Bringing History to Life in the 1920s

Pocahontas and John Rolfe, after their wedding in the Jamestown church, from Jamestown, one of the Chronicles of America Photoplays.

If you had been sitting in the Hastings school auditorium on Friday, September 16th, 1932, you might well have seen the wedding of Pocahontas and John Rolfe. It would have been in black and white, and without any sound – but at least there would have been movement, history brought to life on the silver screen.

How do we know what a high schooler would have been doing on that particular day? Well, we were recently looking through the public school handbook for 1932-33, which is in our pamphlet file, and we became curious about several entries in the school calendar. Sandwiched between the G.O. elections and the Aloha Club dance are three days where the scheduled activity is “Chronicles of America”. A quick google supplied the information that the Chronicles of America Photoplays were films on American history. This series of fifteen silent movies, with titles like The Pilgrims, Peter Stuyvesant, The Declaration of Independence, Dixie, and The Frontier Woman, was one of the earliest educational film series. It was produced between 1923 and 1924 by Vitagraph Studios in Flatbush, Brooklyn, a studio established in 1906 that has been called the “first modern motion picture plant in the country.”

The real Hastings connection here is a person – Arthur E. Krows, who was scenario editor at the Vitagraph company. Krows wrote the scripts for the first two films in the series, Columbus and Jamestown. Krows lived on Farragut Avenue, directly across from the school, with his wife, known to the entire town as an animal lover and host to all the stray dogs and cats in the neighborhood. Krows’ brother was “Doc” Earl Krows, a local dentist, who lived on Euclid Avenue. It seems likely that Arthur Krows was the man responsible for obtaining, or encouraging the school to obtain, copies of the film reels to show to students.

The Chronicles of America Photoplays were based on a set of books called Chronicles of America published by Yale University Press between 1918 and 1922. “This series of fifty volumes,” declared the publishers, “is designed to tell the story of the United States, as it has never before been told… to present the entire history of our country in living form, so related that the reader will be given a real vision of his country from the beginning to the present day." And almost as soon as the first volumes went to press, the publishers had the idea of developing accompanying films that would further the goal of bringing history to life.

Director-General Peter Stuyvesant gives way to fury as the Councilors urge him to accept the English terms for surrendering the Colony of New Amsterdam, from the film Peter Stuyvesant.

The publishers contacted Krows at Vitagraph, who was enthusiastic about the project and agreed to become secretary of the Chronicles of America Picture Corporation, a joint venture between Yale University and Vitagraph. He set to work on the first two scripts and made arrangements for filming to begin. Richard Koszarski in his 2008 book Hollywood on the Hudson: Film and Television in New York from Griffith to Sarnoff describes the process. “Production soon began on Columbus, and the company was lucky enough to locate a full-scale reconstruction of the Santa Maria that had been floating in Chicago’s Jackson Park Lagoon since the Columbian Exposition of 1893. Although the Nina and the Pinta were by now considerably beyond repair, the Santa Maria was towed out into Lake Michigan for a few impressive establishing shots. Back in New York, an estate at Mount Kisco doubled for the palace of King John of Portugal, the La Rabida monastery was shot in Huntington, and beach scenes showing Queen Isabella’s messenger overtaking Columbus were filmed along the shores of Montauk. Interiors were built at the Vitagraph studio in Flatbush.”

The book series took history from the Indians to the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. Vitagraph was able to produce only fifteen films out of the proposed forty, and only got as far as the Revolutionary War before the combination of incredibly high production costs, conflict between the historian/editors and the filmmakers, and the collapse of the Vitagraph studio brought an end to the photoplays. (Arthur Krows himself resigned as secretary of the Chronicles of America Picture Corporation after an argument over changes that the Yale historians wanted to make in his scripts.)

But though the films may not have recouped their costs, they were popular enough with museums, schools, and local clubs that they helped establish a real market for educational film. As late as the 1950s, prints were still being circulated by various institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Pathe company, and in 1941 the Chronicles of America Photoplays became the first documentary film series to be shown on American television.

Congress assembled in Independence Hall on June 7, 1776 to vote on a resolution for independence, from the film The Declaration of Independence.

Josephine Selvaggio: Hastings Commuter

After last week’s post, it seems appropriate to introduce you to one of the Hastings commuters who brought the floors of Grand Central Station to such a state of disrepair. Her name is Josephine Selvaggio of 22 Main Street, Hastings-on-Hudson, and she is 25 years old. It is 1926, and Josephine works as a secretary for Commercial Investment Trust (now CIT) of Manhattan.

