Mystery Photo: An Irish Field Day in 1949

The picture you see below is 8 inches high and 29 inches long. It was taken in Draper Park on June 24th of 1949 and shows the Hastings Irish American Club's second annual Field Day in Draper Park. Click on either the top or the bottom photograph to look at it more closely in Flickr. Choose the "All Sizes" link above the photograph and then select "Original Size" so you can see the faces. At the moment we have not a single identification for all the friends and relatives of Ireland shown in this photograph. If you recognize anyone, let us know!


And PS -- don't miss the collection of St. Patrick's Day postcards in the New York Public Library's Digital Gallery!

Tales of the Blizzard -- of 1947

Warburton Avenue looking north from Williams Street. (click on any image for more information about the photograph)

You think we had a tough time a couple of weeks ago with 20.9 inches of snow? Well, the 26.4 inches that fell on December 26, 1947 hit New York much harder. “Metropolis Resembles Ghost City As It Digs Out of Record Fall” read one headline. Buses, cars, trains, subways – all were paralyzed, and 77 people lost their lives. As bad as conditions were in Hastings in 1947, the local shutterbugs were all out with their cameras, so we have a good record of what our village looked like. Here are four of the scenes they captured, along with snippets from the Herald Statesman newspaper put out the day after the blizzard.

“The city’s usually congested streets were still congested – but by lines of stalled automobiles, buses and trucks, bumper to bumper, stretching block after block. Other streets, piled high with drifts, were as deserted as country lanes.”

“The Hudson Tubes, which connect this city to New Jersey points via the tunnels under the Hudson River, the ferry houses, and rail and bus stations, were filled to overflowing and at one time the situation grew so grave that additional policemen were assigned to handle the anxious – and often stranded – crowds.”

“The city’s gala nightclub life was stifled by the transportation snarl. At Midnight only eight patrons were present at the usually noisy and gay Monte Carlo club, while the headwaiter at the swank Stork Club said business was ‘knocked out.’”

Main Street looking west toward the Palisades

“At one time officials of bus companies reported 2,000 vehicles “lost,” their whereabouts temporarily unknown.”

“Telephone communication also was almost completely paralyzed yesterday as a record-smashing volume of calls tied up all boards. A 20-minute or half hour wait sometimes resulted in an operator answering telephone but for the most part coin boxes brought no action.”

“Swamped with telephone calls, a Brooklyn firm that provides limousine service to hospitals for expectant mothers couldn’t operate its automobiles and tried to rent horses and sleighs. Police cars served as ambulances for several expectant mothers.”

“Even the cemetery was a welcome place of refuge last night. One group beat the storm by spending the night in the office of St. Mary’s Cemetery, Sprain Road.”

“Two detectives had nearly dug out their snow-bound car before discovering it was the wrong car.”

“Trains resumed running to and from New York at about 7AM today after the worst tieup in more than two generations. Only the strike of 1946 had stopped the trains completely since the Blizzard of 1888…. On the Hudson Division a train reached Harmon from New York about 6 o’clock this morning – just 12 hours late.”

"Mount Haines," the pile of snow dumped off the bridge during village cleanup by the D.P.W. and named after its chief, Melville Haines.

“Hastings had difficulty with its snow-clearing equipment. During the height of the storm, three of the four plows broke down.”

“Milk deliveries were just about halted. The Borden company said it got three trailers through from its pasteurizing plant in Mount Vernon and is going ahead with deliveries. Sheffield company reported it was concentrating wholely on house deliveries “to get milk to the children” and not paying attention to wholesalers, stores, etc.”

“The Liner Queen Mary, some of whose passengers brought their luggage to the pier aboard sleds, finally sailed at 4:25 A.M. today after the storm had delayed her departure nearly 12 hours.”

“The mailman’s slogan fell by the wayside in the day-after Christmas snowstorm of 1947. The snowstorm stopped mail deliveries in Yonkers today and no trucks and no carriers went out of the Yonkers Post Office… Carriers and trucks went out yesterday, in an effort to keep schedules but many were stranded and had not yet returned home by noon today…”

“A pair of skiers tried out their boards on fashionable Madison Avenue. There was skiing in Central Park, too, and up at Bear Mountain. Officials of Palisades Interstate Park were as joyful about the snow as local street-cleaners were glum. They predicted record crowds for Winter sports.”

Snow day on "Mount Haines." Sue Lindemann (later Staropoli) takes the plunge while Phyllis Schumm, Jimmy McCue, Bill Costello, Steve Ravinsky, and Jack Ayres look on.

