Today we have our latest installment of Charlene Dodds's postcard rephotography project (previous editions of which can be found here, here, here, here, and here). Here's Charlene:

Heading northwest from Bedford, Pennsylvania, I went looking for the famous Horseshoe Curve just to the west of Altoona. The curve is shown on a postcard I found with my great aunt’s college-era postcards [see above]. It was never mailed and is blank on the back, but I suspect she and her chums took an adventure to see this engineering marvel, purchased a postcard as a souvenir, and decided they didn't want to part with it, especially since cameras were not commonly owned back then. The postcard was probably their only visual record of their visit to the curve.

I eventually located Horseshoe Curve, which is part of a rail line that was constructed to shorten the distance between Harrisburg and Pittsburg and eliminate the need for another line. The 220-degree curve was incorporated to lessen the steep grade and allow safe passage of trains. Even so, before the invention of modern braking systems, the rails were regularly pulled up and switched around to give equal wear to both sides, doubling their lifespan. So many troops were moved along this line during World War II that the Germans hatched a plot to blow up the tracks and even landed men on our shores to do just that. (The FBI ended their plans.) The curve is so ingrained into the local culture that Altoona's minor league baseball team is called the Curve.

Horseshoe Curve looks much the same today as it did back then. But trespassing on the rail tracks is illegal and dangerous, so I couldn't take a proper photo and had to settle for a contemporary postcard:

Next: I was intrigued by the postcard of Bickford Fire Brick Co. ("Largest Fire Brick Plant in the World Under One Roof"), which was sent to my grandmother from “Fritz & Foster” in 1924 (click to enlarge):

First, what is a fire brick? I discovered it is a ceramic brick made to withstand high temperatures inside a fireplace, furnace, or iron smelter -- and of course there were lots of those in nearby Pittsburgh. Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, is known for the high quality of clay used in manufacturing these bricks, and Bickford Fire Brick Co was “what is probably the finest, best equipped and one of the largest fire-brick plants in this country," at least according to in a state review in the 1930s. Alas, there is no trace of this plant left in town, so I wasn't able to photograph it.

Continuing farther west, I searched for Conneaut Lake Park, which was shown on a postcard received by my grandparents in 1948. The day I arrived was picture perfect, just as depicted in the postcard (click to enlarge):

While I was taking photos, there was a great influx of motorcycles and many vans, from which emerged various tattooed folks. Then a loudspeaker announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, we appreciate your patience. Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath will be here any minute. Their plane has finally landed and they are on their way. The show will be well worth the wait.” My grandparents would roll in their graves if they knew this idyllic site was about to be overrun by the heavy metal hordes.

My continued thanks to Charlene for sharing her stories and family postcards with us.

I wear a lot of vintage clothing, and I'm always wondering about the people who owned the clothing before I did. Who were they? What were they doing and experiencing when they wore this sweater (or shirt, or pair of jeans, or whatever)? If the clothing could talk, what stories would it tell? Occasionally I'm able to find out the answers to those questions, as in the case of that vintage skating jacket that I was recently able to trace back to its original owner, but that's pretty rare. Most of the time I'm just left to wonder.

The folks at Racked -- a shopping web site that I just became aware of, although I gather it's fairly popular -- apparently wonder the same thing, and they've taken a novel approach toward addressing it. They recently hired a psychic and turned her loose in a Manhattan vintage store so she could tell the stories behind the clothing. The resulting video -- called, simply enough, "Vintage Store Psychic" -- can be seen above.

Frankly, it's a little disappointing. The psychic mainly comes across as a ditz, and the "revelations" she comes up with aren't particularly interesting or illuminating. But the basic concept of trying to find the stories behind old objects is a good one. And the concept isn't just limited to clothing, of course -- every old object has a history, a story to tell. That's the essence of Permanent Record.

Do you know the stories behind any of your second-hand objects? If so, post them in the comments, or feel free to e-mail them to me.

