Boardwalks East and West

 

The world's first seaside boardwalk was built in Atlantic City, New Jersey along its sandy shoreline. Built in 1870, originally as a temporary wooden structure for the spring/summer season, the Atlantic City Boardwalk is now permanent and is the world's longest and busiest resort esplanade at 5 1⁄2 miles (8.9 km) long. It defines the ocean front for hundreds of hotels and links several amusement piers with countless arcades and novelty shops.

In its early years, hundreds of thousands of tourists came every summer to see the ocean and march stroll along the promenade. Some used little pedicabs rather than walk as seen in this colorized postcard captioned:

Boardwalk, Brighton Casino and Marborough-Blenheim, Atlantic City, N. J.

The card was sent on 15 August 1910 to Mrs. H. P. Boone of Washington, Pennsylvania.

 

                            Aunt Jenny
                                We are all
                                well and having
                                a good time
                                Willard is being
                                so very good
                                             Maude
                                    Bouviere Hotel
                                    150 S. Tennessee Ave
                                    Atlantic City
                                                N. J.

 * * *

 

 

 

Jutting out from the boardwalk into the ocean are several piers. The oldest is the Steel Pier on the north end which opened in 1898. This structure built on iron pilings with a deck made of concrete on steel girders supported a concert hall, ballrooms, amusement rides, and other attractions became one of the most popular venues in the United States promoted as "The Showplace of the Nation."  At its peak the Steel Pier measured 2,298 feet (700 m) long, but because of storm damage repairs and other remodeling it is now only half that length. 

Many of the professional bands in my photo collection performed at the Steel Pier. I featured it in my story from May 2018, Oreste Vessella's Italian Band, and in a three part series An Atlantic City Love Story. This photo postcard shows a huge throng of people parading past its main entrance. The caption reads:

The Boardwalk and Steel Pier, Easter Sunday, Atlantic City, N. J.

The card's postmark is from Atlantic City, 14 August 1907 to a Miss Alice --snell (?) of La Jaunta, Colorado. 

 

Dear Alice.    Just
over for the day.
Have received all
your mail.  Write
  to me often.         

            Lovingly
              Alda

 

 

 

 

 

  * * *

 

 

 

 

 

Over 2,800 miles west from the Jersey Shore is another boardwalk along California's coastline near Los Angeles. This colorized postcard shows the band stand and plaza at Venice, California where a 2 mile boardwalk was built in 1905. The audience's hats and overcoats suggest this could be a cool place for a concert. 

This postcard was sent from Los Angeles on 28 June 1915 to Miss Sophia Barta of Ottawa, Kansas, a place about as far removed from both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans as can be.

 

 

                                        Los Angeles, Cal.
                                                Jun 28 – 1915

                Dear Sophia;
                            I wonder how you
                    are getting along.  I
                    am having a fine time
                    The mountains are so
                    beautiful and picturesque
                    and I like to go to the ocean
                    to watch the waves come in
                    I was at San Diego last week
                    and took a boat ride to
                    Coronado Island.  I have the
                    school pictures printed for you
                    I'll send them when I get home
                        Have a good celebration
                            With best wishes as ever, Mary Baker

 * * *

 

 

About 30 miles south of Venice Beach is another amusement park at Long Beach, California. The mild weather of this region meant a longer season for entertainments. The people and families in this colorful postcard are dressed more for a stroll along a city high street rather than a sandy beach. They probably just came from a show at the large pavilion behind them. The caption reads:

 Daily Band Concerts the year round, Long Beach California

 

I featured the concert hall and pier in my July 2015 story, Music on the Beach. The Long Beach boardwalk is called The Pike and was a stretch of amusement arcades and rides that developed near a  recreational bathing beach. A large pier and auditorium was built to extend over the water and it was a popular venue for concerts. 

On Saturday May 24, 1913, thousands of people had gathered in Long Beach for Empire Day, an event celebrating the many nations of the British Empire. The center piece was an event at the Long Beach auditorium and pier. As more and more people moved onto the pier the weight became too great for the upper deck which suddenly collapsed. That extra stress then caused the stage floor to collapse to the sandy shore below the building. Over 35 people perished and hundreds were injured in the calamity. Most of the fatalities were women, and because of the nature of the observance almost everyone was from England, Scotland, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand.

This postcard resembles an old linen color style print but I'm not sure it is a genuine antique. The postmark is dated 30 July 1973 and is addressed to "The Girls in the Back Room Personnel of the Charleston, South Carolina School District. 

