Coming off the bridge in Dartmouth, past what became the Dartmouth Shopping Centre (where the Esso is). Dartmouth High School is on the right. It stops coming to Victoria Rd., where I grew up (in the 80's). We lived at 205 Victoria Rd. That was awesome thanks for posting!
For me, it's always interesting to see footage from a period where there was a sense of expansiveness in the economy. Now, with debt overburdened families and governments, the only thing you can 'feel' is a sense of pending contraction.
thank you for posting this! I was born in 1982 (Halifax) but my father was born in '45 (in Spryfield). I love seeing old videos of HRM to see how much has changed. Its amazing!
Its 60 years ago and honestly the infrastructure hasn't changed very much. That's a huge problem as there are now tens of thousands of more people now having to use that way into Halifax each day to work with the same transportation infrastructure as 60 years ago.
the Rotary, the bridge - my memories too even though I grew up in Westphal/Woodlawn :) I knew exactly where the car was going to turn next at the end of the reel, too!
" A shame, though, that the film has jumps instead of being continuous, stopping before Mumford Rd and picking up below Agricola St (at Maynard?), skipping all the most interesting parts of North Street... :(" I know. That was an edit on the original source reel and nothing I cut out. One can only speculate why. The only edit was between the two reels of film, and was pretty obvious in the video....stopping on north street, then starting to go over the Macdonald Bridge.
I know this post is a year ago... but.....here's the real deal (or reel deal... lol) and not speculation... for the missing parts of this video....back then, an 8 mm reel only lasted 3 minutes, and it took a while to reload a new film to continue taping... you had to thread it through all the little notches and manually wind it through the cogs on the wheels. I remember it well... not only was it tedious to film on those old 8 mm film reels... it was also expensive back in the day!!! (And then yay!!! Super 8 film became available, and I can't even remember why it was "super" except I think we had to buy a new camera in order to use it. Not that we could afford it at the time.) Back in 1963 I moved to Halifax, and got my first job. working as a Secretary at the Pathology Institute for the Administrator... and my salary was........ wait for it....... a whopping $1,460.00 PER YEAR!!!!!!! (That's approx. $28.00 per week!... or $5.60 per day!)
this is NOT a 8 mm print, but 16mm print likely stock footage shot by Gary Myers, a local photographer who opened reid sweet, a camera shop in downtown halifax and was open for decades. That said, the two reels this was pieced together from were very short, 3-4 mins per, so it's similar in reel size....about a 3 inch reel. 8 mm would be a different frame rate and not as natural and likely more grainy
snarfdude , I'd love to see you have this transferred by one of the places in town that does frame-by-frame HD transfers. It'd eliminate the flickering, ghosting and keystoning. I know of at least two places -- one in Halifax, one in Dartmouth -- that have the gear and expertise to do the work. This film is worth the trouble. I'm tempted to ask you for the reels and pay for it myself! :)
... also, a little post-production work could even out the difference between the blown-out highlights and too-dark shadows... I'm sure there's detail in the film that could be brought out.
Oh I know what a frame by frame or even a real time transfer will do with the right Telecine. I'm surprised I got anything anywhere near decent in this experiment by shooting off the screen. That's why the reels haven't seen the light of day under now. I haven't really been impressed by some of the local transfers I have seen, but mostly those were sourced from 8mm, 16mm would be a less grainy and like you say, bring out a bit more detail if they can do anything anywhere decent. The cost is prohibitive for me. you're looking at maybe $200-400 based on copycat digitals prices. Probably about 600-700ft of film. I don't have that. My specialty is radio production/audio transfers, which I do fairly well. They want $40 for an album transfer? I've underpriced myself for years....:) I won't easily release the reels. They might go to the NS archives at some point, as I already have a small collection there from material I saved from CHNS and transferred years ago and technically I don't necssarily own the copyright. Gary Myers does. How valid that is at this point, is a matter of debate, but It's nice to have this much interest in this material. Scott S.
snarfdude Thanks for the thorough reply. As another Scott S. who's traditionally more audio than video, I get where you're coming from. I had my transfers done over in Dartmouth at Hourglass Media. Reasonable prices, decent service. And, yeah, you can get good results from telecine as well...I took a one-night telecine course at a film co-op in Toronto that chained a projector with a rheostat to adjust the frame rate to match a DV camera, shooting it all through a flying lens....or something....good results, but probably not what you'd get from a workprinter these days. Glad you've already given this some thought. I've seen some of the stuff from the NSArchives, and I really wish someone would get them the resources to do better transfers, too. I'm going to subscribe in hopes of one day seeing another gorgeous transfer of this! Thanks for putting up what you've been able to.
Ok I was born in 1959 and grew up very near the bridge and that hill (entering the bridge from the Halifax side) is exactly the scary hill I remember..funny thing is I was home 2 years ago and that hill is no longer that big..I walked the bridge and it was nothing. I did a google search trying to find out when they had fixed that but no info..I was beginning to think I was crazy. Then I saw this video..thanks for confirming my sanity
Glad to help! I might add the ESSO sign was a vague memory for me, so seeing that in this footage that was quite literally saved from the trash by an acquaintance at one point, also helped me too.
I've been hoping to see a glimpse of the Irving Arch in one of these old films, my Grandmother lived in a building next to it, it was kind of a musty slum, but I was a little kid in the early-mid seventies and it was awe inspiring to go on a trip to the "city" lol, and watch the lights at night across the harbour at the Irving facility. The arch and all that area was knocked down by the late 70's or early 80's.
What is funny is how much of it has not changed! From the start on the Bay road all the way across the old bridge. Yes some stuff is different but not really all that much. Great film!
I spent every Fri. night at 5:30 watching this show. In many later years I was able to share company with Ritchie Oakley and Jimmy White, who to this day remain my guitar idols and fine people!!!!!!
You didn't.....but Gary Myers was inventive.....strapping a camera to a car was likely very uncommon. Just goes to show you the power of dash cams today....they are tomorrows memories. Might want to hold onto any footage you may create.
I assume this was shot by the same Gary Myers of Reid Sweet Photo? My father knew him around this same time as this film. They were the same age (26 in 1960) and shared a passion for photography. I remember buying developing chemicals and paper from him back when I shot b&w in the 70s. Odd that given his knowledge, Gary would have shot this in such low late afternoon light. I remember the White Rose station on the Bay Rd, but not that it had a rotating sign. That's cool. I vividly remember the large Esso sign above the Dart Shopping Ctr, and being glued to the rear window of the family car as we crossed the bridge back to Halifax, watching it repeatly flash E... s... s... o... Esso... Esso. I seemed to love gas stations as a kid. Thanks for posting the film.
That was a 8 hour drive from Dartmouth to yarmouth via highway 3. Highway 1 used to be the fastest until like 1958 when highway 101 open then of course highway 103.
In 100 years people will be watching your videos with you in it and saying "I wonder who they were?" .. Knowing you are long gone. Sad but that's time for you.
Yeah cause it hasn't changed at all, mainly due to all of the seniors who would like to keep Halifax as a small little city and keep preventing it from progressing as it should be
A Very interesting video, The shadow of the vehicle shows on the road in early frames, indicating something fixed on its roof. This is consistant with the smoothness of the video (not handheld) & height - not shot through the windshield of a car of the era. Also there is sun shining through the vehicle from the rear window suggesting not a bus or anything more than an open backed pickup or maybe a sedan. Time of year can be placed by shadows and angle of the sun. I'm guessing an evening maybe in early spring.
