Knocked Over Benches

Object NamePhotograph

Historic Owner Pierce Y. Matthews Jr.

Association USS Intrepid (CV/CVA/CVS-11)

DateSeptember 1, 1960

PeriodCold War

Mediumphotographic paper

ClassificationsCommunication Artifacts

Credit LineCollection of the Intrepid Museum. Museum purchase. P2017.05.05

Object numberP2017.05.05

DescriptionPhotograph, Black and white; Horizontal image of benches knocked over during a storm. A tree trunk is in the center of the image. There is a picnic bench behind the tree. A body of water is in the background. There is a white border around the photograph and scalloped edges on the left and right. The back has “80 MPH wind + rain storm // Tree by training // center garage showing tilt due // to storm and consequent // breaking of ground. // 1215 1 Sep 60 // Cadillac, Mich” written in black ink and “0B2281 Polaroid” and “47” stamped in black.

Description from accompanying letter dated September 6, 1960 reads “Yesterday I was in my office looking out the front window (North) at some low, dark, ominous-looking clouds when tremendous gusts of wind and sheets of rain hit the building. We all closed the windows quickly but even so sand blew in and papers blew around. I ran to the side door and looked at the tree by the garage. It was really being shaken and whipped about. Overhead the lowest, fattest clouds I’ve ever seen, fragmented and dark with water, raced on their urgent way to Detroit.

While watching the tree by the garage and the waves and whitecaps whipped up by the storm, I was thinking ‘Why this is as bad as Hurricane Carol 6 years ago in Newport. I wonder why it isn’t blowing any trees down.’ I didn’t leave the building due to lighting and so didn’t see the trees on the front of the Training Center being blown down. Rain kept us from looking North. Trees were blown down all over town, one onto a chained dog killing him. Another tree, at least one, crashed into a house.”

For full text of letters, see A2017.05 or ArchivesSpace record https://intrepidmuseum.libraryhost.com/repositories/2/resources/113

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