The Here, There, and Everywhere Collection-Traveling by Train

Navigate back a few posts and you'll find stuff on the Harvey House restaurant and hotel chain.  The building in the background looks like it could be a rail station in the style that the Harveys favored.  Then again, rather than two women leaning against a rail station platform, they could be two women leaning against a beachfront boardwalk.  In any case they're far from the boring house as seen in the last two posts.

Click on The Here There and Everywhere Collection to see more from the collection.

Union Station

I went back and forth on this one.  With very few exceptions, this blog is limited to photographs or images made from photographs.  Anything in  my collection that starts life as a drawing goes to my Fair Use blog.  The thing is, I'm not sure on this one.  In the end, after scanning, I blew it up as large as I could, and the tree leaves looked too detailed for a painting, so I decided to go with the whole hand coloring of a black & white photo explanation. 

So, Union Station, Los Angeles, the largest railroad station in the western United States.  Multiple Amtrak lines, a subway line, trolley, lots of buses, and regional rail lines start, end, or pass through Union Station.  I transferred from the Red Line Subway, to the Gold Line Light Rail just yesterday, and it's still in pretty good shape. 

In 1926 the voters of Los Angeles County passed a referendum consolidating all of the commercial rail lines into one common station.  I don't know why it took so long, but Union Station wasn't completed until 1939.  L.A. is building a lot of off road mass transit right now, and California is building a high speed rail line between L.A. and San Francisco, all of which face major delays as one law suit after another, almost all of which aim to stop any form of transportation other than cars, wend their way through the courts.  As noted, I have no idea why it took so long, but I'd be willing to bet that Californians were as litigious back then a they are now.

The caption on the back, "The Union Station, covering 40 acres and costing 11 million dollars, is a beautiful example of the Spanish architecture of southern California and makes an appropriate entrance into the Southland for visitors, delighting them with its modern facilities and lovely garden setting." 

Union Station was designed by father and son architects John and Donald Parkinson.

Tulsa Train

Stamped on the back "JUN 30 '40" and " A XENIX PRINT BY ROCHESTER PHOTO SUPPLY CO. TULSA."  

In April of 1990, Knox Photography of Tulsa Oklahoma closed it's doors.  In 1930, Howard Knox's father started Rochester Photo Supply, a big gamble during the great depression, especially in Oklahoma a state that was also hit hard by ongoing droughts,  the dust bow, and the collapse of the area's agricultural base.  Howard's father sold the business in 1965.  Two years latter  Howard opened a camera business of his own, Knox Photography.  Howard sold that camera store in 1984 to George Karvis.

In my lifetime, I've seen a lot of camera stores come and go.  I hate to see them die off.

I didn't see any Shriners!

This story might not make sense to those who don't know southern California.  I like bicycles.  I like them a lot.  Yesterday I went out for a very long ride.  The Atwater Village neighborhood of L.A. to Fontana in San Bernardino County.  Depending on the route, a 115 to 120 mile round trip.  Now, for the non cyclists out there, that seems like a huge trip, but it's not.  I'm 59 and haven't had a 30, 31, 32, or a 33 inch waist for a very long time.  In short, I'm not even close to being some sort of iron man athlete.  We live in a world were people drive distances more than four or five blocks away, so we've all come to believe that any sort of trip beyond that distance, that doesn't include a car,  is some sort of heroic trek.  It's not.  In the nineteenth century, before Henry Ford and the Model T came along, people, especially rural people, often walked twenty or thirty miles a day.

Anyway, back to the story.  I made it to Fontana without any problem, but on the return trip, my bike chain snapped.  I zeroed out the bike computer, and started pushing.  Nine miles latter, I was at the Montclair Transit Center waiting for a train.  Now, I've got lots of photographs in the collection.  I've never counted them, but there are thousands of photos sitting in my files.  As I was waiting for the next train back to downtown Los Angeles, I thought, "Where are the Shriners?"  How strange the human mind that this one, very insignificant photo, should have come to mind.  Truthfully, I'm not sure it would ever have been posted here if my bike chain hadn't snapped.

Train Station

At first glance, it's just another institutional type building, and printed from a damaged negative to boot.  Then, the rail line can be seen in the left background.  But it's the parked cars, horse and wagon, luggage carts, and  bicycle that makes this a fun picture.

Tapolcza

Tapolcza is a small town in Hungary.  As of the last census, it had 17,598 residents.  I was able to translate Palyaudvar as railway station, but the hand writing on the back is just too small and indistinct to be translated by someone who doesn't actually speak Hungarian.  I also need help with the postmark.  I think it's from August 10, 1916, but again, the design isn't something I'm familiar with.  It could also be from 1910.

If it is from 1916, this postcard would have been mailed right in the middle of World War 1.  Budapest would not have been the capitol of Hungary, it would have been a city in Austria-Hungary, a country that wouldn't survive the war.