The Lively Morgue

July 4, 1936: George Varoff shattered a world record for pole...

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 10:00:59 -0400

July 4, 1936: George Varoff shattered a world record for pole vault in New Jersey as the American track and field teams, including Jesse Owens, prepared for the Olympics in Berlin. Mr. Varoff’s mark was 14 feet 6 1/2 inches. The current world record, set by Sergey Bubka in 1994, is 20 feet 1 3/4 inches. Photo: The New York Times

Jan. 5, 1954: Pierre Auguste Cot’s “The Storm” was hung at the...

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 10:00:51 -0400

Jan. 5, 1954: Pierre Auguste Cot’s “The Storm” was hung at the Metropolitan Museum, one of several hundred works that went on display in newly renovated galleries that grouped paintings by time period rather than nationality — an arrangement that the museum director Francis Henry Taylor hoped would “bring order out of chaos.” Photo: Eddie Hausner/The New York Times

March 11, 1934: At the Istanbul Academy of Art, students studied...

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 10:00:52 -0400

March 11, 1934: At the Istanbul Academy of Art, students studied from classical statues, dug up nearby. Until 1926, Turkish art students were prohibited by the Koran from making representations of the human form — only architecture was taught at the academy previously. Photo: The New York Times

Oct. 15, 1925: From the Mid-Week Pictorial, “High Art of the...

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 10:01:05 -0400

Oct. 15, 1925: From the Mid-Week Pictorial, “High Art of the Zoo: The giraffe of the mechanical menagerie will stoop to nothing, so the artist must climb skyward to present him with spot No. 203.” Photo: The New York Times

Finishing touches were applied to a diorama in the Akeley Hall...

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 10:00:44 -0400

Finishing touches were applied to a diorama in the Akeley Hall of African Mammals at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Named for Carl Akeley, the explorer who conceived and designed all the displays and died on Mount Mikeno in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1926, the hall presents several animals that Mr. Akeley had killed himself, The New York Times reported on May 17, 1936. “He will probably be set down as one of the most famous lovers of all natural things,” Russell Owen wrote. Photo: The New York Times

From the Mid-Week Pictorial, date unknown: “‘I Want a Comb and...

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 10:00:46 -0400

From the Mid-Week Pictorial, date unknown: “‘I Want a Comb and Brush’: A Prized, but Somewhat Disheveled, Orangutang Does Hist Best to Look Pretty for the Hopeful English Photographer.” Photo: The New York Times

March 29, 1925: The crew of the U.S.S. Wyoming enjoyed several...

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 10:01:09 -0400

March 29, 1925: The crew of the U.S.S. Wyoming enjoyed several species of mascot to cheer them on their naval maneuvers: “a dog, a parrot, a monkey, a marmoset, a kitten and other strange beasts.” Photo: The New York Times

The Stockholm, the famous boat to collide with the Italian liner...

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 10:00:51 -0400

The Stockholm, the famous boat to collide with the Italian liner Andrea Doria in July 1956, arrived in New York to unload the crash’s survivors and undergo repairs. Photo: The New York Times

July 30, 1956: After the Stockholm, a Swedish liner, collided...

Fri, 31 May 2013 10:00:50 -0400

July 30, 1956: After the Stockholm, a Swedish liner, collided with the Andrea Dorea, an Italian cruise liner, killing 51, the damaged ship was dry-docked for repairs while its only Spanish seaman visited Linda Morgan, a 14-year-old American girl he rescued who spoke Spanish and was initially reported dead. In the crash, she had been “transferred from her berth on the Italian liner by the twisted steel of Stockholm.” Photo: Carl Gossett/The New York Times

From the Mid-Week Pictorial, Sept. 30, 1933: a naval regatta...

Wed, 29 May 2013 10:01:04 -0400

From the Mid-Week Pictorial, Sept. 30, 1933: a naval regatta performed exercises at Weymouth, England, in front of the H.M.S. Renown, which was built during World War I, reconstructed between world wars, and spent a lot of 1943 marshaling Winston Churchill to various conferences with Allied leaders. Despite the ship’s proud service, she was sold for scrap in 1948. Photo: The New York Times

July 14, 1935: Connecting Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx, the...

Mon, 27 May 2013 10:00:51 -0400

July 14, 1935: Connecting Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx, the Triborough Bridge — now officially the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge — was one of the larger public works of the Great Depression. Its construction was started on Black Friday in 1929, and it was opened by Robert Moses almost a year after this picture was taken. Photo: The New York Times

A maze of parkways near Queens Boulevard, presenting a “pattern...

