Are the STARS OUT TONIGHT?

Another vintage postcard with a nighttime scene; this one an original drawing. Unlike many of the other cards which are hand tinted photographs, this is purely an artist's rendition. I'm sure they worked from a photo, but would it have looked half as clean and fresh if the underlying image were a photo?

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It's a shame that the person who created this will most likely never be known.

Go here to see the first nighttime postcard image that started this series for me.

Who you gonna call? GHOSTBUSTERS!

Even I can tell how fake this nighttime scene is of Times Square. I have to wonder what the artist wast thinking when they put the moon on top of the Paramount Building. My first thought was of Ghostbusters. Somethin' strange is surely going on because back down on the street we're about to have some serious car crashes and some people needing to run for their lives. Oh yes, that is a haunted sky surrounding the jello colored scene. The Paramount building has most assuredly been slimed.

Click on either image to see it larger.

To see more hand tinted postcard images of nighttime scenes click here, here, here, and here.

Here is my favorite image from the book Postcards of the Night: Views of American Cities which started my search for nighttime postcards. I can only wish to find a card like this. It's stunning and goes way beyond a normal postcard. Sad to think that artists that did work such as this are now nameless. The postcard above...no problem not knowing the "artist," but the one below is in another realm.

BLOB PEOPLE IN THE PARK after dark

The artist who worked on this must have been bored adding the color to the audience. They skipped around as if playing Chess for the first time. Red here, blue here, and then "what the heck do I do with the pukey lemon/lime color?" One poor woman, in the middle got an orange coat and a puckey lemon/lime face and hair. The pukey lemon/lime seems to have been the most odd color to use. And I'm not sure, but I believe there is a floating lemon/lime jello mold floating above the chorus on stage. The flag is most certainly an artist's rendering.

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This is truly a very odd odd world that was created in this image. The Blob people in the park.

This is a Curt Teich Linen card distributed by Aero Distributing Co., Inc., Chicago, Illinois. I'm not finding anything about Aero; a lot of cards, but no historical information.

To see other nighttime postcards click here, here, and here; all inspired by the book Postcards of the Night: Views of American Cities.

DAY FOR NIGHT in Denver

The information in Postcards of the Night: Views of American Cities becomes even more interesting as I look through my collection of vintage postcards. I start to find examples of what the author writes about.

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"Most nighttime postcard views were daytime photographs doctored to appear as if taken after dark. Use of daytime photos to replicate the night introduced many anomalies in finished cards. For example, daytime shadows often remained. When a bright moon was inserted in a darkened sky, the moonlight implied was often inappropriate to the shadows depicted. Especially problematical were the small shadows cast by pedestrians and vehicles, their impossibility of angle all too apparent. As one deltiologist noted: “Darkening the sky, lighting the windows, and adding a moon could…turn a day scene into a nocturnal one, but all to often the printer failed to remove the shadows cast by the sun and then tipped his moon in an obviously impossible position (Ryan 146). Other anomalies included American flags left flying (countering prohibitions on after-dark flag displays) and kinds of people remaining as pedestrians, especially unescorted women, who would not have been seen in big city downtown after dark." (SOURCE: Postcards of the Night: Views of American Cities)

And this is another card from the Harry Heye Tammen Company. Note the little Mesoamerican figure on the back, the companies logo.

Now take a moment to look at this busy "night scene" and tell me if you think this was actually day for night. I'm seeing far too many women out for leisurely strolls.

___________

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SALT LAKE CITY at night

As I mentioned yesterday, I purchased a book called Postcards of the Night: Views of American Cities which has inspired me to go through some of my vintage postcards searching for night scenes, real or simply imagined by the manufacturer.

The one below of Salt Lake City, Utah is a prime example of the company trying something but failing miserably. Proportion is way off. I mean WAY OFF!

Click on image to see it larger.

Look at the cars. Tons of cars. Cars jammed in with no room to even open a car door to get out. Then look at the cars on the left side of the street, their size in comparison to the street lights. Oh sure, the artist was trying to draw perspective, but it looks like they had a bunch of VW Beetles parked along the street, very very tiny Beetles.

And then there's the car driving down the righthand lane. Why so close to the backend of each parked car? It's a wide street. They even make a point of bragging about the wide street:

This is an excellent night view of alt Lake City's main business thoroughfare. Note the unusual width of the street so typical of all streets in Mormon communities.

Huh? Mormon's were known for their wide streets? Okay, I'll leave that alone. It's just odd.

What's also odd is that the left side of the street seems to be the "dry" side while the right side is where the honky tonk "cafes" are located. Remember, when this shot was "taken" you could not buy liquor or even a Coke in this town. So as to what was going on on the two sides of the same street...one can only imagine.

I can't find anything about the manufacturer, Carpenter Paper Co., other than that they began operations in 1896.

More nighttime scenes to come.

VIEWS OF AMERICA AT NIGHT

I recently bought a fascinating book called Postcards of the Night: Views of American Cities by John A. Jakle, a professor of geography at the University of Illinois. The book was published in 2003 by the Museum of New Mexico Press.

Page after page of beautiful nighttime postcard images from all across the U. S. There's one of the Pittsburgh Pirates stadium at night that I'd love to own. And some amazing shots of San Francisco at night, including Chinatown.

The introduction written by Mr. Jakle is fascinating. I'll quote just one small bit:

"Postcard publishers engaged freely in the alteration or manipulation of photographs, producing highly "fictionalized" pictorial art masquerading as realistic. Touch-up work produced cleaner, simplified images, making the places pictured seem less complicated and tidier and, perhaps, more salable as postcard views. Conversely, places might be made to appear more complicated and thus, presumably, more interesting.... Many if not most postcards, she concluded were a 'composite of fantasy, boosterism, wishful thinking, simplification, and outright lie.' Especially was nighttime postcard depiction a product of revision. As a matter of fact, most nighttime views were contrived from daytime photographs and were not, strictly speaking, nighttime photos at all." (SOURCE: Postcards of the Night: Views of American Cities)

Just as I often suspected when looking at some of the nighttime skies, they were fake.

And to read more about the book simply go to the second item down in the Tattered and Lost What-Not Suggestions column to the left.

This is my contribution to this weeks Postcard Friendship Friday.

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Over the next few days I'll be featuring some more of my nighttime postcards.