VETERANS DAY SPECIAL PT. 2: VISIT A PARK IN 1930

By Raymond De Felitta -


Above is another one of those priceless documentary looks at New York life in the late 20s/early 30s courtesy of the Fox Movietone News camera, an early sound-on-film system that enabled recordings of everyday life and events without having to set up cumbersome equipment which in turn would usually freeze the on-camera participants--these glimpses feature entirely natural behavior of people who are only dimly aware at best that they're being filmed. Here we see a group of children, ages 5-7 roughly, playing in a park on West End Avenue and 106th Street in January of 1930. A teacher leads them in a couple of songs while their mothers sit by on the benches, wearing those funny 1920s Cloche women's hats that so symbolize 20s fashion that to wear one now would be a clear indication that you were on your way to a 1920s themed party.

What has this to do with Veterans Day you may ask? As I estimated the children's ages as I did, that would mean they were born somewhere between the early to mid 20s. Which means those boys you see surely saw action in the war that was a decade away. How many of them lived to tell about it? We'll never know. But they were members of the 'greatest generation' and it's heartbreaking to see them at that age, happily singing nursery rhymes on a winter's day in the park.

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