World's Fair Special streetcar 1938

Been slacking off here, with an excellent excuse, of course, but I'm back. I wouldn't just abandon my duties at the mausoleum without saying goodbye.

Here's a PCC car in its original livery of Cordova brown running along the private right of way on Rodman Street (College Point Blvd today). The World's Fair special started at Brooklyn Borough Hall along the Flushing Ave. line then connected to the Grand Ave. line to terminal on Rodman Street next to the fair grounds. This is one of two brand new PCC cars that operated into Queens County as who would waste brand new, state-of-the-art trolleys on Queens when the PCC fleet can be operated in Brooklyn. To my knowledge, there is no existent original color photo of a PCC car in this livery so I just had to colorize this one.

Another point of note is the 10 cent fare listed on the white card on the PCC's front instead of the 5 cents B&QT was permitted to charge. The City did step in and force B&QT to stop this sacrilege against the 5 cent fare but then charged 10 cents as the fare for their IND World's Fair subway line. When you own the law, you don't have to follow it yourself.

The original B&W photo is from, as usual, NYC Subway.org carefully hidden behind 'World' sub-menu.



Donald Cavaioli

BMT Bluebird ca 1954 colorized

A BMT bluebird train in the East New York Yard 7/17/1954 colorized.

Original B&W photo from NYC Subway.org



Donald Cavaioli

Meeker Avenue at Penny Bridge ca 1936

Sometimes it's nice to escape back to a simpler time.

Here is Meeker Avenue on the Brooklyn side of the old Penny Bridge barely visible on the far right. This is probably around 1936 at the latest as with the completion of the Koscuiuszko Bridge, it was demolished. The photographer however, was far more concerned with this Stephenson model 1907 car at the terminal stop of the Meeker Ave line of the B&QT when it was a privately owned railroad company. The end of the track and catenary wires clearly visible on the right.  I like the little green convenience store, if that's what it is, with the coca-cola sign on front. Getting the colors of the Stephenson right was tough because these cars were originally convertible cars- double ended open motorman control and sides can be removed in the summer to permanently a fully closed car, front and rear doors with parts of slightly differing shades of red added.

The original black and white photo was found in the hidden back 'World' menus of NYC Subway.org where the trolley photos are carefully concealed (those ERA types, I tell ya!) and by myself colorized in defiance.



Donald Cavaioli

1940's Surf Avenue colorized

A quick look into a long gone world:

And what's more lost world than the B&QT trolleys?
Here at Surf Avenue and W.37th Street terminal is the old workhorse John Stephenson model 1907 car. The motorman is pulling down and securing the now front trolley pole in preparation of heading back to the opposite terminal stop.

Original B&W photo, as usual for trains and trolleys is from NYC Subway.org


Donald Cavaioli

Bergen Street Brooklyn late 1940's recolored

Bergen Street and Washington Avenue sometime before July 20, 1947 when the Bergen St. trolley line became the B65 bus. The neighborhood was much less busy and less traffic in the street than today. Looks like a nice place to live. The trolley car is John Stephenson 1907 model still going strong after 40 years in service if a bit worn.

The original B&W photo was from NYC Subway.org because they have a good collection of photos of decent size and good quality for colorizing.


Donald Cavaioli

The Fulton Street El colorized 1940's

Here's a street scene colorized from 1940. The location is Boerum Place and Fulton Street with a train of BMT C cars moving along. Gotta love those 1940's car for their style and trolleys and those old subway trains are cool.

The original B&W photo is from NYC Subway.org



Donald Cavaioli

Somewhere in downtown Brooklyn past

Where this was is a bit of a mystery. It's somewhere in the downtown Brooklyn end of the #12 Dekalb Ave. line. Nothing along Court Street matches any of these buildings which presently has buildings from around the time this photo was taken. Could be along Cadman Plaza west in what is today a park and the buildings in this photo long since disappeared by eminent domain. Then this could be a colorized tribute to a vanished neighborhood.

Original B&W photo from NYC Subway.org, colorizing it is my own work.



