1926
199 St. Pauls Avenue, October 22, 1926.
According to the photographer's notes for this photograph, this home was, for a time, the residence of Richard Adams Locke. Locke, a British journalist who wrote for the New York newspaper The Sun, was said to be the author of a newspaper hoax in 1835. Called the "Great Moon Hoax," a series of articles which described the discovery of an animal civilization on the moon by astronomer Sir John Herschel. Herschel supposedly observed bison, goats, unicorns, bipedal tail-less beavers, bat-like winged humanoids, and the structures they had built. Herschal was not involved in the hoax and in fact did not know until longer after the fact that these discoveries were attributed to him.
Likely undertaken to boost the circulation of the newspaper, the hoax was an undeniable success, eclipsing a similar hoax story published by Edgar Allan Poe a few months earlier, and launching The Sun into dramatically increased distribution and reputation.