The items shown above were recovered from the person of a Guatemalan man whose dead, decomposing body was found in the Sonoran Desert in July of 2010. The man had presumably traveled to Mexico and tried to cross into the United States. Like many people who attempt this border crossing, he died along the way. The few personal effects were not enough to identify him (the I.D. card is fake), and his remains have never been positively identified.

I learned all this in a fascinating article written by Robin Reineke, a cultural anthropologist who's part of a forensics team that tries to identify migrants' bodies found in the Sonoran Desert. The desert heat renders the bodies unrecognizable within a few days, so personal effects are often the only viable clues to the migrants' identities. It's a very powerful example of the Permanent Record ethos of tracking down the stories behind found objects.

The photos accompanying that article were taken by Jonathan Hollingsworth. Turns out he recently published a whole book of similar photos, all showing personal effects from deceased migrants. I haven't gotten a copy yet, but it's on my list.

(Special thanks to Kirsten Hively for letting me know about this one.)

Click to enlarge

What you see above is a book of "rules to live by," filled out by a child. As you can see, some of the rules are rather endearingly worded: "If there's no space between one person you want to sit by, don't cry or wine [sic] because there is no room," for example, and "Don't ask questions you don't want to know the answer to."

The book, which contains 157 numbered guidelines, was found in the parking lot of a California Walmart by a 20-year-old employee named Raymond Flores. He thought the book was too special to be consigned to the trash, so he contacted local media outlets in an attempt to find its author/owner. It turned out to be the work of two cousins: Isabelle Busath, 10, and Isabella Thordsen, 8. Flores was able to meet with them and return the book to them earlier this week.

Here's a short video clip about the story:

(Special thanks to Sue Kendall for pointing me toward this one.)

We often encounter stories about found photographs. Sometimes we'll even see a story involving found negatives. But this is a story involving a much less common phenomenon: a found memory card.

Here's the deal: A man named David Nieland was recently hiking in the mountains along the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina when he spotted a memory card near a stream. He picked it up, took it home, and accessed the photos on the card, a few of which offered enough visual clues to help him track down the family that had taken the photos.

The family was particularly appreciative to have the photographs because they included a few shots of a family member who had since died of cancer. This angle made the story irresistible for the Today show, which recently produced an extremely hokey (but nonetheless informative) segment about the memory card:

As noted toward the end of the Today segment, one of the most interesting aspects of the story is that Nieland -- the guy who found the memory card -- was recently reconnected with a lost object from his own past. His grandfather's high school diploma had somehow ended up in a garbage truck, where it was found and ultimately returned to him.

(Special thanks to Jennifer Hayden for pointing me toward this one.)

The gentleman shown above is 92-year-old William Kadar of Merrillville, Indiana. He's holding the U.S. Army-issued duffel bag that he used during World War II to tote his gear around France. The bag became separated from him in November of 1944, and Kadar was captured by the Germans and marched to a POW camp soon after that. But he survived the ordeal, and his duffel bag did as well. It was found and kept for several generations by a French family, which recently decided to find the bag's owner and return it to him. You can read more about the story here.

As it turns out, the past week or so has been a busy time for PermaRec-ish stories involving war artifacts:

• In Italy, a man has found a wristwatch that probably belonged to an American World War II military transport pilot. He hopes to return it to the pilot's family.

• In California, a photography enthusiast purchased an antique camera and was surprised to find that it contained eight glass negatives showing images taken in France during World War I. Fascinating stuff.

(Special thanks to Matthew Algeo for pointing me toward two of these stories.)

The photo on the left shows a young Joe Jackson; on the right, Suzi Quatro. The photos were recently shared with me by PermaRec reader Tom Common, who describes himself as "an antiques dealer specializing in postcards, paper, and photographs." He won't tell me where he's located, but his story, and the story of these photographs, is an intriguing one. I'll let him tell it in his own words:

Around the year 2000, I went to a local flea market. One of the dealers had a large box full of photographs. There were hundreds of folders of color and black-and-white photographs, most of them accompanied by negatives. Most of the photos were of rock musicians (mostly bar bands, but the photos looked very professional, like the photographer had been hired to do publicity shots), plus there was a little bit of personal family stuff and another large group of train pictures.

