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Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Art Deco In Hatch End Dated 1933



Here's one facade with the words The Broadway and the date 1933. I thought there was only one. When I went back and looked again, I saw there was a second.

One is above Kingsmill Carpets, which you reach first, walking from Fellini Italian Caffe Restaurant.

The other is above Sea Pebbles, which you reach first, walking from the other direction.

Seeing Dates Inscribed Overhead
The first time I noticed the dates, I was passing in a car. To see them, and photograph them, when on foot, you must walk away from the shop windows back to the kerb and look up. Alternatively, on the opposite side of the road, walk away from the shop windows and go near the kerb for a closer look.

Who Can Remember The Nineteen Thirties?
Over dinner I was thinking and discussing how old you would have to be to remember these buildings being built. If you were one hundred years old, an age reached by several centenarians and older people featured in local papers, you were born in 1916. So in 1933 you were seventeen years old. A person who is 90 years old in 2016 would have been about seven years old in 1933, just old enough to remember buildings being constructed in the early 1930s.

To get the dates clearer in a photograph, I had to crop the picture to blow up the section with the writing, increase the contrast, increase the colours, and increase the focus. Four is very good for softening faces with wrinkles or looking romantic. I moved to frame the building with the tree, and to get the lamp post to the side of the building.


But to read out of focus writing or inscriptions you need to intensify the sharpness.

Later, when editing again, I cropped the photos so that I and you could see the date.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

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