Apparently I've been spending more time with my parents as I've got even more old photos now. As indicated on the print, this was taken at Al Mercur's Nut House, probably sometime between 1937-1942. I have no idea where the Nut House was located (google turned up nada), possibly in the Beaver Valley of western PA, because those are my father's parents seated in the bottom right hand corner of the photograph and those were their stomping grounds. Good to know that it wasn't always bitterness and acrimony between those two before their divorce.
But anyway, old photos offer such a unique window into a time and place that we can barely even dream of. The first time I was really struck by that thought was while looking at some of Mathew Brady's work of the carnage at Gettysburg. I couldn't let go of the thought that once this was reality. That a man stood there with a camera and plucked these scenes from the world and preserved them in a way that a drawing or a painting could never achieve. Photography doesn't echo us, it is us.
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9 comments:
My mother has some old pics of her grandparents behind the counter of a store they owned. It's one of those really cool ones with the wooden shelves to the ceiling and big bags of flour...
I just love old pictures. You can get so lost in them...maybe sometime you could post said pic, eh, TW1?
what a great photo! i wish i had a photo of my family in the nut house (where they belong!). this is just super.
Jennifer...that would require stealing...heh. Oh, and a trip to Texas.
I have 4 pics of the nut house..found an old box at a antique store with pics of al murcer's club and one even has charlie chaplin in it ill post them soon
The Nut House was in Millvale.
I have a picture of my mom and dad and friends at the Nut house. Time frame would have been late30's. Always wondered where it was and now I know.
My Grandma and Grandpa also have pictures from Al Murcurs Nut House. It was a popular place for Jewish Mafia too.
I don't know how to add any pictures here but I have many.
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