A "THEN AND NOW" MYSTERY... SOLVED! Marc A. Hermann

Producing the "Then and Now" series of old New York news photos has been a learning experience for me. I've gotten a unique perspective on the change that the city has undergone over the span of decades, and having the ability to stand in the precise spots as my predecessors has taught me much about how they operated. It has also granted me the privilege of bringing some otherwise obscure or anonymous photographs back into the spotlight, and completing decades-old puzzles. This one was perhaps the most obscure and anonymous yet.

Recently, I found a cache of vintage photo prints on eBay, with the logo of Dispatch Photo News Service, Inc. appearing in the lower right corner. Not much is known about this company—there is no entry for them in the 1945 directory of the Working Press of New York City, however photos with their attribution from battlefields of World War II have surfaced. A 1952 ad from a Schenectady, New York insurance company boasts the unusual announcement that they have contracted with Dispatch in order to display the latest news photographs in the window of their office. For a company that seems to be known nationally, with an international scope of work, it seems odd to us nowadays that such a venture would concern itself with run-of-the-mill "local" spot news, but the status of such stories and the public interest in such photos at the time is very telling of the era.



Inherently frustrating about the photos attributed to Dispatch is that they come with no caption information. Similar photographs from agencies such as Acme Newspictures routinely featured slips of paper with complete date and caption information pasted to the reverse. Many of these photos, salvaged from defunct newspaper archives, may even feature handwritten notations from photo editors as to when the print was received, published, and even a tear sheet of its printing. Thus, a photo historian needs to find other clues when trying to determine the story behind the image.

So, in the case of the online listing for "Dispatch Photo News Service, NY, 11X14 BW Photo, 40's Era, Fatal Car Crash!" there was precious little information. At first glance, this was a picture of an overturned car resting near an iron fence, illuminated by a flashbulb at night, with no discernible landmarks. A man, likely an ambulance attendant, covers the victim's body with newspaper, and a police officer guards the scene. The seller's description was merely that "this particular photo shows a man with a badge pinned to his coat preparing to cover up a victim of a nasty car crash." However, a key piece of evidence in determining location was included: "On some of the pieces of the pole on the ground you can make out the emergency call box marked FDNY 1445."

The Fire Department assigns a permanent number to every location where a physical alarm box either is or once was. (The basic system dates back to the 1870s and, depending on where you are in the city, has been left essentially intact, upgraded, or removed.) Turning to the ever-helpful and informative website of FDNY dispatcher and longtime acquaintance Frank Raffa, it took all of two seconds to determine that each borough, except the Bronx, has a box location numbered "1445." Glancing at the list, the Brooklyn location caught my eye: 5th Ave. at 33rd St., a location (and iron fence) that I knew well—that of Green-Wood Cemetery. A quick Google Streets check verified the location, and confirmed that the modern counterpart of box 1445 (below) was still at the location, decidedly lacking the aesthetic appeal of the original 1930 cast iron Valentine Fendrich-style post, which was knocked to pieces by the crash.

With the location, I had enough to make a "Then & Now" photo, but that would leave me with a yet incomplete story. I had the "Where," but a few more Ws needed to be filled in. Fortunately for my research, the wrecked car's license plates are prominenty featured, and sport the registration year "51." Old issues of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle would, I hoped, reveal the rest of the story. After considerable searching, I located a page one standalone photo, or a "ROP"—"Run of Press," as we knew them at the Daily News—in the Saturday, March 3, 1951 edition. Right there, without credit or attribution, was the very Dispatch Photo News Service picture that I had. No story, but a brief caption accompanied the picture, the location's irony not being lost on the paper. "DEATH AT THE CEMETERY—Alongside his car, which went out of control, mounted sidewalk and overturned at Green-Wood Cemetery fence, lies body of John Gibbons, 38, of 41 Prospect Place. Scene is on 5th Ave. near 33d St. Gibbons was killed instantly."

And with that, what had been simply an unidentified print of a "40's era fatal car crash" now had a little bit more significance. Historians will pardon my alteration of an artifact, but I will be adding this information to the back of the print.

When I set out to compose the "Now" photograph, I decided to take it at night, as the "Then" had been, illuminating the sidewalk and fence with flash. The sidewalk had obviously been replaced in the decades since the accident, but one prominent feature remained—the FDNY-marked manhole cover in the foreground. Incredibly, although it must certainly have been opened in the intervening years, the orientation of the letters in the central ring was almost exactly the same as it was in 1951.