A Night at the STORK CLUB, 1951

This is part one of two photos from one night at the Stork Club in 1951. A gathering at one table with a fascinating bit of info written on the back of part two.




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The Stork Club was a nightclub in Manhattan, New York City, which during its existence from 1929 to 1965 was one of the most prestigious clubs in the world. A symbol of café society, the wealthy elite, including movie stars, celebrities, showgirls, and aristocrats all mixed in the VIP Cub Room of the club.

The club was established on West 58th Street in 1929 by Sherman Billingsley, a former bootlegger from Enid, Oklahoma. After an incident when Billingsley was kidnapped and held for ransom by Mad Dog Coll, a rival of his mobster partners, he became the sole owner of the Stork Club. The club remained at its original location until it was raided by Prohibition agents in 1931. After the raid, it moved to East 51st Street. From 1934 until its closure in 1965, it was located at 3 East 53rd Street, just east of Fifth Avenue, when it became world-renowned with its celebrity clientele and luxury. Billingsley was known for his lavish gifts, which brought a steady stream of celebrities to the club and also insured that those interested in the famous would have a reason to visit. (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

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Tattered and Lost volumes 1 to 7 available at Amazon.

Just BECAUSE...

 they're so doggone cute.



This dynamic duo are from the Betty Schnabel estate. It's a little portrait from her mother's family album. No idea who the kids are.
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Stamp COLLECTING

Raise your hand if you were a stamp collector as a child. I was fascinated by stamps, but then I grew up to be an artist so I was always drawn to visual things. But there was also the fascination with knowing these little scraps of paper had come from foreign lands. It gave me a connection to places I'd never go, but as a child it helped to make the world a bit smaller.


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Now, the prompt for Sepia Saturday this week is playing marbles. Well, I don't have any photos of people with marbles. I have a few where the people look like they've lost their marbles, but I don't think that's what the prompt was hoping for.

I had a nice bag of marbles as a child, but they're long gone and that makes me sad. I can close my eyes and still remember my favorite purees. The purees were always my favorite because of the way light played with them.

A few years ago I bought some marbles in a small shop in Columbia, California. Columbia is a California State Park that captures a time long gone in the Gold Country. Paved streets where once dirt was king and kids played marbles in the afternoon sun. Seeing those marbles in the store made me want to collect them again. So I bought around seven lovely purees of various sizes, brought them home, and put them in a see-through container. This way I'm sure I'll never lose my marbles. I always know where they are.

My stamp collection? I still have it tucked safely on the top shelf of a closet. Next to it sits a shoebox full of stamps that never made it into the album. In fact, there's a box of stamps on my desk that are still attached to the torn paper from the envelopes they arrived on. They'll never make it into an album, and the box is nearly full, but it's almost automatic when I put them away for safe keeping. Hey, it's better than my old method which was to just tear them off and stick them in a drawer. I still find stamps in the oddest places. When I die they'll find stamps in probably every drawer in my house. I squirrel them away for no logical reason. But there you go. I'm squirrelly, but I've got my marbles in one place for anyone to see.
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Tattered and Lost volumes 1 to 7 available at Amazon.

PUPPY in a Park

Someone dropped some ice cream. I'm sure it's ice cream. Ice cream on the pavement on a hot day. And a puppy in the park.


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Tattered and Lost volumes 1 to 7 available at Amazon.

THINKING...

maybe I should have taken that job with the circus. I'd have been in Poughkeepsie by now.

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Tattered and Lost volumes 1 to 7 available at Amazon.

The SERIOUS FAMILY CUTS LOOSE!

Finally, a bit of fun.

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Tattered and Lost volumes 1 to 7 available at Amazon.

More of the SERIOUS FAMILY

The antique store was having a sale so I perused the box I had perused so many times before. I managed to find a few snapshots I had missed on previous trips. Minor excitement when I found this photo of the kids from the Serious Family.

To see past images of these oh so serious children click on "serious family" in the labels below.

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Tattered and Lost volumes 1 to 7 available at Amazon.

Silent PROTEST…In Sensible Shoes

Information available.

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Tattered and Lost volumes 1 to 7 available at Amazon.

It's all IN THE KNEES

I bought this photo for a friend for her birthday. Her father was from the Ukraine; a handsome man who was once a Cossack in the tsar's army.

While living in L.A. my friend and I went to a dance performance of a Ukrainian dance troupe. My knees hurt just watching them.



Of course these days my knees hurt all the time. I might be facing some knee surgery to fix damage done, most likely, long ago when I skied every weekend. One too many falls with my knee twisting in the wrong direction. Eventually your past catches up with you.


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Tattered and Lost volumes 1 to 7 available at Amazon.

Is it really the END OF DOWNTON ABBEY?

I recently read a report that due to the success of Downton Abbey there was a chance that a spinoff series would be made taking place several decades after Downton ends. Scripts were written, casting was done, and a pilot episode was made. Alas, it was determined that perhaps it was an unwise decision. The mucky-mucks at Lionsgate refused to air the pilot. In fact they asked that it be destroyed. Ahhhh, but one single image exists to prove that it did happen.

I'll let you decide if not going forward was a wise decision.


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Tattered and Lost volumes 1 to 7 available at Amazon.