"Greenbelt-5846" looks like a mid 20th Century U.S. telephone number. It
would have been assigned to the "Greenbelt" central office, and would
more properly have been written "GReenbelt-5846", or simply "GR-5846"
(2L-4N) and dialed as "47-5846".
Side note: Somewhere along the way the 2L-4N system gave way to a 3L-4N
system with the Pennsylvania exchange number for the Hotel Pennsylvania
in NYC becoming PENnsylvania-5000. That was soon replaced by a 2L-5N
system, and PENnsylvania-5000 became PEnnsylvania 6-5000
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_muFwwTSMs
Another exchange on Manhattan's Upper East Side went from BUTterfield to
BUtterfield 8 and gave Elizabeth Taylor her first Oscar.
"GReenbelt-5846" would likely have become "GReenbelt 3-5846", but that
would have been after WWII ...
There are 3 incorporated cities in the U.S. named "London", and more
than a dozen towns named "New London".
OTOH, did the U.S. Army set up their own internal use telephone system
in England during WWII? If so, they might have had a "Greenbelt" central
office named for its location somewhere in London's Green Belt.
The U.S. Army's 2nd Infantry Regiment was assigned to the 5th Infantry
Division which was sent to England & Ireland for training in 1942.
"2-R-London" could possibly be a WWII style internal mailing address for
the U.S. Army use in England at that time, and the photographer's
prospective customers were soldiers assigned to the U.S. Army in England.
On 3/27/2016 4:21 AM, Bob W-PDML wrote:
I have to say, it doesn't feel like London, England to me. We don't
generally write greenbelt as one word, and it's not really a place
that we call by name - we refer to 'the green belt'. However, it does
appear to be turning into an adjective, as in 'the council has sold
10,000 acres of greenbelt land to developers', but I'd be surprised
if that applied in 1942 when the concept of the green belt was still
quite new.
Also, I don't know any reason why it would have the hyphenated number,
which feels to me like a telephone number.
It's certainly possible in 1942+ that the owner was an American
applying US conventions to such things, but it seems highly unlikely
that 'Greenbelt' refers to anything over here.
'Greenbelt' would not have been a telephone exchange in London. I see
from Google that there are some towns in the USA called Greenbelt, so
perhaps it refers to one of these, or to a district with a Greenbelt
exchange.
A designation like 2R or 2 R can sometimes refer to an army regiment,
eg the 2nd London Regiment, but that was apparently disbanded before
WWII.
Perhaps the photographer was one R London...
On 27 Mar 2016, at 05:20, Darren Addy <pixelsmi...@gmail.com> wrote:
Was happy to see the 1939 (First Edition) of the Photo Lab Index show
up in my mailbox this morning. It took me a while to notice the 6
pages of typewritten "INSTRUCTIONS FOR PRINTING AND PROCESSING ANSCO
COLOR PAPER" folded in half inside the back cover. What I found
interesting was what the previous owner had written (multiple times)
on the back of the folded instructions:
PHOTOGRAPHER
Have your Portrait made.
Greenbelt-5846
2-R-London
According to Google Books, "Ansco Color Paper" was called "a worthy
newcomer" in a 1942 Journal of Photographic Society of America.
Interestingly, the instructions refer to how it "may be printed from
the usual black-and-white separation negatives or the more recently
available complementary color negatives." Perhaps not coincidentally,
1942 was also the year that Kodak introduced Kodacolor, "the first
color film that yields negatives for making chromogenic color prints
on paper. Roll films for snapshot cameras only, 35 mm not available
until 1958".
Therefore it appears that a (the?) previous owner of my book was a
Londoner and he penciled his (not so creative) advertisement (which
appears to me to be sort of an aspiration) not very long after the
London Blitz ended (May 1941).
I'm not sure what the 2-R designation before "London" means. But it
appears that Green Belt refers to an area known as "The Metropolitan
Green Belt" which, around London, was first proposed by the Greater
London Regional Planning Committee in 1935.
It makes me wonder who this PHOTOGRAPHER was and if he (the penmanship
appears to be masculine) ever got to place his ad and take Londoner's
portraits.
--
“The Earth is Art, The Photographer is only a Witness ”
― Yann Arthus-Bertrand, Earth from Above
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