Greg Hatala/For NJ Advance Media
Vintage photos from NJ that deserve a second look
A few years back, I wrote about when I was in a high school theater production in the 1970s and spent a great deal of time rehearsing a ‘double-take’ for one scene … a video of which is now available on the internet, showing it has to have been THE worst double-take of all time.
My problem was likely because I looked it up in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, which defines a double-take as “a delayed reaction to a surprising or significant situation after an initial failure to notice anything unusual.”
A far more useful definition comes from filmsite.org.
“A double-take is a comedic convention that refers to the way in which an actor first looks at an object (subject, event, scene, etc.), then looks away, and then snaps his head back to the situation for a second look – with surprise, disgust, sexual longing, etc.; a variation is termed a spit-take (the double-take causes the character to spit out whatever he is drinking).”
Looking back (see what I did there?), I would’ve been much better off doing a spit-take.
Here’s a gallery of vintage photos taken in New Jersey that might make you do a double take. Click on the links at the end for more galleries. And if you have vintage photos you’d like to see in our slide shows, send them in an email to [email protected].
Courtesy of Bobby Cole Photo Archives
And the age-old question has been answered! Actually, this was a rooster named Franklin that Sgt. George Furbacher of West Paterson helped cross the street in 1963. Franklin came from a local poultry farm and but stayed overnight in the garage of the service station across the street for some unknown reason and, according to Furbacher, had already come to cross the street for six months.
Courtesy of Bobby Cole Photo Archives
From left, Benny Hilliard, Gregory Chalmers and John Chalmers discovered a way around the streets of Passaic in 1970 that wasn’t commonly seen.
Courtesy of Bobby Cole Photo Archives
Joe Di Pavova and his 12-year-old son Joey from West Milford were shopping in a local supermarket in 1973 when they ran into a live emu at the turkey counter. The bird was a pet of George Gray who was also in the store shopping. He was also the Game Ranger at Jungle Habitat Theme Park in West Milford.
Courtesy of Tony Silver
If this fellow was running a dog walking business, he would be the absolute best in the world. The photo was taken in Belvidere in the 1920s and that’s all I really know about it.
Courtesy of Kathy Franzoi
“What did you do at camp today, dear?” “Oh, nothing, Mom, just had a petting zoo.” Activities at Vineland’s YMCA day camp in 1956.
Courtesy of Bobby Cole Photo Archives
Karin Gray was playing bridge at the Demarest Library in 1968 when there was a power failure, so candles were used until the lights came on.
Courtesy of the Hightstown-East Windsor Historical Society
This baseball team represented the Hightstown Athletic Association in 1932 … and I have a difficult time believing no one considered what those uniforms wore out when everyone stood side by side. Hopefully, the team was REALLY good.
Courtesy of Bobby Cole Photo Archives
I’d pay a nickel to see a mayor in a suit ride a minibike … in this case, North Bergen Mayor Peter Mocco, who went for a spin on the township’s new minibike trail off Westside Ave and 76th Street in 1971.
Courtesy of Denise Wirth
Something seems out of place in this photo taken in Lavallette in the 1960s … that’s it, the guy wearing Beatle boots on a beach.
Courtesy of Janet Brown
Yes, if I’m going to pose for a photo in Paulsboro in the 1950s, the absolute best place would be behind a barrel of nitric acid … which I would then put both unloved hands on.
Courtesy of Nick Arroyo
Young people enjoyed driving through Safety Town, a miniature city in which kids 3 to 9 learned walking and bicycle safety at the Moorestown Mall in Sept. 1977.
Courtesy of Haddonfield United
This photo from Haddonfield taken in 1971 serves the purpose of illustration if you have ever had to explain a phrase such as ‘it was like getting changed in a phone booth!’ to anyone younger than 25.
Courtesy of Emelia Marcus
From left, Jill, Donn and Valiant Thor held a press conference in High Bridge in 1959. All three claimed to be from the planet Venus. Proving that the internet didn’t invent nuttiness.
Courtesy of Michelle Zielinski
Michelle Zielinski sent in this photo of her grandfather Donald Breeden taking off in a glider he purchased and put together with his brother Eugene and cousins, Howard and Charles in the 1930s. I’m sorry, Michelle, but to me it looks like … they didn’t finish putting it together?
Courtesy of the Woodbridge Virtual Museum
These two fellows look like they needed a lesson in weight distribution on a boat ride on the Arthur Kill off Sewaren in 1916.
Courtesy of Vintage Bergen County
My old childhood family albums would have a photo like this, taken with the bull in front of Manero’s Restaurant in Rochelle Park in 1970. The posers are not identified.
Courtesy of The Seeing Eye
Seeing Eye dog Duchess, right, is being finger … pawprinted in Morristown so she can accompany her master to his defense job during World War II. She doesn’t seem too happy about it; maybe she had priors.
Courtesy of the Newark Public Library
And this is how we boarded planes in the 1930s only a few years after Newark Airport opened. I can’t tell what the woman and boy are doing in the lower left, either.
Courtesy of Vintage Bergen County
You can now cross it off your list: you’ve seen a camper doing a wheelie, specifically this one from New Milford in the 1970s.
Courtesy of John Tejanian
A forced landing? Nope, just a retired aircraft now doing retirement duty on a playground in Brigantine in the 1960s
Courtesy of Vintage Bergen County
Not Jurassic Park; Sinclair dinosaurs from the New York World’s Fair visited the Garden State Plaza in Paramus in 1967.
Courtesy of Bobby Cole Photo Archives
Not a misguided attempt at garage use; a tractor trailer lost its brakes at the top of Sagamore Road in Maplewood in 1958. The driver rode it out over a half mile, eventually crashing into this house at 23 Maple Terrace. No one was hurt.
Greg Hatala/For NJ Advance Media
Vintage NJ photos that deserve a second look
https://www.nj.com/news/2014/09/vintage_nj_photos_that_deserve_a_second_look.html
Vintage photos from NJ that might make you do a double-take
https://www.nj.com/news/2017/11/vintage_photos_from_nj_that_might_make_you_do_a_do.html
Vintage NJ photos that deserve a second look
https://www.nj.com/news/2015/08/vintage_nj_photos_that_deserve_a_second_look_1.html