A Moment in Time

I have found old photographs to be fascinating. This one for instance, taken in Levittown in 1964, captures the display of the newly arrived police cars (1965 models) for the Bristol Township Police Department.  Standing next to each car is an officer with perhaps a detective and police chief at the front of the line. One moment in time…

My reaction to this photograph was on two levels. First, I wondered if one of these officers in one of these new cars chased me one night as I was running naked through the field near the Indian Creek pool after a night of “midnight swimming”. I would have been about 12 years old at the time and the timing is about right. More deeply, I wondered about the life stories of the men shown in the photograph.  Who are they? Do they still live in the area?  Where did they come from when they joined the police force and where did they go from here? Did they raise families here? And do they remember the day, when the chief required them to be in full uniform to memorialize the township’s new fleet of patrol cars?

Photographs like these have long fascinated me. For some reason, it is the black and white photographs that intrigue me the most. I remember sitting in a local restaurant in Bakersfield, California a few years ago where local historical photographs were displayed. One caught my attention. It was from the 1800s and the occasion seemed to be a town celebration of the new city hall building that served as the joint location for the fire and police departments. It seemed that all of the town employees were assembled for the photograph. The mayor was formally dressed complete with a top hat, policemen were in full uniform – full length coats, with hats as well; somewhat reminiscent of the Keystone Cops uniforms we came to know from TV and movies. The firemen were all formally dressed in uniforms and proudly displaying the horse-drawn fire equipment. Town residents were there too – some looking out from their horse-drawn carriages. There were also two small children in a cart pulled by two dogs in harness. All were dressed in their best clothes. But more than the general scene, the fascination for me was in the faces of the people who had assembled that day. They looked just like us – faces we see every day. And I wondered about their life stories as I do now for the policemen in this photograph.

One moment in time in Levittown.

The photo was taken at the former Bristol Township Municipal Office which is now known as the Bolton Mansion and is located in the Holly Hill section of Levittown. More information can be found here.  http://www.boltonmansion.org/

This story and photo were originally published in the Levittown Leader and was written by Kevin Deeny