Out of the Blue

Draper Cottage must have been built on a field of four-leafed clovers. That is the only explanation of the incredible luck the Hastings Historical Society seems to have. We have a question, and miraculously, within two or three days, someone will call or e-mail with the answer. We start researching a subject and suddenly every box or file we open is brimming with information about it. And the way donations seem to flow in is incredible. Take the package that arrived on Monday. It contained at least two dozen photographs of Hastings and here is the letter that was inside:

“To whom it may concern: My name is Trampas King and I am the superintendent of a small municipal waste transfer station located in Dexter, Maine. We recently found these pictures in one of our resident’s trash. They were very interesting to me so I looked up Hastings-on-Hudson, and found your address. Maybe you can use some of these. I don’t know who they came from but I didn’t want to discard them either.”

And how did he know about Hastings on Hudson? In with these photographs was an envelope postmarked 1947 and addressed to Master Thomas Fogler, 18 Calumet Avenue, Hastings on Hudson. We looked up Thomas Fogler in the yearbooks and found him in the class of 1948. The caption under his senior photo reads: “As his camera records pictures… He leaves a picture of success.” Many of the photographs in the collection that Mr. King sent us are of the school itself, like the one above, and high school sporting events. Tommy may have taken many, if not all, of the photographs. They certainly seem to all date from the late 1940s. We are especially curious about the one below – the group includes several shots of this dinner. Does anyone recognize one of the boys or the event?

We are more grateful than we can express to both Trampas King and Thomas Fogler -- who has certainly left behind a picture of success!

Mystery Photo: Anaconda's Weatherproofing Department

One of the departments at Anaconda Wire & Cable Company that employed women was the weatherproofing department. There, the women operated the machines that covered copper cable with cotton braid impregnated with a weather-proofing substance.

In these photographs, however, the ladies are having some kind of party -- complete with spaghetti and meatballs! From looking at the background of the photographs and matching them with other photographs in our collection, we know they are still at work, in the Anaconda caffeteria. And we know the names of two of diners: Sophie Karschmidt Hoss is in the plaid shirt and cap and Louise Capuano is wearing the checked shirt and vest. Who are the others? What is the celebration? We'd love to know!

Click on the photographs to look at them in Flickr (use the All Sizes link to enlarge the photograph). If you have any ideas, pass them along to us! If you don’t know, but are curious about the answers, come back to the blog and check this post. We’ll attach comments with any information we receive.

In Honor of Veteran’s Day

Parade on Main Street during or just after World War I, possibly on Armistice Day, November 11th, 1918

Parades matter. And Joseph Semberger reminds veterans why in the “Commander’s Message” from a booklet produced in 1969 for the 50th anniversary of the James Daley Post No. 200 of the V.F.W.:

“Each of us has an important role in this celebration. As you march up Warburton Avenue with your visiting delegations and military units, remember one important fact – your presence will help to rekindle that spark of patriotism which has been slowly vanishing in our modern society. We hope it will leave a lasting impression in the minds of the spectators, young and old, who will line the route of the parade. If by our actions we can generate the feeling of pride in being Americans, then our efforts will not have been in vain.

Certainly you must remember when you, as a child, stood in the sidelines and watched similar parades, that vibrant feeling of pride running up and down your spine as each band went by. How proudly you stood at attention to salute the Flag borne by the color guards of each contingent… Remember?”

World War II veterans in the Memorial Day parade on Warburton Avenue in 1949

Between the Chrystie Estate and the A&P: Bob Russell’s Brook

Editor’s Note: Bob Russell, a regular contributor to this blog and to the Hastings Historian, left a fascinating comment on Judy Chamberlain’s post last week about the history of the local A&P. I asked him to tell me more about what he remembered of the former Chrystie property, and he reminded me that he had sent a letter on just that subject to the Historical Society in 1999, which was printed in the Hastings Historian. We present an edited version of his letter here, illustrated with color slides from our collection taken of the Chrystie Estate in the 1940s.

Looking north from Five Corners up Broadway, toward the old Chrystie house on the site now occupied by the Hastings Terraces at 555 and 556 Broadway.

During the late 1950s and very early 1960s, just before the A&P excavations began, my friends and I would regularly play soldiers, or just plain explore the area, on the northwest corner of Main Street and Broadway known to us as “The Brook.” This land was originally part of the Chrystie Estate. The house I grew up in was on Whitman Street. So as the crow flies, I could, with a good head of steam, be at “The Brook” within five minutes by crossing through St. Matthew’s School playground.

