ART SKOOL DAMAGE : Christian Montone

23 March 2011

Elizabeth Taylor FOREVER

Sleep tight, violet eyes... Rest easy. Thanks for everything.

20 March 2011

Building The 1950s American Dream Home

Having worked from the 1970s backwards through the massive archive of family 35MM slides, we now arrive at what was a pivotal event for my grandparents, Mom and her siblings... The construction of the home they all took such great pride in. To hear my grandparents tell it (and they did MANY times, trust me) a great deal of saving, accounting for each penny and great preparation went into moving the family out of their apartment on Hoyt Avenue and into a brand new home with all the modern conveniences.

This home was to house not only the Nelsens, but my great grandmother Mae Costello, who lived with my grandparents from their wedding day in 1950 until her death in 1981. My Mom still says that she grew up thinking that everyone lived with their grandmothers and was surprised when she found out that most of her classmates at Saint Joseph Hill Academy didn't. Granny (as I called her) was a constant presence in my life for eight years, since I spent a great deal of time in this house with everyone. I can't really picture my formative years without her either.

Above we see my grandfather Norman (at right) overseeing the pouring of a foundation and the framework being hammered into place (below). He built this home from a series of purchased plans with a small crew of family which included his own father, who was born in Norway.

From what I was told as a kid, it's a Norwegian good luck blessing to have a tree (or in this case what appears to be a tree branch) wedged into the roof of a new home upon its completion. I don't recall it having taken root through the dormer in my Aunt Susan and Aunt Karen's bedroom, so my guess is that this was merely a prop for a photo op.

The rear of the house is seen here from the back corner of the yard where a stone barbecue was later built in an arched form that resembled a grotto with a chimney. The double window at far left was later replaced with a large bay window and the double windows to the right of that were removed in the 1970s to allow the dining room to be extended into the yard a few more feet. I clearly recall ladders, a tarp, lots of tools, coffee cans of nails and seeing the wall simply being farther away than it once was.

Nearing completion (above) and achieving perfection (below).

It doesn't get much more 1950s Americana than my Aunt Karen, Uncle Kevin and Mom in their

neatly-pressed Springtime finery on the front lawn of a converted Cape Cod-Style home (on a corner lot at the foot of a dead-end street) next to The Greenbelt in a suburb of New York City.

This would not only be The Nelsen's home, but a home to everyone they knew, loved, socialized with and took in until they moved away forty years after this photo was taken.

Soda Jerk

"If you got cotton mouth / you better have some water

Sucking syrup and soda / you're gonna just get hotter"

--Frank Black "Ten Percenter"

Self Portrait. 20 March 2011.

Instagram: Hairy Chimney

Very tall chimney (on a very short building) behind a car wash.

Inside the car wash itself, they do something that looks like THIS...

Berkeley Heights, NJ. 20 March 2011

19 March 2011

Supermoon Sunset

For those of you that were underwhelmed by the so-called SuperMoon, here is a graphic representation of the brilliant sunset that preceded this celestial-lunar non-event. 6:45 PM. 19 March 2011.

Catskill Game Farm: 1959 & 1977

My Grandmother Joan (above) and my Grandfather Norman (below) with the kids...

It was all fun and games until my Grandmother had enough of the kids' shenannigans and put my Mom and Aunt Karen in that cauldron... Sometimes you gotta know when to reel it in.

My Mom and Uncle Kevin made friends with a giraffe and then stopped fighting for just long enough to make friends on the hook and ladder truck. I wonder how much ice cream it took to bribe them into holding hands for this photo.

I think that's my cousin Jeffrey on the white pony.

Lasso tricks (above) and stage coach rides (below)...

My Cousins Ricky, Jeffrey, Janet, Lois and Dianne take a train ride with my Uncle Kevin and Great Aunt Marion. Oddly, this train car is named Susan... and she would be the next of my aunts to come along some three years later. Clearly, this was one of those psychic railroads.

My Grandmother Joan (looking beautiful) with my Aunt Karen on her lap and my Mom at left.

Goodbye to a great day of 1950s Theme Park fun and hello to a flash forward...

1959: My Grandmother with my Mom, Aunt Karen and Uncle Kevin and...

1977: My Aunt Susan (age 15, not yet born when the 1959 shot was taken) and myself (age 4).

Uh-oh. We're making "yuck face". Those cages must've been RIPE that day.

Nanny attempts to feed a billy goat (or is that a Nanny Goat?) while I, uh... push it toward her (?)

Was this The Catskills or a developing country? Why were there goats left out to roam freely among the defenseless park-goers? I smell ripe cages AND a lawsuit waiting to happen!

OK, now that's just AWKWARD.

Here I am making "yuck face" again. Susan must've threatened to throw me in one of the cages.

I can't imagine WHY she would've said something like that. I was a PERFECT child and she was always annoying me... You know how immature teenagers are.

18 March 2011

Instagram: Hatches, Conduits & Cables

Skyward Hatch: Emergency Egress.

Utility Closet: Conduits & Cables

We Crown Thee With Blossoms

Above & Below: Two images of my Mom in her First Holy Communion veil, May 1959. To hear her tell it, a young Catholic girl is groomed to look forward to the day of her Communion in much the way she is groomed to anticipate her wedding. As mentioned in earlier posts, Saint Joseph Hill Academy had a way of making the preparations for any pivotal rite of passage seem like the end-all / be-all of human existance. It would be some 22 years later that I would be engaging in this very same ceremony (with all the attendant preparations) at the very same school in a neatly-pressed suit and tie with a crisp white shirt.

My Mother, still veiled and beautiful as can be, with my great grandmother Mae Costello (above) and my Uncle Kevin and Aunt Karen (below). They are seen here in front of the family's apartment on Hoyt Avenue in Staten Island, shortly before moving into the newly-built family home on Browning Avenue in Todt Hill.

Above, we see what was known at SJHA as "The Bungalow", but it's actual name was The Holy Infancy Building. This diminutive, low-ceilinged structure housed both First and Second Grade classrooms as well as one of the Third Grades. Somehow, it contained an antiquated Elementary School library and restrooms. The campus and its buildings were almost identical to its condition in these 1959 shots when I attended in the 1970s and 80s. I still find it kind of odd that my Mom, Aunts and Uncles and I were schooled for a time in a building named for the formative phase of the Baby Jesus, but there it is. I clearly recall a P.A. announcement from our principal, Sister Perpetua, in which she requested that we stop referring to it by its slang name and only use its proper moniker so that we could "keep it holy". She supported this request by reminding us of the plaque that greeted main office visitors: "Let it be known to all who enter here that Christ is the reason for this school." That still doesn't explain the frilly campiness seen below...

Such finery on girls is one thing, but on boys... it's just creepy (and confusing).

Everything about the Catholic May Crowning ceremony is a lot like a wedding... Employing dresses, flowers, veils and a procession that looks a lot like a bride and her maids. One would even think the young lady selected to "crown" the statue of Mary was in some way betrothed or beholden to it. Despite the para-military precision and excruciating attention to every manuever, petal and ruffle, I always found this annual performance a bit odd. For a religion that is built upon the condemnation of "false gods" in The Ten Commandments, this whole show smacks of pagan idolatry in the extreme. Year after year, though, my classmates and I watched, sang the attendant hyms and participated in this florid Rite Of Spring. I'll be the first to admit... it had some beautiful moments.