BIG LABOR DAY ISSUE

Click on images to enlarge

1920's --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1954

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1964:

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Eugene Piper 1959

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1920's medals were awarded by Yacht Club

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LABOR DAY, 1946-1949 IN SALTAIRE: KODACHROME IMAGES BY THE LATE RICHARD GREER

Pictures by Richard Greer

Pictures courtesy Sid Greer

(JO'H Ed. Note) : The promise of Saltaire from its very inception, to nurture “Healthy Happy Saltaire Youngsters” http://saltaire38.blogspot.com/search?q=Bungaliers was as much evidence in the post- World War II era as it is today. Kids here, kids there, kids everywhere.

Saltaire was never a resort where you went to get away from the kids—it was a place you went to live with the kids. And you never got to know just the kids: you got to know whole families. Bill Stillgebauer told us that his parents were close friends with the Greers, and Bill became friends with the Greers' kids, and grandkids and nieces and nephews. The Greers were cousins of the Glascocks who became good friends of the Stillgebauers, and so on. Growing up Saltaire, you knew people in the context of their families.

1950’s Mayor John Ludlow once said:
There is a word in our own language that I think has not been given due importance. The word is "sociability," which I'll take the liberty of terming "vocal, hospitable, friendliness." Sociability is friendliness of by word as well as by deed: it is when you enjoy having people in for supper equally as having supper at their house; when during a walk around the block you meet and have a friendly greeting from eight or ten people.Such is the type of life that we have at Saltaire. We are a small incorporated village of one hundred and ten cottages, a part of the Town of Islip,
---Mayor John Ludlow, 1954.
http://saltaire38.blogspot.com/search?q=polio

We are proud to introduce Richard Greer’s Labor Day pictures from 1946, 1947 and 1948 that show that sociability in context of a Village tradition carried on each year from the earliest years of the Village: the annual Labor Day races at the ball field and on the bay. Parents went down to the field to watch the kids run. And they got to do some running themselves—or at least jumping in potato sacks. The next day was on to the bay for the swimming races in the boat basin.

Then to watch the kids as they gore themselves, hands behind their backs, with blueberry pie, a tradition that goes back at least to the 1920’s in Saltaire, http://saltaire38.blogspot.com/2008/08/labor-day-in-saltaire.html

Finally, of course, came the great Labor Day awards ceremony at the Yacht Club. The Village turned out for what was Saltaire's version of the Academy Awards. The season's awards for sailing, swimming and track were awarded in a packed Yacht Club, topped off by the big awards: the Sailing trophies and "The Cup," a trophy given each year for the best kid in each particular class.

Greer's images capture a Village in an era of confidence: a Village that in the previous ten years had fought off the utter destruction of the Hurricane of 1938 http://saltairian.com/pages/history/1938/ocean-met-bay.html
http://saltaire38.blogspot.com/search?q=beleagured
http://saltaire38.blogspot.com/search?q=Joseph+Lynch

and then had seen its parents go off and fight and win the Big War.

http://saltaire38.blogspot.com/search?q=Iwo+Jima

http://saltaire38.blogspot.com/search?q=nancy+latham

48 -star American flags delineated the running course for the races at the field; red white and blue streamers hung on the Broadway fence.

And kids everywhere, and parents everywhere too: this was, after all, the earliest bloom of the Baby Boom. So thanks, Sid Greer, for saving your dad Richard's Kodachromes from that heady time: This was All American Saltaire at mid Century.
ALL PICTURES BY RICHARD GREER

CLICK ANY PICTURE TO ENLARGE
THE LABOR DAY TRACK MEET, 1947

Not many people remember, but there used to be a cinder track around the ball field, as seen on left. By the 1950's it was covered up, except for the northern end of the field between the right field foul line and the the fire house. The fire house was farther back than it is today. It was torture to walk on that part of the old track in bare feet: there were big, chunky cinders.