Josephine was born in Palermo, Italy, in 1901, and arrived in Hastings with her parents when she was nine. Her father was a shoemaker and opened a shoe store on Main Street. In 1921 she received a card in a handy holder, certifying to her expertise on the Remington typewriter (see below). It notes that she is a student at Hasting High School.

But Josephine left school before graduation so she could help her parents with expenses. Graduating from high school, as she would later write in her short memoire Reminiscing Hastings, was a luxury that not everyone could afford in the 1920s. And so she went to work for Commercial Investment Trust.

Certificate of Efficiency awarded by the Remington Typewriter Company to Josephine Selvaggio, a student in the Hastings-on-Hudson High School, on Nov. 14, 1921. The certificate notes that she "has written on a Remington typewriter at a net speed of 49 words per minute for ten consecutive minutes."

But it is not her job, but her train ticket (see below) that certifies Josephine as a genuine commuter. Like all the best things, the commuter is an American invention, brought about by the expansion of the railway system. In 1848 passengers on the New Jersey train were offered a convenient 8-trip ticket that was cheaper than 8 individual tickets would have been. It was called a commutation ticket, taking its name from the verb “commute,” meaning to exchange something for something else, in this case eight tickets for a single ticket.

By 1926, when Josephine was traveling back and forth to New York City, you could buy a “monthly commutation ticket”—in this case for the month of October. Why might Josephine have preserved this one particular train pass? The answer might lie in the date. On November 21 of 1926, Josephine Selvaggio married Joaquim Dos Santos at Saint Stanislaus Koska Church in Hastings. Just before their marriage, she took Joaquim to work with her.

“When I got married, I took my husband to meet everyone at work," she later told a local reporter. "They asked him ‘Why don’t you let Josephine stay here?’ But he said ‘No, she’s worked enough. She can be at home now.’ I came home and I cried.”

When Josephine was much older, she went into business for herself doing typing and typesetting under the name of the Hastings Letter Service. But throughout her life she preserved this, her last commuter train pass. This ticket and the typing certificate were donated to the Historical Society by her son Louis in 2009.

Monthly Commutation Ticket for J. Selvaggio for October of 1926 with holder including her photograph. The ticket was good only for travel between New York and Hastings-on-Hudson, and cost $8.31.

Happy Birthday Hastings Theater

The Hastings Theater in 1929

Today is the 90th birthday of the Hastings Theater, which opened amid great fanfare on February 11th, 1920. We are lucky enough to have an eye-witness account of this event written in 1967 by Steve Zebrock (also known by his stage name of Alan Brock). In 1920, Steve was eleven years old and living with his family on lower Warburton. To earn enough cash to get to the Yonkers movie house on the weekend, Steve and his friends delivered newspapers for the Hastings News. But they kept a keen eye on the site next to the Hastings News office where architect Foster L. Hastings of Ridgedell Avenue was superintending the construction of Hastings’ very own movie theater.

“… in December, 1919, the Hastings theater building stood before us in all its magnificent glory, and Mr. Hastings decided to let us in on the opening night attraction: Douglas Fairbanks in “The Mark of Zorro”! We cheered the posters out front – Doug was then America’s favorite movie star. …

A few days before the opening of the “Mark of Zorro” a heavy snowstorm blanketed Westchester – actually more of a blizzard. The kids were scared – maybe the movie wouldn’t open? Fortunately Mr. Hastings stuck to his word. … Despite the snow, the weather was not too cold, and parents, with offspring holding on, were spread all around the theater.

This was a real “dolled up” night, the likes of which most of us village kids had not seen before: Members of the first families were arriving in their motors, with some of the men in Tuxedos and the ladies in evening gowns and fur capes. Among the first of the leading citizens was the Walker Whiteside family. Mr. Whiteside was a famous Broadway stage star who lived in Tower Ridge. His young and lovely daughter Rosamond was also a well-known actress. Next came the Wuppermans, Ralf and Frank, known to Broadway as the Morgan brothers [Frank Morgan would later play the Wizard of Oz in the 1939 movie]. Claudia Morgan, who later became famous on Broadway, radio, and TV, was the daughter of Ralf. There was a loud cheer as the shining Rolls Royce belonging to Billie Burke and Florenz Ziegfeld pulled up. The Zinsser family soon drove up, Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Zinsser with their beautiful daughters Ellen and Peggy, and handsome son Jack. …

Within a few seconds the cashier’s window was raised and the head of Anna O’Hara welcomed us from behind it. The first honorary tickets went to Village President Thomas Goodwin and his family. After that came the Thomas Reynolds family, and Mr. and Mrs. Egbert Handy and their pretty daughter Edna, and gradually the crowd moved comfortably indoors.

