Friday, May 20, 2011

GSOE #9 (From Eric Beheim)


GSOE-9, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Posted by Buckles at 5/20/2011 05:49:00 AM

9 comments:

Chris Berry said...

Over the years it has been suggested that the Washington Monument is visible in the upper right corner of this shot. In my opinion this scene was actually filmed with the other "set up" scenes at the Broad Street showgrounds in South Philadelphia. In reality the Washington Monument is too far (about four miles) to be visible from the Ringling-Barnum showgrounds of 1951, which were located at the corner of Benning Road NE and Oklahoma Avenue NE (near the current JFK Stadium and DC Armory in Washington's Northeast quadrant).

20 May, 2011 14:03
Anonymous said...

Funny to see the short and long qrt poles all painted silver and not red or blue.

20 May, 2011 20:19
johnny said...

They werenot wooden ,but an alloy aluminum. never painted maybe jusy top or bottom. johnny

21 May, 2011 07:49
Chic Silber said...

Wonder how far back the colors

of blue tops for inside quarters

& red tops for outside quarters

became the standard & by whom

Didn't the doorway sidewall poles

have another marking color also

21 May, 2011 10:23
Richard Reynolds said...

I think for 1951 they used the new three-rear axle big pole wagon to haul not only the center poles but the quarter poles as well. That put a huge weight on the wagon and I think it caused problems.

Concello was taking all measures to conserve space on the flats so as to get down to 70-cars for 1951.

21 May, 2011 12:54
Anonymous said...

Chris you are correct in that this is the Philadelphia lot and not Washington. I just sent Buckles an aerial view of this very lot taken in 1953.
Chic, the red and white striped screen is indeed the drive in movie. You will also see that in the aerial photo.
Richard is correct. In 1951 the new center pole wagon was a three axle set up. It carried all the center poles and all the quarter poles.
It was very, very heavy and one of the rear axles kept blowing the tires as it went over the runs. Later in the season they removed the upper racks and just carried the center poles on the wagon. Number 44 quarter pole wagon was brought back on the show.
Then in 1952 they removed the third axle and placed a large box on the side(for workers crumb boxes) and that's how it remained for the remainder of its life.
The aluminum quarter poles were introduced in 1948. The did however paint the iron rods(that went through the canvas) red and blue to indicate the long and short quarters.
Dom

21 May, 2011 13:20
Anonymous said...

Long qrt poles on ringling were blue with a red top and short qrts were red before the aluminum poles came on. Think this was the same on big top and menagerie top.
Dom do you know when #44 came back on the show, and did they just add another flat car, or did they cut a couple wagons and ship them back to winter quarters?

21 May, 2011 22:05
Anonymous said...

I don't know for sure when the 44 wagon was brought back on the show in 1951. All the photos I have are not dated other than 1951.
Most likely it was early mid season. You can see from the unloading scene in TGSOE that all the weight was on the first rear axle of #43 when it was going over the runs.
From what I can tell they did send back a couple of wagons (#59 & 60) plus the Bell Wagon. The two wagons were not freshly painted which indicates to me that they were used only for the Garden dates. Carried equipment that was normally stored in the seat wagons but needed for the show.
Probably loaded at least these three wagons on a flat and sent it back to quarters. Then they could load #44 on the same flat and return it to the show ???
I don't understand why they would send the Bell Wagon back but I have many photos showing the two elephants that pulled the wagon walking in front of the payoff elephants in spec.
They did the same thing in 1952 when they sent the Bell Wagon back to quarters. This I suspect was done when the two new donniker trailers joined the show.
Dom
p.s. another scenerio might be that while this flat was on its way back to Sarasota another flat with #44 was on its way to the show. Cuts down on wait time????

22 May, 2011 07:19
Anonymous said...

Thanks Dom for the info, knew they didn't have the storage room for props for the indoor dates once they got the seat wagons made. But didn't know which wagons they carried to New York or how they got them back to quarter's once the seat wagons were available for storage. I bet it didn't take long for them to order #44 back on the show. Do you know if there was any heat between Yeske and Concello over the design of this wagon? With all the years that Bill and his son had built wagons, something had to tell them this wagon was too heavy.
p.j.

22 May, 2011 12:06

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