I quickly negotiated a price, paid, and asked the seller where he had acquired the photos. He told me that he had gone to a garage sale in a suburb and that a woman had sold them to him.

When I got home, I sorted through the photos and I was amazed. There were photos of bands that I remembered from the 1970s, interior shots of famous local bars with the employees, and shots of musicians practicing and relaxing backstage. In addition to photographing local bands, the person had seen shows by big-name acts like Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Todd Rundgren, etc. The photographer had also attended some of the huge stadium concerts. He did not have as much access to those shows, but they are pretty good shots considering the equipment he had.

The train photos were also interesting, as this person traveled all over the state documenting trains and stations. The family photos were the smallest part of the collection, and there were no family names or other identification.

I organized the photos as best I could (some had been removed from their folders and mixed up). And I attempted to identify the bands, using what little info was included on the envelopes. Then I put the collection on the back shelf for a while, always wondering who, what, and why.

Fast forward about five years. I was listening to a local college radio show, and a guy from a band was being interviewed live. He was in one of the bands that had been photographed. I called the show and spoke with the guy, explained the situation, and arranged to meet with him at a coffee shop.

On the scheduled date, two guys showed up to meet me. They introduced themselves, and it turned out that one of them was a photographer. I had brought along some of the photos I'd purchased at the flea market, and I showed the photos to them. The photographer guy said there were only three people doing this kind of work at the time, and he said he was pretty certain it was "John Doe." I asked about John Doe, and the guy said that he believed Doe had ended up in prison.

After the meeting I went home and did a bit of internet research. Sure enough, John Doe had been incarcerated, but he was out on probation.

Doe had been in prison at the time I bought the photos, My best guess is that his wife sold the photos. I think the reason there were so few family photos is that the wife kept most of those.

In any event, the photos of the bands are an important document of a specific time when rock music was the life blood of my hometown. I know they could be crafted into a fine book. I also know I would have to get in touch with all the people in the bands and find out stuff about the fans and behind-the-scenes people. But I am unskilled at the business of book publishing, and I have concerns about John Doe's role in all of this. I have not yet attempted to contact him.

I have talked to a few people and their reaction has been mixed. I honestly do not know how to proceed. Can you offer me any advice?

As I explained to Tom, I'm no attorney, but my layman's understanding of copyright law is that the original photographer -- whether it's John Doe or someone else -- still holds the copyright to the photographs, and that the photos therefore can't be published without his permission or compensation. But Tom should really consult a legal professional on that point.

What I do feel qualified to comment on is the question of whether Tom should contact John Doe. Tom hasn't shared John Doe's real identity with me, or the details of his criminal record, so I can't offer fully informed advice here, but my general feeling is that Tom should go ahead and contact him. Just because someone's an ex-con, that doesn't make him a bad or dangerous person. If he's out on parole, then he's supposedly paid his debt to society. And he may have an emotional connection to those photos, which he's probably assumed are gone forever.

As I've said before, I'm a storyteller, so my instinct is always to connect the dots and follow where they lead, even if they lead in some potentially uncomfortable directions. I hope that's what Tom ends up doing. If you have other advice for him, feel free to post it below, and/or contact him directly. He's eager to hear feedback (and not just of the squealing electric guitar variety).

Today we have the latest installment of Charlene Dodds's rephotography project, in which she's visiting places shown on old postcards sent to and from members of her family. (In case you missed it, previous installments in this series are available here, here, here, and here.)

Here's the latest from Charlene:

The next stop on my tour of Pennsylvania was Waynesboro, a town General Robert E. Lee passed through after the Battle of Gettysburg. A schoolmate of my great aunt’s had sent her a postcard from Waynesboro over the summer break in 1917. The postcard showed three grand houses along Clayton Avenue. I had no trouble finding the proper street, but I had to drive back and forth several times before I realized that the tiny trees shown in the postcard had grown so much in 95 years that they now largely obscure the houses, one of which you can just barely see peeking through in the photo I took [for all of these images, you can click to enlarge]:

You can get a better view of that house in this shot, although it doesn't duplicate the original postcard perspective.

