Archive

Tag Archives: PM

74 Years Ago Today… “Auto Crashes marred New Year – as usual…”

January 1, 2016
1942

pm_1942_01_02_p12-13a-2
PM, January 2, 1942 (PM Photos by Weegee)

“Auto Crashes marred New Year – as usual. When this car struck El pillar at 48th St. and Third Ave. driver was injured.”
“Bus crashed into doctor’s car parked in front of his office at 232 East 79th St…”
“Three were removed to Bellevue when, at Second Ave. and 39th St., this car collided with a taxi…”
“Driver of wrecked cab, John Delany, 559 Second Ave., was removed by cops, later went to hospital.”

IMG_4678yyy
January 2, 2016 (Photos by Ceegee)

“Auto Crashes marred New Year – as usual… 2016”
“Bus crashed into car in Columbus Circle…”

Weegee Daily… January 2, 1942… “Auto Crashes Marred New Year – As Usual…”

January 1, 2016
1942, Weegee Daily

pm_1942_01_02_p13-2
PM Daily, January 2, 1942,
Auto Crashes marred New Year-as usual. When this car struck El pillar at 48th At. and Third Ave. driver was injured.
Bus crashed into doctor’s car parked in front of his office at 232 East 79th St…
Three were removed to Bellevue when, at Second Ave. and 39th St., this car collided with a taxi…
Driver of wrecked cab, John Delany, 559 Second Ave., was removed by cops, later went to hospital.
PM Photos by Weegee.


Weegee Daily, January 2, 2013
Auto Crashes Not Seen
 This car at 48th St. and Third Ave.
Cars in front of 240 East 79th St… There is no 232 East 79th St. anymore…
This car was resting comfortably at Second Ave. and 39th St…
Weegee Daily Photos by Ceegee.

“Weegee Covers Christmas in New York… In Pictures and Words”

December 26, 2015
1940, PM

1940_12_26_p15-3
PM, December 26, 1940
Weegee Covers Christmas in New York… In Pictures and Words…

By Weegee
Early Christmas Eve I received a phone call [a funny thing to receive from a person who consistently wrote that he had no phone: “In my room, I would have the mail and telegrams slipped under my door. I had no phone; I’m allergic to them…” Weegee by Weegee, 1961, pp. 64-65] from Wesley Price, one of PM’s picture editors. Price told me he wanted a good holiday picture, something with plenty of OOMPH. Lots of Christmas spirit in it. in other words a masterpiece. Jokingly I replied you just couldn’t order a picture like that, like you would a box of cigars. It had to happen. However, I asked him if he had any suggestions. He suggested that I get the picture in for the first edition. [Slightly different environment than: “The upshot was that I had a roving assignment from PM for the next four-and-a-half years. I picked my own stories. When I found a good one, I brought t in. All they had to do was mail me my weekly check for seventy-five dollars… which they did.” Weegee by Weegee, 1961, p. 86]
I left police headquarters in my car at 2:30 Christmas morning. I turned the two radios on. One the regular broadcast receiver, to get some holiday music to put me in the mood; and the other radio, a police short wave receiver to get the police signals so I would know what was going on.
The first police call I picked up was for West and Bank Sts. When I got there I found a car with a Jersey license, turned on its side, with a cop on top of it. Nobody seemed to be hurt. Soon a towing wagon arrived to take the car away. I made a shot of it and was on my way.
Then I picked up six fire alarm signals. They were alll false. I didn’t think Santa did that.
Then I stopped at the All Night Mission at No. 8 Bowery. [Not the still extant Bowery Mission.] Every night in the year about 100 hopelessly beaten and homeless men sit on benches and sleep as best they can. [see below]
Except for a Christmas tree in front, everything was the same. The same despair and hopelessness. I tiptoed in at 4 in the morning, being careful not to disturb anyone. Everyone was asleep. The place was as usual playing to “Sitting up” only. The same electric sign was lit with the illuminated big letters, JESUS SEES, the only source of light in the place. I wondered if He approved…
On the way out, along a big stove near the door, I noticed a pair of stockings, turned inside out, hung to dry.
Next I picked up a police alarm for 102nd St. and Lexington Ave. When I got there I found a man had been stabbed to death and was lying on the corner. From the St. John’s Episcopal Church, [according to the Internet, there is no St. John’s Episcopal Church at 102nd St. and Lexington Ave. There is one in the Village, 224 Waverly Place…] on the opposite corner, came the sound of organ music and the singing of the Christmas worshipers. I made a shot of the scene and started back to police headquarters.
When I arrived at my home, in back of Police Headquarters, I found a package wrapped in fancy paper outside my door. It was a present from my Chinese laundry man, Willie Chu, of 95 Elizabeth St. It contained a pound of tea and a half pound of lichee nuts. I had been looking for the Christmas spirit all night long. And had found it, on my doorstep. Lichee NUTS to you, Santa Claus…

Coincidentally The New Yorker also stopped by the All Night Mission in 1940: ABSTRACT: Talk story about census enumeration of the derelicts in the Bowery. Since none of the homeless men know in the morning whether his address will be a flophouse, an allnight mission, or a doorway, the enumerators waited until evening to cover the Bowery. In each of the hotels – the Sunshine, Uncle Sam House, the Plaza, and the rest – were two enumerators, who got the statistics on each guest before he was allowed to register & go to his bed. At the All-Night Mission, 8 Bowery, we found 80-odd men quietly starting to spend the night sitting up. A single enumerator was taking down the information an old man was giving him. He had been born in N. Y. C. 67 years ago. No wife, no, children? no. He wasn’t looking for work. He was on relief. Home? Well, the mission…

weegee-12-26-1940-map
Weegee’s Christmas day journey, on a Google Map, might look like this.

