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A Bronx candy store Now with a court case and the meaning of “light lunch.”

Public Domain Day

Today is Public Domain Day (Duke University School of Law). Featuring Louis Armstrong, Willa Cather, George and Ira Gershwin, Frank Kafka, Fritz Lang, Marcel Proust, and Bessie Smith, and many more.

While at the DUSL site, take a look at Theft: A History of Music, by Keith Aoki, James Boyle, and Jennifer Jenkins.

A Bronx candy store

[983 Mace Avenue, The Bronx, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

A reader who likes looking in the archives spotted this Bronx candy store. The same reader found a Board of Education photograph of the store’s interior, identified as “PS 89, Bronx: surroundings.” It would seem that the BOE wanted photographs of locations near the school. This candy store was right across the street from P.S. 89. Here is retail density at its finest — not to mention a sweet setup for schoolkids. Do click for a larger view. You won’t regret it.

[983 Mace Avenue interior. Photograph by A. J. Hickey, March 31, 1939. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. I hope the photographer bought something.]

An sidenote: the meaning of “light lunch” was at issue in a 1924 New York court case. At issue: whether a candy-store chain was doing the business of a restaurant in offering “light lunch”:


The court’s answer: yes, they were doing the business of a restaurant, and no, candy stores can’t do that. (Don’t tell no. 983.)

No. 983 is now a three-family behemoth. P.S. 89 still stands.

Thanks to the reader who found this store, outside and in-, and the court case.

Related reading
More OCA posts with photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives : All-Nite Service density : Harvey’s Hardware density : May Drug Co. density : Whelan’s Drug Store : Woolworth’s density

New Year’s Eve 1922

At the Hotel Astor:

[“Hotels Make Ready for Gala New Year: Prepare for Record Crowds — Demand for Private Rooms Is Unusually Large.” The New York Times, December 31, 1922.]

What caught my eye, in addition to the scale of the celebration: “Florence F. Jenkins.” Have you heard Florence Foster Jenkins sing? Here’s some Mozart.

And here’s to a new year, peaceful and on pitch for all.

Last call

As 2023 approaches, be prepared, with a calendar guaranteed to work all year long.

[Click for a larger month.]

It’s free, made by me: a 2023 calendar, in large legible Gill Sans, three months per page. Minimal holiday markings: MLK Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas. Paper, staples, thumbtack, magnet not included.

You can download the PDF from this Dropbox link. If you don’t have and don’t want a Dropbox account, just hit Download, top left.

[I’ve been making calendars since 2009 with the Mac app Pages. Steep learning curve, years of good calendars to show for it.]

Nancy New Year’s Eve

Olivia Jaimes continues the Ernie Bushmiller tradition of taking holidays off: “Your Nancy Year in Review.”

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)

Updating

From Gothamist: “Here‘s a list of NY Rep.-elect George Santos’ lies, deceptions and fabrications.” My favorite touch: “This is an ongoing story that will be updated.”

In other words, more lies to come!

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A catalogue from The Washington Post.

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And in The New York Times, a former partner tells of life with a fabulator.

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper is an updated rerun from 2012, one of the two Stumper reruns that are appearing while the puzzle’s editor Stan Newman is on vacation. I wasn’t doing the Stumper in 2012, so this puzzle is new for me. It’s by “Lester Ruff,” a pseudonym for easier Stumpers of the editor’s making. This one wasn’t all that easy. Take, for instance, 9-D, seven letters, “Called attention to” and 18-A, eight letters, “Take hold of,” whose answers might look wildly wrong with only two or three letters filled in. A solid Stumper.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

7-A, eight letters, “Source of some blasts.” I was thinking of weather from the north.

14-D, six letters, “Secure offshore.” Tricky.

38-D, eight letters, “Freelance writer of a sort.” Feels old-timey to me, thought it isn’t.

54-A, four letters, “Some base men.” CADS. OAFS. SHORTSTOPS?

58-D, four letters, “Much of it comes from Sanskrit.” I did not know that.

60-D, three letters, “You may see it before long.” Playful.

61-A, six letters, “One of the ‘Sacred Books of the East.’” My first answer, and it gave me the southeast corner.

63-A, eight letters, “Highbrows.” Does anyone use the answer unironically?

65-A, eight letters, “Person coming back.” Nicely oblique.

My favorite in this puzzle: 59-A, eight letters, “Expression of wishful thinking.” Negatory.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

Word of the day: game-changer

The WGBH station manager is nearly hyperventilating. From the Julia episode “Petit Fours” (HBO):

“Selling The French Chef to other stations — the possibilities — I mean, this could be a game-changer for us.”

Did people say game-changer in 1963?

Merriam-Webster first has the word (no citation) in 1993. But the Oxford English Dictionary has a first citation from January 13, 1962, from the Brainerd Daily Dispatch, a Minnesota newspaper:

They reckoned without game-changer Bob Sheflo and his cohorts.

That same article is also is the source for the dictionary’s first citation for game-changing:

Davidson drew his fourth foul and that brought in Sheflo for his game-changing antics.

One would like to know more about those antics.

Robert Sheflo Jr. (1943–2016) played basketball for Brainerd Junior College. From a 1962 Dispatch article:

Bob Sheflo came off the bench to score 26 for Brainerd, but the Ely big men dominated the boards.

The Dispatch is still going, now online.

I wonder: did the Julia writers check the OED for game-changer? Or did they luck out?

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December 31: As Pete points out in a comment, the show’s writers may not have lucked out, not really. The 1962 citations are sports-specific. It’s not clear when the extended meanings of game-changer (OED : “an event, idea, or procedure that produces a significant shift in the current way of thinking about or doing something”) and game-changing (“that produces,” &c.) came into play. I’ve had no luck trying to figure it out via English-Corpora.org and Google Books. But it’s still the case that the Brainerd Daily Dispatch has the first citations for the two words.

[About Julia: Our household is five episodes in. One half of the household likes this series much more than the other does. The other half is thinking about French onion soup. Both halves have great esteem for the real Julia Child.]

Hi and Lois watch

I noticed a Flagston thermostat, or “thermostat,” in 2009. And an improved thermostat in 2012. A “thermostat” returns in today’s Hi and Lois, as the strip mines the apparently inexhaustible comic premise that Dad will see his family freeze rather than turn up the heat. Thrifty Dad! Now the whole family can fight over Trixie’s sunbeam.

[Hi and Lois, December 30, 2022. Click for a larger view.]

Perhaps the colorist wanted to call attention to the thing on the wall. And Nest thermostats do make use of color. But not like that. I suspect that the Flagston wall is meant to hold what it appeared to hold in 2012: a Honeywell T87, a classic mid-century design. Allow me:

[Hi and Lois revised, December 30, 2022. Click for a larger view.]

Related reading
All OCA Hi and Lois posts (Pinboard)