part of this show! Please come and join me to celebrate my fellow artists, friends and me for this colorful explosion! I hope to see you there 🙂
The Gold Coast Arts Center is in Great Neck Long Island, just a 15 minute $22. round trip away from Manhattan by LIRR. Heck, it takes you longer to get to Brooklyn! COME JOIN US!
The exhibit runs from March 16 to April 27, 2014. All photos available for sale.
Directions
The Great Neck Arts Center is located in Great Neck at 113 Middle Neck Road. Our entrance is through the rear of the building in the northwest corner of the outdoor Maple Drive parking lot (see map). Please note – you cannot enter the Arts Center from Middle Neck Road – you must use the Maple Drive parking lot entrance.
If heading east on Long Island Expressway, take exit 33 and turn north on Lakeville Road. Crossing Northern Blvd. Lakeville Road becomes South Middle Neck Road, then Middle Neck Road. Continue into town, turn right at the 8th traffic light onto Maple Drive. Make your first left into the outdoor Maple Drive parking lot. Entrance to GNAC is in the northwest corner of the lot.
Parking
Pay parking is available in the Village of Great Neck Plaza parking outdoor lot on Maple Drive and in a covered garage across the street. Additional parking is available on the street (hourly and metered). http://www.greatneckplaza.net
Public Transit
The Great Neck Arts Center is served by Nassau County bus line N24 and is accessible from midtown Manhattan via the Long Island Railroad Port Washington Line. http://www.mta.nyc.ny.us/lirr/
Photo of the day: NEVER TRY TO OUTDO RONALD McDONALD !
Photo of the day: NEVER TRY TO OUTDO RONALD McDONALD ! – Whilst partaking in the Chinese New Year parade this year in New York I came across this clown wearing red shoes just like mine – his were bigger.
Photo of the day: THE COLD IS SO HARD ON THE KNEES
1am, Macy’s and 34th Street
Photo of the day: THE COLD IS SO HARD ON THE KNEES – It was 11°F (-11.67°C) last night in New York City, with wind chills 10-15° degrees colder. To most of us that didn’t matter in our warm beds. Last year the number of homeless people sleeping each night in the New York City shelter system surpassed 50,000+ people for the first time since modern homelessness emerged three decades ago. That grim milestone includes more than 21,000 homeless children. More children and adults are homeless now in New York City than at any time since the Great Depression.
Thanks to despicable billionaire mayor Bloomberg New York City’s record homeless shelter population continues to grow at an alarming rate – up 19% percent in the past year alone. And this does not even include the thousands of New Yorkers still displaced by Hurricane Sandy, many of whom comprise extremely low-income households.
In total the homeless shelter population under billionaire mayor Bloomberg rose by a staggering 61% percent and the number of homeless families has increased 73% percent. During Mayor Bloomberg’s tenure, New York City homelessness has increased both in absolute numbers and at a higher rate than under previous mayors Koch, Dinkins, or Giuliani. One can only hope our new Mayor DeBlassio and our new administration can rectify these horrific numbers.
Please donate to your local charities.
Postcard story of the Week – MYSTERY STAIRWAY STALKER HAUNTS WRITER
Postcard story of the Week – MYSTERY STAIRWAY STALKER HAUNTS WRITER
Description: Looking up Broadway from the Times Building, New York.
September 01, 6:30pm, 1937
To: Mr. G. O. Moon
State Office Building, G20,
Columbus, Ohio
Yesterday upon the stair I saw a man who wasn’t there.
I saw him again there today. I wish he’d go away.
WHD
–Is the writer being stalked in the dimly lit stairwells of the 1930’s and reaching out for help or . . . Is it actually a little known poem turned into a Glenn Miller swing song. We will never know, but hopefully it was the latter.
– The words come from “Antigonish”, an 1899 poem by American educator and poet Hughes Mearns. It is also known as “The Little Man Who Wasn’t There“, and was a hit song under that title.
Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there.
He wasn’t there again today,
I wish, I wish he’d go away…
When I came home last night at three,
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall,
I couldn’t see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door…
Last night I saw upon the stair,
A little man who wasn’t there,
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away…
– But it wasn’t until July 12, 1939 that a recording of the song by the Glenn Miller Orchestra with vocals by Tex Beneke became an 11-week hit on Your Hit Parade reaching #7.