My next stop was the Bedford rest station on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. This spot was a big hit for my paternal grandfather, who sent many postcards back home to his kids from this place, including a view of a Howard Johnson restaurant known as "the Midway." I discovered that the building shown is on the south side of the roadway. Roadway traffic necessitated a high concrete wall dividing the directional traffic lanes, so a second, near-identical restaurant was built on the north side of the road. That one is still there -- but much like the houses in Waynesboro, it's now largely obscured by trees:

My other grandfather, on my mother's side, also had a connection to the Turnpike. He had been the surveyor for this road many years earlier. My mother -- his daughter -- has regaled me with stories of when she was very small and he would take her along in the dead of night to “shoot the stars” with a sextant, which is how the workers plotted where to lay the roadbeds before GPS. It's fascinating to me that both sides of my family had a link to the Turnpike years before my parents would eventually meet.

That's it from Charlene for this time around. More soon.

Earlier this month I wrote about story behind an old military jacket that had washed ashore after Hurricane Sandy, and how the person who found it was able to return it to the widow of the cadet who'd originally worn it at West Point in the early 1930s.

The jacket shown above is not that same jacket, but it's very similar. It was purchased 20 years ago at a consignment shop by a Minnesota woman named Mary Helen Taft. When she read a news article about the jacket that had washed ashore, she became curious about the one she had bought, which was stowed away in her closet. So she dug it out and then did what the person who'd found the other jacket had done: She contacted West Point and asked if officials there could use the marks on the jacket's tags to tell her more about its original owner.

In this case, the jacket had been worn by a cadet named Joseph Francis Albano, who graduated in 1971. (West Point cadet jacket design apparently didn't change much in the four decades.) He's still alive, although he and Mary Helen Taft hadn't yet spoken or met as of a few days ago.

Further details on all of this, along with a mention of yet another vintage West Point jacket being traced back to its original wearer, can be found here.

(Special thanks to Barbara Zimmer for pointing me toward this one.)

The three front/back photo pairings you see above are all from the book Talking Pictures: Images and Messages Rescued from the Past by Ransom Riggs, who puts an unusual spin on a common hobby. He collects old snapshots that he finds at flea markets and junk shops (nothing new about that), but only if they're annotated with handwritten inscriptions -- usually on the back, but sometimes on the front.

Several hundred of photos from Riggs's collection are compiled in Talking Pictures, and the result is a compelling series of partially told stories that leave you wanting to know more. As you page through the book and read the annotations, you can't help but wonder "Hmmm, what happened to that couple?" or "How did that guy end up with a black eye?" or "Did that smallpox-ridden child survive?"

It's a great book, and very reasonably priced. Highly recommended to all PermaRec readers.

I'll close this entry with an assortment of additional images from the book -- enjoy.

I've written several times now about Russell Ries. As you may recall, he's the guy who purchased a cigar box full of old photos and other personal effects, all pertaining to the same person (who I refer to as John Doe). Russell did a little digging and discovered that John Doe was accused child neglect that resulted in the death of one of his children. Russell also discovered that while John Doe himself was now deceased, another one of his children was living in the Nashville area -- where Russell himself lives. He wondered if he should get in touch with the son and offer the photos and other items to him, or if he should keep his distance because the subject might be too painful. Several Permanent Record readers offered their own opinions on this.

Russell ultimately decided to get in touch with the son, whose name is Bill. (I had referred to him as Andy, to help protect his identity, but Russell is now ready to use his real first name.) Bill agreed to meet with Russell, and the meeting took place in Westmoreland, Tennessee, a few days ago. The photo above shows Russell on the left and Bill on the right.

Russell provided a detailed account of the meeting, including the following:

Until starting my drive to Westmoreland that morning, the full reality of the situation hadn't dawned on me. This was probably the final chapter of my connection to Bill and his family.

