Carl Mydans photos of Manville c.1930s

Photo by Carl Mydans • Click to Enlarge

It seems like a life time since I put up some good impactful photos on here… and I apologize about that. It seems like I get busier and busier by the hour lately. In a desperate attempt to keep something consistent going here without spending hours warming up a library chair, I checked out the Library of Congress website… and wouldn’t you know it was fruitful. I found these great photos that were Taken by Carl Mydans. All of these are from the mid 1930′s. The photo above of Main Street has actually appeared on this site before, but the quality this time around is a lot better. Also, it’s just a great photo and worthy of a rerun since we have a lot of new folks on here. Here are some more…

This real estate hut was on Finderne Ave. heading out of town. I believe this one was from 1936, you can expand the photo by clicking on it.

I believe this photo is the Federal Creosote Factory, which famously polluted the entire former Rustic Mall and East Camplain Rd section of Manville, leaving “rivers of creosote” under the ground and prompting the closing of the entire mall and a major federal clean up to happen. You can see Main St. and The Manville National Bank in the background.

The old Finderne Ave bridge driving Main street out of town towards Bound Brook. I’m not sure what year the covered part of the bridge was torn down.

I’m not sure where in Manville this exactly is, but this is just a great photo.

This photo is just entitled “inhabitant of Manville” can anyone out there identify this man?

Another old homestead photo, which seems to be related to the photo above. What a great looking well.

This photo is definitely the same barn as the one above with the gentleman standing in front. Again if anyone can identify the man or the address, please educate us.

This last great photo is obviously standing underneath some sort of water tower. My initial instinct tells me its the one on the North side by the High School, but I can not positively identify it. All of these photos were found in the Library of Congress digital archive. I’d love to hear any of your thoughts or additional information, so as always leave em in the comments section. Enjoy!

Manville News, November 21, 1941

Hello everyone, I’m still alive. I just archived up another issue of the Old Manville News. The date is November 21, 1941 and guess what… Mayor Polonko wants fair press! This is another searchable issue. Hope you guys enjoy… here is a download link. Manville News 11-21-1941 OCR

Manville Saw Mill Revisited

The Manville Saw Mill • Photo by Neal Ranauro • Click To Enlarge

A few of these photos will look familiar to some of you. That’s because 3 of them have appeared on here before. The mystery of the Manville Saw Mill has just still not been solved. I decided to look back into Neal Ranauro’s archive and post all of the photos of here. The photo quality is also a little better this time. So let’s talk about this one more time… and please, if you know anything I need help on this one.

Here’s what we know based on Ranauro’s notes. These photos were taken in 1920. The Mill was allegedly located “between The Manville Elks and Christ the King School”. Here are a few more photos, you can click on them to expand them. They will expand twice.

It would make sense to me that a saw mill would exist behind the Manville Elks since there are woods back there, but I don’t recall in any of my 80s childhood adventures through those woods seeing a cleared out space of young trees. The readership on this site has exponentially grown, so I ask you once again…

Do any of you recall or know about The Manville Saw Mill?

Birdseye view off of the Manville water tower

Photo by Neal Ranauro • Click to Enlarge

I have a few random photos, that are not necessarily about anything. They are just random views around town or what have you. I’ve posted a bunch of them up here over the years, and since this blog is becoming a little too large to scroll through every post on the main page I wanted somewhere to put them all… so I created a category called “scenic town photos”. Hopefully one day I’ll get around to linking all the random ones I already posted to this new category.  So without further adue here are two photos from Neal Ranauro’s archive taken from atop the Manville water tower. They are both from the same angle, the one at the top focuses on Roosevelt School and Johns Manville, while the bottom photo is more of an areal style landscape photo . A lot of detail can be seen in both photos if you enlarge them (they will each enlarge twice). These are great.

Photo by Neal Ranauro • Click to Enlarge

Petey’s Films • Manville Businesses part 2

Hey all just wanted to continue with the Businesses portion of the Petey’s Films. This one focuses more on the storefront aspect of local stores and such. This one is a great street level view of the young towns thriving shops. Most of you will have heard of some of these places. Enjoy.

Petey’s Films • Manville Businesses

This next episode of Petey’s film’s really strikes a personal chord with me, and not just because it’s about Manville. You all know that I’ve been sharing the old Manville News issues on here thanks to the good graces and help of Kevin Shutack. Kevin’s family owned the local print shop, which produced the town’s first newspapers, which is why he had them laying around all this time. As a graphic designer, part time letterpress printer, and employee at a local newspaper, I was floored at the opening scene of this video being the old Manville News. Now that I’ve spent the year archiving these I get to actually watch them being produced! Not only that, but I get to watch them being printed on a letterpress machine, and using a Linotype machine, old printing methods which I also happen to be in the practice of doing myself as a hobby. Anyway, not to focus too much on one section, this video highlights a few other businesses in the Manville area, including London Fur Dyeing Company, (cigar maker?), liquor store, Lloyd Garment Company (21 South 3rd Ave). As always if anyone can elaborate on these films please leave a comment! Thanks again to Gary Carmon for digitally archiving and sharing these!

Petey’s Films • Random People

This is another film clip from the legendary Petey Semenick film collection. This is another clip transferred off of a VHS tape to digital video by Gary Carmon. I believe a lot of people are familiar with these films, as there were shown frequently at Petey’s bar back in the day. Frankly a lot of these clips are a mystery to both myself and Gary, so if you recognize anyone in the films, please leave a comment. Gary has a lot more great Manville history on his website as well so if you can’t get enough of this head on over there. There will be plenty more of these to come, so stay tuned. And please if you are in or can identify anyone in the videos let us know!