– So, is ‘WHD’ part of the Glenn Miller band trying out lyrics in as early as 1937? Or is ‘WHD’ just a very learned poetry aficionado?
– Mr. G.O. Moon’s State Office Building in Columbus, Ohio was demolished in 1970 for the sake of better views of a taller office tower.
– ‘WHD’ ironically went on to be the call letters of America’s first ‘top 40’ radio station in Kansas City, Missouri. An innovative and well-financed entrepreneur, Todd Storz, came from Omaha to purchase ‘WHD’ and came up with the pioneering concept of playing only ‘top 40’ music hits, therefore changing American radio forever to this day.
– The song itself was used in many movies (especially spooky ones) and has been recorded by many other artists (even heavy metal bands) up to this day as well.
– The postcard itself is a 1930 view of Broadway. Your clues: two signs advertising two hit movies of the year 1930. “A Woman Surrenders” starring Basil Rathbone and Conrad Nagel. And the hugely successful Howard Hughes film “Hell’s Angels” starring blonde bombshell Jean Harlow. It was one of the first ‘talkie’ films.
So, postcard hunting turns out to be a pretty fun mystery, insightful and learning experience!
Hear the Glenn Miller song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0woVmAdWbw0
Photo of the day: HANS’ EXHIBIT ANNOUNCEMENT at GOLD COAST ARTS CENTER! – March 16, Sunday, 3-6pm !
Photo of the day: HANS’ EXHIBIT ANNOUNCEMENT at GOLD COAST ARTS CENTER! – March 16, Sunday, 3-6pm. I will be one of the photographers on exhibit for the “Pho-to-graffs” show – celebrating images of Hip Hop, Graffiti and Urban Culture. I am most honored and very excited to be asked to be a part of this show! Please come and join me to celebrate my fellow artists, friends and me for this colorful explosion! I hope to see you there 🙂
The Gold Coast Arts Center is in Great Neck Long Island, just a 15 minute $22. round trip away from Manhattan by LIRR. Heck, it takes you longer to get to Brooklyn! COME JOIN US!
The exhibit runs from March 16 to April 27, 2014.
Directions
The Great Neck Arts Center is located in Great Neck at 113 Middle Neck Road. Our entrance is through the rear of the building in the northwest corner of the outdoor Maple Drive parking lot (see map). Please note – you cannot enter the Arts Center from Middle Neck Road – you must use the Maple Drive parking lot entrance.
If heading east on Long Island Expressway, take exit 33 and turn north on Lakeville Road. Crossing Northern Blvd. Lakeville Road becomes South Middle Neck Road, then Middle Neck Road. Continue into town, turn right at the 8th traffic light onto Maple Drive. Make your first left into the outdoor Maple Drive parking lot. Entrance to GNAC is in the northwest corner of the lot.
Parking
Pay parking is available in the Village of Great Neck Plaza parking outdoor lot on Maple Drive and in a covered garage across the street. Additional parking is available on the street (hourly and metered). http://www.greatneckplaza.net
Public Transit
The Great Neck Arts Center is served by Nassau County bus line N24 and is accessible from midtown Manhattan via the Long Island Railroad Port Washington Line. http://www.mta.nyc.ny.us/lirr
COME SEE MY PHOTOS ON DISPLAY! ALL AVAILABLE FOR SALE.
Photo of the day: BEATLES INFLUENCED 1973 POETRY “SUNRISES”
Photo of the day: SUNRISES – Part of Mondays on Memory Lane, a few weeks ago I found my junior high school poetry project from 1973 (see Jan. 20, 2014 post for the story) called “Reflections on My World“. There are twelve poems, here is the fourth “Sunrises” heavily influenced by listening to the awesome Beatles 1969 song “Because” on my ’Abbey Road’ album over and over again with my giant headphones on in my room.
SUNRISES
Isn’t the earth beautiful?
Just sitting here alone
getting high.
That beautiful sunrise,
isn’t it beautiful?
The sunrise, reaching,
so far and wide,
Into so many lands –
Waking all the lands of God.
Isn’t is beautiful?
I wish it could last
forever.
Just sitting here,
getting high.
“Because”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrixmRyTyao
NEW YORK CITY - IN THE WIT OF AN EYE 