The young Steve Zebrock

Once inside the theater itself, we were awe-struck. This was not a narrow tunnel-like movie such as the ones we had been accustomed to. The auditorium was brilliantly lighted and wonderfully warm. Brand new carpets stretched down the entire length of the aisle to the stage, and the wall lights looked like real candles burning. We were proud of our Hastings Theater.

The excitement of this special night was quickly reaching its climax. We grabbed seats down front right behind the orchestra put and reveled in all the splendor surrounding us. … At last the lights began to dim and Foster L. Hastings walked down the aisle with a few of the village dignitaries. A sudden hush fell over the entire audience as Mr. Hastings began a speech of welcome. He then brought on the Village President, Mr. Goodwin, to a round of applause, and a few more familiar faces. More applause and whistling, then – the stage was empty.

The piano quietly went into music from the opera “Carmen,” in keeping with the Spanish mood of “The Mark of Zorro.” The lady at the piano was Gordon Smith’s mother. We all knew her. Mrs. Smith was the most popular pianist in Hastings. [Gordon Smith says that his mother was invited to play for the opening and stayed for the next three years.] At the end of the mood music, everyone in the auditorium broke into applause. The next minute the screen flashed Douglas Fairbanks in “The Mark of Zorro.”

When the last close-up of Douglas kissing beautiful Marguerite de la Motte faded from the screen there was a sudden let-down. Back to earth. The lights were on again and the miracle was over. But we knew that ahead of us were more miracles. Now we had our own movie theater. And Hastings, for us, was on the map at last.”

Hastings Theater right after it closed its doors in 1977. In the years that followed, it was under consideration for several businesses – an antique shop, a movie house for films in Spanish, housing for senior citizens, a theater for training young Broadway hopefuls. In 1986 it was remodeled into the Moviehouse Mews.

Veselykh Sviat! (Happy Holidays!)

The Historical Society does not own as many photographs of holiday festivities as we would like, but here is an exception. Nine members of the Hastings Ukrainian American Society pose for the camera in the costumes that they wore when they went out caroling on Christmas Eve, which by the Eastern Orthodox calendar is January 6th. The photograph was probably taken in the late 1920s and shows, left to right, standing: Steven Borys, Steve Konick, Nick Perik, Michael Myhal, John Penderski, Mr. Siwick; seated: John Politza, Mr. Kozemchyk, and Michael Fedew, who ran a saloon near the train station that was popular with the Hastings immigrant community. Most of the men pictured here worked in the waterfront industries and lived nearby with their families. (Some of the identifications have been challenged and some are incomplete, so if one of our names seems wrong to you, let us know.)

These carolers are following a Ukrainian tradition that goes back in Hastings at least into the 1910s and much further back in the Ukraine. Dinner on Christmas Eve breaks a forty-day fast with a meal celebrating the bounties of the harvest. Caroling comes after dinner, as described by the Ukrainian ethnomusicologist Sofia Hrytsa in an article she wrote in 1999.

“After the meal, young carolers, koliadnyky, go from house to house singing carols and performing a short play on the Christmas theme, called a vertep. The characters usually include shepherds, the three wise men, angels, and devils. One of the carolers says a vinshuvania (a short poem), wishing each of the household members a prosperous and bountiful New Year:

Glory to God,
King of the Heavens!
Grant the hospodar [host] lucky years
By the sevens!
Glory to You God, Glory today!
Grant the hospodynia [hostess]
As many years as you may!”

Thanksgiving – Hastings Style

Cover of Hastings House Restaurant's Thanksgiving menu, ca. 1974

With money as tight as it is these days, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to step into a time machine that would take you back to an era when you could have a full Thanksgiving dinner in a restaurant for $6.25? Well, that’s what you would have gotten at the Hastings House Restaurant in the mid 1970s. Not so long ago, was it?