 

 

 

Having a grand time
writing,  " Having a
grand time. Wish
you were here. "
And wish you
were.
            GHO (?)

 

 

 

 

 

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
where the promenade
along the seashore
is just grand.

Music on the Beach

Why do people go to the seaside for their vacation? Is it to bask in the sun? Frolic in the surf? Listen to the music? For the people pictured on this vintage postcard, the highlight of their holiday at the ocean might have been the concert at the Band Stand and Beach of Long Beach, California.

On a small stage a wind band of about 25 musicians plays to an audience dressed in the fashion of the 1900s. People sit on deck chairs arranged casually on the sand. Ladies hold umbrellas for shade protection from the summer sun. Some people have walked out to the ocean to watch the waves, though no one is swimming. Music is the reason they have sand in their shoes.

Long Beach, is the Pacific port city of Los Angeles, CA.
Yet somehow this card was posted from an Atlantic port in New Jersey.

The postcard was sent on Oct. 28, 1916 from Elizabeth, NJ to W.H. Lewis of Manchester, NH.

Thanks for fine cards
will try to get your
cards of Lambertville
Yes I would like
3 each of the ones you
have sent from  my
list and 6 of the
other all except
the old man of the
Mountain of I have several
doz (?) of it am geting some
more Cards in        H. M. Vaughan (?)

It's a curious message for a holiday postcard. The writer's tone makes the purpose of the card more for business than friendship, so I think H. M. Vaughan (?) was a postcard collector or maybe even a postcard seller in Elizabeth, NJ, which is across the Newark Bay from Staten Island, NY. Lambertville is a small town in New Jersey, a short distance up the Delaware River from Trenton. The Old Man of the Mountain is a famous rock formation in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Unfortunately I was unable to find a good match for either Vaughan or Lewis in the online archives. 

Perhaps it is not unusual for someone in New Jersey to have a spare postcard of a popular resort in California. What percentage of holiday postcards actually make it to the post office anyway?

The publisher of this Long Beach postcard was a San Francisco businessman named Edward H. Mitchell, (1867-1932), who began selling sepia tone postcards in 1898 when they were originally called Private Mailing Cards and usually printed in Germany. Mitchell's souvenir enterprise survived the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906 and expanded for production in the US. Though he later shifted to a career in the oil business, over the next two decades Mitchell's company printed thousands of colorful postcards that depicted the scenic sites of America's west coast. By 1923 when he closed his presses, his postcards numbered in the millions and are arguably responsible for framing how many Americans came to view not only California, but the other western states, Mexico, and the Hawaiian islands too.

The print number 181 on this postcard of the Long Beach Band Stand is from his early series, so the original photo dates several years, even a decade, before 1916.  

This next postcard was mailed in August 1907 and shows the identical Long Beach scene but from slightly farther away. Like the first one, it was also colorized, but there are very subtle differences in the way the publisher's artist altered the original black and white photo. See if you can spot them. Apparently the Pacific Ocean had a variable horizon even before climate change became a global crisis.

The card was marked No. 6005 printed in Germany and published by Newman Post Card Co., Los Angeles, Cal. and Leipzig. 

In the 1900s, amusement parks and seaside resorts offered regular employment for thousands of band and orchestra musicians. As electronic amplification and recorded music were still several decades away, music had to be live to be heard. Parks built concert stages with a shell shape that used a parabolic effect of acoustics to make the band sound louder. If you look closely above the ladies in the center, a clarinetist is standing for a solo.

The band shell was located at the end of The Pike which was the name of the Long Beach boardwalk which opened in 1902. Just beyond the concert shell was a roller coaster built on pilings over the ocean shoreline. This amusement promenade was a mile long with numerous restaurants and a roller skating rink which undoubtedly also employed musicians to furnish entertainment.

The large building in the background of this 1910 postcard was the Virginia Hotel. Originally called the Bixby Hotel, it was the site of a tragic accident during its construction in November 1906. Eleven workers were killed when wooden forms were removed too soon from some concrete spans which led to the sudden collapse of the structure.

In the center of the Pike was the bath house called The Plunge. Inside was a large swimming pool where bathers could enjoy the salt water without the bother of sun and surf. The water was also heated to alleviate the Pacific's cold temperature.

On the other end of the Pike was a long pier and auditorium. The pier had two decks, the upper one for fishing and pleasure strolls, and the other for commerce, as this was Long Beach's Municipal Pier where freight and passenger ships linked to Los Angeles. The train station was just beyond the left side of the photo.

