Aw, man...another Shorpy masterpiece!

**Ray1936** · October-18-10, 05:03 PM

If this photo doesn't make you wish you could go back in time, my friends, nothing will. Absolutely wonderful.

http://www.shorpy.com/node/9167?size=_original

**jiminnm** · October-18-10, 05:08 PM

What a time to have been in the hat business.

**Jimaz** · October-18-10, 05:17 PM

Starring Jimmy Stewart and Humphrey Bogart

Attachment 7600

**DetroitPlanner** · October-18-10, 06:23 PM

I would not want to have to wear a black suit on a Sundat Afternoon while cavorting in or around an open sewer!

**carlscomputers** · October-18-10, 07:35 PM

Why so many pillows/blankets in the canoes?

**jcole** · October-18-10, 08:11 PM

Where the heck is the Grand Canal?

**royce** · October-18-10, 11:13 PM

Interesting that the men doing the rowing don't have hats on. I guess if you were doing some type of physical activity that it was alright to not wear your hat.

Stosh · October-18-10, 11:28 PM

The bridge in the back looks like the Central streeet bridge. The Detroit news article says that the band gazebo on the bridge was between the Ice skating pavillion and the Carillion, but the area doesnt look like that.. Any ideas?

**jackie5275** · October-19-10, 12:10 PM

Originally Posted by royce

Interesting that the men doing the rowing don't have hats on. I guess if you were doing some type of physical activity that it was alright to not wear your hat.

Probably to be sure that it didn't fall off in the water.

**Hermod** · October-19-10, 12:27 PM

When did they do away with the canoe rentals on the Belle Isle lagoons? Although the clothing had changed, there used to be a lot of canoes out there on a Sunday afternoon in 1950.

Going canoeing with a date in the evening at Belle Isle used to be very romantic until it became unsafe.

**Jimaz** · October-19-10, 10:33 PM

Attachment 7608

Some things never change.

**atl_runner** · October-20-10, 09:13 AM

It's a virtual certainty that everyone in the picture is dead, but what's even more cool to think about, is that some of us may be descendants of someone in this picture. I love these old pictures. It really brings back the past. I mean really.. what are these people watching? Doing there?

I also wonder if those benches we made that way to enhance the park feel, or if that's just how they were made back then.

**Ray1936** · October-20-10, 10:06 AM

Originally Posted by atl_runner

I mean really.. what are these people watching? Doing there?

Runner, they're watching and listening to a band concert. Note the band on the cupola over the bridge. Probably a lot of Sousa; not much Simon & Garfunkle.

Stosh · October-20-10, 10:22 AM

Originally Posted by atl_runner

It's a virtual certainty that everyone in the picture is dead, but what's even more cool to think about, is that some of us may be descendants of someone in this picture. I love these old pictures. It really brings back the past. I mean really.. what are these people watching? Doing there?

I also wonder if those benches we made that way to enhance the park feel, or if that's just how they were made back then.

They are watching what what passed for the DSO back then, which were playing in the gazebo on the bridge. Here's a look at the site in winter.

Also two other shots of the area

**Hermod** · October-20-10, 10:33 AM

Originally Posted by Stosh

They are watching what what passed for the DSO back then,

I wonder if that is the Detroit Fire Department band?

Fire departments in big cities always had bands back then.

**Lowell** · October-20-10, 11:00 AM

LOL! All you need are a couple of periscopes for the trolls.

Note the Eastern? High school pillow?

Originally Posted by Jimaz

Attachment 7608

Some things never change.

Stosh · October-20-10, 11:18 AM

Originally Posted by Hermod

I wonder if that is the Detroit Fire Department band?

Fire departments in big cities always had bands back then.

http://apps.detnews.com/apps/history/index.php?id=78

May be the light guard band?

**RealityCheck** · October-20-10, 12:02 PM

Originally Posted by atl_runner

some of us may be descendants of someone in this picture. I love these old pictures. It really brings back the past.

And I love that thought-stirring observation about possible forebears, atl_runner.

An intriguing prospect, indeed, and perhaps a likely one. [[Go ahead, give us a wave if an ancestor was here in 1907.)

After all, look at how many decked-out gents and ladies we see . . . 400? 600? More? [Sorry in advance to any compulsive forumer who takes that as a challenge -- which it's not -- and who has more time than I do.]

Speaking of decked out, bet I'm not the only viewer who playfully thinks "boaters" applies to some of the male headgear, as well as to the canal-riders.

