Good Morning, Oppo

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 09/18/2018 at 09:29 • Filed to: good morning oppo

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Washington, D.C., in 1920. “Penn Oil Co., 16th and M Sts.”

And here’s another shot of the same site from a slightly different angle. Check out that one dude ogling the ambulance girls. This was taken ca. 1917.

Full-sized originals by clicking the link in the photo credit.

Ash78, voting early and often > ttyymmnn 09/18/2018 at 09:36

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B&W has a tendency to distance the audience from the image (for documentary purposes, not artistically). I always used to feel so enlightened when I said stuff like, “wow, just imagine this in full color and what it must have been like!”

My dad would usually say “Yeah, and the smell!” followed by a lecture about how people bathed once a week, at most, and were always overdressed in the same clothes they had worn a couple times already.

Thanks, dad.

someassemblyrequired > ttyymmnn 09/18/2018 at 09:46

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Looks a tad different now!   Oddly enough there are a fair number of gas stations left in DC.   They are actually a protected use, and cannot be used for another purpose without special permission, which is almost never granted.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > ttyymmnn 09/18/2018 at 09:55

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None of these vehicles are obscure and hard to identify. You have failed me.

ttyymmnn > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 09/18/2018 at 09:56

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Sorry. I’ll try to do better next time. But since it’s such a slam dunk, why not tell me what I’m looking at?

ttyymmnn > someassemblyrequired 09/18/2018 at 09:57

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You mean the land is protected use, as in you can’t build a condo there?

ttyymmnn > Ash78, voting early and often 09/18/2018 at 09:58

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For that reason, I dislike colorized photographs. I get that the event happened in color, but any color you put to it is just your best, though perhaps educated, guess. Even though the original black and white photo lacks color, it holds significantly more truth than a colorized photo.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > ttyymmnn 09/18/2018 at 09:59

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The one in the first pic is, I think, a White. The second pic, Ford AA and two Model T trucks, at first blush.

Ribbing you, of course, and exaggerating somewhat, since “ID challenges” are not actually what these posts are for.

Ash78, voting early and often > ttyymmnn 09/18/2018 at 10:01

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I always like to imagine the dirt, grime, and air pollution gave everything a sepia tone, anyway, so we’re not far off from actually being there :D

ttyymmnn > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 09/18/2018 at 10:01

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They are not, but that’s part of history. I can’t look at a picture of an airplane without trying to figure out what it is. I don’t know cars too good, so I appreciate anything that adds to my understanding of the photo.

ttyymmnn > someassemblyrequired 09/18/2018 at 10:03

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Here is that corner today.

ttyymmnn > Ash78, voting early and often 09/18/2018 at 10:04

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Coal dust. When I was growing up in Norfolk, we lived not too far from the N&S piers where they dumped all the coal into ships. Coal dust was pervasive, in the windowsills, on the car roofs. I can only imagine how much I breathed over the years.

someassemblyrequired > ttyymmnn 09/18/2018 at 10:16

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Yep - it drives the urbanists crazy, but I actually think it’s good policy so you don’t end up with a gas desert like they have in Manhattan :

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-ludicrous-dc-law-redefines-overregulation/2018/04/27/8c2bedb6-47e0-11e8-827e-190efaf1f1ee_story.html?utm_term=.7fa299c2776b

ttyymmnn > someassemblyrequired 09/18/2018 at 10:26

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FTA:

Mr. Boasberg noted that he credibly claimed that the reasonable expectations he had when he invested in the property were being thwarted. Under the relevant Supreme Court precedent, this constitutes a proper allegation that the law violates Mr. Formant’s Fifth Amendment right against uncompensated governmental property seizure, the judge ruled. The District’s law “dramatically narrowed the options available to an interested buyer” of Mr. Formant’s land, Mr. Boasberg wrote: “He could no longer raze a property and start from scratch in order to unlock the value of a more profitable use.”

So is Mr. Boasberg saying that he didn’t know about the restrictions when he bought the gas station? If so, too bad so sad. And I can’t really buy the judge’s argument about unlawful land seizure, since the government didn’t seize anything at all. They are just regulating the use of the land. Considering how every open inch of Austin is being turned into condos, I can’t really feel any sympathy for a guy who made a bad business decision because he didn’t know the law.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > ttyymmnn 09/18/2018 at 10:34

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I’ve been in a Beijing market in the cool season. Everything, and I do mean everything, is heated with coal and fuel oil , and you can taste it (and assorted aromatics) in the air.

fintail > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 09/18/2018 at 11:02

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The car in the first pic is a Studebaker, 1914-15.