I had purchased the cigar box over Memorial Day weekend in 2011. And since that time, I had come to see myself as something of a steward of the memories contained within it. I had always hoped this day would come. But now faced with it, I began to lament the loss of my role in the story.

The truth was, no matter how close I may have felt to Bill or his father, I was a complete stranger to him. Some guy who, only last week, sent him a letter about pictures of his dad. He had been a compelling character in my life for over a year but I had literally just entered his. Would I be able to find any real connection with this man when we met? How would I feel about preserving and returning these memories to him if he turned out to be a jerk? It was a petty and small way to feel, I know. Fortunately, it proved to be without merit when we finally met.

There's more -- a lot more. To see how it all turns out, check out the full story on Russell's blog.

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A few housekeeping notes: It's been over two weeks since the last post here on the site. Sorry about that -- been busy with other projects. But Permanent Record is very much alive and well. In the coming days I'll be posting about a very PermaRec-ish book that I'm extremely excited about, along with the latest installment of Charlene Dodds's rephotography project, and hopefully a few other things.

Several people noticed the note at the end of last month's PermaRec article on Slate, which mentioned that there would be no more Slate articles for the foreseeable future. Just to clarify that, I plan to keep researching and investigating the stories behind the Manhattan Trade School report cards, and the Slate editors are happy to keep publishing PermaRec articles if I come across a student with a particularly powerful story. But they feel the basic goals of the series -- to tell about the school and its students -- have now been met. So any future articles will only be about report cards with particularly extraordinary stories to tell. (Of course, I think they're all extraordinary, but I understand the editors' point.)

My best wishes to all PermaRec readers for a safe and happy Christmas.

Today we have another installment of Charlene Dodds's rephotography project, in which she's visiting places shown on old postcards sent to and from members of her family. (In case you missed it, previous installments in this series are available here, here, and here.)

Here's the latest from Charlene:

For the next leg of my trip, I drove southwest from Harrisburg, and dropped in on Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. Mechanicsburg was originally named for Conestoga wagon mechanics who settled this area in the early 1800s. When the Cumberland Valley Railroad came through town, bringing more growth to the area, mechanics in the burg serviced the trains. The many train lines through Mechanicsburg aided in transporting troops during the Civil War. In 1923, Jubilee Day was started by a pre-Chamber of Commerce group. This fair, which takes place on the third Thursday of June, is now considered the largest and longest-running one-day street fair on the east coast.

Many of the same buildings from a century ago are still standing, including the ones shown in a postcard that was sent to my great aunt in 1917. I matched the view in the postcard by taking a photograph looking east from Hershey Violins on West Main Street [for all of these images, you can click to enlarge]:

Continuing southwest, I arrived at Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. The old church on King Street, completed in 1904 still survives, albeit with a few alterations to the tower. Still, it is recognizable as the same structure shown in this old postcard:

My great aunt attended Shippensburg College just outside of town. The college recently completed a refurbishing of the ornate fountain in front of the main building. The fountain and the building both look very similar to how they looked in these old postcards:

Back in town, the Sherman House has not fared as well. An old hotel originally known as the Union House, it was renamed and given new signage as Confederate troops approached, in hopes the it not be destroyed. Time has wrought worse alterations to “Shippen Place.” Looking carefully, one can see the original lines of the old hotel shown in this postcard, although xxpansion has pushed the wall outward, converting what was once a side street with rail tracks into an alley:

That's it from Charlene for now. I'm sure we'll be hearing more from her soon.

The two photos at the top of the page are West Point cadet Chester deGavre wearing his formal military jacket in his 1933 West Point yearbook photo, and that same jacket as it appears today. The lower photo shows the jacket being presented last week to deGavre's 98-year-old widow, Teresa deGavre, after the jacket had been found washed up on the Jersey Shore in the wake of hurricane Sandy.

The jacket was found by Donna Gugger (the blond woman in the lower photo), who discovered it while cleaning up debris near her home after the storm. She initially thought it was a costume jacket, but some of the interior tagging indicated that it was a genuine military jacket. With some research assistance from the folks at West Point, she was able to determine that it had been issued to Chester deGavre, who died in 1993. Some additional research led her to deGavre's widow.

