Miss Viola Jones lived at 37 East Philadelphia Street in York, PA.
On May 21, 1931, Viola received a postcard from Sam who was in New York City.
Mailed from Staten Island, the postcard features a hand-tinted photograph of Fifth Avenue at 40th Street in Manhattan.
The beautiful Public Library stretches (on the left side of the photograph) to 42nd Street.
You can see the great marble lions, originally named Astor and Lennox ( in honor of the donors who bequeathed the Library) at the steps to the building.
Shortly after this photograph was mailed, Mayor LaGuardia renamed the lions “Patience” and “Fortitude” for the qualities that New Yorkers would display during the Great Depression.
On the reverse of the postcard, the blurb references the “congested retail district” and the “White Light region” of the Theater district.
The view of Fifth Avenue looking north appears very different today.
On the reverse, Sam writes that he was looking for Viola all day on Saturday and, when he did not see her, he smoked one of her cigars.
I assume he referred to cigars that were given to him by Viola.