Framed or unframed, desk size to sofa size, printed by us in Arizona and Alabama since 2007. Explore now.
Shorpy is funded by you. Patreon contributors get an ad-free experience.
Learn more.
The Jersey Shore circa 1905. "On the beach, Atlantic City." Who has the Frisbee? 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.
This is like a panorama spliced together from three different pictures: the kids sitting in the foreground, the line with the ice-cream cart in between, and the beach perspective in the background. The last two layers don't do much for me, but the foreground is amazingly tactile, expressive, and dynamic.
I'm drawn most of all to the steady hands and quiet gaze of the rightmost girl in the foreground. There's an interesting contrast between her steadiness and the blurred gestures and shifting weight of the girls beside her. There's also a very pleasing symmetry between the way she rests her hand on her ankle and the more wound-up gesture of the leftmost boy scooping up a fistful of sand.
Hey, this may be the earliest photo of an Ultimate Frisbee beach tournament. Off to Asbury Park for a round of Disc Golf after the tourney, maybe?
Bathing suits that showed arms AND legs? The horror!
Possibly "blocks." I remember small cubes of ice cream, about the size of a child's alphabet block, wrapped in waxed paper being an item one saw for sale during my childhood years back in the 50s. Could be another convenient way, along with sandwiches and cones, to sell small quantities in a recreational venue such as this. Then there's Neapolitan ice cream, often served in block form to maintain or display its multi-colored layers.
Minus the blankets. And the bingo.
I, too, can remember at the end of the annual church picnic when the leftover dry ice was tossed into the river. Along from the trampoline and collecting tadpoles, it was the highlight of the day.
Those were the days when it was worth it to stoop and pick up a penny.
The sign on the Ice Cream cart is partially obscured -- what ends in "ocks"?
What is the profit margin for selling something like ice cream for 1 cent?
Was wondering the same thing about the dry ice. Were they using it back then for refrigeration? I looked up some history on it. Dry ice was discovered in 1834, but was not commercially available until 1924 or 1925. I remember its widespread use in the early 50's. It was always a treat at the end of a picnic to see it being dumped into water and seeing the resulting explosion of bubbling and vapor release.
Several hundred miles away is where. At this point, the Frisbie Pie Company's plates hadn't made it outside the Bridgeport, Conn. area.
It looks the most popular rental shop was Old Navy.
The sign on the building on the left is a reminder that the enticement of easy credit has been around a long time.
There in the background on the right and coming closer, is that Hester Prynne from "The Scarlet Letter"?
Love these old photos! I was just at the beach at AC recently, in some ways it hasn't changed. I wonder if that's the high-diving horse on a break from the Steel Pier?
How did the third girl from the left get so much sand in her hair?
Who is the fourth girl throwing sand at and why?
Who cleans up after the horse (whose tail indicates he may be ready to drop one)?
Why does the chap in the background have a big circled "A" across his vest?
On Shorpy:
Today’s Top 5