[1773 Ocean Avenue, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, Hydrox made ice cream as well as cookies. (Proof). And a beautifully designed Hydrox Ice Cream privilege sign stood above this small Brooklyn candy store/luncheonette. Small indeed: if you look closely, you’ll see that the right side of the building is given over to Blumberg Tailoring, with its own entrance.
But what really caught my eye is the unattended carriage. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, people used to leave carriages unattended in front of stores. This tax photograph features the fourth unattended carriage to appear in these pages (here are the previous three). Were babies sleeping in those carriages? Our household thinks it likely.
Movie scenes come to mind: in Angels with Dirty Faces (dir. Michael Curtiz, 1938) three Dead End Kids walk off with an unattended baby carriage, baby (awake) included. Granted, the parents, too, are outside and come chasing. But still.
[Leo Gorcey, Bobby Jordan, and Billy Halop, strolling with a stroller. Click for a larger view.]
In Not Wanted (dir. Ida Lupino, 1949), Sally Kelton (Sally Forrest) takes a baby (also awake) from an unattended carriage outside a grocery/liquor store.
[She won’t get far. Click for a larger view.]
In real life, it’s common for Danish parents to leave babies in unattended carriages and strollers outside stores and restaurants. Really.
The ground floor of this Brooklyn building was recently home to Rukhsana Parlor, a beauty parlor. Google Maps shows no carriage outside.
Related reading
More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives (Pinboard) : A 1961 Hydrox advertisement
Sunday, April 2, 2023
An unattended carriage
“About something”
Saturday, April 1, 2023
“Queens man indicted”
The Queens Daily Eagle comes through:
A Queens man was indicted Thursday for allegedly making hush money payments to a porn star shortly before he was elected president of the United States in 2016.The QDE also covered the same Queens man’s first and second impeachments.
Today’s Saturday Stumper
Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper is by the puzzle’s editor, Stan Newman, constructing as “Anna Stiga” (Stan Again), the pseudonym that signals an easier Stumper. This Stumper was not easy though. I began with 27-A, three letters, “Declares, so to speak” and 3-D, six letters, “Paris premiere of 1980” and soon had the northwest and southeast corners done. But I missed by one square in the northeast: the first letter of 26-A, four letters, “Turkish tapas” and 26-D, five letters, “Drudges.” To my mind, that’s a ridiculous cross, even in a Stumper. If I were a kid playing some sort of game, I’d shout “No fair!” Or, in a resigned frame of mind, 20-D, seven letters, “Commiseration for a miss.”
Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:
18-A, ten letters, “It’s best left sealed.” Oblique and novel.
21-A, three letters, “Outback etching.” I learned something.
25-D, seven letters, “Get on with it.” HURRYUP? BUSFARE? No. No.
29-D, three letters, “Postwar establishment.” I thought of the CIA. But the last letter, by way of 33-A, makes the answer clear.
33-A, fifteen letters, “Fête nationale.” I knew it, I knew it.
33-D, eight letters, “Small town surrounded by soldiers.” This puzzle is not playing games.
44-A, four letters, “Reader using batteries.” I thought the plural must be a hint, but no, it uses a battery, singular.
47-D, five letters, “Freeman, at Shawshank’s end.” Are there rules about spoilers in crosswords? “Kane’s Rosebud”?
My favorite in this puzzle, sneaky in a Stumper-y way: 5-A, ten letters, “Rats, for instance.” But I’m not sure that the clue is accurate.
No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.
Friday, March 31, 2023
Recently updated
DFW on the shelf Now with a screenshot of an MSNBC guest with Infinite Jest and other interesting books behind him.
An EXchange name sighting
[This Woman Is Dangerous (dir. Felix E. Feist, 1952). Click for a larger view.]
Lewiston is an unincorporated community about eighty-five miles southeast if Chicago. It’s exceedingly unlikely that there was ever a federal building there. I can find no evidence that INdianapolis was ever in use as an exchange name. As for that FBI seal, well, it isn’t. The reality effect is shaky here.
Related reading
All OCA EXchange name posts (Pinboard)
Olives as cars
A hungry gangster asks a question. From This Woman Is Dangerous (dir. Felix E. Feist, 1952): “Ann, you got some olives? The green ones with the red tail lights?”
Precedented
From today’s installment of Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American:
This is the first time in history a former United States president has been indicted, although it is worth remembering that it is not new for our justice system to hold elected officials accountable. Mayors have been indicted and convicted. So have governors: in fact, four of the past ten Illinois governors have gone to prison. Vice presidents, too, have been charged with crimes: Aaron Burr was indicted on two counts of murder in 1804 while still in office and was tried for treason afterward. And in 1973, Richard Nixon’s vice president Spiro Agnew resigned after pleading no contest to tax evasion to avoid prison time.Illinois leads the nation in imprisoned governors: Otto Kerner, Daniel Walker, George Ryan, and Rod Blagojevich. As you may recall, Donald Trump commuted Blagojevich’s sentence in 2020. Blagojevich now calls him a “Trumpocrat.”
[Leaders of other democracies have been prosecuted as well.]
Thursday, March 30, 2023
DFW on the shelf
On MSNBC just now: on a bookshelf behind Nick Ackerman, former Watergate prosecutor, a copy of Infinite Jest. You’ll have to take my word for it.
*
Not anymore: the episode is now online.
[The Beat with Ari Melber, March 30, 2023. Click for a much larger view.]
Infinite Jest is above Mr. Ackerman’s head — literally, that is. To the left of the Jest: Consider the Lobster. Three more steps to the left: that might be The Grapes of Wrath. I also see The Poetry of Robert Frost, what must be a biography of Frida Kahlo, and Lynne Truss’s (awful) Eats, Shoots & Leaves. Is Hoot a children’s book? Is Revival the Stephen King novel? Are there books here that you can add?
All OCA David Foster Wallace posts (Pinboard)
