May 26, 1910– Caption from this Sun-Recorder photo: “Across from the Cathedral of St. Vitus on Lorimar Avenue, Col. Harrison Barstow demonstrates one of the new mechanical call boxes installed for his new police force, to begin operations Monday.” Colonel Harrison Barstow…
Tag: snapshots
Snapshots: Last Days of the Riverfront Transit Center, 1933
April, 1933 – This photo was taken one week before construction was “temporarily” halted on the City Transportation Company’s (Now the City-Suburban Transit Authority) planned transit center on the Ostahanoc Riverfront. To be built in stages, the center would have…
Snapshots: Acting Mayor Larchmont Votes, 1914
November 6, 1914– Former City Council President and acting Mayor Walter Larchmont warily casts his ballot in the emergency election called after Mayor Jonathan T. Sanders succumbed to influenza in October. Former Deputy Mayor Sanders himself had taken over after…
Snapshots: Jack Johnson in Training Camp, 1911
June 1911- Legendary boxer Jack Johnson trains briefly at a facility set up in a corner of a former Methodist retreat camp, about ten miles east of the city. 96 years later, musician and former surfer Jack Johnson would play…
Snapshots: Before the Great Downtown Fire, July 4th, 1911
July 4 ,1911– Mayor Jonah Woolsey (second from left) addresses a large crowd gathered at Main Avenue and Baylor (now Third) Street, during three hours of speeches in celebration of the holiday. Later that evening, stray sparks from fireworks at…
Snapshots: Traffic Fatalities, 1946
April, 1946- In a public education effort to cut down upon traffic fatalities, a sign on the east lawn of Old City Hall marked the number of days between such events. From its installation in 1940 to its removal in…
Snapshots: Wondrous Helio-Copter Float, 1940
May 1940– Winning float in the 1940 Memorial Day parade, Manufacturer’s Division. The Samson Aeronautical Manufacturing Company’s entry, featuring a scale model of a “Personal Helio-copter.” Local aerospace magnate Lemuel Samson (he of the tiny homes of Samson Heights) would…
Snapshots: The (Proposed) Exact Center of the City, 1912
June 1912– A crew of county and city surveyors poses in at lot at 870 S. Harner Street, which would have been the exact geographical center of the city after the proposed Annexation of 1913. After a bitter battle (both…
Snapshots: Demonstrating the Safety of Vaccine, 1956
Caption on the reverse of the photo: “March 13– Dr. Archibald Vinson, head of the City Health Department, administers a dosage of polio vaccine to his granddaughter, Becky Simmons, in her classroom at Calvin Coolidge Elementary School, as a demonstration…
Snapshots: The Great Flood of 1914
Intersection of Ludlow and Barnham Streets, in the city’s Northside section, during the Great Flood of 1914. The late-January flood was a result of an unseasonable warm spell dumping the melted remains of the Great Blizzard of 1914 (which itself…