Elizabeth Taylor FOREVER

Sleep tight, violet eyes... Rest easy.  Thanks for everything.

Building The 1950s American Dream Home

Having worked from the 1970s backwards through the massive archive of family 35MM slides, we now arrive at what was a pivotal event for my grandparents, Mom and her siblings... The construction of the home they all took such great pride in.  To hear my grandparents tell it (and they did MANY times, trust me) a great deal of saving, accounting for each penny and great preparation went into moving the family out of their apartment on Hoyt Avenue and into a brand new home with all the modern conveniences.  

This home was to house not only the Nelsens, but my great grandmother Mae Costello, who lived with my grandparents from their wedding day in 1950 until her death in 1981.  My Mom still says that she grew up thinking that everyone lived with their grandmothers and was surprised when she found out that most of her classmates at Saint Joseph Hill Academy didn't.  Granny (as I called her) was a constant presence in my life for eight years, since I spent a great deal of time in this house with everyone.  I can't really picture my formative years without her either.  

Above we see my grandfather Norman (at right) overseeing the pouring of a foundation and the framework being hammered into place (below).  He built this home from a series of purchased plans with a small crew of family which included his own father, who was born in Norway.

From what I was told as a kid, it's a Norwegian good luck blessing to have a tree (or in this case what appears to be a tree branch) wedged into the roof of a new home upon its completion.  I don't recall it having taken root through the dormer in my Aunt Susan and Aunt Karen's bedroom, so my guess is that this was merely a prop for a photo op.

The rear of the house is seen here from the back corner of the yard where a stone barbecue was later built in an arched form that resembled a grotto with a chimney.  The double window at far left was later replaced with a large bay window and the double windows to the right of that were removed in the 1970s to allow the dining room to be extended into the yard a few more feet.  I clearly recall ladders, a tarp, lots of tools, coffee cans of nails and seeing the wall simply being farther away than it once was.   

Nearing completion (above) and achieving perfection (below).

It doesn't get much more 1950s Americana than my Aunt Karen, Uncle Kevin and Mom in their 

neatly-pressed Springtime finery on the front lawn of a converted Cape Cod-Style home (on a corner lot at the foot of a dead-end street) next to The Greenbelt in a suburb of New York City.

This would not only be The Nelsen's home, but a home to everyone they knew, loved, socialized with and took in until they moved away forty years after this photo was taken.

Soda Jerk

"If you got cotton mouth / you better have some water

Sucking syrup and soda / you're gonna just get hotter"

--Frank Black "Ten Percenter"

Self Portrait.  20 March 2011.  

Instagram: Hairy Chimney

Very tall chimney (on a very short building) behind a car wash.

Inside the car wash itself, they do something that looks like THIS...

Berkeley Heights, NJ.  20 March 2011

Supermoon Sunset

For those of you that were underwhelmed by the so-called SuperMoon, here is a graphic representation of the brilliant sunset that preceded this celestial-lunar non-event.  6:45 PM.  19 March 2011.

Catskill Game Farm: 1959 & 1977

My Grandmother Joan (above) and my Grandfather Norman (below) with the kids...

It was all fun and games until my Grandmother had enough of the kids' shenannigans and put my Mom and Aunt Karen in that cauldron...  Sometimes you gotta know when to reel it in.  

 My Mom and Uncle Kevin made friends with a giraffe and then stopped fighting for just long enough  to make friends on the hook and ladder truck.  I wonder how much ice cream it took to bribe them into holding hands for this photo.

I think that's my cousin Jeffrey on the white pony.

Lasso tricks (above) and stage coach rides (below)...

 My Cousins Ricky, Jeffrey, Janet, Lois and Dianne take a train ride with my Uncle Kevin and Great Aunt Marion.  Oddly, this train car is named Susan... and she would be the next of my aunts to come along some three years later.  Clearly, this was one of those psychic railroads.

My Grandmother Joan (looking beautiful) with my Aunt Karen on her lap and my Mom at left.

Goodbye to a great day of 1950s Theme Park fun and hello to a flash forward...

1959: My Grandmother with my Mom, Aunt Karen and Uncle Kevin and...

1977: My Aunt Susan (age 15, not yet born when the 1959 shot was taken) and myself (age 4).

Uh-oh.  We're making "yuck face".  Those cages must've been RIPE that day.

Nanny attempts to feed a billy goat (or is that a Nanny Goat?) while I, uh... push it toward her (?)

 Was this The Catskills or a developing country?  Why were there goats left out to roam freely among the defenseless park-goers?  I smell ripe cages AND a lawsuit waiting to happen!

OK, now that's just AWKWARD.

 Here I am making "yuck face" again.  Susan must've threatened to throw me in one of the cages.

I can't imagine WHY she would've said something like that.  I was a PERFECT child and she was always annoying me...  You know how immature teenagers are. 

Instagram: Hatches, Conduits & Cables

Skyward Hatch: Emergency Egress.

Utility Closet: Conduits & Cables