The auditorium was Long Beach's civic center. It was built in 1905 and had a capacity supposedly for 6000. It was used for concerts, lectures, religious services, and other similar events. Like the pier and the roller coaster, it was built on hundreds of pilings sunk into the sand.

This view of the East End of the Auditorium, Long Beach, CA
was mailed in October 1907 to B. Crouch of Fowler, CA.

Buford look behind the door in Sam's room and
then behind the blue cupboard – Mrs Yost
lots of girls
down here

It is eather in the
Kitchen or in our
room – Leave for
the Island today
but will be back in two days
Phil (?)

What was Buford looking for? Did he ever find it?

Inside the auditorium was another concert stage not unlike the band shell on the beach. To my eye this does not look like a 6000 seat theater. Unless there are risers hidden below the camera, I think this hall had only 900 to 1000 seats at best. The folding chairs suggest the floor was sometimes arranged for banquets and dancing.  

During the first years of the amusement strip, professional bands were usually engaged for a few weeks at a time, though some might play for the entire season, June through December. During the 1906 - 1908 seasons, Long Beach made an arrangement with an Italian Band led by Marco Vessella to present regular concerts in the city. Vessella was typical of many Italian conductors of this era who were notorious for their charismatic and flamboyant baton style.

(This 1906 photo from the Los Angeles Herald has Vessella's name captioned with an incorrect spelling.)

Los Angeles Herald
February 04, 1906

I have found no evidence to prove it, but I have a hunch that the band performing in the band shell on the beach was this same Italian Band. Though his musicians played to success with the public, Vessella failed to persuade the Long Beach city council to pay them what he thought they were worth. The contract was terminated in 1908 when the new mayor advocated for an all-American band.

The following year in 1909, the Long Beach city council, encouraged by the growth in tourism, decided to raise taxes to support a full time band. The first band director was Eugene H. Willey who created a first rate musical ensemble that became the ambassadors for the rapidly expanding city of Long Beach. In addition to playing two regular concerts a day on the waterside, Willey arranged concert tours that promoted not only  the ocean front recreation but also the many new business opportunities in southern California.

* * *

At some time around 1910-1912, the Long Beach Municipal Band posed for their own souvenir postcard. There were 41 bandsmen, with a large woodwind section. The brass even included three French horns, which was the hallmark of a sophisticated band. Like many ensembles of this era, they proudly display a rank of tubular chimes at the back, as church bells were a favorite device in the music programs.

The Long Beach Municipal Band traveled to many fairs and expositions, often to places that were a good distance away from the ocean, like Salt Lake City, UT and Reno, NV.  In May 1913, they appeared in Bakersfield, CA, 140 miles north of Long Beach. The Bakersfield newspaper announced their grand concert and added a photo of the band which was also taken in front of the Long Beach library. This was a musical action shot with director Willey standing in the center and his musicians ready to play.

Bakersfield, CA Morning Echo
May 08, 1913

Amusement parks thrive on novelty, so the Pike was constantly changing with new diversions. This view of the Auditorium and Pleasure Pier at Long Beach, Cal. shows an alarming spiral ride that was not present in the other postcard image. Like many seaside resorts, the Pike was famous for thousands of electric lights that illuminated the pier and boardwalk for the nighttime crowds. 

The postcard was sent by J. D. French on Sept 10, 1913 to Mr.  Chas (?) L. Boli (?) initially at the Ottawa Beach Hotel in Ottawa, Michigan and then 5423 Lincoln St., Chicago, IL. It is interesting that c/o Orchestra is added for the Ottawa address. Could Mr. Boli be a former member of the Italian Band? The message directs attention to a mark on the front of the card.

Long Beach Cal
The arrow on the
other side points
to were 40 were killed
about a year ago.
Regard
J D French

New York Evening World
May 24, 1913

On Saturday May 24, 1913, thousands of people had gathered in Long Beach for Empire Day, an event celebrating the many nations of the British Empire. The center piece was an event at the Long Beach auditorium and pier. As more and more people moved onto the pier the weight became too great for the upper deck which suddenly collapsed. That extra stress then caused the stage floor to collapse to the sandy shore below the building. Over 35 people perished and hundreds were injured in the calamity. Most of the fatalities were women, and because of the nature of the observance almost everyone was from England, Scotland, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand.

