A Pie Line and Sugar Angel, 1918: U.S. Troops in Paris

JF Ptak Science Books LLC  Post 431

There's definitely an angelic figure in this photograph, an image  made showing American Doughboys lining up in front of a bakery/candy store (high-sugar delivery transport systems enhancer) in Paris in 1918.  This photograph is a News Photo Service item, produced by the Western Newspaper Union, which would send photographs (and their captions) on demand  to newspapers and magazines requesting a scene, say, of American soldiers waiting patiently in line for apple pie at a Parisian bakery.  The caption says that "America's sons (were) grouped about the store waiting for doors to open" so that they could have at the apple pie. They are waiting for something, to be sure; it doesn't seem quite right that a bakery would not be open during daylight hours (though the shutters on the upper floors are closed still) in the winter (I see snow), but then again I'm not an expert on the hours kept by small business in Paris during WWI. 

I am taken with the figure of the small girl in the windowed-door of the bakery, standing there with her hands clasped, framed by the window pane, dressed in flowing white.  Is the place really closed, or did the soldiers simply have no money for these treats, the little girl standing there in the unlocked doorway wondering why all of these soldiers just don't come inside?  Were the men paid in scrip with no value in the streets of the
city?  The good news is that these men were alive, and it may have been November or December of 1918, which means that the killing of millions and millions of soldiers and civilians had just about come to an end, so they could probably stay living,  safely making their idle if not penniless way around the snowy streets of Paris, wanting and waiting to go home.

Comments

[Jeff]

The girl is obviously a ghost who showed up only on film. Neat. I think you can figure out the location of this bakery, then use the admittedly slight evidence of shadows to determine the time of day. When I think of all the cutlines in modern papers that are clearly wrong, I could be made suspicious, too, of the use of the photo. Perhaps this is really the front for a house of ill repute, but the news service made it into a bakery making apple pies. Who would know?

[John F. Ptak]

You're right--I should've put this post in the Crypto-spatio-Lensmatic category. THe place may be findable and the image deliverable--this almost never happens though, and perhaps not surprisingly, sometimes the folks receiving the goodie are underwhelmed. But a story is a story is a ___. No shadows--overcast, too dull to be high noon, man.

[Jeff]

I think there are faint shadows from the legs of the men in front of the left bakery window, and inside the columns and some trim edges, and in front of the man looking in the store window to the right. So ... it's overcast, but I think the sun in not behind the camera but to the right of it. With this info, and the reflections in the glass, you should be able to identify the location. Please advise.