I spent a lot of time there as a kid and knew the area pretty well. At the base of the slope, down from the top of the hill, just after the land leveled out, there was a circular pool. It appeared to me to be some kind of fountain or man-made pond, perhaps for growing watercress. It was somewhat overgrown but not stagnant, and I suspected it to be spring-fed and self-effluating, eventually meandering its way to the brook. Although it was fenced in, there was an opening just wide enough to squeeze through. But once inside, you had little room along the edge to stand on and had to be careful not to fall in.

The gardens of the Chrystie Estate, looking west toward Whitman Street.

Not far from the circular pond, there was a curious and relatively deep hole. It was roughly four feet square and six to eight feet deep. It was lined with stones so it was constructed as a square dry well. At the bottom were some rotted boards covered with weeds and brush. Perhaps this had been an old cover that had rotted over time and ultimately caved in. Nevertheless, I always stayed away from this pit as it was scary looking.

Then one day a friend came to us and said he and another lad had been down there and that it was O.K. to explore. One kid couldn’t go down without someone to help him get in and out. With the help of my friend Eric Likhonine, I got down to the bottom and began to snoop around.

The gardens, looking north from Main Street.

Underneath the boards and brush I saw iron balls, perhaps a half dozen or so, stuck in the dirt at the bottom. With a stick I pried one loose. I scraped it off, and it looked like an iron softball. For an 11 or 12 year-old, it was somewhat heavy and must have weighed between 10 and 20 pounds.

At that moment I just wanted to get out with my find. I passed it up to my friend, who then helped me get back out. We started off for my house, taking turns carrying the ball as we walked. My mother became upset when she saw it and asked where we had gotten it. She he told us to take it back. Eric laughed because he knew we’d have to haul it back—that all our hard work had been in vain. Eric, whose parents owned the Denise Gift Shop across from the Hastings Theater, now lives in Ashville, North Carolina, and remembers the incident very well.

So what happened to the cannonball? We went back to the brook and dropped it back into the dry well. We often talked about going back in again, just to get one or two to hide somewhere, but we never did.


Bob Russell’s next Hastings Historian article will be on the Cup ‘N’ Saucer restaurant that once occupied the spot that is now Comfort Lounge. “We’re sure that many of you have fond memories of the Cup ‘N’ Saucer that was previously Lang’s,” says Bob. “Does anyone have photos of the Langs, or of the Carusos, or any shots taken in or outside the store? Kindly e-mail them to us at hhsblog[at]hastingshistorical[dot]org.”

The Historical Society Blog Takes a Holiday

Our advice to you: Go to the movies!

A recent donation from former resident Roy Weldon -- a 1942 Hastings Theater flyer.

Mystery Photo: Riverview Manor Hose Company, ca. 1945

Here is a great photograph of the Riverview Manor Hose Company No. 3 filling up at the Gulf station on Main Street. We have a 1947 photograph showing the Gulf station in just this location on Main Street, in the spot that is now the Boulanger Plaza parking lot, before the station moved to a new location further up Main Street. Behind the truck you can see signs for Riolo’s Meat Market on the left and the Green Tavern on the right, where Slices is today. We don’t know the names of any of the men in the truck. The photograph came to us through the Shreve family, so someone from that family may be in the picture. Does anyone look familiar? Click on the photograph to look at it in Flickr (use the All Sizes link to enlarge the photograph), or look at the details of the men’s faces at the bottom of this post. If you have any ideas, let us know!

If you don’t know, but are curious about the answers, come back to the blog and check this post. We’ll attach comments with any information we receive.

Mystery Photo: French Assembly, ca. 1947 – 1954?

In 1981 Elizabeth Filkins Gessler, long-time French teacher at the Hastings High School, donated to the Historical Society an album containing dozens of wonderful photographs. The album is dated "1935-1954", and the photographs show the activities of the French Club, a club which “Madame Gessler” sponsored. The most spectacular pictures in the album are the ones of the French Assembly stage shows, like this one. It is not dated, however, nor do we know the names of the participants or what the subject of the sketch was. If you have any ideas, let us know! Click the photograph to see it on Flickr -- select "All Sizes" above the photograph to enlarge it. Does anyone look familiar?

If you don’t know, but are curious about the answers, come back to the blog and check this post. We’ll attach comments with any information we receive.

Mystery Photos: The Youth Center in 1947

Making posters

Here is a neat transition from the last post on the subject of ice cream. Take a look at the background of the first photograph and you will see an ice cream vending machine – ten cents each! This entire set of photographs was most likely taken in 1947 and shows kids at the Youth Center when it was at 8 Dock Street (now Southside Avenue) in the store front just downhill from the Con Ed building.