Hastings House, a true Hastings institution, spent many prosperous years patronized by employees of the waterfront industries who would come in for a quick drink after work. When Anaconda Wire & Cable Company was still in operation, the bar opened at 8AM to accommodate the workers coming off the third shift. Anaconda left in the mid 1970s, but though at least one Hastings resident likened the patrons at the bar to waxworks, Hastings House remained a local favorite until it closed in September of 2006.

The building on the corner of Spring Street and Warburton Avenue has a long and interesting history. It was commissioned in 1915 by two brothers, Samuel and Morris Kaufman. Thanks to Morris’s son, we know something of their early history. As young men, Samuel and Morris had travelled up from Yonkers to work at their uncle’s saloon on Spring Street. (This building became Dunn’s Bar in the 1920s.) The boys’ parents spoke Hungarian, Yiddish, and Polish, and they got along well with the Eastern European workers at Zinsser Chemical and the National Wire & Cable Company. The brothers eventually bought out their uncle, and then decided to build themselves a larger building, which they referred to as a hotel.

Postcard printed ca. 1920, showing the Farragut Inn on the left

The building was designed by Hastings architect Foster L. Hastings (who also designed the Hastings movie theater building that now houses the Moviehouse Mews), and the construction was supervised by William Schmidt, a builder who lived on Farragut Avenue. The “Kaufman Bros. Farragut Inn,” named after Admiral Farragut, one of the most famous of Hastings’ residents, opened for business in 1916 or 1917.

As with many local “hotels,” the Farragut Inn also served food and drink. One source in our files includes it in a list of the most popular speakeasys in Westchester during prohibition, and Morris Kaufman himself was jailed after a raid where a large amount of liquor was discovered on his premises. Morris’ son remembers meeting many famous actors and politicians at the Farragut Inn, as well as Babe Ruth, who was a regular customer. When the Babe visited, the news passed quickly around the neighborhood. By the time he had finished his steak, young fans would be lined up around the block, waiting to get a glimpse and an autograph of the famous man. The Farragut Inn's banquet room on the second floor was a popular place for all sorts of celebrations – testimonial dinners for local VIPs, like Fire Chief Melville Haines and Col. Frederick G. Zinsser, and banquets for the fire department and the Southside Social & Athletic Club.

The banquet room, from a photocopy in our files of a ca. 1920 postcard. Does anyone have one of these postcards that we could borrow to make a better copy?

Fashionable as the “speaks” may have been, prohibition was hard on places like the Farragut Inn and, to make matters worse, Sam Kaufman died in 1932. Around 1935, the business passed into the hands of Joe Falcaro, who changed the name to Falcaro’s Restaurant. Joe described himself in a 1937 advertisement as an “undefeated match game bowler,” and it may have been Joe who installed the “new up-to-date bowling alleys” in the basement.

Farragut Inn returned under new management in the early 1940s and did not close until 1960. (Can anyone help us fill in the ownership during this period? Historical Society Sleuth Bob Russell thinks it might have belonged to the Leith family for a time in the late 1950s.) Bernie Hoffman reopened the business two years later as the Hastings House Restaurant. Hastings House continued the tradition of hosting large groups, including class reunions and wedding receptions, and also served special Easter and Thanksgiving dinners, like this one. If you aren’t hungry yet, just read through the menu.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Hastings Historical Society!

The New "Hastings Historian" Mails Today!

"Babe" Ruth and Hastings mayor Thomas F. Reynolds

Your next issue of the Hastings Historian contains many fascinating articles -- articles about how Hastings got its name and about Hastings’ first ambulance, plus a wonderful reminiscence on gym class in the early 1960s. It also contains a plea from Frank Domchek for a photograph of Babe Ruth. And not just any photograph! As you can see, we have three of them. But Frank is looking for a very specific image.

It was in 1927 that George Herman “Babe” Ruth came to Hastings. The local Rotary Club had invited him to speak on the opening day of the Boys’ Summer Twilight League, which they sponsored.

“Babe Ruth is coming here!” exclaimed the Hastings News the week before his arrival. “Yes, he, George Herman Ruth, the Home Run King, the Sultan of Swat, the Prince of Ball Players, is coming in the flesh, in his own proper person. He will appear right out in the open in broad daylight, where every boy will be able to get a good close-up of him, free of charge.”

