Could it be that the thin-looking crowd scene is caused by the distortion of an upward looking wide angle lens?

Snidely, I started reading your post thinking you were answering the "What would you do?" question. As if you were going to take the escapee's picture. LOL

My dad was 6 ft. tall, so I don't think his lens would have been upward facing. The average person was probably considerably thinner in 1933. I'll see if I can look it up.

A quick look revealed a CDC study comparing average weights in 1960 and 2002:

The average weight for men rose
"dramatically," in the CDC's words, from 166.3 pounds in 1960 to 191
pounds in 2002. Women went from 140.2 pounds in 1960 to 164.3 pounds in 2002.

Weight
increases were greater among older men: Those between 40 and 49 were nearly 27
pounds heavier on average at the end of the study period. Men 50 to 59 got 28
pounds heavier, and 60 to 74 were almost 33 pounds heavier on average in 2002
compared with 1960.

It doesn't sound as though he approached a stranger on the street, which I would have found a little frightening I'm sure. I am tense just being approached by a panhandler, as seems to happen with more frequency than it used to.

"who said his friend Duong walked into their Santa Ana auto electric business between 11:30 a.m. and noon and that she then called authorities."

And did you notice the women also all had on sensible shoes! Not a single spiked heel peep toe ummm pump in the bunch!

I would have been very apprehensive if some unknown man did that to me. I don't know what my reaction would be. If it was inside a place of business it would seem to be less scary, at least if people were around.

I would say, "Very good. I'll call 911 for you." And dial the cell phone.

To me, it looks as if the camera is at approximately the waist level of the approaching woman in the right foreground with a handbag under her left arm.

With the camera angled up to have the structures in the image, they too look to have the characteristic elongated and leaning backward distortion. The vertical surfaces look curved.

Not that it matters. There was most certainly less obesity during the depression but I suspect hungry homeless and jobless people didn't spend Saturday afternoon at the World's Fair. People are also taller today compared to decades ago, that accounts for some of the weight increase.

I'd do same as Socks. Wouldn't give them a ride but would simply make the call for them.

Snidely, one of my dad's cameras was a Rolleiflex twin-lens reflex that was held at waist level. It's possible he owned it in the 1930s, which would explain it. Good eye.

Morz, I didn't realize that. Yes, it makes more sense.

It's funny, when I read the first news item I never thought of my cell phone. That's how seldom I use it, I guess. But dialing 911 makes perfect sense.

I'm familiar with it, my friend would loan me his. He used it during his art school years because of the larger negative produced. Great camera. Held at the waist, you looked down into the viewfinder. The image in the viewfinder is backwards, it takes some getting used to.

Also, notice how formally everyone dressed in those days. The men in ties, dress shirts, slacks and hats. The women in dresses or skirts and blouses and hats. In the 1940s, I remember taking a bus downtown with my mother to shop for school clothes or an Easter dress. We got dressed up for such an excursion. The early 30s were difficult years after the crash and depression, and there was not an abundance of food for everyone.

Yes, hats on everyone, and "sensible heels" for the women. I remember getting Easter hats, and later, in the 1960s, hats and suits for job hunting.

In that World's Fair photo, notice that everyone is WALKING! That's something you do not see every day at present. If you wanted to see more than one exhibit in the 1933 World's Fair, you walked a considerable amount. In 1933, walking was considered a normal and widely used activity. That might have had an effect on general physique. However, at venues like fairs, walking and long periods on foot may have precluded those less physical, thus culled those persons from the scene.

It was my experience that during WW2, folks walked more than today. If you wanted to visit someone who was within a mile, you walked instead of driving. One reason was cost and the fact that gasoline and tires were severely rationed. Autos remained parked as much as possible. However, that did create "life in the slow lane".

For many, 1933 was only part-way into the depression, commonly called the Dirty Thirties in this area.

The year 1937 was a pretty bad one in our area, according to Dad, who had a fairly large farm, for those days.

He said that somewhere in the late 30s, maybe around the time that World War II started in1939, when he was 38 when he was talking/(complaining) to his banker that it seemed as though he'd worked really hard in the past ten years but gotten nowhere, the banker disagreed.

He pointed out that Dad had upgraded his car, got a better tractor (twice, actually), drilled a well beside the house and installed running water (but no bathroom, which might have happened had Mom been around) and put in place a waterline from the well to three barns, one at a substantial distance.

While many/most of the local citizens had upgraded nothing, or almost so.

I was 10 in 1939, and the farmhands went to war ... so for the next six years, what Dad and that 10-year-old, (16 years old in '45) and couple of younger boys got done ... got done ... and what didn't - didn't!

ole joyful

In Europe, it's common on Sundays to see people strolling main boulevards, public parks, and squares with men dressed in suits and women in comparably dressy attire. It's not that they're doing so after church, because church attendance has plummeted in most places, but it just seems to be a traditional Sunday pastime. Perhaps before or after a family meal in a restaurant or at home.