The Boater straw, also popularly known as Sailor, Sennit, and Skimmer, is a stiff straw hat, and easily distinguished by its flat top crown. In the mid-1930s, yachting patrons accounted for half or more of straw-hat sales, but by the early 1950s the Boater straw hat had gained universal popularity, and was no longer exclusive to yachting.
-- HatHistory.org

See what you started, Ray?!

**Ray1936** · October-20-10, 03:55 PM

"See what you started, Ray?! "

Yup, started a good discussion of times long gone. I love that picture so much that I got a boater, canoe, and pillows. Dressed myself in 1910 gear. Then I started my deep thinking and will to 'go back'. All was progressing so fine until I accidentally pulled the 1984 penny out of my pocket.........

[[With apologies to "Somewhere in Time")

**EastsideAl** · October-20-10, 07:50 PM

Originally Posted by RealityCheck

And I love that thought-stirring observation about possible forebears, atl_runner.

An intriguing prospect, indeed, and perhaps a likely one. [[Go ahead, give us a wave if an ancestor was here in 1907.)

I certainly had relatives in Detroit then. In fact, I had relatives who would have been quite close to this scene. My paternal grandmother was born in 1908 in her parents house on Meldrum between E. Fort and Lafayette [[then called Champlain). And my paternal grandfather's family had moved back to Detroit [[from Cleveland, where grandpa was born in 1904) in 1906 and would have been living at this point just a couple of blocks away from the Belle Isle Bridge on Sheridan. In fact, one of my grandfather's first jobs, as a little kid [[they started early back in the days of child labor) was sweeping up at Electric Park, the amusement park that stood at the head of the bridge where Gabriel Richard Park is today.

But I doubt that any of that part of my family are in this picture. Although they all went to Belle Isle a lot, they were a little too, ummm... rough and ready for this genteel scene.

However, my maternal grandparents might have been there a bit more than a decade later. They used to tell us sometimes about their courting days, after my grandfather returned from WWI and my grandmother came over from Canada to Detroit to work at the telephone company. One of their favorite activities back then was canoeing on Belle Isle, and they always liked to go to the band concerts there, even when I was a kid.

Dr, Leonard B. Smith and the Detroit Concert Band performed those Belle Isle concerts throughout the '60s and '70s [[which were held a little ways away from the canal at the band shell), playing what I would bet was very similar repertoire to the band shown on the bridge - Sousa marches, waltzes, and other stirring and romantic old-time favorites. Anyone else remember those concerts? They certainly seemed magical to a little kid - but by the time I was a teenager, unbearably square.

**EastsideAl** · October-20-10, 11:48 PM

Also, I think the view in the Shorpy picture is looking up the canal from just to the east of the Casino [[which would have been under construction at the time) northwards. I believe that is the Central Ave. bridge in the background, as Stosh suggests. Which would mean that the bandstand bridge is approximately where the footpath bridge is today. Hard to say for certain, but the winter shot Stosh posted with a building to the right and what I think is a still-standing picnic shelter in the deep background makes it a little more identifiable. And the angle of the canal matches too.

Originally Posted by Lowell

Note the Eastern? High school pillow?

Could be a whole group of guys from Eastern. In addition to the "EHS" pillow I notice that there are a whole bunch of Native American themed pillows in nearby boats also populated by youngish men. And, after all, old Eastern High's nickname was the Indians.

My grandfather was an Eastern Indian on their city championship football team of 1922.

**gnome** · October-21-10, 04:43 AM

Stosh those are some nice pics, are they family shots? And Eastside Al, I was wondering where the canal might have been; again, you do great detective work.

Stosh · October-21-10, 08:50 AM

Originally Posted by gnome

Stosh those are some nice pics, are they family shots? And Eastside Al, I was wondering where the canal might have been; again, you do great detective work.

No, I forgot the links to them. They are from top to bottom in my post:

http://dlxs.lib.wayne.edu/cgi/i/imag...y=1;view=image

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/i/imag...y=2;view=image

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/i/imag...y=3;view=image

**EastsideAl** · October-21-10, 11:42 AM

Originally Posted by Ray1936

"See what you started, Ray?! "

Yup, started a good discussion of times long gone. I love that picture so much that I got a boater, canoe, and pillows. Dressed myself in 1910 gear.

Ready to go canoeing on the lovely canals of Vegas?

**EastsideAl** · October-21-10, 11:47 AM

I think the dates are a little off on your hat history quote there Reality. My guess is a typo that turned 1830 and 1850 into 1930 and 1950. I've seen more than enough boaters [[the hats that is...) on the heads of my relatives in old photos from the 1890s to the 1930s, and almost all warm weather Shorpy pictures from that era seem to show most men wearing them.