Archive

1940

74 Years Ago Today… “Artists Mourn a Fascinating Model: Manhattan Els”

September 29, 2014
1940, PM

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PM, September 29, 1940, pp50-51
“Artists Mourn a Fascinating Model: Manhattan Els”
by Elizabeth Sacartoff
“Early in October, they expect to start junking the 72-year-old Ninth Ave. El. Later in the month, the Board of Transportation hopes to get rid of the 60-year-old Second Ave. El between 59th and 129th Sts. With the Sixth Ave. El already gone and the fate of the Third Ave. line practically sealed, Manhattan’s homeliest landmarks soon will have vanished…”

(Els didn’t figure prominently in Weegee’s photos. Perhaps there are only a few Weegee photos with or about elevated subways: Joy of Living, cake box murder (perhaps), street car crash on the Bowery, and the shadow of the El (in Naked City), also on the Bowery, all under an El…)

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PM, September 29, 1940, pp.52-53
“Eisenstein Film, Lost 8 Years Comes to N.Y.”
“Time in the Sun…” [Or, ¡Qué viva México!]

“These Are the Wonders of the Fair” – 74 years ago today…

August 28, 2014
1940, PM

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PM, August 28, 1940
Photos by Margaret Bourke-White

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“Free Phone Calls: 10,657,406 Have Eavesdropped”
“In the glass booths at left and right are two of the 48,000 persons who have made free long-distance calls from the Bell Telephone exhibit. Lights on the wall map trace call: New York to Los Angeles. And 250 persons down front are listening in on every word. Visitors draw for lucky numbers. Winners may talk three minutes to any place in the U.S.A. Twenty of each days call’s 160 calls, on the average, go to California.”

HISTORY OF PM (part 2)

January 29, 2014
1940, PM

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“Early in the Spring of 1940, the first raw recruits for Task Force PM gathered in a loft in Brooklyn, a few blocks away from the Long Island R.R.’s Flatbush Avenue station, and began their training for the invasion of New York with a new kind of newspaper. By the first week in June they had translated the prospectus on which the money to pay them had been raised into copy for the first prepublication issues-and these had been printed a mile and a half away on presses that had been leased from the BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE.”

The new PICTURE MAGAZINE Daily 2

January 26, 2014
1940, PM, PM Daily, PM newspaper

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_ 2 _

“to a quarter of their plans, that’s my paper.” We are anxious for you to see it — no need to tell you — and that’s one reason we’re writing in advance, and disclosing the full story to you.

Our press capacity at the beginning may not exceed 200,000. That’s cautious, and we have to be cautious. In the beginning, sure as shooting, it won’t be easy to get PM. Curiosity alone can readily sweep every edition off the stands, minutes after delivery.

We are particularly anxious, however, that a sizable group of picked readers outside of New York are not left out in the cold. You are one of them, and that is why we are sending you the enclosed Charter Subscription card.

WE ARE ARRANGING FOR A FAST PLANE AND TRAIN DISTRIBUTION system that will get PM to you first thing in the morning. Thus it will bring you the latest national and international news ON THE SAME DAY, or even before, your own morning newspaper — and always AT LEAST SIX DAYS FRESHER than a weekly could possibly get it to you.

The enclosed airmail Charter Subscription card will ensure you getting Vol. I, No. I if we receive it in time. In addition, we are arranging to print a limited number of copies of a special PREVIEW EDITION OF PM — to be called Vol. I, No. O — and these will be sent ONLY to Charter Subscribers — those who send in the enclosed reservation cards. THESE PREVIEW PM’S WILL NOT BE SOLD TO THE PUBLIC. They are certain to be very valuable “firsts” — even more so than Vol. I, No. I.

A last word — very important. It is necessary that you mail the air-mail card immediately. You can understand that the bulk of our first editions have to go on the newsstands, for the public, catch-as-catch-can. We just won’t have any time to write any more letters to those whom we regard as our first friends.

We hope you will include yourself among them.

Sincerely yours,
Robert L. Bliss

Assistant to the Publisher

P.S. Please don’t send any check or money with the card. You will be billed for PM later, after you have begun to receive it. Simply specify the length of time you want us to send it to you. An extra Charter Subscription card is enclosed in case you want to pass it along to a friend.”