The tragedy made headlines all across the nation. Unfortunately, it competed for the public's attention with other events of that Saturday: the wedding of German Crown Princess Luise, Kaiser Wilhelm's only daughter; the sinking of the Turkish-American steamship Nevada which struck an underwater mine in Turkish waters and led to 40 lives lost; and the sudden death of heavy weight prize fighter, Luther McCarty, who took a bad hit in the solar plexus in the first round of a championship boxing match.

* * *

The Long Beach catastrophe made the newspaper in Anaconda, Montana
where the editor used a postcard view to illustrate the accident.

Anaconda, MT Standard
May 25, 1913

The Chicago Sunday Tribune ran a photo taken from out on the pier looking back at the auditorium.
They added an X to mark the position of the pier collapse.

Chicago, IL Daily Tribune
May 25, 1913

The Oakland Tribune also used some Long Beach postcard images of the auditorium
to better describe the tragic event.

Oakland, CA Tribune
May 25, 1913

Oakland CA Tribune
May 25, 1913

On that weekend in May 1913, the musicians of the Long Beach Municipal Band were still on tour and had just played concerts in Oakland. They were next traveling to San Francisco for performances at the Exposition before returning to Long Beach.

O. C. Foster, assistant director of the band, said this afternoon upon hearing of the disaster, that he could not figure out how the accident could take place.

"It may have been that the piling was rotten in places and that the extra weight caused by the large crowd was more than it could stand. During high tide there is several feet of water underneath the entire building and at low tide it even extends out on the water."

* * *

As ever in show business, "The show must go on". By June 1913 the city of Long Beach announced that the auditorium was to be razed. In the 1920s a new civic auditorium was constructed of brick and stone on solid landfill east of the old pier. In order to protect it from storm damage a grand semicircular breakwater causeway called the Rainbow Pier was built around it. Eventually the water inside was filled in too.

Later that summer, the Long Beach Band got new uniforms with white duck trousers that had fancy lace-up splits on the legs. In June 1914, the papers reported on the band's concerts for the grand opening of the Long Beach summer season. In 1923, the virtuoso cornet soloist and former assistant conductor for the John Philip Sousa band, Herbert L. Clarke, retired to Long Beach to take up the position of music director of the Long Beach Municipal Band. He led the band for the next 20 years, including during the horrific 1933 Long Beach earthquake.

The Pike amusement area of Long Beach went into a long decline over the next several decades. In the 1950s it had over 200 amusements but faced stiff competition from nearby Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm. It's reputation was no longer a family friendly place, and band concerts were no longer the highlight of summer vacations at the beach.

In 1969, the waterfront's name was changed to the Queen's Park when the city of Long Beach opened a new tourist attraction and hotel with the historic ocean liner RMS Queen Mary. Nonetheless, most locals continued calling the area The Pike. The ship lost money and closed in 1992. 

By 1979 Long Beach's ocean front property had little remaining value for tourism, so the land was turned over to redevelopment.

* * *

Today the Long Beach Municipal Band continues as a professional musical ensemble and recently celebrated its 114th anniversary. Despite struggles for funding, the band performs numerous concerts throughout Long Beach during the summer months. Sadly they don't have a band shell on the beach anymore and must resort to amplification. 

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
where everyone loves the sights and sounds of the beach.

This is my contribution to Ssepia Saturday

The Band at Scarborough Spa

Men once considered a hat to be such a necessary fashion accessory, that they would sooner leave the house without their trousers than without a hat. A hat style defined a man's uniform, his class, and even his profession. And at the top of this haberdashery pyramid was the top hat. It was the mark of a gentleman, a professional man, an artist.

So it is with the gentlemen of this band, two dozen musicians arrayed in fine suits and all wearing top hats. I believe they are members of one of the musical ensembles of Scarborough Spa in North Yorkshire, England from around 1895. This fine large format photo (make sure to click the image to enlarge it) was never mounted and has no identification but it was in the same lot as two other photos of the Scarborough Spa Orchestra from the 1920's. The musicians are standing on the stone steps of some kind of promenade. The sign on the stone wall behind them reads:  Smoking is not permitted on the Colonnade or in the Grand Hall.

The distinction between bands and orchestras was often blurry in the 19th century. Bands might include some strings, especially lower strings such as the cello and double bass in this group. The same musicians who played in the afternoon band concert might also play in the evening program of the orchestra.

Two bits of trivia here. Note the bandleader standing front row center. That is not a cane he is holding but a conductor's baton. Conductors and leaders of this era used a very heavy stick, perhaps better suited to marches and quick steps.