Note: fire alarm gong on Broadway. In the early days, there were similar alarms in strategic locations throughout the village. They were manually operated: just hit 'em with a big hammer to summon help. There was no electricity or telephone service until the 1930's. See an earlier fire alarm here: http://saltaire38.blogspot.com/search?q=Fire+Alarms

Note here the clear view across tennis courts to houses on Marine Walk.

Note in this picture: there used to be basketball backboards along the right field line, a double sided one shownher incenter filed, and another deep in center field.
The house in the background is on Pacific walk.

THE SWIMMING RACES AT THE BAY

The track meet was one day, the swimming meet the next.

These swimming pictures were taken in two different years, 1946 and 1948 .

Look closely: the old grey headed man in the scow on the right is the famous old bayman/hermit , Captain Baldwin. Kind of creepy to see him there. To follow his legend, click here: http://saltaire38.blogspot.com/search?q=Baldwin

THE PIE EATING CONTESTS:

There is a Saltaire promotional brochure from the 1920's that shows a line of kids along Bay Prom participating in a pie eating contest. http://saltaire38.blogspot.com/2008/08/labor-day-in-saltaire.html These 1948 by images by Robert Greer show the tradition was strong. See, for instance Hank Stillgebauer's images from 1957: http://saltaire38.blogspot.com/search?q=messiness The pie eating contests continued at lest through teh early 1960's. Why the stopped this this tradition is anyone's guess, but there is no reason why it cannot be reintroduced in 2010.

THE CUP:

This was it. The ultimate; the Oscar; the top award for top kid in each goup. Real hardware that looked great on the mantle.

THE REASON THEY DID ALL THIS:

Only on http://www.saltaire38.blogspot.com/

We have lots more Greer photos from that era: beach scenes; sailing scenes, scenes with lots of people old timers may recall, and a series of pictures of a baseball game between Saltaire aind Pont of Woods at Point of Woods in 1950.

Trouble is, we have not received YOUR pictures yet.

send them to:

johareny@aol.com

Mel Brooks turning 100

 It's been 50 years, so I guess I can tell this story.  I don't remember when, where or how it all stated, but I spent an summer with his niece.  I was still quite innocent, so I assume she initiated the relationship.  She had her way with me for the summer. I visited Mel's house in Robin's Rest with her, and we took a 'Role in the Hay' in his bed.  She returned to school in September, and I saw her once at college, but realized that I was just a summer toy, and she had moved on.  I was introduced to Ann Bancroft one day when she was sitting on the beach by the ocean.

I also ran into Dom DeLuise once.  It was a Monday, Labor Day weekend, the end of the rental season.  I was picking someone up at the Ocean Beach terminal in Bay Shore when a renter walking off the dock carrying four suitcases stopped in front of me, dropped all the suitcases, looked at me and said s**t.  It realized after he walked off it was Dom himself! 

Happy 100th Birthday, Mel. 

Brian Scott on Heavenly Saltaire Flapjack Girls and the Hell of the Flapper

Brian Scott Chips in From California:


BRIAN SCOTT WRITES TO Saltaire38.blogspot.com :

"They said I should contribute to the Saltaire Blog-- write down some things that I remember all my life about growing up on the Island.

Wow! Could I put it all in print? Will I be arrested?
Will anybody care?


So many memories. And where can I begin?


Can I talk about the most beautiful girls I ever saw?

I grew up on Marine Walk next to the "GREEN ROSE" and two doors down from the Melusos.…


I remember two girls-- sisters -- the most beautiful females I ever met. Godesses.

The older sister made the best pancakes I ever ate- to this day.

I would get up at the crack of Noon and wander out to the deck, bowl in hand, and begin to pick blueberries from the twenty or so bushes that surrounded my house. When my bowl was full, I went back inside and she would make these pancakes with sour cream that were out of this world. Hell, I don't even like pancakes, but they were so much more than pancakes... they were HEAVEN.