On the 16th of June, Babe Ruth drove himself up to Hastings in his eight-cylinder sedan and met Hastings’ mayor, Thomas F. Reynolds, at the acclaimed Longue Vue restaurant (now the site of the Andrus Memorial Home). After dinner, Hastings’ motorcycle policemen escorted the two back to Reynolds Field. “Every small boy who was not already at Reynolds field,” the paper reported, “could be seen scurrying as fast as immature legs could carry him to the scene of the appearance of the idol of the American youth.”


The Boys’ Band of the Children’s Village played the National Anthem. Then, as the paper put it, “there were the usual pictures.”(And how glad we are now that they were so usual!) Coach LeRoy Cochran took the stand and explained the important purpose of the gathering. Superintendent of Schools John L. Hopkins presented the mayor. And Reynolds presented Mr. Ruth, who, he announced, had just that day hit his twenty-second home run at Yankee Stadium.

“I suppose everyone wants to know how I hit them out,” the Babe began, after the cheers had died down. “About twenty kids have asked me that. Well, I’m going to ask ‘Lindy’ how he flew across the ocean. … Some home runs are luck and on some you out-smart the other fellow. That’s what I want you boys to do, try and out-smart the other fellow, and play the game for all it’s worth. I’m coming up some night to see how you get along.”

Among the “sea of young faces, every one of which bore the rapt expression of absolute idolatry,” was young Frank Domchek. He remembers distinctly a photograph taken of himself, “the Babe,” and a few other boys sitting in the back of a pickup truck. Frank would love to track down this photograph. If anyone can help the Historical Society out with this request, please let us know!

The Babe poses at Reynolds Field with local Hastings boys, officers of the Rotary Club, school officials, and village officers. The photograph shows, left to right, front row: William Steinschneider, Henry Cochrane, Charles Andres, Jim Leddy, Mayor Tom Reynolds, Harold Ulmer with son Harold, Jr. in front, Fred Charles, Harry Murray, Superintendent of Schools John L. Hopkins, and Coach E. Leroy Cochran; second row (behind man with boy): Laken Owens (behind the Ulmers), Norm DiChiara (boy), and Foster L. Hastings; top row: H.H. Murphy (bow tie), two unidentified, Jimmy Croke, William J. Russell Sr. (taller husky boy), unidentified, Kirby Brown, Babe Ruth, unidentified, Warren Reynolds, three unidentified, Dom Raimondo (from Irvington in open-necked shirt), unidentified. If you recognize any of the unidentified boys or men, let us know!

Inquiring Reporter Discovers What People Talk About When They Watch Workers Digging on Warburton Avenue

Editor’s Note: This was the headline for an anonymous article that appeared in the Hastings News in July of 1929. Below is an edited version of the article. Though the first two photographs were taken by A.C. Langmuir when the streets were being widened in September and October of 1929, the scene must have been much the same as in July, when the telephone company installed the conduits that would be used to bury the network of wires that crisscrossed the sky above Hastings in the 1920s.

Warburton Avenue, looking south from the corner of Spring Street, October 4, 1929

All along Warburton Avenue, commuters, passers-by and little children with no baseball field to go to, are lingering over the piles of rock that are being dug up and piled up along the ditch in which the New York Telephone Company is placing conduits.

There was quite a crowd all this week at the corner of Spring Street and Warburton Avenue. The explosions caused by the blasting attracted many who were loath to leave, as shock after shock rocked the thoroughfare.

“Say! Look at that guy!” The crowd of boys looked. In the entrance of one of the row of vacant stores slept a worker. He not only slept. He snored. On his face was a look of beatific happiness. He was, any of the youngsters could see, at the height of bliss. “They ought to take that guy’s picture and give it to his boss.”

Warburton Avenue south of the bridge, looking south toward the corner of Washington Avenue, September 19, 1929

Then the whistle blew. With a start the worker awoke. His nimble wits sent him to his feet. When his foreman came around, he was first on his job.

“They ought to fire him and give me his job.

“They ought to put him in the Lyceum outfield!”

“Yeah! The Lyceums are good. They played some game last Sunday, I’m telling you.”

“Say, you saw the game with the Independents last Sunday, didn’t you? Well, did you notice that fellow, Wasko, who was pinch-hit in the last inning? I think it was the last. What a uniform he wore! He had a grey and red suit, green and white sleeves, a black hat, and purple and orange stockings.”

St. Matthew’s Lyceum on lower Warburton was a social organization for men and boys, organized in 1920. This photograph of the club’s baseball team shows both Sid Limekiller (seated third from the right) and John Vasko (aka Wasko, standing second from the right).