Donald Cavaioli

More colorized photos

Been busy so just this quickie post today of a recolored photo.

A PCC car in the bottle green livery of the NYC Board of Transportation, of the 7th Avenue line at its terminal at 20th Street and 7th Ave ca late 1940's to early 1951. Due to wartime shortages of building materials and supplies, the buildings around the city got a bit shabby looking as did the city's trolley fleet. The original B&W photo was from NYC Subway.org.


Donald Cavaioli

Summer of 1914 in color

A fine looking summer day in 1914, 2nd Avenue and 59th Street in Sunset Park Brooklyn...

The motorman of Briggs 1899 model streetcar has his right hand on the brake and his left hand on the throttle as if he were undecided if he should hit the brake and let the fellow in the brown suit and straw boater hat cross or push the throttle and take a chance on not hitting the pedestrian. The Briggs car is in the green livery of the Brooklyn City Railroad and this being prior to 1918 would be in the good old days of the BRT. It's days worth of work to get the colors right and a challenge to get details like the sky reflected in the Briggs car front window but I do think I got that detail right. Colorizing B&W photos and making them look good is sometimes in little details like that.

This one is a bit more color saturated than I would like and I probably should have put more work into getting the color of the building in the background just right but it does sort of have that 1970's Kodachrome look to it. Just like an old photo should.

As usual, the original B&W photo is from my favorite source for colorizing candidates, NYC Subway.org.



Donald Cavaioli

Yesterday and Today II: Around the corner 17 years later

 Back to yesterday at Seneca Avenue and Dekalb Avenue trolley terminal and Dekalb repair shops in old Queens on the border of Brooklyn for a peek around the corner.

Here is a photo of a Peter Witt car at the Seneca Avenue terminal of the Dekalb Ave line as the photo appears in the collection of NYC Subway.org. The photo is dated September 22, 1935. Yesterday but 17 years later than when that BRT Tauton repair car was parked around the corner on the right.

But let's add some new life into it:

The scene colorized and probably very close to how the people waiting inside the car would have seen this view. The Peter Witt car turned out to be dark green. A bit of a surprise as a pre-1940 NYC Board of Transportation takeover and the light bottle green livery. So I expected it to be in the usual B&QT red livery. But no, the red didn't look right, a bit over saturated and didn't blend naturally with the other colors. Recolored's usual way of saying you picked the wrong color. So the red was removed and the colorize button was clicked and the streetcar uncolored took on a greenish hue. That was it- the color is green.

Turns out after a bit of research that the old Dekalb Ave line was operated in the 1920's and 30's by a BMT/B&QT subsidiary of the Brooklyn City Rail Road (BCRR) whose livery was dark green with yellow trim. So recolored did not steer me wrong. For the flowers I picked a flowery color of lavender because it looked to me what a flower should be colored even if I know nothing of flowers, plants and stuff. I'm more a machine and electronics guy- especially antique and vintage electronics.

So if the ghost of that long dead Peter Witt car and her passengers were to appear to us today in the spot on which she sat on September 22, 1935, she would be blocking the rear parking lot entrance of here:

The front of the Peter Witt (on the left in the above recolored photo) would be facing us from the Associated supermarket parking lot (on the right). This photo I clipped from Google Maps I should add. I should make it a point to do my grocery shopping there in the hopes of better prices than Stop n Shop and perhaps to run into one of yesterday's apparitions. I want to ask what color those flowers planted in the 20's and 30's were.

Too bad they didn't keep the old B&QT office building and put the supermarket in it. This might have helped out with having the ghosts hanging around there for me to pester with such banal questions.


Donald Cavaioli

Yesterday and Today

Yesterday might be early 1918 and the place is on Seneca Avenue near the corner of Dekalb Avenue Here we have a Taunton work car with the BRT, Brooklyn Rapid Transit logo on it which assuming the shop wasn't lazy about updating the logo would make this photo around 1918.  After this year, bankruptcy would  see the company reorganized into the BMT, Brooklyn Manhattan Transit of which their surface line would be renamed Brooklyn and Queens Transit, B&QT. For this time in this photo, this was the turn around for the Dekalb Ave line and the location of the BRT/B&QT Dekalb car repair shops which would be there until 1940.

