Archive

1944

69 Years Ago Today… “A Train Goes from Brooklyn…”

March 6, 2013
1944, subway

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PM Daily, March 6, 1944, p. 12
“You could cut the air of nostalgia with a knife yesterday as the BMT train rolled sadly over the Brooklyn Bridge for the last time. These were passengers for the finale… Workmen close the elevated track forever and the line becomes a thing of the past. Passengers are instructed to use surface cars and transfer at Jay St. and Myrtle Ave… … A singularly cheerful crowd for such a melancholy occasion waves bye-bye from the rear of the last car.”
Photos by Wilbert H. Blanche

69 Years Ago Today… “Dear Joe… the only time I go to Brooklyn is when I am forced to go there on business.”

March 5, 2013
1944

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PM Daily, March 5, 1944
“Underneath it Weegee is a sensitive, responsive artist, endlessly curious about the tiny details of life and death and crime and four-alarm fires; the details that make great art and good captions.”
“… My freelance photography business has taken a nose dive… the only time I go to Brooklyn is when I am forced to go there on business.” – Weegee
(Wee could be wrong, but wee think that this letter to Psychic Photographer Weegee c/o The Police Dept. was written in 1943, almost exactly a year before it was printed…)
And a great drawing by A.R.!

69 Years Ago Today… Inside Manhattan… Inside Western Union, on Roller Skates…

March 5, 2013
1944

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PM Daily, March 5, 1944
“Inside Manhattan… by Grant Reynard
In one of the big operating rooms in the Western Union building at 60 Hudson St. I found scores of girls working on roller skates. About 150 girls use skates in this building. They roll noiselessly on waxed linoleum floors through a hubbub of mechanical racket, carrying telegrams… More power to the girls who zip around with pep and smoothness. You know the one about the postman who took a walk in the afternoon for exercise? Well, many of these girls spend their evenings skating at roller rinks. It looks like fun on wheels to me.”

Labor Day… 1944

September 6, 2011
1944, Labor Day
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“Here’s the Labor Day Rush at the Holland Tunnel
Our photographer waited around at the Holland Tunnel yesterday to get the Labor Day traffic…”
Photo by John De Biase


“Bronx Motorists Strike Oil
Bogart’s Service Station at 164th St. and Jerome Ave. he Bronx, was a Labor Day rarity – it had gasoline to sell. At 10 a.m. yesterday cars were lined up there for more than a block.”
Photo by Stanley Kubrick (!)
(19 years later… from Bogart’s in the Bronx to Strangelove in Shepperton…)

"Here’s what the wind did to glamorous models in the window of Edith and Billie Bridal Salon, 271 Grand St."

August 27, 2011
1944, hurricane
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PM Daily, Sept. 15, 1944, Vol. V, No. 78, pp. 13-14 (photos by Irving Haberman, Arthur Leipzig, and Weegee)

80-Mile Winds Lash the City as Hurricane Wreaks Damage Along Atlantic Coast

The most destructive hurricane since 1938 swept into three New England States today after touching New York and battering more than 800 miles of the East Coast, causing millions of dollars worth of damage and an undetermined number of casualties, including some deaths.

Following the same path as the 1938 storm which took 682 lives, the hurricane wrecked houses, destroyed crops, crippled communications and delayed transportation in seven states before moving into Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

The center of the disturbance by-passed New York, but winds of 80 miles an hour, the highest ever recorded in the city, tore through the streets for five minutes, while occasional gusts reached 95 miles an hour. Power and telephone lines were blown down, trees smashed and uprooted and transportation in many sections was brought to a standstill.

Other areas suffered the real destruction, however…

by Guy Rhoades

PM Daily, Sept. 15, 1944, Vol. V, No. 78, pp. 13-14

Weegee photo in upper right corner: “Here’s what the wind did to glamorous models in the window of Edith and Billie Bridal Salon, 271 Grand St.” Sept. 15, 1944