BUT WHAT I WAS REALLY GOING TO TALK ABOUT BEFORE ALL MY MEMORIES OF BEAUTIFUL GODESSES SERVING UP HEAVENLY FLAPJACKS, DISTRACTED ME, WAS ABOUT SOMETHING MUCH MORE ORDINARY: THE FLAPPER:


Everybody can remember that big flap of skin that was left hanging from the bottom of your feet between your big toe and the second toe when you hit a nail sticking up from the boardwalk. You might go two or three or four summers without getting one, but eventually we all succumbed to the inevitable Flapper.


You could always tell when someone had hit that little nail head sticking up from the boardwalk by the telltale white sock on just one foot. Or you would see an otherwise healthy little kid hobbling around on one heel.

My crazy Cousin “Love you, Dude” once went around the Village for a week with a hammer banging down every nail he could find.

It's funny how I can laugh at such a horrid memory and look back with a smile on my face.

So for all of us who experienced the horror and the pain of the flapper, and to all of those future generations yet to experience it, be advised:

Nobody will escape THE FLAPPER . It is as much a part of Saltaire as that warm feeling of the sun on your face at the beach, or the beauty of the setting sun.
"All hail the flapper."
- -Recollection by Brian Scott;




Brian recently sent us this photo of his dad Allen.
It was taken in Saltaire in the 30's. I would say
that that he looks exactly like Brian in Saltaire
in the 70's. (GF)

JOH:

Hey, BRIAN: don't you live in California?

...and you are saying that the Saltaire girls, not California girls, are the "cutest girls in the world?"...

Are you saying that blueberry bushes are more romantic than palm trees???

"The west coast has the sunshine
And the girls all get so tanned
I dig a french bikini on Hawaii island
Dolls by a palm tree in the sand .."

California Girls

As far as the Flapper, I hope Brian Scott did not get any "Flappers" in the summers of 1965 or 1966. I worked for the Village garbage and maintenance crew then. Lenny McGahey and Gottfried Mahler carried a big hammer in the garbage truck and whenever they saw a raised nail they were supposed to stop the truck and get out and hammer it down. On occasion we would specifically drive up and down the boardwalks looking for protruding nails. If the boards were broken, we would replace the broken boards... In theory.

The reason the nails pop up is because the boards on boardwalks are laid diagonally. The wheels of trucks are parallel. So when the front right wheel of a truck passes over a board, the weight presses the right side of the board down. The left wheel is not on the same board, so the left side of the board will rise as a reaction to the downward pressure on the right side. After the truck passes, the board settles, but a nail on the left side that has been forced up does not settle back. Multiply this pressure by four each time a truck passes down a walk and it is just a matter of time that something is gonna pop up.

We all recall lots of ways to hurt your feet in Saltaire:

Saltaire WAYS TO HURT YOUR FEET:

• FLAPPERS
• SPLINTERS
• SPLINTERS UNDER TOENAIL
• STEP ON RUSTY NAIL
• CUT YOUR FOOT DIGGING FOR CLAMS BAREFOOT IN THE COVE.
• Getting tar all over your feet. You may have to be older to remember this, but a long walk on the beach often left your feet stained with tar. This was probably not very harmful, but gross, and messy and hard to remove. And if the tar got on your clothes, your June Cleaver mom would have an identidy crisis, because it would never come out, no matter how much Washday Miracle she would soak it in. It was a worse nightmare than "Ring Around the collar" for Saltaire's Harriet Nelsons. They would spend the whole week scrubbing in a vain attempt to get those stains out before the Daddy Boat arrived on Friday night.

Before stricter environmental laws took effect in the 1960s, the Fire Island beaches were much dirtier than they are today, because ships approaching New York Harbor would jettison their excess bilge, oil, head waste, skids and shipping crates and whatever else they didn't want to bring to port. The wood had lots of rusty nails, and the tar would be considered an environmental disaster today. Hence, it was pretty much normal that if you went walking on the beach you would get tar on your feet. I used to think the tar was natural. If you were less fortunate you might step on a rusty nail in an old piece of trash that we used to call “driftwood."

Patsy Scanlan recalls: Of course I cut my foot on nails as a kid in Saltaire. I ended up in a hospital because of a splinter (more like a log) jammed into the ball of my left foot. I wouldn't let my mom keep picking at it with a needle. It was way too deep. A month later I was hospitalized for a week over it.

