Triborough Bridge 1961

Life Magazine Archives: George Silk, Photographer

Soundbounder: NY Boat Show 1961, 1972

1961 New York Boat Show

"You should have seen the Atlantic Ocean in those days."*

There are several funny lines by Burt Lancaster's character in the 1979 movie Atlantic City. As a longtime resident of the declining resort town, he first appears to be someone who remembers the town's glory days. As the movie progresses, you start to realize he is someone who is hopelessly nostalgic about a past that never truly existed. Not only were the organized crime rackets better back in his day, the ocean was better too. Pursuing a much younger Susan Sarandon, it becomes clear what he misses most about the past is his youth.

I don't think I am blinded by nostalgia however when I describe the New York National Boat Show in the 1960's and '70's. Life Magazine covered it; the Tonight Show stopped by; and Jackie O' brought John-John too. It was like Super Bowl Sunday.... a January ritual....a mid winter classic.

You should have seen the boat show back then.

We would arrive on a Friday night; check out the spanking new boats; mingle with summer friends; gaze in awe at the swanky new gear; and leave with stuffed shopping bags full of brochures and giveaways.  Afterwards, we would eat at Lima's Fish-A-Teria (any fish you wish). My dad would have the fried fish special with a Lowenbrau; I had linguine with red clam sauce and a Freddie Bartholomew. My dopey older brother would ask for beef burgundy, in white wine, without the beef. It was a cosmopolitan and nautical, slapstick nirvana.

Four decades have done nothing to diminish those midtown-Manhattan, Polaroid days. Yes, the mostly mythical Mad Men era of girdles and scotch gave way to a more gritty and declining New York in the early 1970's. Films such as Serpico, The French Connection, and Midnight Cowboy show a city on its last legs, far removed from Breakfast At Tiffany's and An Affair To Remember. New York no longer had God (or Gerald Ford) on its side.

The New York National Boat Show however, was Burt Bacharach in a turtleneck, and Sterling Hayden smoking a pipe; with Natalie Wood-dressed girls inviting us aboard. Created in 1905, it was held in such long lost locales as the second Madison Square Garden, Grand Central Palace, Kingsbridge Armory, and the New York Coliseum. It is the Coliseum (1958-1986) years where it reached its highest fame. It is also the years I remember best.

Like baseball's All Star Game, the show began to lose its cache sometime in the 1980's. And also like the All Star Game, it was for a multitude of reasons: 

1. the autumn in-water shows are now larger.


2. potential customers today don't need to wait for a product to appear at a show in order to view it.


3. many boats today are not transportable by land due to their height and width.


4. there are cheaper ways for companies to showcase their wares.

The photos above are from the Life Magazine/Google Archives circa 1961.  I am not sure, but it looks like they are delivering a Stephens Cabin Cruiser to the big show; maybe a 35-36 footer. Rolling through the streets of Manhattan......I sound like an old coot, don't I?

You should have seen the teamsters in those days.

The New York Boat Show is underway at the Jacob Javits Center, January 19th-23rd. Though only a shell of its former self, it is still a fun way to spend a winter afternoon. Sadly, Lima's Fish-A -Teria is long gone; so are the Freddy Bartholomews.

NY Boat Show

Google/Life Archives: 1961 Boat Show Delivery

Soundbounder: Triborough Bridge 1961

Video: 1964 Boat Show Newsreel

Video: 1963 Boat Show Newsreel

YouTube: 1970's Lowenbrau Commercial (Merv, you're a genius)

YouTube: Burt Lancaster, Atlantic City (quote is at 1:15)

Rye Town Park Centennial

Whenever I hear the name Rye Town Park, I always have to think for a moment. It always takes me a few seconds to remember that Rye Town Park is the official name of Oakland Beach. I have always had difficulty with alternate or changed names:  I still refer to the Met Life Building as the Pan Am Building, and the Patriots play at Foxboro, not Gillette Stadium. Houses still carry the last name of  the owners who lived there 25 years ago, but have long sinced moved on.

Rye Town Park however, is a name that has been around a long time; certainly longer than I have. In 2009 the park celebrated it's 100th birthday, and continues to be one of the nicest town parks along this stretch of Long Island Sound. During our recent January thaw, I found her looking much like she did in an early 20th century postcard.



Rye Historical Society: Walking Tour Script

Rye Patch: New Dog Running Area At Oakland Beach

Painting Rye: Crescent Of Rocks

Map

photo credit: Penny Postcards (top)

Orient Point Light

Orient Point Light (aka The Coffee Pot)
First Lit: 1899

From the North Fork: Coffee Pot
East End Lighthouses
Lighthouse Friends (map)
Marie Lorenz (photos from tower)
Long Island Lighthouses
SeaTheLights
TwoFrog

Sports Illustrated Cover Story, 1954

In an era when sports athletes are celebrities, and tabloids are sometimes indistinguishable from from the sports pages, it is hard to believe that a sailboat race on Long Island Sound would be the cover story for a national sports publication. This 1954 Sports Illustrated issue came long before advertisers and the board of directors played a major role in editing, and terms like target market were not so scientific and strict. Browsing through old issues of Sports Illustrated, I found stories on fishing, canoeing, and scuba diving, alongside stories about Willie Mays and Johnny Unitas. They wrote about all sorts of sporting activities, not just the big dollar spectator sports.
This consolidation has been happening for at least 30 years in all forms of media and marketing. But targeting a specific demographic or niche has not provided a more in-depth result. Radio stations for example, have become less and less eclectic, while at the same time narrowing their play lists to a small sample of songs that we hear over and over again. Boating magazines seem to run the same generic articles every year about some tycoon in the Mediterranean. Skiing magazines often ignore the large numbers of skiers who do not board a jet to go skiing. Hiking magazines have taken a page from VH-1, and devote every issue to lists of the "Top Ten Boots" or the "Top Outdoor People On Twitter" (I kid you not).
It wasn't my intention but this is starting to sound like a rant. Perhaps it is a sign of getting older, but I constantly feel as if nothing is targeting me. Even in pastimes that I am passionate about, I often feel as if the marketers are ignoring me. In the rare instances when they are not ignoring me, they are trying to convert, rather than cater to me. Does this happen to anyone else? Am I part of a demographic that Madison Avenue views as too much trouble? Maybe I should be careful about what I wish for. I may be disappointed with the role that target audiences play, but that doesn't mean I want to join them. There are benefits to not being targeted, and I think I would be uncomfortable if it were any other way.

Sports Illustrated: Cover Archives
photo credit: Richard Meek, Sports Illustrated, 9/6/1954

Race Day On Long Island Sound

THE YACHTS
Brilliance of cloudless days, with broad bellying sails
they glide to the wind tossing green water

from their ship prows while over them the crew crawls

Ant-like, solicitously grooming them, releasing,
making fast as they turn, lean far over and having
caught the wind again, side by side, head for the mark

William Carlos Williams

The LIFE Magazine photo archives are now available online. (Thanks to Good Old Boat Redwing for the link) The photographs above are entitled Race Day On Long Island Sound. These photos immediately sparked a memory of a poem I first heard in high school English class. I did not remember much about the poem except that it was about a sailboat race, and there were similar pictures on the textbook page opposite the poem. There were also pictures of fruit opposite a poem about someone eating plums. Why I remember that, I have no idea.
Thanks to the wonders of Google, I was able to track it down.
It is funny how memory works.

LIFE Magazine Photo Archives
William Carlos Williams: The Yachts (complete poem)

photo credits:(top to bottom) Alfred Eisenstaedt 1947, Bob Gomel 1960, Alfred Eisenstaedt 1947