The other interesting note is that a horn player, mid-row right, has an instrument with only two valves, instead of three which was the common number for all brass instruments in the 19th century, (whereas four or five valves are now part of modern horns). This rare horn was used mainly in Britain from the mid 1830s to 1880s, it used the valves only to change keys while the player still used an old fashioned right hand technique to change the notes. It was fine for popular music tunes, but by the end of the 19th century, composers made such demands on brass players that most horn players had switched to three valved horns. A second horn player stands beside him but his instrument is unfortunately hidden except for the mouthpiece. 
 
I have another photo postcard of a similar top hat band which I posted back in 2009. They called themselves the Imperial Orchestra, Military Section from West Riding, Yorkshire. They are the same number and nearly same instrumentation. They date from a little later, around 1910 perhaps.

Many of these men might have received their training in one of the many British army regimental bands, and then returned to civilian life as professional musicians playing in theater orchestras and festival bands like this. Much of the work was seasonal and taken up in the schedule of the increasingly popular holiday spots like Scarborough Spa. 

Scarborough Spa Complex

The Scarborough Spa is a seaside community that developed into a destination for health-minded tourists in the 17th century when a natural spring was discovered that had supposedly medicinal powers. To better understand what it was like in earlier times we need a guide.

A search of vintage books in Google Books produced this title:

ENGLAND, SCOTLAND & IRELAND,
A Picturesque Survey of the United Kingdom and its Institutions
by P. VILLARS translated by Henry Frith

published in 1887.

"The principal occupation of the 30,000 inhabitants of Scarborough consists in letting lodgings and in amusing the 200,000 visitors who come there every year. Like ants they lay up an ample provision for the winter; so living is very dear there, as it in all other fashionable watering places. In the months of August and September season is in full swing - the hotel keepers are intractable, rooms are at a premium, and everything is very expensive.

"The best hotels, the museum, the aquarium, and the promenades are upon the South Cliff, where we also find the Spa Saloon, for Scarborough possesses two somewhat what celebrated springs of ferruginous waters. The South Cliff is connected with the town and railway station by a wide avenue and a bridge, which crosses the Ramsdale Valley 80 feet below. It contains some very beautiful shady walks and tastefully laid out gardens. The favorite promenade is the esplanade. Between this and a terrace overlooking the bay is the saloon – a vast stone building, containing a concert room, a theatre, a lecture room, and a restaurant – in a word, the casino, which is incumbent on every watering place which has any self respect. The interior decoration in the Renaissance style is very elegant embossed gilding alternating with brighter colours. The principal hall is capable of containing 1,500 persons. A terrace supported by small cast iron columns runs round three sides of the saloon, thus forming, according to circumstances, a balcony to the first floor, and a covered promenade to the ground floor. Besides concerts of vocal music, which are given in the hall, the casino orchestra plays twice a day on the terrace, which is thronged night and day by a well dressed crowd.

The aquarium, which is claimed to be the most beautiful in the world, is enclosed in the ravine that cuts the cliff into two parts, which are united by the cliff bridge that passes over this establishment, whose Moorish architecture is not particularly attractive. Within the building are twenty six tanks, containing a number of specimens of sea and river fishes, alligators, tortoises, and the inevitable seals, whose evolutions so greatly amuse children of all ages. There are also grottoes arranged with chairs and tables, wherein one can read the papers, or chat while listening to the harmonious strains of the orchestra, which constitutes the great attraction of the aquarium.

"We descend to the beach by an ingenious tramway which saves bathers the trouble of walking up and down the steep cliffs. This is an immense boon to invalids, and there are a great number of bathing places in England and France which would do well to imitate Scarborough in this respect – Biarritz for example.

"Sandy, soft, and firm, the beach is covered with bathing machines. According to English custom, ladies bathe on one side and the gentlemen on the other. Children play on the sand, construct redoubts, and fortifications, on which they plant the British flag. A considerable number of equestrians, some mounted on hired hacks, others upon the modest donkey, plunge through the sands in every sense of the word. In this respect Scarborough does not set an example worthy of imitation, the presence of these riders a source of danger to the children, and an annoyance to the promenaders."

Scarborough continues to be a popular resort with much musical and theatrical entertainment but according to the Wikipedia entry, the Scarborough Spa waters were declared unfit for human consumption and sealed off in the 1930s.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday.

Click the link for more vintage top hats and fancy dress.