T'was the Night Before Christmas

Photo from an original Kodachrome slide by Ross J. Care, my dad.

and Santa might have trouble getting down this chimney.

It's cardboard, one of those quaint late 1940s/1950s Christmas artifacts.

Note also the cardboard "multiplane" (3-D) nativity scene on the "mantle" and the vintage wax candles in the form of snowmen and angels.

If you look really closely you can see (behind the left hand angel) one of those bristly frosted miniature Christmas trees constructed on a metal wire stuck into a yellow wooden base.

And, of course, the stocking "hung by the chimney with care" (and by Care) and the red and green paper chains which I probably made with construction paper and that white sticky paste.

I look all snug in baby blue pajamas and bare feet, if just a tad sleepy.

Small Scholar at the Harrisburg Library, mid-1940s

Harrisburg Public Library, Front St.

I look rather studious here (which I wasn't at this point unless I was studying comics, movie books & other magazines.....).

 

Friends have wondered what the book I'm holding was & so do I.

 

I also love my "winter" ensemble & remember so well this entrance to the basement children's department on Front St. at the Harrisburg Public Library. 

 

You can see part of the entrance sign behind my head and above the door.

 

The Susquehanna river across Front was probably frozen when this was taken.

 

 

 

 

 

I plan to make this the first of a series of Once Upon A Wintertime/Holiday vintage Harrisburg photographs...........

Leaving HARRISBURG

Joe COLLEGE at the BOOK BARN - West Chester, PA. - Early 1960s

Baldwin's Book Barn,
850 Lenape Rd., Rte. 52,
West Chester, PA. USA. 19380

Baldwin's Book Barn was just that: a huge old Chester County stone barn filled to the rafters with used & vintage antique books. The Country Store Museum was an added attraction.
From a Kodachrome Transparency
 

PS: It's still there:
www.bookbarn.com/

I worked at the Book Barn while I was at West Chester University. 

You could walk to the Barn from the WC campus. In those days it was a beautiful rural walk, past old homes and through what then reminded me of the English countryside. I doubt it's still that way today.
 

It was (is?) also a beautiful drive over to Chadd's Ford - Brandywine/Andrew Wyeth country.

From A Friend in Pennsylvania:
The car in your Book Barn photo is definitely a Ford, whose body looks identical to the make that Marion Crane used in driving to the Bates Motel (and which was later sunk in the neighboring bog) in Hitchcock's PSYCHO!

 

 

 

For FATHER"s DAY, 2011

Ross J. CARE, Ross B. Care, Harrisburg, PA. Mid-late 1940s.

My father rarely had his photograph taken because he was always taking them. This was almost certainly taken by my mother, mid-late 1940s.

The location is in front of the grim gray stone, maybe granite, of the State Capitol Building in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

To the far right of this angle would have what was then the State Museum housed in a wing of the Capitol dome. Beyond the museum was Capitol Park.

Note the classic fedora in my father's left hand, and the the little red kangaroo toy in my right.

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It may be Easter because when I zoomed in on this while I was restoring it I noticed a plush rabbit between my father and I.

This is from a Kodachrome color transparency, so it did not need much work, just a bit of cleaning up.

Note: Unfortunately they did not put dates on slides then.

J. H. TROUP Music House, Market Square

Sheet Music:

Vincent Youmans/Gus Kahn
from FLYING DOWN TO RIO, RKO  (1933)

One of the first vintage sheet music classics in my collection, a beautiful example of '30s deco movie art. 

Found in a bargain bin in the sheet music department of the J. H. Troup music store on Market Square in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The price - $.60! - tells us this is a later reissue edition but the cover art is the same.

I initially had the bad habit of writing my name on some sheet music covers, as many people UNfortunately also did in those days. (See bottom right). I eventually got over this dastardly trait as the compulsive collecting bug kicked in.

FLYING DOWN TO RIO is one of the great musicals and scores of the 1930s and a landmark for the musical genre. There are only four songs (all listed) but they are all excellent. Two, this and "Carioca," became popular standards, and the title song was still being recorded (by artists like Martin Denny and Xavier Cugat) in the 1950s.

Ken Russell parodied the aerial finale with a bevy of chorus girls on the wings of in-flight biplanes in his musical, THE BOYFRIEND. (1971)

The songwriter, Bobby Troup ("Route 66") was related to the Harrisburg Troups.

There was also a Troup store in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The buildings which housed both stores are still standing (as far as I know. I'm now in California).

The Harrisburg store was also my first exposure to a great record department. There were actually TWO, a classical section on the main floor across from the sheet music counter, and a larger pop department in the basement.

Both record departments had listening booths where you could preview your perspective purchases. (There is a key unforgettable scene in a similar record store listening booth in Hitchcock's STRANGERS ON A TRAIN).  

There were also piano booths where buyers could play over sheet music.
Imagine either of those today!

I also took my first piano lessons here in the second floor piano studios. The studio where I studied was in the front of the building with windows overlooking the south end of Market Square.

MORE About The Cool SENATE Theatre & THIS ISLAND EARTH (1955)

 ELECTRIC EYE IN THE SKY

A page from the "Performing Arts Annual 1986" This from my article "Memoirs of a Movie Childhood in Harrisburg's Film Palaces" written for this series of Library of Congress books.

During the 1950s the Senate screened the films of Universal-International which included the new '50s genre, Science Fiction. From left to right in still: Rex Reason, Faith Domergue, and Jeff Morrow.

If you can enlarge this photo you can read in the caption about the impression these films made on me and young movie-goers of the era. (However, the Senate was razed shortly after this article was published).

