Sepia Saturday #149 Woman Removed From Her Property

Here's our photo prompt for this week's Sepia Saturday. You might wonder what's happening here because it's kind of a strange photograph. I think what's happening is this woman is being told she has to move from her little hovel to make room for a spa along this pretty river.

When I saw this photo it reminded me of another time when rich men wanted to take over property for their own benefit while at the same time removing people who were in their way. I'm thinking of the neighborhood in Los Angeles called Chavez Ravine. In the 1950s this property which was considered a slum was going to be converted to a wonderful housing project.

The people of Chavez Ravine were all evicted. They didn't want to move. These were their homes, their neighbors, their life. Some people moved when they were promised first dibs on the new, fancy housing. Others refused to move and were finally forcefully removed from their homes.

Aurora Archega being removed from her home of 36 years.

The proposed housing project was called Elysian Park Heights and was designed by the world famous architect, Richard Neutra. This is his plan for the new development:

 

and a closeup view of some of the housing:

But did this wonderful housing development ever get built. NO. Of course not. Once the politicians got involved, everything changed. The development was considered socialistic (this was the 50s afterall!). Instead the property stood vacant until Walter O'Malley (the owner of the Dodgers baseball team) spotted this nice empty piece of property right in the heart of Los Angeles. He wanted it and he got it. The previous tenants of the property got next to nothing. 

And this is what O'Malley and the people of Los Angeles got - Dodger Stadium:

They promised to at least build a park on the property, but that never happened.

 

See other stories about evictions, spas, rivers here: Sepia Saturday. 

Sepia Saturday 149 One More Photobomb

I just had to share this wonderful example of a photobomb (from our theme from last week). You might have already seen it because it's been all over the news, but just in case, here it is.

President Obama was visiting with some school children during one of his many campaign stops this past week and this photo was taken of the event:

He didn't realize that he was being upstaged by the little boy in the back row:

Now that's what I call the perfect photobomb.

For stories that follow this week's theme (which I did in a second post) click here Sepia Saturday.

Sepia Saturday #148 Photobombs

I honestly had never heard of the word photobomb until Kat brought it up in relation to this week's theme. Here's the photo we're supposed to be inspired by to do our own Sepia Saturday post:

And here's the definition of photobomb:
An otherwise normal photo that has been ruined or spoiled by someone who was not supposed to be in the photograph.

See that man peering out of the window on the right. I don't think he was supposed to be in the shot.

So I did a search of some family photos belonging to a friend. And I found three wonderful examples of photobombing.


This particular photo goes nicely with our theme photo as there's a bike in it. Actually it's a boy on a bike. You have to look really hard to see him (he's on the right side of the photo).  Does he spoil the shot? No, I don't think so.

But if you look a little harder, there's another interloper here who really does ruin the shot. It's that poor dead animal hanging around the woman's neck. Can you imagine anything sadder than that? Even his little legs conveniently act as a closure for this goulish wrap. This was before Velcro so I'm not sure how the legs stick together. Maybe they were sewn together and then she drapes it over her head (before she puts on that enormous hat, of course).

Then there's Bernice and friend at the shore in their lovely bathing outfits. There are 3 people who are trying to get into this shot and Bernice and friend haven't got a clue, they're so happily mugging for the photographer. Not only are the 2 girls in the background staring, but also that man in the boat. Will no one give them any privacy?

This was written on the back of the photo:

No mention of the peeping Toms.

This photo is one of those real mysteries. See if you can help me with this one.

She's really all dolled up with her polka dot dress, her hat at a jaunty angle, purse on the arm. She's holding a sign that says "Men Wanted". And there he. Is this the man she wanted or is he an interloper? And why is she standing knee deep in Navajo rugs? (or some kind of rugs, anyway). Why the rugs? This is an extremely odd photo. But don't you just love it?

Thanks Kat, for introducing me to photobombing.  I will never look at a photo the same way again.

For other cop shots, peeping toms and photobombs, click on Sepia Saturday.

Sepia Saturday #147 Military Uniforms

This week's Sepia Saturday is about the military. I looked through my collection of vintage photos and found some nice examples of uniforms. Unfortunately I know nothing about the men, their country of origin or anything else. None of these photos are marked in any way. But they're all interesting in their own way.

Wow, I wonder how many birds were killed to make this gentleman's hat. I like the background effect of this photo. It's painted so naively. Is it a scene of some sort? Hard to tell. But this is certainly a handsome man that seems awfully proud in his fancy uniform.

This is a much humbler uniform. It appears to be American, WWI. He also seems proud but his uniform doesn't even compare to Mr. Featherhat above. There's no decoration to his hat at all, no feathers. And no sword.

He's an all American Marine. This is a gorgeous uniform. I love the braid and the frog closures. It looks almost Chinese. Ouch - that stiff white collar. I'll bet that caused a few boils. But isn't he handsome?

I'm not sure about this trio. Those don't look like real military uniforms. In fact, they look a little shoddy. Maybe they're some kind of vigilantes. One has a gun, the other a rifle. They're up to no good, that's for sure.

