Men Leaning on Boardwalk Rail, Atlantic Coast Beach Town, 1950s

Archive & AtlasEstablished · MMXXIII

Men Leaning on Boardwalk Rail, Atlantic Coast Beach Town, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

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Men Leaning on Boardwalk Rail, Atlantic Coast Beach Town, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

Unattributed 1950–1959

AA-2026-2EF902

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Leaning against a painted boardwalk railing with the wide, flat horizon of an Atlantic coast beach town behind them, two men have struck the universal posture of people who came to the shore and then ran out of things to do there. One has propped a foot on the lower rail with the casual authority of a man who has decided this counts as recreation. The low clapboard houses stretching into the haze belong to one of the New Jersey or Long Island beach communities that spent the postwar decade convincing itself it was a resort.

Everyone here is fully dressed — slacks, sport jackets, leather shoes — because in the 1950s going to the beach was still an occasion that required you to look presentable while standing near sand. The idea that you might actually get in the water was a separate decision, requiring different clothes and a different day.

The man bent over the railing is either watching something on the beach below or has simply given up standing and is resting in the least comfortable way available to him. Either way, the whole group has the look of people who drove a long way to experience the ocean from a safe distance and consider the trip a success.

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