Central Park, New York City, c. 1906, photographer unknown, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Tag: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Vintage landscape: winter ice of ’22
Skating on the Reflecting Pool of the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C., January 1922, by Harris & Ewing, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
To scroll through larger versions of the images, click on any of the thumbnails in the gallery.
The Pool and its surroundings were actually still under construction when these skaters took to the ice. From 1922 to the 1980s, people skated on the Pool during very cold periods (it’s no longer allowed).
These photos may have been taken between January 23 and 27, when an Arctic airmass was keeping Washington’s temperatures down below freezing. On the 28th, it began to snow, eventually accumulating to 28″ (71 cm.).*
This was the infamous Knickerbocker Storm, so named because, about 9:00 p.m. that night, the flat roof of the Knickerbocker Theater collapsed during a movie, killing 98 people and injuring 133.
*It was D.C.’s deepest snow on record until 2010.
The winter garden: palms
“Glover House, Washington, D.C.(?),” c. 1900, a cyanotype by Frances Benjamin Johnston, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
I haven’t been able to find out anything certain about Glover House. It seems possible that it was the home of Charles Carroll Glover, who purchased and then donated the land for Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C., in the 1870s. (He lived at “Westover,” at 4300 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., which is now a modern townhouse development.)
He and Johnston moved in the same social circles at the turn of the 19th century. As part of her photography business, she took pictures of the homes of many wealthy Washingtonians (and the White House).
Three more winter gardens are here.
The palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the bronze decor. . .— Wallace Stevens, from “Of Mere Being“
Wordless Wednesday: ornamental bird
John Wesley Baxter house, Greenwich, Connecticut, 1920, by Frances Benjamin Johnston, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Vintage landscape: a winter’s night
Sharp shivers thro’ the leafless bow’r. . . *
The east side of the U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C., ca. 1920 – 1950, by Theodor Horydczak, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
*by Robert Burns, from “A Winter Night.”
enclos*ure 