This appears to be some sort of European officer. He certainly looks official. Seems like it would be difficult to button up that jacket and then drape those braids across it. But he's done it quite nicely, he probably had a valet to attend to those details.

This uniform isn't too remarkable. But the thing I like about this photograph is that it seems to include the original frame. I can picture that it sat in someone's parlour waiting for their loved one to come home. Hope he did.

That's all the military photos I have. Wish I had more information about them. But they're very interesting to look at and compare.

For other military uniforms, stories etc. click on Sepia Saturday.

Sepia Saturday #145 What A Kick

Here's my dad. He went to the University of Chicago and I think this is maybe where this photo was taken. But I don't remember him being on the team. He was on the varsity wrestling team. Maybe this was for an intramural football team. Maybe that's why the "K" is part of the insignia.

I tried to find out what the fraternities were back then, but found nothing that had a K, only sororities. I doubt if he played for a sorority team!

His uniform looks pretty official, so this must have been a serious team of some sort. And the photo was taken by an official photographer. It's marked on the back - J. Sandy of Chicago.

When searching through the University of Chicago logos, I did find this:

T-Shirt Slogans

Houses often raise money for bonding events by selling t-shirts with the University logo on the front and a self-deprecating slogan on the back. Regularly sold during prospective student weekends, the shirts make parents think twice before sending their children to the U of C. Some of the most famous slogans are “Where fun goes to die,” and “Hell does freeze over.” But, as you’ll hear over and over again, don’t take them seriously; the only thing the slogans signify is the wit of the student body.

Overheard while selling self-deprecating T-Shirts: “It’s funny because it’s true.”

My dad would have thought these slogans were funny. He had a great sense of humor. I wonder, though, if he was a great football player. He looks like he knew what he was doing.

Check out other sporting stories by clicking Sepia Saturday.

Sepia Saturday #144 Off With Their Heads!!

This weeks Sepia Saturday involves a photo with a headless man. So Alan suggested we find photos where the head has been cut off.

My mother was the grand master of cutting people's heads off in photographs. So I could have shown lots of examples of her photographic work. But then I remembered an instructional leaflet that our company had published years ago. This is what I've decided to post even though it's really embarrassing.

We've published lots of how to do it books during the years and that always involved doing cover photographs. We usually hired models for the covers. But somehow, this particular time we were in a hurry, the photographer didn't have time to wait, no models were available. I don't remember exactly why, but Barbara, Patty (an employee) and I  had to step in that day and model these lace decorated sweatshirts (yes, believe it or not this was a craze back in the 80s).

None of us wanted to model. We whined and complained about it. Our solution was to:

That's right. We did what these ladies had done:

We just merely chopped off our heads:

This actually turned out to be a big best seller. And remember our trip to China? That's why we were invited to go. We had sold so many of these collars to women who wanted to transform their sweatshirts, that we were awarded a free all-expense trip to China to find the next big craze.

You just never know where chopping off heads will lead!

For more posts along these same lines see Sepia Saturday.

Sepia Saturday #143 Location location location

This week's Sepia Saturday theme is about shops, shopping, retail, etc.  So of course, I must write about our foray into the retail business.

In the early 1960s Barbara and I had taken a trip to Mexico (which I've blogged about previously) and we loved Mexico so much that we had the cockamamy idea that if we opened a Mexican shop, we could take lots of buying trips to Mexico.

So we jumped right in and opened Ole! Mexican gift shop in Los Angeles. We were on Third Street, 2 blocks from the world famous Farmers Market. We actually thought this was a good location. We didn't notice that there was absolutely no foot traffic on that particular street. And people went to Farmers Market and left - they didn't walk two blocks to visit a Mexican Gift Shop. We weren't that stupid, though. We thought that if you had the right merchandise and got lots of word of mouth, your shop would be successful no matter where you were.  This is the rationale most people make when the rent is very cheap.

This is a photo of the front of the store (I've posted this before - but have to use it again because it goes so well with the theme). I wish this photo was in color because the shop was very cute. It was painted black and the sign was a very bright fuchsia. All of the items in the window were very bright and colorful.

Here's a look at the inside of the store:

Barbara looking so happy and showing off some of the merchandise

We made our second buying trip to Mexico to restock. We checked out the shops and markets of Tlaquepaque, a wonderful town just full of folk art.

Here's Barbara looking not so happy because she's just about to be bitten by that lion

 

 

Here I am trying to decide what to buy

 We had an official opening and Barbara designed a very cute flyer that we sent to everyone we knew (she even got an award from the Los Angeles Art Director's Club for the design of the flyer).

The shop lasted for about a year. It was never very successful. And in retrospect the reason was the location. You just can't have a shop where there's no foot traffic. Also when I look at the prices of items on this flyer, I detect our other mistake. Our stuff was way too cheap. You can't make the rent when you're selling $1.00 papier mache dolls and .50 rattles. You live and learn, don't you?

Try shopping at these other Sepia Saturday sites.