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My One Year And One Month.

Posted on February 17, 2015December 13, 2015 By Ann Thompson

There are many sites and stories to be found about Melvin Belli and the two build­ings that he bought and reno­vated at 722 and 728 Mont­gomery Street in San Francisco.

I recently found this booklet, written by Mr. Belli, with even more details on the purchase of the prop­erty from the previous owners to the recon­struc­tion, which noted very iffy under­pin­nings and standing water found when exca­vating for the place­ment of an elevator.

Click on an image for a full view

1-the-belli-building
The Belli Building 
2-belli-entryway
Belli Entryway 

Cover of booklet and Walkway

You can see, here, the gas street lamps from Denmark. 722 was a two story building and older than the three story 728 loca­tion. The entry walkway was placed along the adjoining walls of the two build­ings. After this row of mail­boxes, the walkway opened at the left, to the elevator and stair­case and if one walked farther, toward the Belli recep­tion office at the back of the prop­erty, one would be in a daily refreshed flower court­yard with a splashing foun­tain. This opened to the sky and gave light to all of the internal rented offices above.

Every weekday morning from March 1964 to April 1965, I would arrive early to turn my key that released the heavy latch on this New Orleans Iron Gate. I was on my way to the second floor front studio of my wonderful job, working for Butte, Herrero and Hyde, nation­ally known commer­cial artists (each with fine-art talents, they would be even more creative at home if they had any leisure time). I have posted photos of BH&H in my earlier posts of 10-14-2013 and 1 – 5‑2014.

My lucky day, 2-10-1964, brought me to this loca­tion with the big black port­folio that would-be artist carried. Taught to work up ideas and show ones best samples — clean and flapped for a nice presen­ta­tion — my port­folio was packed with a wide variety with the hope that one or two pieces would get me a job. Here is one that I had created in my base­ment room — copy and a humorous illus­tra­tion for Fore­most Milk (which no longer exists).

Click on the image for a full view

3-for-most

I don’t know which part of my port­folio did it, but my job started on 3 – 1‑1964. To my surprise, Fore­most Milk was one of the part­ners’ steady clients. In the one-year that I was with them, there were three Fore­most assign­ments that I watched them create. Their Fore­most Christmas ​“event calendar,” I have shown on my previous post on 12−12−14.

The collec­tions shown, below, show the talents of Bruce Butte (designer / art director), Lowell Herrero (humorous illus­trator) and Bill Hyde (lettering and type designer).
I am making a collec­tion of the exten­sive work that BH&H produced in just the last year of their partnership.

All of this group, I regret, are without credits to the Agen­cies, Art Direc­tors, Copy­writers Engravers or Printers because they are from my collec­tion of printed pieces of that time.

Ann Thompson

Click on an image for a full view

4-foremost-posters
foremost-posters 
5-foremost-pop
foremost-pop 
6-haunted-house
Haunted House 
7-pg-e
Page E 
8-tuttle-fresher
Tuttle Fresher 
9-tuttle-tis-the-seaon
Tuttle is the Season 
Geezerpedia, Of That Time, Recollections

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Next Post: Self-inventive ​“Gofer” Duties — After Heavy Rain.

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