That's some impressive sleuthing, although one serious mystery remains: Teresa deGavre had been completely unaware of the jacket's existence. It's not clear how it became separated from her husband, who may have owned it in the interim, or how it ended up in the ocean. In any case, it's now back where it belongs.

You can read more about this here and here, and there's a video report here:

Cadet jacket found in Sandy aftermath

(Special thanks to Sue Kendall for bringing this story to my attention.)

We've covered so many different stories here on the PermaRec Blog that it's easy to forget that Permanent Record is first and foremost about the amazing Manhattan Trade School report cards that I found in a file cabinet more than 16 years ago. With that in mind, here are two announcements:

1) I'll be doing a lecture/slideshow presentation about the report cards next Wednesday, Dec. 5, 7pm, at the Housing Works Bookstore Cafe in Manhattan. It'll be part of a program of several short presentations (I can't speak for the others, but I know the organizers, and they usually tend to book interesting people). Admission is free. Full details here.

2) In case you missed it earlier this week, the long-delayed 10th installment in the Slate series is now available for your enjoyment.

As you may have heard, there's been a remarkable PermaRec-ish story emerging out of England, where a gent named David Martin was renovating his chimney and found the remains of a long-dead carrier pigeon with a little red canister attached to its leg bone. Inside the canister was an encrypted World War II-era message. It's believed that the pigeon was sent from Nazi-occupied France during the war.

This story has received lots of media coverage, but I particularly like the treatment from Mallory Ortberg at Gawker, who approaches the story with a very endearing sense of Harriet the Spy-ish adventure. She begins by saying, "[S]ometimes life is every bit as exciting and riddled with mysteries as you had hoped it would be as a cunning, hopeful child" (a nice distillation of the PermaRec ethos, no?). Then she describes the particulars of the situation and observes:

Of course there was a small red cylinder! Of course it was rolled like cigarette paper, exactly as a secret code ought to be. We live in days of wonder.

I really like that.

As for the message, we may never know its contents, because British encryption authorities say its code is unbreakable, at least so far, and they may not have the resources to crack it. Further details here.

I have to admit, until now I thought finding a bunch of old report cards in a discarded file cabinet was about the coolest thing ever. But a finding an encrypted WWII message strapped to the decomposing leg bone of a deceased homing pigeon definitely trumps that. I know when I'm licked.

What you see above are the front and back of a postcard that was mailed from Rockford, Ill., to Elmira, N.Y., in the summer of 1943. It arrived at the address listed on the postcard just last week -- more than 69 years after it was sent.

The postcard was sent to sisters Pauline and Theresa Leisenring by their parents. The parents were visiting their son (Pauline and Theresa's brother) George Leisenring at the Medical Center Barracks at Camp Grant, which is the location shown on the front of the postcard.

The message reads as follows:

Dear Pauline and Theresa,

We arrived safe, had a good trip, but we were good and tired. Geo. looks good, we all went out to dinner today (Sunday). Now we are in the park. Geo has to go back to Grant at 12 o’clock tonight. Do not see much of him. We are going to make pancakes for Geo for supper tonight. See you soon.

Love,
Mother, Dad

Unfortunately, Pauline and Theresa no longer live at the address on the postcard (or anywhere else -- they died in 1962 and 1954, respectively), so the postcard was received by Adam and Laura Rundell and their family, who now live at that address.

It's not clear why the postcard took so long to be delivered or where it might have been stowed over the past several decades, but the Rundells were intrigued by it. According to this article, they did some PermaRec-style research, tracked down some of Pauline and Theresa's cousins, and offered the postcard to them. The story quotes Adam Rundell as saying, "They seemed interested but so far haven't picked it up."

I'm not sure why the Rundells can't simply mail the postcard to the cousins, but then this postcard has already had one harrowing postal adventure, so maybe best not to tempt fate.

(My thanks to Sue Kendall for pointing me toward this story.)

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Slate update: I've been told that long-delayed 10th installment of the Slate series will finally run on Monday. Fingers crossed!