This is a shot looking over the ping pong table toward the front of the building

Remove the ping pong table and there was plenty of space for dancing

Or for chairs set up in front of the brand new television set

Click the photographs and look at them more closely in Flickr. If you need to enlarge them, click the “All Sizes” link above the photograph. Do you recognize anyone?

If you don’t know, but are curious about the answers, come back to the blog and check this post. We’ll attach comments with any information we receive.

Mystery Photo: Zinsser Girls, 1942

Isn’t it fun to dream about winter in the middle of an August heat wave? Well, today we take you back to the Christmas of 1942. The photograph you see above was part of a Christmas card produced by Zinsser & Company to send to its employees and to those men and women who had been employees and were in the service in 1942. The type under the photograph reads: “Girls of Zinsser & Co. / Thinking of you and sending you Christmas greetings.” Below is a list of names, but with only the first initial: H. Bednarchak, H. Wells, R. Dann, J. Ramsey, E. Crotty, F. [Florence?] Crotty, K. Devlin, E. Irvine, R. Paul, A. Teekle, G. McKernan, and N. Prince.

Everyone who got the card would know who they were, of course! We are not so lucky. If you can fill in any of the first names and match the names to the faces (the names may be listed in the order in which the women are standing, but we’re not sure), please let us know! Click the photograph and look at it more closely in Flickr. If you need to enlarge it, click the “All Sizes” link above the photograph. Do you recognize anyone?

If you don’t know, but are curious about the answers, come back to the blog and check this post. We’ll attach comments with any information we receive.

Mystery Photo: ‘V for Victory’ Dance, 1941

This snapshot, while not of the best quality, is a wonderful document of Hastings during the war years, and we’d love to know who’s in it. It was taken by Dewey Kunze, who was a junior in the 1941-42 school year and photography editor for the yearbook. The Hastings Historical Society owns an almost complete set of high school yearbooks, and here’s what the 1942 edition had to say about the senior class and their prom in the fall of 1941.

“The members of the graduating class of Hastings High School, 1942, have been preparing themselves for citizenship in a democracy. They must now face in actual living those problems they have studied in school. This year the challenge of the future takes on a new meaning, for America is at war and they must not only live in a democracy but they must also help save that democracy. …

… the class of ’42 kept up its excellent record with the fall senior prom, one of the best dances in its high school career. Since everyone was very war-conscious, the class very appropriately chose the theme ‘V for Victory’. …

After the long march to the stage on Commencement night and the last farewells, the members of the class of ’42 will go forth with faith in their country, as they realize that the youth of today is the America of tomorrow.”

Can you help us put at least a few names to these brave seniors? Click the photograph and look at it more closely in Flickr. If you need to enlarge it, click the “All Sizes” link above the photograph. Do you recognize anyone? Let us know!

If you don’t know, but are curious about the answers, come back to the blog and check this post. We’ll attach comments with any information we receive.

Mystery Photo: Baseball Players and Fans, ca. 1947

Here is one of our favorite Summer photographs. It shows seven players from the Hastings "Lions" and a few extra fans on the side. Friends of the society have identified a few of the boys -- John Hirniak is on the far left, a Schnibbe boy is fifth from the left, and Frank Minkewicz is seventh. But we'd love to know the names of every single one of them. You can click on the photograph to see a larger view in Flickr. Do you recognize anyone? Let us know!

If you don’t know, but are curious about the answers, come back to the blog and check this post. We’ll attach comments with any information we receive

Mystery Photo: A Kindergarten Class ca. 1947

We have had so much trouble identifying these children that we sometimes wonder if the photograph was actually taken in some other town. We know nothing about the photograph, and we are only guessing that it is a kindergarten class from the late 1940s. Do you recognize any one of these ladies and gentlemen? Does the classroom look familiar?

If you don’t know, but are curious about the answers, come back to the blog and check this post. We’ll attach comments with any information we receive.

Mystery Photo: High School Play

The Historical Society’s collection contains almost 150 photographs of theatrical productions. There are Christmas pageants and benefits for the fire companies, the Tower Ridge Yacht Club, and the V.F.W. There are even more photographs of school productions. And it wasn’t just the Drama Club who took to the stage. The History Club, the French Club, and the senior class all had their own productions. Unidentified shows can often be traced by scanning the old yearbooks for similar photographs.

Occasionally, there are photographs like these four that don’t appear in any yearbook. They seem to all be of the same production. They are undated, but resemble photographs that were taken in the 1940s. Do you recognize the production? What do you remember about it? Do you recognize any of the players? That would date the photographs and help us to find someone who remembers the play. To see an enlarged version of the photograph, click on it and then click on the "All Sizes" link right above it.