The two box trucks/possible Red Cross ambulances in the second pic are indeed Model Ts, but the vehicle at left is not a Ford and doesn’t appear to be a truck.

someassemblyrequired > ttyymmnn 09/18/2018 at 11:23

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Yep, I have zero sympathy for the guy. Go after the agent that sold it to you in the first place - the only person that has a real claim against DC is the owner of the land at the time the law was passed - many decades ago.

If this idiot wins, that’s the end of zoning - and that may be why he is pushing the case. If he succeeds , you could end up with heavy industrial in a residential neighborhood.

Full disclosure: condos are stupid and I hate them - they are like the worst aspects of apartments and single family homes combined. Plus they attract yuppie riff-raff.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > fintail 09/18/2018 at 11:46

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The vehicle at left is now vexing me. It’s a large-ish car, but I haven’t found what I would call a known match for it. The most distinctive mark I can ID is the trapezoidal cutout shape of the top of the radiator shroud inside. That, and having a round badge and sharp-stamped fenders. It’s very similar to a number of Cadillacs, but I haven’t had a “gotcha” yet. My suspicion due to that and some Chevrolet similarities is that it is a Budd contract car of some kind, but for whom I don’t know yet.

fintail > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 09/18/2018 at 11:56

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I agree it is a large car, probably something in an upper middle class price range. The badge looks oval on my display, and appears to have kind of a “Y” shape in it, but I can’t make anything out. It is wearing 1918 Indiana plates, and was probably nearly new at the time.

The swoopy line of the tops of the front doors could also be a clue.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > fintail 09/18/2018 at 12:21

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Agreed that the doors may be a clue, as most of the big cars of the time have straight-topped doors. I thought of Peerless, but their radiator stampings are too “puffy” for lack of a better word and their fenders didn’t have stiffening ridges after 1915. Not Pierce Arrow because they’d long ago gone to fender lights, not a Stutz or a Marmon best I can tell, nor Dodge Brothers from anything I’ve seen...

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > fintail 09/18/2018 at 12:38

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Here’s a possibility. An *insane* long-shot:

Headlights aren’t a match, but the use of a very thin blade bumper, location in Indiana, fenders, grill, windshield, and door structure, all could be it.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > fintail 09/18/2018 at 12:39

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Multiple things are wrong for a Haynes, but this is a neat ad:

fintail > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 09/18/2018 at 12:50

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It’s tough, as there are so many defunct makes from the era.  The oval badge and doors are the clues, but that’s a small help.

Fun ads there. Yeah, I think it is larger than a Sun, and look who is driving the Haynes at left , daring!

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > fintail 09/18/2018 at 13:27

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I’m trapped. Send help.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > fintail 09/18/2018 at 14:39

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The best match to the radiator shroud I’ve found so far is REO.

The reason the edge is so pronounced in a forward view is that the front face is literally concave to the radiator. The top “hoop” is actually forward of the badge face/top fascia.

This one part is so distinctive, and such a good match to what’s in the picture, that I’m wondering if it might be somebody else, but using REO’s body supplier.

fintail > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 09/18/2018 at 15:13

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Still gotta match the emblem and those doors . Get one of those encyclopedias of American cars, and go through every make :)

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > fintail 09/18/2018 at 15:52

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To highlight one weird trend I’ve found: the trapezoidal cutout in the top of the radiator is pretty much only found with a continuous elliptical arch on Cadillac and REO. Every other one other than a couple of Pierce Arrows, which don’t count, has a gothic arch, hyperbola, a trapezoidal top, or is squared off or breaks angle on the sides. Every. Single. One.

fintail > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 09/18/2018 at 16:10

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Interesting.  The radiator shell seems to fit a little oddly too, almost like it is a shroud or cover of some sort, but that could be an illusion.

Have you viewed the huge 3000x2135 image? There’s almost something discernible on the badge.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > fintail 09/18/2018 at 16:51

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It looks almost like it might be an eight-pointed star.

However, the plate and other factors would indicate it’s too early to be any kind of Lincoln, even pre-production. Who else was using such a thing?

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > fintail 09/18/2018 at 17:15

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I found a match for the bumper.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/autohistorian/5980622376/

Their logo was this, however.

Earlier Kings didn’t have the fancy bottom to the radiator, they had one that looks much like the picture . The fenders and lights and aggressive positive camber are a dead match, and the pre-’18 shroud could be too, so it’s very possible it’s a special model of King.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > fintail 09/18/2018 at 17:17

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See also:

fintail > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 09/18/2018 at 21:41

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Getting close, just those doors and the oval emblem.  Regarding the bumper, as I am sure you know, accessory bumpers were a big fad then, so it might not be a factory-installed piece.

I wonder if the AACA experts would know, but I am too lazy to ask.