“And did you see Sid Limekiller forget where he put his glove when he went out to pitch that same inning? He couldn’t find it, and the rest of the boys were on the field. Finally they got hold of it, nestling behind second.”

Several of the men standing before the Farragut Inn laughed. “Funny how the kids notice those things,” he said. “By the way, did you see the mayor there last Sunday?”

His companion replied that he had not, and the two fell into a discussion as to what would happen if the mayor [Thomas F. Reyolds], the acting mayor, [Henry D.] Cochrane, and the acting mayor’s alternate, James Magee, all were gone. …

Thomas F. Reynolds (second from the right) at a St. Matthew’s Lyceum game. Mayor Reynolds acquired the uniforms for the team from New York Yankees owner Col. Jacob Ruppert. The photograph shows, left to right, umpire H. Shaefer, William Steinschneider, Fred H. Charles, Reynolds, and umpire Louis Limekiller.

Two men, waiting for the blasting foreman to let them through on their way down Warburton Avenue to Dobbs Ferry, were discussing a sermon recently made by Father Southwick, curate of the Sacred Heart Church, of Dobbs Ferry. …

Two other men took their places, idling on the corner, watching the diggers and waiting for the next blast. They fell to talking about the movie that the Reo Company had recently made in Dobbs Ferry. Their discussion attracted another bystander. “Those auto wrecks that they put on were the real thing,” he said. “Why I wouldn’t have done it for – well, it would have taken a whole lot o money, believe me.” …

And that’s what men talk about when they’re watching other men dig a ditch.

Lewis W. Hine’s photographs of Hastings in the George Eastman House collection

Part II

Photo courtesy of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film

In last Monday’s post we showed you three of Lewis Wickes Hine’s photographs of our town, and here are a few more. They were all taken after 1917, when Hine moved his family to Hastings. Over time, the Hines became a true Hastings family. Lewis was a member of the Chamber of Commerce and the local Rotary Club. His wife Sara joined the Garden Club and the Literature Club. And their son Corydon went to the Hudson River Day School, and later to the public high school. They also made many friends in Hastings, and this network helped support the Hines during the 1920s and 1930s when the family had to struggle to make ends meet. One of Hine's friends was Louis Finkelstein.

The photograph above, taken possibly around 1931, shows Rose and Louis Finkelstein sitting in their living room with their children Rita and Gerald. It is an important historical document for us because the little boy depicted in it grew up to be the first president of the Hastings Historical Society. Louis Finkelstein was a dentist, and he often accepted goods from his neighbors in trade for his services. Those goods included photographs taken by Lewis Hine.

Photo courtesy of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film

We can be more precise in the date of this photograph. It appears in a booklet published in 1929 by the Chamber of Commerce called “Our Home Town in Word and Picture.” 1929 was an important year for Hastings-on-Hudson – the 50th anniversary of its incorporation in 1879 – and the booklet was printed to commemorate this event. It was part community directory and part telephone directory for those 900 or so individuals and businesses that had the instrument. Hine was a member of the Chamber of Commerce himself and contributed 8 photographs to the booklet, five of which are included in George Eastman House’s collection. This one shows the complex of school buildings on Farragut Avenue. In the foreground is the 1904 Farragut Building, and at the right is the “new” High School building, which had been completed in 1927.

Photo courtesy of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film

Thomas F. Reynolds was a glove importer who lived in the big house on the northeast corner of Villard Avenue and Broadway. In 1910 he became a village trustee and then village president in 1917. If you combine all his terms in office, he spent a total of fifteen years as leader of the village, first as president and then as mayor. Reynolds Field was named in his honor in 1924.

George Eastman House has twelve of Hine’s portraits of Reynolds and an additional twenty of other Hastings village officials: William Ward Tompkins (president 1895-1897), and village trustees Frederick H. Charles, Francis E. Curry, and James C. Magee. These photographs ended up adorning the interior of the Municipal Building, and most likely they were taken for that purpose.

One of Hine's 1929 photographs of the Municipal Building, as it appeared in "Our Home Town in Word and Picture."

The Municipal Building, too, was built in 1929, and Lewis Hine is recorded as having been the official photographer for the cornerstone dedication ceremony in April of that year. He seems to have been just as careful in shooting a building as in taking a portrait. “Mr. Hine,” the Hastings News reports, “was hindered by his timing somewhat and many thought he was shooting a “talkie.” It seemed that the kids were making too much noise for the “shot” or they were closing in on the celebrities, but at Mr. Hine’s request, room was cleared for a complete view. This snap held up proceedings a short time. Luckily for those on the platform that it was not a “talkie” for many of the remarks among the jokesters there were not appropo to the occasion.” Wouldn’t we love to get hold of the photographs Hine took that day?

