American Road Trip 1979 on Kodachrome

lynnb said:
Sadly my NYC visit was a story of missed opportunity.. our 2 day stay (3 nights) was already cut short by one day/night when our van was delayed 24hrs for temporary repairs at a rural truck stop in Tennessee. After the van limped into NYC late in the day and we'd unpacked at the Prince George on 27th St, the tour guide/driver asked all the guys if we would help him repair the van at a depot in Staten Island for however long it took, leaving the girls in the hotel. I was amazed at the request, and declined - I hadn't come all this way to work as an unpaid mechanic. Crazy that the tour company seemed to have no mechanic or replacement vehicle. I seem to remember at least 4 of the guys agreed to help, to speed up the repairs.

We expected them to return first thing in the morning, but when it got past 10am with no sign of them and no word I decided to head out on foot by my own. Everyone else at the hotel decided to wait - as it turned out, till late afternoon (with departure from NYC the following morning). So I was by myself in NYC, no street map and no idea of what was worth seeing, where it was or how to get there (1979 was pre-internet). I did quite a bit of walking, but missed all the attractions you mentioned. Would've loved to have seen them. At least I got to a Broadway show even if it was a performer I'd normally not want to see, and a late dinner by myself at Sardi's. The pictures I'm posting give you and idea of where I went.

Next morning it was time to leave - the driver/guide drove across Central Park on one of the traverse roads, no stopping.. and that was it. Talk about disappointment... but the remainder of my tour group saw even less.


From my brief time in NYC I would've loved to have lived there, or at least spend a few months. Glad I triggered some good memories!
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My first encounter with Manhattan occurred in December 1981, shortly after my arrival to Blacksburg VA from Baghdad Iraq. I saw a posted note at the university on wanting riders to NYC by a freshman at Virginia Tech. I was one of three such riders, contributing to the gas cost for the trip.
I had a brandnew small suitcase for the "occasion", and it did not help that the driver decided suddenly (at night and during a thunderstorm) that he was not ready to drive in Manhattan! He dropped me off at some exit at the Interstate. I walked in the dark towards civilization, and after passing some forest like trees in the dark, there was a lit sign! HARLEM.
 
#USA17-22 Times Square, NYC, 25 May 1979.
Now showing: Seduction of Amy, and French Classmates.

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raid said:
My first encounter with Manhattan occurred in December 1981, shortly after my arrival to Blacksburg VA from Baghdad Iraq. I saw a posted note at the university on wanting riders to NYC by a freshman at Virginia Tech. I was one of three such riders, contributing to the gas cost for the trip.
I had a brandnew small suitcase for the "occasion", and it did not help that the driver decided suddenly (at night and during a thunderstorm) that he was not ready to drive in Manhattan! He dropped me off at some exit at the Interstate. I walked in the dark towards civilization, and after passing some forest like trees in the dark, there was a lit sign! HARLEM.
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Very funny Raid!
 
I recall that I drove one (a Checker, that is) in 1979 or 1982, at a friend's of my mom's somewhere in suburban Connecticut (I think it was New Britain). Handled sort of okay, a bit clumsy. Well organized dashboard with all the information a driver would ever want, well located. But murder on gasoline, so the owner told me.

I also remember the guy who owned all those Checkers in NM was called Booey. He lived on a large (obviously!) property somewhere near an oddly named place called Truth Or Consequence. As I previously wrote, sadly I passed on visiting his collection, which I now regret as it could easily have been one of those highlight moments of my life.

Alas, no other info has surfaced in my overcluttered and fast-fading memory. I now live in Australia, but my detailed diaries from the 1970s are in storage with one of my cousins in Canada and I will likely never return there to retrieve them. She is also much too old for the effort of finding and packing them for me. Another lost episode.

I'm no Lee Friedlander and have never wanted to be, altho' I do admire the guy for the effort he put into his image-making and the sheer volume of his work (apparently a lot of it still unprocessed so unseen by the world). Yet back then I too (like Lynn) had an 'eye' for detail and my slides from that period are full of what I regarded at the time was the visual clutter of our complex consumerist culture in North America. Australia was a different place when I came here (1976), far less cluttered and more free to the eye, so my photos from that period are far less busy - think "boring bush landscapes" and you've nicely summed up half or more of my output for that time. I enjoyed photographing what I call "multiples", masses of buildings, cars, people - and of course signs.

Those photographed by Lynn in NYC reflect an amazing period in American history in themselves. At that time I tended to mentally dismiss all the extraneous 'data' I could see in my travel images, but now I look at them and greatly enjoy revisiting all that visual information I (maybe unconsciously) saw around me and went to the bother of recording on film.
 
lynnb said:
#USA17-23 possibly near Times Square, NYC, 25 May 1979
Notice the pile of rubbish on the footpath. The SCS Business and Technical Institute advertises Typing, Shorthand, Secretarial and Office Business Machines. I'd appreciate if anyone can identify this intersection for me.

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Okay, what surprises me here is the Florsheim Shoes store. I've worn Florsheims on and off for much of my life, buying them mostly in Australia and a couple of pairs in Hong Kong. There's a Florsheim factory outlet near where I live, too. I'd always assumed they were an Australian brand! But looking it up has shown me that Florsheim was founded in Chicago over 125 years ago!
 
DownUnder said:
Alas, no other info has surfaced in my overcluttered and fast-fading memory. I now live in Australia, but my detailed diaries from the 1970s are in storage with one of my cousins in Canada and I will likely never return there to retrieve them. She is also much too old for the effort of finding and packing them for me. Another lost episode.
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This is such a shame. I've been able to keep almost all of my diaries, started when I was about 6 or 7. There were a few years when I didn't write much, but I began in earnest when I was 15 and never really stopped.
DownUnder said:
Those photographed by Lynn in NYC reflect an amazing period in American history in themselves. At that time I tended to mentally dismiss all the extraneous 'data' I could see in my travel images, but now I look at them and greatly enjoy revisiting all that visual information I (maybe unconsciously) saw around me and went to the bother of recording on film.
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It's so good that @lynnb 's photos are sparking all these memories in you! Write down as much as you remember, perhaps make a Word document so you can add to each set of dates as you recall more and more. One of my side projects has been to catalogue my life, and fill in the gaps in my diaries where I did not record. I use various things to spark memory for each year, like movies released, top ten music albums, notable news events both local and international. If I recall a historical event in a certain year, I read about it online and note if any memories come up, then add them to my retrospective journal. I also have access to many years of emails to family and friends which often contain accounts of experiences, so they get added to the journal, too.

Lynn's thread is a magnificent example of the power of photography and journaling to capture the moment, record history, and encourage remembrance.
 
Olden Camera was where I ordered my first new Nikkor lens in, maybe, 1972-73, No internet at the time and I did not have a phone. I corresponded to Mr. Olden by letter and sent a postal money order to make the purchase. It was the Nikkor 35/2.8 lens. Probably Nikon's lowest priced lens at the time. No matter, I loved it and used it for years. Last year I found a used one that had been AI'd so I could use it on my digital Nikons. It's really a very sharp little lens--a keeper.
 
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