A classic New York City Christmas story… published 28 years to the day, before the end…

“Sinatra brought ecstasy…”

December 12, 2015
1944, Uncategorized

pm_1944_10_12_p12-13a-use
PM, October 12, 1944
“Explanation: Sinatra Opened at the Paramount”
“Frank Sinatra began an engagement at the Paramount Theater here yesterday. He reached the theater at 6 a.m. yesterday, but by that time, a long line – about 1,000 kids, mostly bobby sox girls – had already been waiting for hours in the chill air of morning. While they waited and Sinatra rehearsed inside the empty theater with Raymond Paige and his orchestra. Rehearsal lasted until 8 a.m. and at 8:30, the doors of the theater were thrown open to the madly rushing, crowding, shoving, elbowing followers of The Voice. They had been playing cards, eating sandwiches from paper bags, and drinking hot coffee from thermos bottles while they waited. Some of the girls refused to have their pictures taken, covered their faces with their hands. They were playing hookey from school and jobs, and planned to stay in the Paramount all day and all night to see each of Sinatra’s five appearances on stage.”

“While he rehearsed and his followers waited, weary-eyed Sinatra drank milk, learned his cues, went through his paces at the mike with out singing, relaxed as much as he could.”

“Outside, meanwhile, the lines grew longer as the Bobby Sox Brigade converged on 43d St. and Broadway. At 7 a.m., when this picture was made, the line extended halfway to Eighth Ave.”

“Although 25 City policemen were on duty to keep the kids in order, special New York guards had their hands full keeping the entrance to the Times building on 43d St. clear.”

“After the doors were thrown open at 8:30, and the kids had been seated, and the feature picture had been run (during which the kids screamed “We want Frankie”), Sinatra brought ecstasy…”

“…to his legion of patient admirers. Photos by Weegee, PM”

pm_1944_10_13-3
PM, October 13, 1944
‘Sunday, Monday and Always’
These pictures were taken yesterday inside the Paramount Theater where Frank Sinatra was in the second day of a personal appearance engagement. Enough said, we think. Photos by Weegee, PM“

“Proving the Cops Are Human” – 72 Years Ago Today…

December 1, 2015
1943

pm_1943_12_01_p16-17d-2
PM, December 1, 1943, p. 16

pm_1943_12_01_p16-17d-3

“End of a Bandit Chase
Two policemen were critically injured early yesterday when their radio car cracked into a truck at 55th St. and Eleventh Ave. They were chasing two men who were fleeing in a stolen car after holding up a tailor shop at 446 W. 57th St. One suspect was later seized by other policemen.
Photo by Weegee, PM”

pm_1943_12_01_p16-17d-4

“Proving the Cops Are Human
A look of grave concern crosses the face of this policeman as he watches an injured woman being removed from the Western Electric plant at 395 Hudson St. following explosion that killed two early yesterday.
Photo by Weegee, PM”

(Perhaps a small discovery… “The Human Cop” in PM, December 1, 1943, p. 16.)

“…these pictures of people sleeping on the fire escapes, and kids and little girls holding cats…”

July 18, 2015
1945, Naked City, PM

Perhaps today marks the 70th anniversary of the publication of Naked City. To commemorate this historic event… Starting with what might be the first “rave notice” in print:

pm_1945_07_18_18-19c_copy-2
PM, July 18, 1945

LETTERS From the Editor
Rave Notice
“There’s a new book in the stores today by Weegee, who bills himself as “the famous” – and is.
It’s a book of pictures – pictures such as you’ve never seen before, except maybe in PM. It is called Naked City, published by Essential Books, sells for $4 – and is worth it.
I’ve been through my copy now three times, and every trip there’s something new.
The book is a collection of the better pictures Weegee has taken in the years he has spent as a freelance photographer, mostly of murders and fires, but sometimes of love. Many of them have appeared as news pictures in PM, and you’ll remember some of them – certainly the ones of Joe McWilliams, the Nazi lover, with the rear end of his horse, and Mrs. George Washington Kavanaugh with the late Lady Decies and their jewels at the opera.
It is unfair to use a single illustration as typical, but I’m using the one in the next column of the Bowery floozy’s gam because I like it, and because I like Weegee’s caption: Ladies keep heir money in their stockings…
Weegee is a rumpled, heavy-set, cigar-smoking man with a camera who lives with one ear at a police radio. He rather likes to pass himself off as a character. He is, but not exactly the same one.”
-John P. Lewis
PM, July 18, 1945, p. 19

Naked City by the numbers:
Inspired by the quote: “Many of them have appeared as news pictures in PM” and being naturally curious, we decided to investigate the publication history of the photos in Naked City.
Naked City: 246 pages with 247 photos
Photos published before their publication in Naked City:
78 photos were published in PM
6 significant variant photos were published in PM
4 photos were published in The New York Daily News
3 photos were published in Life
2 photos were published in The New York Post
1 photo was published in The New York Herald Tribune

The earliest photo that we could conclusively date in a publication is “Balcony Seats at a Murder,” published in the New York Post, on Nov. 17, 1939.
The latest photo that we could conclusively date in a publication is “Opening Night at the Opera,” published in PM, on December 3, 1944.

To be continued…