
Photo of the day: KODACHROME – When was the last time you saw this awning over a photo store? !
The reason I love to take my guests on my five hour tour of Brooklyn is because you come to wonderful neighborhoods like Park Slope where you don’t see one god damned chain store for as far as the eye can see! You can still see mom and pop shops like 40 year old PHOTOFACTION on 7th Avenue/corner Carroll Avenue, making you think of Paul Simon’s immortal 1974 lyrics “…don’t take my Kodachrome away.”
“Kodachrome
You give us those nice bright colors
You give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day, oh yeah!
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So Mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away!”
(Photos, by the way, are those paper print outs of your pictures on your iPhone. Film is not the grease on your eye glasses it’s a strip or sheet of transparent plastic film base coated on one side with a gelatin emulsion containing microscopically small light-sensitive silver halide crystals. The sizes and other characteristics of the crystals determine the sensitivity, contrast and resolution of the film.)
PHOTOFACTION: 117 7th Ave. Brooklyn, N.Y. 11215 (Between President Street. & Carrol Street.)
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September 19, 2013 | Categories: DAILY PHOTOS WITH STORIES OF NEW YORK CITY | Tags: 1974, 7th Avenue/corner Carroll Avenue, Americana, architecture, Brooklyn, Brooklyn tour, film, film store, Hans Von Rittern, Harlem Spirituals, Kodachrome, Kodachrome lyrics, Kodak advertising, Kodak awning, KODAK Film, Kodak store, Manhattan, mom and pop shops, New York City, New York photo, New York tours, no chain stores in Brooklyn, Park Slope, Paul Simon, Photo of the day, PHOTOFACTION, photography, photos, President Street, private tour guide, There Goes Rhymin' Simon lp, vintage Kodak | 1 Comment

Photo of the day: WHERE DO YOUR OLD SCHOOL BUSES GO? – Part of my ‘Tijuana Tuesday’ series. Ever wonder what happens to that clunky old yellow school bus that mom walked you to every morning? That old faithful bright yellow box of a bus that you and your buddies (and enemies) took to school five days a week? The classic part of our Americana landscape? The answer is = MEXICO!
On my recent trip to Tijuana, Mexico I was fascinated by their idea of ‘mass transit’. My coming from one of the biggest metropolises on the planet, New York City, I am used to big modern, (now some electric), sleek air conditioned kneeling buses with big scenic windows. Well not in Tijuana. Meet your old school bus! The old General Motors buses are over hauled, painted bright green and viola – ‘mass transito’
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The destinations are hand painted onto the interior windows. It is one flat fee the equivalent of approximately $0.75¢. There are frequent official benched bus stops, but the buses pick up passengers wherever someone signals them, and, let you off wherever you wish. They are always full. No one seems to converse much on them, they are always quiet, people just sit politely staring out the windows. Their idea of air conditioning is simple – open windows! And if it is really hot . . . the driver drives with the door wide open!! (Better not stand too close to the front!) Some are decorated with paper cut-outs inside, some hang discarded furniture/lamp fringe in the windows. The most charming of all, at night some of them have red Christmas lights inside of them.


It certainly isn’t what we in our big USA cities are used to, but they are content, busy scurrying back and forth from the market and home on your old yellow/their new green buses. Old school buses never die, they just retire in Mexico!
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September 17, 2013 | Categories: DAILY PHOTOS WITH STORIES OF NEW YORK CITY | Tags: "Tijuana Tuesday", American yellow school buses, Americana, daily life in Tijuana Mexico, General Motors, General Motors school buses, Green school buses, Hans Von Rittern, local atmosphere Tijuana, MTA, New York photo, old school buses, Photo of the day, school buses, Tijuana Mexico, Tijuana Mexico mass transit, tourism in Tijuana Mexico, travel, yellow school bus | 2 Comments

Photo of the day: I HAVE A DREAM – 50 years and still dreaming . . .
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August 24, 2013 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: "I have a dream", African American celebrities, African American figure buttons, Americana, Black entertainers, black political figures, Black politicians, Dr. Martin Luther King, Hans Von Rittern, Harlem, March on Washington, New York City, New York photo, Photo of the day | Leave a comment