Attached below are two photos which were together among loose photos
in a large carton of family photos.

I would like to get an approximate date and location. In one, my
grandmother Eva MOZER DORBIN is standing in the foreground.

For location my best guesses are the Lower East Side, Brooklyn or
perhaps St. Louis or Kansas City, MO. The latter two because those
were the most likely places Eva would have visited prior to 1939.
After that she lived in NYC.

I can see in one photo, signs for Kaplan Poultry; Lerner Shoes, Ghetto
Grill, and a Real Meat Market. I see one address of 815. There is some
Hebrew but I cannot read Hebrew. One thing that weighs against them
being NYC photos is the use of the word pop for soda. But these photos
could not be from the same place or time.

Can anyone please help? Maybe the light posts or cars can offer some
insights. Thank you for any thoughts.
Felissa Lashley
frlashley@...
Austin, TX

Try looking up the names of the businesses and their addresses where known in city directories from the 1930s for Kansas City (both for KC, Kansas and KC, Missouri) and St. Louis and for Brooklyn (if there's a separate directory for it from that era, if not then for New York City).  That should pinpoint it.  You can get access online to a multitude of city directories through Ancestry.com; I imagine that other genealogy websites may also contain city directories.

I agree that "pop" argues for not NYC -- that word still hasn't made the journey east of the Mississippi!

Erika Gottfried
Teaneck, New Jersey

Felissa,

I think you made some astute observations about the two images.  My sense is these two images are not NYC, but are somewhere in the mid-west and likely either St. Louis or KC as you surmise. If you examine old images of NYC you will note the lamp post in that city are of an entirely different design than the one shown in the photo of your grandmother.  Interestingly, a few of those old-style lamp posts are still around in NYC. Additionally, the building architecture has a mid-west appearance. If you are able to adjust the contrast in the two images you might be able to discern additional signage information on the buildings. The signage is key to finding the information you are seeking. With the information that you already have plus anything else you might be able to glean, look up the store names in city directories for St. Louis and KC. A translation of the Hebrew would be a promising additional lead. neighborhood. With the use of the directories your might be able to nail down the exact location and narrow down the date of these images. I would date these images to somewhere between the mid and late 1920s. The truck in photo 2 is probably the first 5 years of the 1920s.  The sedan with the trunk attached to the rear bumper is probably a little newer. The hats that everyone is wearing and your grandmother's dress all add up to the 1920s.

I hope this helps.

Jeffrey Gee
Arizona

My family lived in Kansas City in the 1920s and 1930s and I grew up
there. Those photos do not look like Kansas City to me although they
could be St Joseph, which had a significant Jewish population. That
said, I can't read most names and numbers because of the image resolution.
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