Today the old two-story BRT/B&QT office building was long ago demolished and in its place a one story building housing an Associated Supermarket, the parking lot was where the loop track came through allowing the trolley to turn around to the track heading for Brooklyn. A school and large athletic field occupy the area on the left where once stood the shop yards and repair buildings.

The original B&W photo I got from NYC Subway.org and in colorizing it must confess I have a hard time coloring flowers. Guess I don't know enough about flowers to figure out which species it is and what color they should be.



Donald Cavaioli

People in color in a black and white world.

For the 101st post which since November 20, 2918.

A partial colorized photo that looks a bit weird at first with only the people colorized. The location is the corner of 17th Street looking north on 5th Avenue in Park Slope, Brooklyn ca 1950.
Below is a clip from Google maps streetview cropped as close as I could get it to match. The Prospect Parkway now cuts through in the background taking out through eminent domain some of the rowhouses on the right. The black and white photo I got from NYC Subway.org with colorized people by yours truly.

This makes and average of 1 post about every 4 days which for Custodia Sepulchrum's New Year's Resolution is post more often- every day if all goes well. A resolution that departs from my usual resolutions where I promise not to do things that I already do not do like getting flying WW1 biplanes into dogfights with enemy biplanes, launching a full-sized Titan-Gemini rocket from my backyard and such. Much easier to resolve not to do things you already never did nor will ever do but this time rather than not do something, I'll do something like blog regularly. Been doing good so far...


Donald Cavaioli

Capturing the past in all its worn and battered glory in color.

Another recolored trolley- a Brill center center door car on the Brooklyn side of the old Vernon Avenue bridge. These old trolleys were  not well maintained during the second world war and were slated to be replaced by buses soon afterwards. So the old Board of Transportation didn't see much sense in repairing these battered old war horses and this old girl shows the battle scars of decades of loyal service. She still wears her old BMT/B&QT red livery, not the bottle green and silver of the NYC Board of Transportation. Even the buildings in the background show the wear during the war years when workmen and building materials were in short supply.

The original black and white photo is from www.nycsubway.org and the colorize is my own work.


Donald Cavaioli

Albee Square, Brooklyn June 1941 in color

This is Albee Square Dekalb Avenue and Fulton Street in June of 1941

Actually, it was a black and white photo I found over on www.nycsubway.org that I recolored. Aside from the City Hall subway station photo and Meeker Avenue at the old Penny Bridge, I consider this one of the best examples of colorized B&W photos I've yet done. NYC Subway.org is a good source for decent sized scans (for colorizing purposes) of vintage subway and trolley photos.

The trolley is a B&QT Peter Witt car and the Albee movie theater just behind it and old Paramount Theater can be seen in the background.

For those who like old vintage photos and trolleys, especially if you want to see a long ago world as the people of the time saw it, enjoy.


Donald Cavaioli

Brooklyn Bridge Plaza ca 1907 colorized

Original black & white photo of the Brooklyn Bridge Plaza with the Sands Point station in the background ca 1907. Smoke and the sky is harder to colorize than you think. I just can't get rid of the funny tint after colorizing this photo. It came out okay but I'm not completely happy with the result.


Donald Cavaioli

Adding color to the past

Black and white made color artificially but does look real enough. One of my better efforts.
Original B&W from www.nycsubway.org image#141920 shows a pair of John Stephenson 1907 model trolley cars of the Meeker Ave line at its terminal. With the old penny bridge in the background, this photo dates to the late 1930's prior to the opening of the Kosciuszko Bridge on August 23,1939.


Donald Cavaioli

Another colorized photo

Here I got a bit artsy with colorizing only the Peter Witt trolley and the people walking by. The original black and white image I got from www.nycsubway.org image # 141027.


Donald Cavaioli