With thanks to Ken Faig Jr., a link to the new Shots Around Providence (1930s-1940) on YouTube. Via the Historical Society, which has kindly placed the amateur film online.

In one scene we see a Lovecraft-alike man shopping for a Christmas tree. These being stacked around the city’s Market Place fruit-market site on the waterfront in November/December 1934. I’ve lifted the shadows in Photoshop, which are always too dark on such things. I’ve also added a basic colourisation. Contact the Society if you want to give the film a thorough work-over and stabilisation.

I seem to recall that 1934 was the year that Lovecraft — having moved into 66 College St. — surprised his aunt by installing a Christmas tree and then merrily decking it and the halls. A family tradition that had long been in abeyance if I recall rightly. If it wasn’t that year, it was likely the next.