Vintage Allies

The Boy Next Door

Pictured above:  Scene from "The Boy Next Door" VAV!/February 17, 2015/Contributed by Stars in her eye "The Boy Next Door" is the kind of movie that a girl should enjoy with their friends and some wine. It's not the kind of film you get all dressed up for and then have a night on the town. You need some of your best friends to make fun of the movie within the privacy of your own home (a place where no one can get irate with you for heckling).

St. Valentines Day Massacre

Pictured above: Two guns used in the 1929 Massacre/Courtesy The Mob Museum VAV!/February 14, 2015 On February 14, 1929, a day that was anything but sweet hearts amidst a bed of roses, the St. Valentines Day Massacre unfolded as five rivals of gangster Al Capone and two wannabes were gunned down in a garage on the North Side of Chicago, IL. The day's events are, arguably, the most publicized and talked about mob event in history.  The sole purpose of the killings was the elimination of George "Bugs" Moran, the last rival to Al Capone's title of crime boss in Chicago. Witness statements are varied, but this is generally how the slaying was believed to have 'gone down'... 

Ma Bell Calling - Alexander Graham Bell

  On March 7, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell received a United States patent for the invention of the telephone. By 1877, he formed the American Bell Telephone Company and the first exchange opened in New Haven, Connecticut. In a few fleeting years, local exchange companies were launched in every major city throughout America. There were four major divisions of the American Bell Telephone Company; The American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T) that had been created by American Bell Telephone Company to provide long distance calls and to interconnect between New York and Chicago and beyond; Western Electric Company, Bell's equipment manufacturing arm; Bell Labs, that conducted research and development for AT&T and finally, Bell operating companies, providing local exchange telephone services. By 1899, AT&T would acquire the assets of its parent American Bell Telephone Company. AT&T then became the parent of American Bell, and thus the head of the Bell System. This acquisition was put into place, it's reported, to take advantage of the leaner regulatory and tax rules in NYC which were leaner in New York than in Boston, where American Bell was headquartered. Following a government anti-trust suit and the Kingsbury Commitment, by 1913.  AT&T agreed to the Kingsbury Commitment in which they would sell their reported $30 million in Western Union stock, allow competitors to interconnect with their system, and not acquire other independent companies without permission from the U.S. Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) At the end of 1934, AT&T was regulated by the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). The company was to become the largest corporation in the world until its divestment by the United States Department of Justice in 1984, at which time the Bell System ceased to exist. The Bell trademark pictured above was used from 1921 through 1939.