Storefront News

On March 19th, I featured this photo of a crowd watching a scoreboard for the 1911 World Series, but I did not have a second photo that allowed me to show what, exactly, they were watching.

I'm all for the power of the imagination, but today Chris Marstall, at the Boston Globe blog, beta.boston, shared a series of photos, from the 1912 World Series (between the Red Sox and the New York Giants) that fills that gap. There is a similar crowd shot but also another image that shows the Globe's storefront blackboard (see below, in the upper left) on which staff members are posting scores.

I would highly recommend Marstall's full post. I'm particularly fascinated by the shots of crowds, standing together on the sidewalk, getting the latest news. These days the news is so niche-marketed and individually-tailored, that it's difficult to even imagine what it must have been like to have a shared sense of "being informed," of participating with others in a ritual process of waiting for the news to unfold. The last trace we have of that culture is the national news on television every night, I suppose. And soon it's just going to be Brian Williams and me.