The Rainbow Pier, Long Beach, California

 

It always seems like Long Beach is looking for another tourist attraction.  Right now, it's the Queen Mary and the Long Beach Aquarium, which I admit, is pretty impressive.  So, in 1931 it was the Rainbow Pier.  It was a rainbow-shaped fishing pier, 3800 feet long, with a roadway on the top that allowed cars to drive over the Pacific Ocean.  Eventually, rotting pilings and storm damage made repairs prohibitively expensive so the Rainbow Pier became the Rainbow Lagoon after a hell of a lot of rock and dirt was dumped where the pier once was.  This card was once pasted into a photo album, so most of the back is covered in black construction paper.  I can't make out any of the written message, just a few letters that were exposed when it was removed from the album.  I can make out part of the postmark, so it was mailed.  Dated, 1937. 

Owl Drugs

 

Old Los Angeles.  Well, sort of.  Actually, it's Beverly Hills and while somewhat smaller, this building is still there.  Many years ago, I worked nearby and used to walk down there on my lunch hour and buy a snack.  Anyway, I found some information to pass along, but not as much as I'd like.  I know the store opened in 1947, but I couldn't find the name of the architect.  I know the building was commissioned by Justin Dart, the CEO of Rexall Drugs, and that it wasn't just the world's largest drug store, but also the headquarters for the company.  Today, it's a CVS and Target.  The caption on the back of the card, "World Headquarters, REXALL DRUG COMPANY, Beverly and La Cienega Boulevards LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA."  It was published by "WESTERN PUBLISHING & NOVELTY CO., LOS ANGELES, CALIF."  This card was never mailed.  

A Vacation in Hamburg 2

 

A quick turnaround for part 2, but after this one., there will be a bit of a break before I post more from this collection.  The top photo looks like it's probably a private home, perhaps a German relative's house of the vacationers.  Written on the back, and the only photo with any notation, "6 JULY 1989."  I know that a large portion of Hamburg was destroyed during World War 2, which makes me wonder if the modern buildings of Hamburg were painted to give a medieval feel to a rebuilt city. Click on the Hamburg Vacation Collection in labels to see the rest of the lot.  At least once I get around to putting them all up on the site. 

A Vacation in Hamburg 1

 

I've mentioned this before.  If I were being completely honest, this blog would be called the recently purchased photography since almost all of the photos I post are bought in antique stores, thrift stores, flea markets, and online.  Every once in a while, I actually find photos, and these are some of them.  This afternoon I took a walk to Hollywood and found envelopes of color negatives and fifty-plus prints, just lying on the street.  In total, there were six envelopes, and each one contained a processed roll of Kodak Gold color film, all 36 exposures.  Not every frame had an image, but the prints I found don't add up, so I didn't get every photo from these images printed in Hamburg, Germany.  It's possible that some Germans moved to L.A., but I think it's more likely that they are vacation pictures. Too, a couple of the photos I found have a date written on the back, "July 1989."  Anyway, I'm not quite sure how I'm going to post these images, most likely five per post, but that's not a final, set-in-stone decision.  Click on the Hamburg Vacation Collection to see future posts.  And what's really weird, about a mile further down the street I found some transparencies, but since the scanner I own doesn't scan slides or negatives, they may never get posted.  It's nice to know that Germans use the same type of urinals we do in the U.S. 

Opening Day

 

And no, I don't consider the Seoul Series between the Dodgers and Padres in South Korea to be opening day.  And no, I haven't started collecting baseball cards.  Not enough space, not enough money.  I walked to the store, this afternoon, and there were some baseball cards on the street, and since I grew up fifty miles from downtown Pittsburgh, and I'm a lifetime Pirates fan, I picked this one up.  So, Pittsburgh 6, Miami 5 in 12 innings.  Henry Davis, who plays both outfield and catcher and he caught today, went 1 for 6.  Go Bucs. 

The Strand

  

This is another one of those throw-in photos I get when I buy envelopes of old photographs.  There are always a few that I'd never buy as a stand-alone purchase, but I end up with them as part of a lot.  Anyway, I noticed that there is a piece of paper on the desk he's leaning against that is headlined, "STRAND."  I thought it might be a hotel room service menu, and there are a lot of Strand Hotels out there, so it's a possibility.  Far more Strand Hotels than I expected.  Dated "NOV 67."  

The Trps Album 3

 

As a rule, I don't publish text-only posts, but this is an exception.  Over time, I'll be putting up this entire album, and since the lady who put this album together typed out these four pages of reminiscences of her trip to Mexico, well here it is.  And by the way, I didn't crop out some of her text. There are a couple of lines where she typed beyond the edge of the page. Click on The Trips Collection in labels to see everything that has been posted and will be posted in the future.  That is if my scanner doesn't die again.  

Random Japanese Snapshots 6

  

I'm still having problems with the scanner, so when it started working again, I figured I should get something posted while I still could.  So, a photo plus what's written on the back from an envelope of photos I purchased from an eBay seller in Japan.  And once again, if anyone out there can translate what's written on the back of the print, please leave it as a comment.  Click on random Japanese snapshots collection in labels to see what's already been published. 

Nagra and The Beatles

 

I don't walk by there all that often, but about an hour's stroll from my apartment, there is a store that has a rack of advertising postcards that I sometimes look at just to see if there's anything that I'd like to add to my ever-growing collection of ephemera.   Anyway, I liked the photo of the old Nagra tape recorder, so I scarfed this one up and brought it home.  Because I didn't want to do free advertising for an event, I decided to hold onto it until after it was over.   And no, I didn't go, though I would have liked to.  Who doesn't love The Beatles? 

Hermann Tietz

  

I don't often have enough to go on to research my photos, but every once in a while.   Take a look at the top of the print, and the name "HERMANN TIETZ" can be seen.  Hermann Tietz was a German-Jewish businessman.  He was born in 1837 and died in 1907.  He and his brothers, Oskar, and Leonard founded a chain of department stores in Germany.  In 1900, the largest store in the chain was opened in Berlin. In 1934, all Tietz holdings, both department stores and factories were Aryanized and a forced sale was made to rival Georg Karg, who rebranded the stores as Hertie Department Stores. 

The words (at least the second and third word) on the bus in the foreground translate as 
Stranger Tours.  Special tours for first-time visitors to Berlin, perhaps. 

500,000

 

 Sometime in the last couple of days, The New Found Photography went over 500,000 individual page views.  I have no idea if that's impressive or not, but just to mark the milestone, a repeat from my very first post. 

Random Japanese Snapshots 5

Since my scanner inexplicably stopped working and then, equally mysteriously, began working again,  I've decided to put up another post from the Random Japanese Snapshots Collection (Click on that in labels to see more.)  Anyway, there's nothing written on the back of any of these prints, but there is a stamp on the back of the middle photo with the truck.  "28. 2. 27" I'm tempted to think that's a date in the European style with the date first, then the month, and then the year.  But the truck doesn't look that old. My guess is it's from the forties or early fifties, which would make this a post-war photograph.  
 

The Trips Album 2

 

No, I haven't purchased a new scanner.  For reasons I don't understand, it just started working again.  So, before it goes down again, it's back to The Trips Album.  Anyway, go to labels and click on The Trips Collection and you can see what's on the other side of this album page.  Still in Hawaii, still wandering around.