Wearing a white sock was a badge of honor to your hurt foot.

Liz Kelly: "The eyes have it:"

"Tar on the beach. My sister kicked some of that tar around one day when we were out walking and it flew right into my eye socket and lodged there for the rest of the day (AND I had on a white sock from a flapper.) The visiting doctor was to scared to pull it off thinking my eyeball would come out. I had to keep my head in a basin of cold water for hours until it shrunk a bit."

-Liz Kelly

Jean Campbell, all the way from LA, recalls there was a cure for tar on the feet-- but I don't know if it would cure Liz Kelly's tar on the eyeball:

Jean sez: "Let's not forget the antidote to tarred feet - mayo! I'll bet Hank and Vera did a heck of a Hellman's business during those years!"

Thanx, Jean

Jon Lyon: Anything to get out of those swimming lessons with Uncle Pete:

Jon Lyon: "perhaps a bit early for young Brian to remember, but if you decided to skip Uncle Pete's swimming lessons you had better either stay safely out of sight, or put a white sock on if out and about. If Uncle Pete thought you were healthy and shirking your swimming duties there was hell to pay.

-Jon Lyon

Click Below and make your own entries about the Flapper or other injuries to the foot (and if they’re really bad, pass them along to JOH, a personal injury lawyer).

WHAT TO WEAR AT THE OLD BALL GAME

REPRISING THE SALTY SPRAY

We have long been fascinated by the quality of writing of muppets who wrote and edited The Salty Spray 1968-1972, much as old timers lament the loss of the New York Herald Tribune or the old Brookly Eagle.

The Saltaire Historical Society has reprinted all of the Salty Spray issues and bound them, and has made them available at cost of reprinting -- $10. We urge you to pick up the whole volume, through the Historical Society and/or Saltaire Historian III Eliz. Starkey.

We also can’t resist taking some excerpts and posting them here from time to time.

We found a Salty Spray story that goes with a pictorial we ran a few months ago. We take pleasure to rerun those pictures now with the full story as reported in the Salty Spray on August 1, 1969:

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WHAT TO WEAR AT THE OLD BALL GAME

The Salty Spray

August 1, 1969

On Sunday, July 27, at 3 p.m., just half an hour late, a roaring game of softball was played by the women of the west side of Saltaire against the women living on the east side of town.
The captain of the east side was Marie Bitzer.









Before the game started, her team assembled at Mary Jane Scanlan’s house. There is a rumor that whisky sours were served.



The captain of the west side players was Florence McManus and she invited her teammates to her house. More rumors.
Before the game started, two east side children, Steve and Susan LeMay, armed with pads and pencils, tried to spy on the west side women—to learn their strategy.
When the teams met at 3 p.m., catcher Mary Jane Scanlan of the east brought her raft. Pitching to her was Grace Gallagher. First Lady Virginia O’Brien caught for the west side and Joan Gowan pitched.
There were two wolves in ladies’ clothing. Matilda (or was it Peter?) Reilly came in her long blue and white culottes which matched the blue bonnet she wore over her lovely long brown hair. Penelope (maybe Mike?) McAllister wore black and yellow flowered culottes.
As the spectators said, “What a game!” It was thrilling from start to finish.



Your Salty Spray reporter noted these other fashionable costumes.






Peggy Cunningham wore long blue jeans, her son’s track shoes and unmatched sun glass lenses. Rita Connelly wore an old lady’s dress, yellow bonnet, old men’s sneakers. She sat in a rocking chair to bat, knit, smoked a corncob pipe, and had to be pulled around in a wagon. She made a tremendous hit which led her team to the victory the west side claims.














Virginia O’Brien wore red long-johns and a “Queen Elizabeth” sailor hat. Her pigtails were tied with a rope. Claire Marcus wore a football shirt numbered “21”, sweat pants and a sailor hat. Marion Scott wore a baseball shirt numbered “32”, baseball pants and navy blue knee socks.
Anne Reilly wore a pair of old fashioned men’s pajamas with a red and blue striped shirt. Her hair was braided and beribboned.
Georgie Hull wore boys’ pajamas, a sailor hat and old men’s sneakers.

