I enjoy playing detective trying to figure out where and when a photo
in Perth Amboy was taken.
Today, I got in the mail a photo that I had won on E-Bay.
Was not sure if it was from Perth Amboy or Sewaren.
There was no writing on the back or a photographers stamp.
Just from looking at the picture, I could tell it was
JJ Kelly Cafe (bar)
Address was 434
The first thing I did was to scan the photo and make it into
a digital image.
I then used a program called GIMP to enlarge the photo.
Gimp is a great photo editor. It is free.
You can get it here:
I enlarged the photo to 200 percent and was able to see some of the
little details in the picture.
No year, but found out it was the
Grand Opening of Sewaren Beach.
The next thing I found was a Street Sign.
Now I was almost certain it was Perth Amboy.
Took out my 1949 City Directory
and looked up the address.
It was 434 High St. at the corner of Washington St.
Now the only thing I had to find out was when
the picture was taken.
There were two partial Movie Signs in the Window.
One from the Ditmas and the other from the Crescent (Royal) .
I deduced the Wm..Fair was most likely William Fairbanks.
So I went to Google and searched his movies.
He did a movie called the "The Sheriff of Sundog" in 1922.
Also looked up 1922 movies and found a movie called
"Wasted Lives"
Now I knew where it was and when it was taken..
The last thing I did was go to Google Maps
and see if I could get a picture of what it looks like now.
I was able to copy the picture from Google Maps and
make it to a digital image.
Start looking through your old Amboy photos and see
what you can discover.
what you can discover.
