Manville News March 28th, 1941

Hey all… it’s been a few busy weeks. Today though, i’m back on the newspaper archiving grind. Here’s a new issue, unfortunately it’s the only issue we have for march… so we’re missing a few. Anyway, here is March 28, 1941.

Manville News February 28, 1941

Alright here’s the fourth installment of The Manville News digitized PDFs. This one is from February 28th, 1941 which means there are 2 February issues missing. HERE’S A LINK!

Manville News February 7, 1941

Ok, another digital issue in the bag. February 7th 1941… including the war on gambling. Im currently working to find ways to improve these digital copies including ways to get them into more reasonable file sizes so they dont take so long to download. I’m also working on a way to get the text recognition working on them so they can be searchable… I’m almost there. Meanwhile here is another issue… hot off the scanner. HERE’S A LINK

Manville News January 31, 1941

Alright chugging right along… here is the second digital Manville News Issue from January 31, 1941. I cropped a clip off of the front page so you can see some of the lead stories. Again I set up a download link so once you download this you will have the file forever. Enjoy. HERES THE LINK!

Roosevelt Avenue

AERIAL VIEW OF ROOSEVELT AVE BETWEEN 13TH AND 16TH AVE.

CLICK PHOTO TO ENLARGE

At this point the Manville History Blog could not exist without the great contributions I’ve been getting. Town participation has been incredible. Here are a few great pics that were contributed by Tim K. during the building of his families house in the 50’s right next to Royce Brook on Roosevelt Ave. The photos predate Weston School and the Weston Bridge on 13th Ave. As can be seen in the following photo. That row of trees would be the location of the brook.

CLICK THE PHOTO TO ENLARGE

And then a more ground level shot (note the cement street marker)

And finally the completion of Tim’s families home in 1959… these are such great photos.

Manville News December 26, 1941

As promised here is the first digitized issue of The Manville News. I’d like to do these in order, but I do not want to handle these any more than I have to given the state they are in. When I come up with a better way to share and archive these I can hopefully get them in proper order. For right now I have a multiple page PDF that’s uploaded to third party hosting site. If you click the link you will be able to download a high resolution version that will be yours to keep forever. I believe that the Manville News from the 1940s was different company than the current one. It was a weekly publication that published every Friday. It’s unclear so far if there is a complete run here, but the issues range from 1941 to 1944. Im hoping to knock a few of these out a week and I’m not sure how long the hosting links last so get these while you can. I have master copies saved of each PDF so if you miss out on one or a link doesn’t work just contact me and we will figure it out. Im going to make a special category for these called “NEWSPAPER ARCHIVE” so if you miss out on one they will all be in there. So that’s basically how this is going to work until I can find proper hosting for these issues. Once I get them all done, I’ll be donating digital copies of the issues to the library so we will finally have reference material for this era. Once again though I can’t thank Richard Onderko, Kevin Shutack, and the Shutack family enough for these. This stuff is a priceless resource.

The first issue I archived was from December 26, 1941, which includes the Lost Valley freight train derailment. I’ve been wondering about this event for years, and I know someone else on this blog was asking about it. Here’s a link MANVILLE NEWS 12/26/1941

The South 5th Ave Shutack Family Archive

I was pretty excited on Thursday when I received an email from Richard Onderko. Not just because I was being contacted by one of Manville’s current Councilman candidates. It was rather the content of the email which was something to the tune of “Hey Mike. Meet me over on South 5th I found some great stuff”… and I mean who am I to stand up a possible future Manville Council Seat holder, so I went.

I arrived to meet Richard and a guy named Kevin Shutack, who explained to me the far reaches of his family participation in the towns history. The Manville Police, The Building Commitee, and most thankfully owner of the Manville Print Shop that was right next to the Krausers. I remembered the print shop as a kid… we used to peer into the windows there to find out what went on inside of it. But not to get off track… it seems the print shop handled most of Manville printing needs going at least as far back as the early 40s including the printing of The Manville News. Kevin gave me all sorts of printed goodies that were produced by the shop including A LOT of issues of the paper from 1941-1943. Just as soon as I work out the best way to archive these I will be posting digital copies of the issues just as fast as I can get them up. They are in a super fragile state, with much discoloration and edge damage, but they are brilliant and contain tons of great stories and history including some key Manville events like the building of the row homes, robberies and the Manville train derailment in the 40s in Lost Valley. That’s not even the tip of the iceberg… there are tons of wedding and birth announcements. Deaths, car accidents, reports from the war involving Manville residents, honor role lists, sports scores. I can’t wait to get these up.

