I hope everyone’s Labor Day Weekend is going well. I’m using the time to relax and catch up on a few things. This past week my colleague and I introduced our class to the New York City of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Because ours is an interdisciplinary class we divide up the elements, with broad allowances for overlap. Generally he covers the architectural and urban planning aspects and I cover the social and historical, though again there is much overlap and interconnection. We are trying to emphasize that the evolution of New York City is not just a story of steel and concrete, but of people. Our students were shocked to discover that today’s Penn Station is not the same one that existed decades ago only to be torn down and dumped into the swamps of New Jersey as scrap. It is always exciting when students learn something new.
Yesterday I was on Getty Images looking for various visuals that I might show the class this coming week to bring the story home of the dailyness that was the old Pennsylvania Station before its demolition in the 1960s. Getty is gracious in allowing individuals to use its embed feature for non-commercial purposes. The station was part of people’s lives, which many passed through in the course of their work and play. One picture I may use is the one we see here of Babe Ruth in Pennsylvania Station on February 24, 1928, presumably leaving for spring training. This of course would have been the year after the Murderers Row 1927 team. Still, the ’28 Yanks weren’t too shabby, winning 101 games and sweeping the Cardinals in the World Series.
Enjoy the rest of your Labor Day Weekend.
The Strawfoot 