The video shown above tells the story of a stash of World War II-era love letters that were found in a box that washed ashore in New Jersey in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. The man to whom the letters had been sent died in 1991; the woman who sent the letters is still alive, although she hadn't saved the letters herself, so it's not clear who had acquired them or how they ended up getting washed out to sea. In any event, it's another classic Permanent Record-type story. Further details here.

(My thanks to reader Sue Kendall for tipping me wise to this one.)

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Men at Lunch update: As promised, on Wednesday afternoon I went to see the documentary film Men at Lunch, which is about the famous 1932 photograph of ironworkers posing on a high-rise steel girder. It was good, but not great. A good chunk of the film is devoted to explaining why this is such an important and iconic photograph -- good stuff, but done in a very familiar, PBS-ish way. From a Permanent Record perspective, I was a smidge disappointed, because the filmmakers were able to positively identify only two of the 11 men in the photograph. A nice movie, but ultimately unsatisfying.

The fellow in the photographs shown above was named Lloyd Domier. He died in 1995 after a life spent primarily in North Dakota. These photos of him, and over 100 other shots of Lloyd and his family, were recently found in a Dumpster by someone in Florida. The photos were eventually sent to the Grand Forks Herald newspaper, which was able to get in touch with Lloyd's brother, Douglas Domier, to whom the photos were ultimately returned.

That's the short version. You can get more details in this article, which includes a link to a slideshow of additional photos.

(Special thanks to reader Tim Fry for tipping me off to this one.)

You've almost certainly seen this photo before. Taken in 1932, it shows an assortment of immigrant ironworkers taking their lunch on a steel girder at a New York City construction site. It has become one of history's most iconic New York photographs.

But who are the men shown in the photo? They've always been anonymous. For that matter, even the photographer's identity has long been unverified. (The photo has often been attributed to Lewis Hine, but that turns out to be inaccurate.)

A new documentary called Men at Lunch aims to solve these mysteries. I haven't yet seen the film, but it sounds very Permanent Record. You can read about it in this intriguing article. The film itself will screen this Wednesday, Nov. 14, at 3:15pm at the IFC Center in Manhattan. I'm going to try to attend. Anyone care to join me? If so, let me know.

Meanwhile, here's the film's trailer:

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Slate update: I'm told that the long-delayed 10th installment of the Slate series will finally be published this week. Hope so! Thanks for your patience.

Click to enlarge

What have we here? It's a photo of Hodel's Drug at the BaseMar Shopping Center in Boulder, Colorado. It was here that Oscar Hodel went to work each day and filled out the ledger that I eventually acquired.

The photo was taken in 1956 -- the year that Hodel's Drug (and I think the shopping center itself) opened. While looking at the photo, I noticed something interesting. Check out the signs for the other shops (click to enlarge):

It's a little hard to read some of them but they say:

Laundry•Dry Cleaners
[Illegible] Pastry Shop
Hardware
[Illegible] Barber Shop
Dairy Foods
Flowers

So four of the six signs are completely generic, indicating a category of commerce rather than a shop name -- odd. I must say, I would have been very disappointed if the Hodel's Drug sign simply read "Pharmacy."

(Special thanks to Wendy Hall of the Carnegie Branch Library for Local History in Boulder for providing the photo.)

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As some of you know, I live in Brooklyn, New York. Fortunately, I came through Hurricane Sandy completely unscathed -- no flooding, didn't lose power, didn't even have any trees come down on my block or in my back yard. Same goes for my Mom and my brother, both of whom live in the New York area.

Obviously, millions of other people weren't as lucky. If you and/or someone close to you were affected by the storm, hang in there -- we're all thinking of you. In a bit of cosmic irony, however, on Wednesday I broke my arm in a bike accident. Typing is now very tricky, so content here on the PermaRec site may be spotty for a bit. Thanks for understanding.

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Slate update: As you may have guessed, the storm has futher delayed the publication of the next full-length PermaRec article on Slate. Will they get it up next week? Hope so.