This marks the most fruitful batch of town history I have found since Neal Ranauro’s photo archive. I feel like so many mysteries have just been solved. On behalf of the town of myself and Manville’s lost history we definitely own a huge debt to the Shutack family, Kevin, and Richard Onderko for making the connection happen. None of the afore mentioned ever had to waste their personal time to help me communicate this stuff to everyone, but they did. That’s awesome. I also got to spend some quality time with Rich and Kevin who were both very knowledgeable and very willing to share some information with me. Overall I couldn’t think of a better way to spend Saturday morning than striking another victory for my perpetual quest for Manville’s past.

Mark Zydiak & Nirvana Records

Today was a suprise victory for Manville cultural material. A lot of you on this blog know me as a guy with a heavy interested in town history, but my first love is really music. I spend obscene amounts of time scouring used record stores, antique shops and cruddy disgusting basements for hidden vinyl treasures. So all of you out there in the Blogosphere reading this…. if you have a pile of records you want to sell… I’m your guy. I like all kinds of music primarily psych, jazz, funk, and PUNK ROCK (…eh-hem … Tom Kopsko) ANYWAY… this afternoon I was scouring a local antique store when my worlds collided. I came across a record from a guy named Marc Zydiak. The cover grabbed my attention, and like always when I become intrigued I flipped it over to look at where it was made. When I read the words Recoreded at TransAudio Studios, Manville N.J. ” • “Asbestos I knew how” I almost fell over. The label that released it was called Nirvana Records based at 1145 Green Street Manville, N.J. 08835. After a little internet research I learned that one of the songs “Frosty the Dopeman” appeared on a Dr. Demento record. As a lifelong music enthusiast and record collector HOW DOES THIS GET BY ME! I even own a record made by a certain member of this board many years ago. Anyway, my frustration is a a happy one, because ultimately I do now own a copy of this album. Color me excited. There is lots of instrumentation on this record including a few last names that I recognize… The A side is a comedy laden folk rock record, the B side is completely instrumental focusing on Zydiaks 6 and 12 string guitar stylings… with some slide guitar thrown in on the opening track. I must add that he does actually have some skill. Anyone out there know about this?

CLICK THE PHOTO TO ENLARGE

Manville Character Club Revisited

MANVILLE CHARACTER CLUB GROUP PHOTO COURTESY OF TIM GORBATUK. CLICK TO ENLARGE.

I recently put a post on here about the Manville Character Club that much to my suprised generated a lot of interest. It’s crazy because I knew very little of what the character club did, or if it even played an inportant part in Manvilles history. Thanks to the fine folks on this board we now know that it was a men’s social club that rotated around Petey’s Tavern and sponsored a lot of charity events, dinnners, trips ect. and included a lot of folk who immigrated from the area of Hazleton Pennsylvania to work in the local factories. A guy named Tim Gorbatuk (and i believe some help from his uncle who was in the club) was nice enough to dig up the clubs Bylaws, which can be viewed HERE. He also supplied us with the above photo, and the ones below of a new member being initiated into the club. This is a pretty amazing archival score. THANKS TIM!

First Manville Mayor

GUSTAVE BOESEL “1929″ PHOTO BY NEAL RANAURO

I have this great photo of Manvilles First Mayor… Gustave Boesel. Unfortunately right now I am at work and cannot find an inkling of information on the internet about him. The photo is from Ranauro’s archive and is dated 1929, which seems like it would’ve been taken within his term as mayor. I am definitely going to try and update this post as soon as I can get over to the Manville Library to research this a little more… but I wanted to share the photo. as always… comments encouraged.