PM Daily, December 2, 1940, p. 9
SUNDAY TRAFFIC: Frank Woods, 24, of 601 W. 173d St. drove down the West Side highway and didn’t make the sharp turn at 23d St. The only commentary is the sign above the sprung door. Woods got a cut lip.
PM Photo by Weegee
Weegee Daily, December 2, 2012, p. 1
SUNDAY TRAFFIC… West Side highway at 23d St…
WD Photo by Ceegee
Street View of 23d St and the West Side Highway…
Weegee, PM Daily, November 24, 1940
2 Die in Wrecked Car
Dr. Albion O. Bernstein, 28, interne, and Miss. Helen Ayers, nurse at Beth Israel Hospital, were drowned early yesterday when his car plunged over the string piece and into the East River at Pier 60, East 21st St. Picture shows emergency squad men lifting Miss Ayers from the car. Photo by Weegee
Ceegee, Weegee Daily, November 24, 2012 – approximate location…
0 Die in Wrecked Car…Picture shows the remnants of what was perhaps, Pier 60, East 21st St. and the East River… Photo by Ceegee
Footnote, or, after a few minutes of Googling:
“The Bernstein Award
This national award, endowed by the late Morris J. Bernstein in memory of his son, a physician who died in an accident while answering a hospital call in 1940, is given to a physician or scientist who has made a significant contribution in medicine, surgery, or disease prevention during the previous calendar year.
The award consists of a check for $2000.00 and a citation. Information on the MSSNY Continuing Medical Education Program can be obtained here…”
(from the Internet… Albion O. Bernstein memorial Volume, 1943)
Ceegee, Weegee Daily, November 24, 2012 – approximate location…
PM Daily, July 22, 1940, pp. 16-17
“Yesterday at Coney Island… Temperature 89… They Came Early, Stayed Late
Cameraman Reports On Lost Kids, Parking Troubles
Saturday was very hot. So I figured Sunday ought to be a good day to make crowd shots at Coney Island. I arrived at the beach at Coney at 4 a.m., Sunday…
I came back Sunday afternoon… After making the crowd shot I went into the “Cage”…
On the way back to the city I was hailed by a female hitch hiker… She wanted to go home and change into a play suit and ride with me. But I told her I had too much work to do and not enough time to play.
When I got back to the city I took a shower and finished my pictures. While I was at Coney I had two kosher frankfurters and two beers at a Jewish delicatessen on the Boardwalk. Later on for a chaser I had five more beers, a malted milk, two root beers, three Coca Colas and two glasses of buttermilk. And five cigars, costing 19 cents.”
Weegee Daily, July 22, 2012
“Today at Coney Island… Temperature 80… They Came Early, Stayed Late(?)
Cameraman Reports on the Weather, Tea and Sweets.
Saturday was warm, although not as hot and humid as the previous record-breaking few weeks, and it was the 72nd anniversary of a famous photo… So I figured Sunday ought to be a good day to make crowd shots at Coney Island. I arrived at the beach at Coney at 12:30 p.m. Sunday…
After making the crowd shot I went into the amazing and extraordinary Coney Island Sideshows by the Seashore and wonderful and otherworldly Coney Island Museum… ” I would have stayed and played pinball and skee-ball, but “I had too much work to do and not enough time to play.”
I found the Robert Wilson Coney Island mural, but the Weegee “inspired” or “quoted” or “appropriated” part was hard to find…
On the way back to the city the Q train was running local on the R track…
When I got back to the city I took a shower and finished my pictures and made a sublime blog post. While I was at Coney I had a bottle of water. Later on for a chaser I had one cup of organic ice coffee and three cups of organic green tea. And Icelandic milk chocolate, costing $3.50.”
Coney Island
And this is Coney Island on a quiet Sunday afternoon… a crowd of over a MILLION is usual and attracts no attention (I wonder who counts them)… it costs only a nickel to get there from any part of the city, and undressing is permitted on the beach… Some come to bathe, but others come to watch the girls. A good spot being the boardwalk…
Naked City, p 176
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July 22, 2012. Coney Island as seen from pier… site of at least one famous photo…
A Weegee Daily Map can be seen here!
Popular Photography, May 1940, pp. 44-45
Freelance cameraman Arthur Fellig’s a Prize Winner! (Perhaps not surprisingly, Fellig’s the only freelancer, and May 1940 is before he was widely known as Weegee…)
“Balcony Seats at a Murder” is included in the 5th Annual Exhibition of the Press Photographers’ Association of New York and Editor and Publisher News Photo Contest…
(You won’t see this one on too many bibliographies…)
Is that the Alan Fisher? A future colleague at PM? And the William Klein? And the Joseph Conrad?
A pre-PM free-lancing Fellig was understandably proud of winning the Editor and Publisher Prize… In February 1941, the beginning of his most productive year as a photographer, the award was still on his wall…
Weegee, [self-portrait], 1941
Uncle Moses: a novel, By Sholem Asch, p.134, 1918
Weegee, PM, July 22, 1940
“The entire beach, as far as the eye could see, was inundated with wet, barefoot, half-naked people. Bodies, bodies, bodies everywhere… ‘And here we are now, all lying naked on Coney Island beach.'”
Large number of similarities between this passage from Sholem Asch’s “Uncle Moses” and Weegee’s text and photo…
According to the NY Times, from a review of a re-release of the 1932 film: “‘Uncle Moses,’ which is based on a 1918 novel by Sholem Asch (originally published in The Jewish Daily Forward in serial form), offers today’s audiences a glimpse of Maurice Schwartz…” (Maurice Schwartz! Another Weegee connection…)
The book can be read, downloaded, etc. here…
There were a number of attempts by Weegee to make the famous Coney Island photo…
Here are some of them:
PM Daily June 17, 1940, pp.16-17
(The first draft of the first draft of the first draft of history…)
Weegee’s photos of the crowd at Coney Island, taken before July 22, 1940 (perhaps in chronological order)…
The number of variants, or number of exposures, or photos that Weegee made of the same scene is something that interests us a great deal. The version of this photo that was published in PM Daily on July 22, 1940, is not the same photo that appears in the all of the Weegee books, from Naked City to Weegee’s World… A prominent photo agency has a number of variations on their web site…
An early “version” of, or attempt at, this photo was published in PM Daily on June 17, 1940, in a trial or test version of the paper, a day before PM started publishing, a day before Volume one, Number one…
WEEGEEWEEGEEWEEGEE 