There are many other interesting images of Hastings-on-Hudson in George Eastman House’s “Lewis Wickes Hine Negative Series.” If you want to explore them, click this link, which will take you to the thumbnail view at the end of the series. Most of the Hastings related images are grouped toward the end of the series, so the best way to approach the photographs is to start at the end and work your way backward using the “Previous” link at the top and bottom of the page. Many are not identified as Hastings, so keep your eyes open!

Lewis W. Hine’s photographs of Hastings in the George Eastman House collection

Part I

By now you surely know that the famous photographer Lewis Wickes Hine was a Hastings resident. Hine moved to Edgars Lane in 1917 and remained there until his death in 1940. Hine is perhaps best known for his photographs of children working in mines and cotton mills, which helped speed the passage of child labor laws. As part of our annual meeting program on June 7th, author and historian Joe Manning will be telling us more about these children and their descendents, whom Joe has managed to trace. (For more information on this program see the upper right corner of this blog page.)

You probably also know that the Hastings Historical Society has a small collection of original Hine photographs of Hastings subjects. We posted two of these photographs of Protection Engine Company on this blog on March 28th. And Frederic Perrier has put many more of them in his online article “Lewis Hine in Hastings-on-Hudson.”

You may not know, however, that George Eastman House in Rochester, one of the oldest film and photography archives, has in their collection at least 50 additional photographs that Hine took of Hastings. Some are duplicates of photographs we have in our collection, but many are unique. They came to George Eastman House in 1952 in a group of over 4,000 prints and negatives that were originally given by Hine’s son to the Photo League after his father’s death.

Below is a small sample of the Hastings photographs in George Eastman House’s “Lewis Wickes Hine Negative Series.” If you click on one, it will take you to the photograph’s page on the George Eastman House web site.

(Photograph courtesy of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film)

Wouldn’t this have been a perfect illustration for Judy Chamberlain’s article on Hastings’ barbers? Hine has even given it the title “Hoffman Barber Shop.” It shows the shop at 558 Warburton Avenue in the 1930s, when the building still had the same brick decoration as the building further north. In the doorway to the left of the shop you can see Jake Hoffman’s barber pole, and to the right is Memorial Park and the V.F.W. building. Often we can only guess at the circumstances of Hine’s employment, but this photograph may have been commissioned by Jake himself for advertising purposes.

(Photograph courtesy of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film)

This photograph is of the 1933 Hastings High School senior class posed in front of the School Street entrance to the "new" (1927) high school building. It appears in the yearbook, though without Hine’s name attached to it. From the yearbook, we know that Hine’s son Corydon must be in this photograph, as well as John Lynch and Arthur Kling. There are eight of these class photographs in George Eastman House’s collection, and they can all be dated by comparison with the yearbooks to either 1932 or 1933. These are the earliest photographs we know of that Hine took for the school system. Later Hine pictures in our collection include photographs of the football team, the orchestra, art exhibits, and shop and home economics classes, as well as general class pictures like this one.

(Photograph courtesy of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film)

You probably recognize this building, even though it’s not quite finished yet. It is La Barranca, at 465 South Broadway. In the foreground is Broadway and on the far left you can see the original sales office for the building. Behind the building, on the right, runs the Old Croton Aqueduct path. Because it was Hastings’ first apartment building, its construction was a source of local comment and debate. Articles were written about it in the Hastings paper, and both Lewis Hine and amateur photographer A.C. Langmuir took pictures of the construction. And this is very lucky, because Langmuir’s photographs help us to date Hine’s photograph. One of Langmuir’s photographs, dated May 1929, shows the construction at an earlier stage. Another, dated October 1929, shows the finished building. Hine’s photograph is one of twelve of La Barranca in George Eastman House’s series of negatives, all taken from different angles. Hine even took one from the roof, with a view of the river. Why were the photographs taken? We don’t know. But it is possible that the photographs were commissioned by the real estate company, possibly to refute local complaints that they were removing too many of the surrounding trees.

Have we gotten you interested? Want to see a few more of Hine’s Hastings photographs? Tune in next Monday for Part II!