If you don’t know, but are curious about the answers, come back to the blog and check this post. We’ll attach comments with any information we receive.

Mystery Photo: Annual Outing of the Zinsser Chemical Company

Here is a photograph that needs lots of identifications (click on the photograph for a larger version, and for an even larger one click on the words "All Sizes" above the photograph). It was taken at the 1945 Annual Outing of the Zinsser Chemical Company. The company itself was on the southern end of the Hastings waterfront, but from the 1930s through the 1950s they held their picnics at Schmidt’s Farm on Fort Hill Road near Jackson Avenue. (Though an atlas would suggest this location to be near the border between Yonkers and unincorporated Greenburgh, Schmidt’s Farm had a Scarsdale telephone number. On the matchbook cover below they describe themselves romantically as “west of Scarsdale.”)

In its heyday, Schmidt’s Farm stood on a large plot with lots of outdoor space and a huge room that could be restaurant or banquet hall. Trustee Louise Gerold Brown tells us that local teenagers used to go there for dancing on the weekends. Other big groups from Hastings patronized Schmidt’s Farm during its long life, including Anaconda Wire & Cable Company and St. Matthew’s Roman Catholic Church.

The photograph is sure to include non-Hastings residents, but Zinsser did employ many local people as well. The photograph was taken in 1945, and during World War II the number of women working at Zinsser increased.

The only identification we have for the photograph is the owner of the company, Col. Frederick G. Zinsser, an unmistakable figure seated in the middle of the second row. Do you recognize anyone else? Let us know!

A Schmidt's Farm matchbook, currently for sale on eBay.

Mystery Solved: Southside Club’s Service Flag Photo

Here are eight young men holding up the Southside Social and Athletic Club’s World War II service flag. The photograph is dated March 30th, 1945, six months before the end of the war. Service flags were first used by individual families in World War I. During World War II, organizations, and even entire towns, had their own service flags. They all followed the same format, with a blue star for every member of the organization in active service and a gold star for every member who died in service. In 1942, the club held a “Social” to raise the money necessary to purchase a service flag for their 41 members already in service. Ordinarily, it hung in front of the club entrance, but it was also carried by the Southsiders in the Memorial Day parades. When a new Southsider joined up, Wally the tailor (aka Wally Kuzenchak) who had a shop on Spring Street, would come and get the flag and stitch on another blue star. Unfortunately, the flag had space for only 91 stars, and after that Wally had to just update the number. This flag is still in the possession of the Southside Club.

The boys are standing on what used to be called Railroad Avenue. Only a few months after this photograph was taken, it was renamed Southside Avenue in honor of the Southsiders in service. The young men are probably standing in front of the club building, though the photographer has angled the shot so that the building is outside of the frame, on the left. We are looking south – in the background you can see the old footbridge that used to cross the railroad tracks at the bottom of Washington Avenue and led to the office building of Anaconda Wire & Cable Company on the waterfront.

The photographer was Hanford C. Todd Jr., or Harry as he was called in the club. Harry Todd had served in World War I, and during World War II he wrote and printed a newsletter called “News At Home” for Southsiders in the service to keep them in touch with Hastings and with each other. You can read more about this in the back issues of the “Hastings Historian”, in the Winter 1995 and the Winter 2007 issues. (Harry’s father, Hanford “Doc” Todd, had been the local pharmacist in Hastings, and also a keen photographer. His photographs were featured in the Spring 2005 “Historian” on how the village looked in 1915.)

We posted this photograph on Flickr about two weeks ago with the idea that we would use it as a mystery photo since we didn’t know the names of any of the young men. Almost immediately, Paul Duddy left a comment saying that he would get to work on the identifications. But as fast as Paul is, Bryan Healy is faster. He took the photograph down to the Senior Canteen at the Community Center where Eleanor McGinigle, Anne Schnibbe, Eddie Shuluk and Helen Rakotz had no trouble in putting names to the faces. The young men are, left to right: Stanley Yochonarish, Ernie Grascia, Pete Kucap (hand on flag pole), Mike Seman (kneeling), Tony Grascia (flapping tie), and Benny Sciepura. Stanley, Peter, and Benny's names appear on the printed Hastings Honor Roll for World War II in the society’s collection. Bryan also pointed out that March 30th of 1945 was Good Friday, which explains why everyone is dressed up. Thanks for all your help, Bryan!

Southside Social and Athletic Club with their service flag marching down Warburton Avenue in the 1946 Memorial Day parade.