One of the best ones that I’ve just recently discovered is bighappyfunhouse – a daily treat with often very poignant found photos, dug up from a seemingly endless pile of great pictures. The site owner, Ron Slattery, adds great, thoughtful commentary that often adds another dimension to the photos on display. Make sure not to miss the alt tags (roll your mouse over the pictures).

The store often had portraits of stars of the 1960s in their window, usually without much of an explanation, other than the obvious implication of “we’ve been here for a while”. One of the frequent stars to appear in the window was Sammy Davis Jr.

As it turns out, he actually personally visited Brooks Cameras on a regular basis in the late 60s and through the 1970s. As one of the staff explained it to me, Sammy was a friend of the owner of the store (which at the time must have been Mr. Brooks Jr. Julius Bloch)

In 1976, Sammy seems to have come to the store on one memorable day to shoot a TV ad for Brooks Cameras, probably as a favor for his friend. And a photographer, Jerry Valente, took what looks like a dozen rolls of films on that day in the store and later presented a rough collection of the clipped photos to Mr. Brooks – it is signed on the back “Love, Jerry Valente, 1976″. The board with the photos then probably hung on a wall in the back of the shop for many years and resurfaced on the day when the store finally closed after being in business for more than 70 years.

I bought the board during the final sale, and here it is (link opens 360K jpg):

Here’s a couple more details of this rather unique collage:

Sammy attracting a crowd in the store during filming…

Deep in thought with Mr. Brooks Jr. Joe Dee, contemplating cameras under the counter…

Sammy with a camera. The oversized button on his jacket says “Brooks – SAMMY – May I Help You?”

Sammy in control…

He seemed to be enjoying himself on that day…

Update May 2008: Changed names of store owner and manager as identified by comments & emails…

I bought the two photos below and have been looking for clues about their history and the two men in them.

The pictures were taken by Oscar V. Lange in his studio on Market Street in San Francisco between 1883 and 1886 and the two men pictured are Sheriffs in the San Francisco Sheriff Department. I’ve been trying to identify the older of the two gentlemen by his medals and by comparing his picture to the gallery of Sheriffs at the SDSF, but I’ve had no luck yet.

The pictures are at least 121 years old. These two police men were walking the streets of San Francisco at the tail end of the Gold Rush, fighting crime in the wildest, roughest city on the West Coast.

They are contemporaries of Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain – who they quite possibly might have known as a local journalist – and they were already old men when the Big Earthquake came around…

I’ll try to find out more about these two men, and hope that maybe somebody here on the blog can provide me with some hints on how to go about it. For starters, I’d welcome any tips on the two medals the older man proudly displays on his breast.

March 15, 1945
France
Our first meeting
in over three years.