Flashback to 1979: Military Ads

Since America ended the draft, the military has had to recruit. Like any good advertiser, they've learned how to couch their message in the style and medium of teen culture. Today, they produce video games where you can fly combat aircraft. In 1979, their target audience wore bell bottoms and rode Harleys. And in that more innocent time, the selling point could still be the path to an affordable college education that the Army could provide.

Army National Guard ad, November 1979, from Currents Events magazine


Army ad, December 1979, from Scholastic Search magazine

Mid-Century Telephone Numbers

Early readers of Brooklyn Ramblings may remember my post about old telephone numbers from the 1910s to the 1970s that used two letters and five numbers instead of the seven numbers we're familiar with today. Legacies of the old 2L-5N system are still here, mostly in neighborhoods of the outer boroughs that haven't undergone many changes in the last few generations.

First we go to Bath Beach. At 1707 Bath Ave is Sta-Brite Decorators. If you're looking to get your furniture re-upholstered, this is the place. If it was 1950, you'd have dialed the operator and asked for CLarkson 9-0868.

In nearby Dyker Heights, we find Terrace Meats, at 7317 13th Ave and 74th St. You would have reached your local butcher by dialing BE-2-2003. BE probably stood for Bensonhurst, but possibly Beachview.
Next up, Golden Gate Fancy Fruits and Vegetables, at ES-7-2581. This one-story produce mart is out on Flatbush, in an outer Brooklyn neighborhood called Flatlands. Rounding out our survey of outer Brooklyn retro-gasm is the Avenue U Seafood Market, at DEcatur 2-6363. Built around 1930, maybe those were the days that you could actually eat the fish you caught off the Brooklyn piers?

Migrant Farmworkers, 1956

from Across the Tracks: Mexican-Americans in a Texas City, by Arthur J. Rubel (1968). Rubel was a medical anthropologist who was captivated throughout his life by the interconnections between culture, behavior, health and illness.

According to this study, farmworkers earned about $4.59 per day. Adjusting for inflation, that would be about $35 per day now. Figuring conservatively that they worked 10 hours per day (when you've got to get everything planted or picked during a short amount of time, you work long hours), that would be about $3.50 an hour in today's wages. That's a hell of a lot less than minimum wage!

Taxonomy of Tramps

from You Owe Yourself a Drunk: An Ethnography of Urban Nomads, by James P. Spradley

Spradley spent time with skid row men in Seattle in the 1960s and produced this definitive anthropological work documenting how they saw themselves and their world. Here's his taxonomy of the different kinds of tramps. So, for example, while working stiffs ride the rails from job to job, box car tramps just ride the rails because that's what they do.

Battle of Brooklyn, August 22, 1776

On August 22nd, 230 years ago, the infamous Battle of Brooklyn occurred. Washington’s soldiers were arrayed along the East River and camped in Red Hook and Flatbush. Rather than making a frontal assault from the water, the Brits surprised the Americans by circling to Gravesend and attacking from Jamaica with 15,000 troops (after stopping at a tavern in Bedford for drinks and directions). Over the next few days, the Americans were thoroughly defeated, although they made a valiant stand at Park Slope’s Stone House, on 3rd St and 5th Ave. With this, the British captured and held New York City for the remainder of the Revolutionary War.

Red Hook's New York Dock Company

The New York Dock Company's imposing twin buildings stand as sentinals marking the entrance to Red Hook's waterfront - two of the few remains of Brooklyn's once-vibrant port and shipping industry.

Built in 1911 or 1913, the WPA Guide to New York City reports that these New York Dock Company buildings were "part of the two and one-half miles of Brooklyn waterfront owned by the New York Dock Company whose railroad sheds, warehouses, and massive gray loft buildings extend between the water front and the marginal streets from Brooklyn Bridge to Red Hook." The New York Dock Company operated in Red Hook from around 1901 to 1955, and owned almost all of the south and downtown Brooklyn waterfront, including 180 buildings and 32 piers.

The Dock Company building at 160 Imlay Street is shrouded in black netting and is in the process of being gutted to be converted into a 153-unit condo with nine floors. The project has been beset with much controversy and litigation. Most recently, the court sent the developer back to the Board to get approval again.

Its counterpart at 162 Imlay, seen below, is still intact, though the developer has expressed interest in trying to convert it into a similar luxury residential building or hotel. It's worth a trip down to Red Hook to check out this late-modernist beauty before it too gets a black Christo covering.