Florence McManus wore a blue Snoopy sweatshirt, a pair of old golf pants and an old golf hat.





Joan Gowan wore a pair of sweat pants, a WMCA Good Guy sweat shirt and a sailor hat topped with a Raccoon pompom.
Dottie Campbell wore farmer clothes and a straw hat. Grace Gallagher wore her husband’s surfing pants and a miner’s hat.



As we reported, the west side says it won.
















East v. West (late 60s)


All photos copyright J. Wolford, Chicago Il..






























Sept 29, 2008:
Michael McAllister said...
Thank you Saltaire38. Not only do I get to see a picture of my Greatgrandmother, my grandmother and me in my mother's belly, but I get to scroll up and see my father in drag.

JOH: Hey Mike: we ran these pictures before. So what is the big surprise? Do you mean to say your father hid this secret from you all these years?
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OTHER COMMENTS ON THE BIG GAME:


We don't know about Marie's coaching prowess, but there is no doubt she was a Saltaire original:

"Marie Bitzer was without a doubt one of the most flamboyant and memorable characters ever to grace the boardwalks of Saltaire. Her sense of high fashion and dress could have gained her admission to the most high brow costume parties.

I remember specifically one Saturday night in the early fall of 1968. I decided to take a date to the old Oak Beach Inn, which in those days was a great local night club. The only problem was a means of transit from Saltaire to Oak Beach. My father agreed to take us over to the OBI in his boat. Invited along for the trip was both my mother and Marie Bitzer.

Marie got a few drinks poured into her and the entertainment for the evening began. She regaled us with her stories of trips to foreign lands. Among her circle of friends was King Farouk of Egypt and I believe the Shah of Iran. She was house(or more likely palace) guests of both.

Marie's best story was the experience she and her extremely near-sighted husband John had during the Hurricane of '38. As the wind and waves rose Marie(who owned the current Ickes/McElhone residence on Pacific) felt that it would be prudent if both she and John made tracks for higher ground in the Village Hall. Marie related how, as she looked back the tidal surge had ripped up boardwalks behind her. She implored John, who could barely see the nose in front of his face to "hurry the waves are destroying the boardwalk behind us" John, looking back, and barely seeing anything, responded, "Oh Marie, you've always had such a vivid imagination." Thankfully, for Saltaire Marie and John survived the storm with no injuries.

Marie also, in her day, was the preeminent realtor in Saltaire. No one, at that time could out-hustle her for either a sale or rental. Captain Al, out of either respect(or disgust) always would tell us that "if there was a vacant telephone booth in the Village that Marie would rent it to someone for the summer."
--Beaver

Jean Campbell said...

That softball game must have taken place in 1969 because my Mom is using my crutches with her "costume" and I broke my leg in 1968 and would have needed them that summer.

On the "East" team, I recognize Dottie Campbell (my Mom), Grace Gallagher, Mary Fontanals, Lee MacAdam, Dorothy LeMay, Marie Bitzer and I think that's Pat Corrigan on the end.

In the shot of the Florence Gibson with the question of her being the best coach ever, I believe that's my Dad - Ken Campbell - sitting in the bleachers.

Great photos - thanks for posting them. I remember them also being published in the Salty Spray that summer. Hope you've been able to contact the former editors - Elizabeth Elkind, Jane Markus and I think the 3rd one was India Ely.

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Was this Saltaire's Greatest Team Ever?


Click Photos to enlarge


Saltaire East
copyright J. Woolford, Chicago, Il


Or was this?
click photo to enlarge
Copyright J. Woolford, Chicago, Il
Saltaire West

We have a half a dozen more pictures to come, one each day, subject to people properly identifying the personalities in these team portraits.

So if you want to see more of these exclusives (there are no "negatives" out there; these originals were Polaroids) you have to tune into http://www.saltaire38.blogspot.com/


"We report. You decide"