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Where & When: Game 7

Welcome back! While you’re checking out the post season action, you can still enjoy a challenge or two of your own with the latest round of Where & When. As you know, the object is to determine where and when the picture was taken, drawn, etc. Without further ado, I give you this:

Where & When 07

Sometimes they’re hard, sometimes they’re easy. But at least they are engaging. This one should be an easy one for the internet savvy or hardcore New Yawka from back in the day. I know that one of these features was very familiar to me growing up in the Hudson Valley, which is certainly not where this is.

Have a go at it; but since this is relatively easy, let’s try something a little different: Post your answer on the thread and any finite info you might have about this location relative to the date the picture was taken versus another period of time when the scene was or is significantly different in some way. Or, you can talk about an interesting personal experience you had there. The most interesting answer (by acclamation) will get the root beer this time, with all others with a correct answer and interesting stories or info getting cream sodas. Let’s see how this works out, and above all have fun. See you in the afternoon!

13 comments

1 rbj   ~  Oct 7, 2013 9:46 am

It helps to remember it is Mays, and not Macy's. Though you'll have go go through a number of pictures of a certain baseball player.

Don't have an interesting anecdote, so I'll settle for a cream soda.

2 Ben   ~  Oct 7, 2013 10:41 am

I got the location, but couldn't figure out the orientation of the shot because the street looked one way and that threw me off. But the subway entrance on the right through the trees helped. And Ephemeral NY nails it.

That was a good year... why someone born in that year would be about 39 years old now... hmmmm...

3 Alex Belth   ~  Oct 7, 2013 10:56 am

1) I removed the link. Gotta keep the mystery alive for the rest of us. Good find though!

4 RIYank   ~  Oct 7, 2013 11:46 am

I did know this area growing up, and I'm the right age to recognize the exact scene. But, now that the year has been revealed, I have to admit I would have guessed maybe 8 years earlier. I guess we tend to forget what cars looked like in various years. Also, the ad for *programming* services in the window is a tip-off; it couldn't have been much earlier. Cool.

I can't think of any good anecdotes, sorry.

5 Bronx Boy in NC   ~  Oct 7, 2013 12:09 pm

"Every day's a sale day at Mays!"

At least it used to be, on 14th Street looking west along the south side of Union Square.

Chyll, did you know that big barn-like Mays in Fishkill is still an empty shell more than 30 years after it closed? The strip mall alongside it limps along, and there's a nice little un-fancy nine-hole golf course behind it. But still.

6 Shaun P.   ~  Oct 7, 2013 1:51 pm

I have no idea where this is (again), but it is clearly the late 70s. I remember those old long, thin, flattened Fords, as big as a boat, my grandmother's neighbor had one well into the 90s.

Ahead of it on the left is an old school station wagon, which I am pretty sure is a Ford LTD, and with wood paneling on the side I believe! My folks had a Ford LTD station wagon like that (no wood paneling though) and I road in the trunk sometimes on family trips. I'm pretty sure you'd be arrested for letting your kid do that nowadays. ;)

I also note the old school yellow and blue NYS plates, which they have sort of brought back now, but I like the original version better.

Finally, the signs on the upper portion of the Mays building are advertising computer classes for IBM Punch Card computers (!) so I will guess this is 1976, the year before the first PC was invented. Though based on Ben's remark in [2] I might be a year or 2 off, but I'm sticking to my original thought. :)

7 TheGreenMan   ~  Oct 7, 2013 2:09 pm

I know exactly where it is, but I'm going to have to best guess the date. Sending...

8 TheGreenMan   ~  Oct 7, 2013 2:14 pm

Ooops...I see we are posting answers here in the comments. Trying not to look at the previous ones.

That's Union Square on the right looking West on 14th Street. From the vehicles, I'm going to guess 1975 or so.

Unfortunately, no interesting stories of that area for me. I just recognized the intersection where Mays was.

9 edoubletrouble   ~  Oct 7, 2013 2:16 pm

This spot used to be called "Dead Man's Curve" - because it used to be the trolley turnaround and the cars would go so fast people would fall off of them.

10 Chyll Will   ~  Oct 7, 2013 5:04 pm

[5] The Dutchess Mall was my Coney Island as a child; the decor ranged from fifties mom and pop style stores to seventies groovy Service Merchandise anchor store. Mays had the long escalators to the top level from outside if I recall. It briefly became a Jamesway before closing, then reopening as an IBM extension, then a DCC extension and finally Marist before closing for good. I was sad when they tore down most of the mall, and shocked that they left the Service Merchandise and Mays buildings up, not to mention the little plaza to the south that used to house a Shop Rite (or was it A&P?), Pergament, a liquor store and something else, a cleaners I think. Mickey D's will never go away, I guess. I do drive by there once in a while and see the remnants (forgot if the movie marquee is still there or not, don't think so) and think about those days. The SM building was used as a flea market space for some time; it retained the same decor from my childhood. Depressing.

I don't have any stories about our challenge today (none I can think of now), but I have a good one for the Dutchess Mall. My family and I went shopping one winter weekend and there happened to be a autograph signing for a recently sIgned or promoted Mets phenom whom I had heard a lot of buzz about. So there he was pacing around in acid washed jeans, a black long sleeve crew shirt and a thin gold herringbone around his neck. He saw me and started ice grilling me like he knew me or I was supposed to know him. My mother or my oldest sister noticed and asked me who he was, I didn't really know, but later I saw the sign and said, huh, go figure. Why was he grilling me like that? Was he playing HNIC or something, be cause I didn't really care (maybe that was it!)

Later, said phenom would set an MLB record by losing 27 consecutive decisions both as a starter and a reliever. I wondered for a while if that moment ever occurred to him during that time; yunnow, karma or something.

11 Chyll Will   ~  Oct 7, 2013 5:30 pm

Oh yeah, the Mays Barn was a Fleet Tax Processing Center for a few years as well ( I worked a couple of seasons at the one in Kingston). Them it went to the schools before closing.

12 RIYank   ~  Oct 7, 2013 6:13 pm

[10] Wait, Anthony Young was playing Hockey Night in Canada with you???

13 Chyll Will   ~  Oct 7, 2013 6:27 pm

[12] Yeah. I should be flattered he considered me a threat.

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"This ain't football. We do this every day."
--Earl Weaver