The small photo is of the Senate's electric eye automatic door which seemed VERY Sci Fi to kids of the period.

Unfortunately, by the time I took these Senate photos the NEON was missing from marquee sign (top).

Excerpt from: PERFORMING ARTS ANNUAL 1986, Library of Congress, Washington, DC, Iris Newsom, Editor. Article Text & Captions: COPYRIGHT Ross B. Care

"And at a Deadly Pace........"

SENATE Theatre Harrisburg Newspaper Ad for IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE

IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE in 3-D! (1953)

The Senate screened the first Harrisburg runs of one of my favorites of the Studio Era, Universal International.

Including this science fiction classic which was originally screened in 3-D (and wide screen, as this newspaper ad breathlessly points out). Probably also with Stereophonic Sound, as the later video releases were in stereo).

This wonderful ad - PLEASE enlarge and read all the small print! - is from a 1953 scrapbook I found in a Pennsylvania flea market and brought all the way to California with me. It includes both newspaper and movie magazine advertisements but the real treasures are newspaper ads such as this classic.

"Thrilling! Startling! Tons of Fury!"

I always thought the Senate, with its futuristic electric eye door (see previous photo) and sleekly retro architectural look, was the ideal venue for this new '50s genre.

The Senate also screened THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON in 3-D, HOW TO MARRY MILLIONAIRE in CinemaScope, and Disney's '50s revival of FANTASIA in SuperScope. It also showed a re-issue of the legendary KING KONG which was a MAJOR event for little in-the-know fanboys of the era.

These were all, of course, the first screenings I ever saw of these films, and they (and the late, much lamented Senate) made a lasting impression.

"And this is how the story ran........"

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For more of the OUTER SPACE story see this informative Monstrous Movie Music page about the film, it's evolution, and it's wonderful musical score:

www.mmmrecordings.com/Films/FilmOuterSpace/filmouterspace...

Monstrous Movie Music offers an excellent CD recording of the this terrific score.
http://www.mmmrecordings.com/Monstrous/monstrous.html

The SENATE Theatre: Entrance Doors & Electic Eye

PHOTO: "Lost Reflections" by Ross B. CARE
All rights reserved.

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FIRST in a Series of REFLECTIONS on the LOST Movie Theaters of HARRISBURG.

The DOORS of PERCEPTION..........

A classic Golden Age Art Deco cinema, the Senate was once centrally located on Market Square in downtown Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA.

This is a detailed shot of the beautiful entrance with two sets of mirrored doors and an electric eye device which automatically opened the doors on the right. My Kodachrome color transparency is dated March 1978.

You can also see a reflection of the stand-alone ticket kiosk in the mirrors to the right. On the back of the kiosk was a display window for 8x10 black-and-white movie stills from current and coming attractions.

On the other side of these doors was a small vestibule where tickets were taken and beyond that a modest lobby and the interior of the theater.

The Senate was razed around 1988. I was told that the mayor of Harrisburg took an ax to these classically beautiful Art Deco doors.

A generic big box Hilton Hotel now stands where this unique and historic venue once screened the films of Universal, RKO, Disney, and 20th Century-Fox.

The Senate was the last of the original downtown movie theaters left standing.

So much for historic preservation in Harrisburg.......

See also, Cinema Treasures:
cinematreasures.org/theater/16592/

ON THE BEACH, Part II

This is another shot of the bathing beach on City Island.

This shows the concrete beach with concrete steps in the background. Concrete, I assume now, so it would not wash away in the Susquehanna's frequent floodings and ice breakups.

To the right of the trees would have been the large, two-story bath house. As i recall it had a half-timbered, sort of Tudor look to it.

There was also a refreshment stand and an outdoor juke box on the back of the first floor and open to the beach.

For some reason I remember going there once when I was back from college and hearing Donnie Brooks' "Mission Bell" (1960) blasted across the beach over and over. Now I never hear that song without thinking of City Island and my Harrisburg and college days.

"My love is higher than a MISSION BELL,
Deeper than a wishing WELL!"

                                                      Photo from an Ektachrome transparency by Ross J. Care. All Rights Reserved.

This was an Ektachrome slide which had seriously redded out. It was also extremely grainy.
I did the best I could with it in Photoshop, but there's no comparison to the previous Kodachrome slide of me at the same location with the canoe.

On the Beach: Wags & I on City Island in the Susquehanna River

Photo from a Kodachrome Transparency by my dad, Ross J. Care. All Rights Reserved.

Fire? What fire?


City Island Bathing Beach in the Susquehanna River, Skyline of river front Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA on the east shore across the water. Late 1940s.


The bathing beach was on the north tip of City Island. It was a concrete beach which faced the southern flowing river which divided at the island.

A new bridge, the M. Harvey Taylor, was built across the river just north of the island sometime in 1952.

The rest of the island was rather wild and undeveloped. There were fascinating (and probably dangerous) ruins of a water works and, as I recall, some kind of reservoir in the northern middle of the island for many years. I very much regret never having shot photographs of these bizarre, atmospheric, and oddly poetic sites. The water works ruins would have been a great location for a horror movie!

Later there were also rock concerts on the island for a time and eventual, inevitable gentrification with the building of a new baseball stadium which I assume is still there.

But I think I liked the ruins better........ I sometimes still revisit a version of that quaint, regional archeological site in my dreams.

Apparently when this photo was taken there was a distant fire to which Wags and I are happily oblivious. But I still remember that artistic wooden canoe with its colorful decals.