Vintage Baltimore holiday pictures
For the November 2013 edition of Sun Magazine, we published some of the best images Sun photographers have produced that capture Baltimoreans’ cheer through the decades.
- Not even the hard times of the Great Depression could kill the dreams of children. Two take in a display of dolls in a downtown department store in this 1938 scene. Photo by A. Aubrey Bodine
- Charmaine Simms, 2, got a little frightened by a heavy Ho! Ho! Ho! from Santa Claus at the Sears department store on North Avenue on Dec. 1, 1976. (Lloyd Pearson/Baltimore Sun)
- Residents of the 1100 block of Boxwood Lane in the Essex area have cooperated in setting up a Christmas display that has a Santa and his reindeer spanning five porch tops. Vernon Church adjusts the Nativity scene on the roof on one house in the block on Dec. 22, 1971. (Richard Childress/Baltimore Sun)
- The countryside has lost the leaves of summer and its beauty is now the stark and wintry kind, with bare trees seen silhouetted against the cold sky, but downtown Baltimore has sprouted its own seasonal foliage — Christmas tinsel and lights — as seen here in Lexington Market on Dec. 7, 1977. (Carl D. Harris/Baltimore Sun)
- Wreaths made from punch cards decorate a row of desks, with the letters spelling out Christmas, on Dec. 24, 1972. (Baltimore Sun)
- Marty Bloom from Pikesville takes photos in the decorated City Hall rotunda on Dec. 30, 1979. (Weyman Swagger/Baltimore Sun)
- Youngsters who attend the Salvation Army Day Nursery sang Christmas carols when the doll display was shown to the public before being released for distribution on Dec. 20, 1960. (Albert D. Cochran/Baltimore Sun)
- The annual outdoor kilowatt explosion of Hampden’s 34th Street, depicted here in 1991, has for years been a destination for visitors from all over the nation and world. They chug through the neighborhood in cars and buses or stroll its sidewalks to observe. Publications including The New York Times have called attention to this spectacle of light and Christmas kitsch. Photo by Gene Sweeney Jr.
- The great clock on the now-demolished Tower Building, at left, reads 8:25 p.m. on Christmas Eve 1982. City streets are deserted and there is no one about — including Santa Claus, who has other obligations — to take in the illuminated City Hall dome and the Christmas tree that towers over City Hall Plaza. Photo by George Cook
- Ann Tsitlik, 12, lights the first candle on the menorah to mark the beginning of the eight days of Hanukkah in 1982. Her family had emigrated from the Soviet Union, where they were afraid to practice Judaism publicly; in the U.S., they joined the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation. Photo by Irving H. Phillips
- Joe and Donna Roberts, a newly married Timonium couple, hoist a tree they cut down at the Locksley Farm in Jacksonville on a cold winter afternoon in 1981, which will mark their first Christmas as a married couple. Photo by Jed Kirschbaum
- J. Benjamin Ayres, left, and H.G. Murray repair toys and children’s items at the Goodwill Industries shop in Baltimore in 1933. Photo by A. Aubrey Bodine
- The intersection of Lexington and Howard streets once marked the heart of Baltimore’s shopping district with its numerous department stores, such as Hochschild Kohn. In this 1947 photo, crowds of shoppers line the sidewalks amid a busy stream of cars and buses. Photo by Robert Mottar
- Decorations add sparkle to the once-glamorous shopping district at Howard and Lexington streets. Baltimore Sun photo by Richard Childress, Nov. 29, 1982
- A frozen causeway connects two ponds at Homeland’s covered stream on Springlake Way. Baltimore Sun Photo by Richard Stacks, Feb. 4, 1968.
- Christmas trees are grown on the Holly Hills Farm of B.H. Brockley in Earleville, Cecil County. Baltimore Sun Photo by William L Klender
- Santa Claus (Albert Magowski) waves from a mail truck in front of City Hall. Dec. 18, 1959. (Walter McCardell/Baltimore Sun)
- Little does that ribbon-wrapped turkey know that Gov. J. Millard Tawes’ wife, Maryland first lady Helen Avalynne Tawes, was the author of a successful cookbook, “My Favorite Maryland Recipes.” Otherwise it wouldn’t be so patiently standing in the governor’s office. In this 1959 scene, Tommy Hopkins, 41/2, representing the Maryland Turkey Producers Association, presents the governor with a 38-pound gobbler, which no doubt was bound for the Tawes family dinner table on Christmas Day. Sun file photo
- A brother and sister double-check to make sure that no Christmas Eve fire is burning and that their father left the flue open so Santa can safely travel from roof to parlor in this 1939 scene. Sun file photo
- Santa (aka Creston “Doc” Woingust) is joined by patrolman Alfred C. Smith as they give stockings to a brother and sister, Everett, 8, and Wanda Loggins, 7, in a 1963 Western District Christmas party at the old Royal Theater on Pennsylvania Avenue. Photo by William L. LaForce Jr.
- No wonder postal worker Edward Sadeck is wiping his brow as he stares at the mountain of packages that must reach their destinations by Christmas Day. He had better get busy. It is Dec. 15, 1955, and he has less than 10 days to go. Photo by William L. Klender
bob
Nov 22, 2013 @ 07:36:46
Wonderful photos from the years. My how time flies.