Fri, 24 May 2013 10:01:00 -0400

A maze of parkways near Queens Boulevard, presenting a “pattern of progress.” An Aug. 8, 1955, story, with another aerial photo, described the rapid development of Queens — “the spaces are fulling up,” wrote Milton Bracker. “The imprint of the future is already visible on the still naked ground near by” what is now J.F.K. Airport, he added. “The imprint — as if the foot of an unseen cubistic monster had set itself down long enough to depress and darken the fill — is unmistakable from the crystal overlook of the airport control tower.” Photo: Meyer Liebowitz/The New York Times

A March 13, 1960, article described the public’s indictment of...

Wed, 22 May 2013 10:01:08 -0400

A March 13, 1960, article described the public’s indictment of bus drivers, accusing them of “sometimes deliberately slamming on their brakes to shake up riders” or “refusing to pull up at the curb unless there is a puddle there.” Reported by Gay Talese, who “avoids taking sides in the busman-passenger fracas by traveling to work on the subway,” the piece endeavored to tell the story from the driver’s point of view, a “story of how 10,000 drivers each day battle the world’s worst traffic while being abused by old ladies, shortchanged by schoolboys, cut off by cabs and squeezed by trucks.” Photo: Sam Falk/The New York Times

Dec. 9, 1957: Even in the 1950s, New York City public transit...

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:01:12 -0400

Dec. 9, 1957: Even in the 1950s, New York City public transit was a squeeze at Eighth Avenue and 42nd Street. Photo: Eddie Hausner/The New York Times

April 8, 1933: For those who have visited London and wondered...

Fri, 17 May 2013 10:01:05 -0400

April 8, 1933: For those who have visited London and wondered how they know their double-decker buses won’t fall over, this is apparently how they find out. Per police regulation, employees of the London General Omnibus Company put their 60-person bus to a “tilt test,” putting it on a 28-degree angle. Photo: The New York Times

Sept. 30, 1928: At the Washington State Fair in Seattle, thrills...

Wed, 15 May 2013 10:00:54 -0400

Sept. 30, 1928: At the Washington State Fair in Seattle, thrills for the Sunday drivers out there, though precisely what manner of thrills, we can only guess. Photo: The New York Times

Aug. 30, 1931: “A new turn in the history of diving” at a pool...

Mon, 13 May 2013 10:00:44 -0400

Aug. 30, 1931: “A new turn in the history of diving” at a pool in Los Angeles, where Georgia Coleman — in preparation for the 1932 Summer Olympics there, where she won two medals — practiced “a complicated fancy dive.” Photo: The New York Times

April 27, 1984: The Lightning Loop at Great Adventure in Jackson...

Fri, 10 May 2013 10:01:12 -0400

April 27, 1984: The Lightning Loop at Great Adventure in Jackson Township, N.J., appeared above an article about attracting older crowds to amusement parks. Marketers hoped that by making the new parks “discreetly educational,” with better food or “designer merchandise,” that they might appeal to “an older, calmer, more sophisticated generation.” Food-wise, “the parks are experimenting with everything form pita bread sandwiches to lobster. … Older patrons, the rationale goes, are interested in a ‘dining experience’ rather than a quick snack.” Photo: Bob Glass/The New York Times

Jan. 16, 1976: At the Alabama Space and Rocket Center in...

Wed, 08 May 2013 10:00:58 -0400

Jan. 16, 1976: At the Alabama Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, children rode in zero-G, or something like it, with an American rocket on display behind them in this unpublished photo. Photo: Teresa Zabala/The New York Times

July 11, 1958: In a terrifying age of spectacular weaponry that...

Mon, 06 May 2013 10:00:55 -0400

July 11, 1958: In a terrifying age of spectacular weaponry that presaged our current era of the drone, the United States Army put on a large demonstration of 14 different types of missiles before a large audience at Fort Bliss, Tex., and the nearby White Sands, N.M., missile range. Though most were still under development, the reporter warned of what the future held — of opening “a Pandora’s box from which will leap missiles with ranges unlimited, speeds almost infinite, and actions almost human.” This image reminded a letter writer of the famous picture of the flag raising at Iwo Jima. “They are so different, and yet so similar. Place them next to each other. Makes one think?” Photo: George Tames/The New York Times