PM, June 20, 1940 (photos by David B. Eisendrath, Jr)

PM, June 19, 1940

“This policeman is examining the crushed-eggshell wreck of an automobile which crashed into an abutment at Henry Hudson Parkway and 72nd St., seriously injured two persons this morning. PM hears that there has been persistent agitation to correct this dangerous curve, responsible for many accidents; will try to find out if anything is being done to eliminate the hazard. Conrad H. Lowell, 44 and Alexandria Lowell, 44, 360 East 55th St., are in Roosevelt hospital as a result of this latest smash – C.M.”

Perhaps the first Weegee photo in PM (excluding the preview issues)…

This photo is republished in PM on July 21, 1940:
“I also hated automobile accidents, but about those I did something. There was a real death trap on the West Side Highway at Seventy-second Street. Cars would hit the abutments, and some would come crashing down into the streets below. I made a series of pictures of the accidents there, and the newspaper PM ran a whole page and started a campaign. Finaly, the city put red lights on the unmarked abutments, and the accidents stopped. This work I consider my memorial.” Weegee by Weegee, pp. 68-69

PM, June 19, 1940 (Photos by Peter Killian)

Your Rush for Vol. 1 No.1 Delighted PM
… We’re Sorry If You Couldn’t Get One

We went to press on time. The presses didn’t break down. We printed nearly 200,000 more papers than we had planned to for any day in the first few months of production. And still we failed to supply either newsdealers or subscribers all the copies they asked for.

In Times Square they had to call out the cops, but they arrived too late. An insistent crush of newsdealers ganged past a PM route man, divvied up his papers and ran before the cops could get there. At William and Wall, a route man gave 25 copies to a wrinkled old woman vendor. In three minutes she had disposed of every one, at prices that jumped from the original nickel to a half dollar for the last one. It made her cry a little “I never made so much money so fast,” she wept. Fifteen minutes after the first bundles were dropped elsewhere in the financial district, the newsstands had to stick up signs: “PM Sold Out.”

The most injured newsie in town was the fellow at Flatbush and Sixth avenues, about a block from the PM plant. At 2:30 he was still re-routing customers down the street to try their luck at PM’s own office.

We extend our apologies for not having made a better provision for this enormously encouraging interest in us. We are particularly unhappy for having missed delivery to some of those good people who encouraged us by subscribing in advance of publication, sight unseen.

If you are one of those, please write to us. We have saved copies for you.

PM, June 18, 1940

75 Years Ago Today… a great newspaper – “We sell no advertising” – started publishing…

“THIS IS PM…

(From the original Prospectus of PM)

We are against people who push other people around, whether they flourish in this country or abroad.
We are against fraud and deceit and greed, and cruelty and we will seek to expose their practitioners.
We are for people who are kindly and courageous and honest.
We respect intelligence, sound accomplishment, open-mindedness, religious tolerance.
We do not believe all mankind’s problems are now being solved successfully by any existing social order, certainly not our own, and we propose to crusade for those who seek constructively to improve the way people live together.
We are Americans and we prefer democracy to any other principle of government.”