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Thinking About Solar Panels with Solar City? Think again!

After finally getting our solar panels from Solar City in February 2017 – a whole year after signing up for it due to endless paperwork and delays – with six months into being online, we are paying more than we paid before the solar panels were installed. We were told by Solar City if the system was not offsetting the cost of the utility bill, they could easily add more panels. Now I’m being told that more panels would require a separate contract agreement. This was not what I was told by my representative. This is what I told Solar City I would do:

Dear Ms. Katz-

As per our conversation, here are the last three bills from Delmarva you requested. My bills are not being offset as promised and I will start blogging my over 1,000 viewer a day audience about what I see as misrepresentation on the part Solar City. I was told I could easily add more solar panels is the cost was not offset and now I’m being told that a new contract for additional panels would be initiated. I am not happy with your product and representation of your product and I will start blogging about this immediately. I was part of your referral program but I could not in good conscience ever refer anyone to Solar City after my experience with you. The endless waiting, the paperwork involved and the anti-climax of a system that didn’t lower my bill at ALL but now I am paying more.

Sincerely,

Frank H. Jump
Author of Fading Ads of New York City (History Press, 2011)
& Fading Ad Blog

So if you are thinking about getting solar panels with Solar City, think again. From my experience it is a giant solar scam.

Harold “Bud” H. Jump, Jr. – August 28, 1933 – July 5, 2017

Harold Jump’s H.S. Yearbook

Harold “Bud” H. Jump, Jr. © Frank H. Jump

Hal Jump hailed from Stamford NY and enlisted in the Korean War with the expectation of coming home in a box as a war hero. Hal was handy with electronics and was immediately sent to Germany to learn about radio transistors electronics, and code. Jump was discharged from the Army with a toolbox and enrolled in the RCA Institute of Electronics where he furthered his electronics skills set.

(Harold & Willy when they first met at the Kleine Astoria in Amsterdam circa 1957 – couple on the right) © Frank H. Jump

Jump lived at the Chelsea Hotel on West 23rd Street in NYC while going to school and very shortly after completing his studies got a job with PanAmerican Airways as an avionics technician, where he learned how to take apart and reassemble commercial airplanes. Jump married my mother Willy in late 1958. Willy and Harold met in Amsterdam when he was stationed in Germany. Jump continued working for PanAm up through the companies heyday. During this time he also moonlighted for an air conditioning company called Weston’s on Metropolitan Avenue in Queens. In 1969, Jump was sent to Roswell New Mexico to test the new Boeing 747, where they took it on test runs to see how much stress the wings would take on parabolic rises and falls. Jump never quite enjoyed flying after that experience.

Hal Jump (circa 1985) © Frank H. Jump

In 1980, he told me he was going to leave PanAm to work for the U.S. Postal Service as a computer programmer for the new zip code mail sorting machines in the Jamaica Queens division near Kennedy Airport. Jump worked both jobs until he was ready to transition full-time to the Postal Service. In preparation for this, Jump was sent to Norman, Oklahoma to study computer programming and maintenance and later completed more coursework in Milwaukee, WI in 1974. It was around this time he met his future second wife Anne Rich. Willy and Harold were living together but in separation until their divorce in 1985.

Harold Jump & Anne Rich in the 1990s

After his divorce with Willy, he remarried Anne Rich and moved briefly to Long Beach, LI until he left the Post Office and moved back to Stamford, NY where he worked as a school bus operator. After several years of commuting back and forth from Upstate NY to Whitestone where Anne’s family lived, they finally settled back in Whitestone where they lived until Anne’s death three years back in November of 2013.

Jump lived alone in Whitestone until a fall landed him in Menorah Rehabilitation and Nursing in Manhattan Beach Brooklyn with a subdural hematoma. Jump never recovered from his injury sustained from his fall and died nine months later. He is survived by his son Frank H. Jump, his sister Ann Jump (Estero, Florida), and step-daughters Linda Rich (Manhattan) and Debra Rich and grandchildren Jon-Peter and Bianca Pezzino (Whitestone).

Jump in 2010s

Services for Harold Jump will be held on July 7, 2017 @ 11AM at
OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE AT ST. BERNARD
328 WEST 14TH STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10014

Angell’s Delicatessen Revisited Ft. Collins, CO – Wendy Baker

© Wendy Baker

Previously featured here

Neumann Leathers – Hoboken, NJ – Estelle Saltiel

© Estelle Saltiel

© Estelle Saltiel

The old Neumann Leathers factory will be preserved and rehabilitated, creating a mix-used site that includes residential and retail components and new public space, according to Hoboken’s new draft plan for the historic site released Monday.

– By Laura Herzog – NJ.com – October 20, 2015

Derelict Rockway Park Bus Shelter – Rockaway Beach, NYC

© Frank H. Jump

CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE © Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

Landeweer Auto Showroom & Workplace – Then & Now- Utrecht, NL – Gaia Son

© Gaia Son

circa 1936

© Gaia Son

© Gaia Son

circa 1915

circa 1908

Landeweer Workplace circa 1908

circa 1910 CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE

Landeweer Showroom circa 1920

Article detailing automobile accident involving the owner Klaas Landweer and his companion who ran into a tree with their 16 cylinder Cadillac. “In 1932 Klaas Landeweer driving a nearly new V16 Cadillac with a speed of about 120 km / h against a tree. Klaas Landeweer and his partner, the balloonist Delia Mouton, were taking several bone fractures. The Cadillac, which had a value of 20,000 guilders, caught fire and was completely destroyed.” Conam Auto History website [http://www.conam.info/historie/auto-importeurs-in-nederland/auto-importeurs-in-nederland-beschrijvingen2/2254-klaas-landeweer-utrecht]

Italian Cuisine – Dinner – Brick Oven Pizza – Kings Highway, Gravesend – Brooklyn

© Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

Waspydelic Relics

© Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

Gowyndolyn’s Dreadlocks – Printing-Books – Films & Games – West Harlem, 125th Street, NYC

Near Apollo Theatre – 125th Street © Frank H. Jump

Featured Fade – Fair & Square Ribbon – Joseph Loth & Company – Eric K. Washington

© Eric K. Washington

Fair and Square Ribbon painted sign

This painted advertisement endures on the back of the former Joseph Loth & Company “Fair and Square” ribbon mill, built in 1886, on Amsterdam Avenue between West 150th and 151st Streets. The ad reads, “Fair and Square — This Label Is On The Best Ribbon Made.”

“In upper Manhattan, a block-long structure hulks like a stalwart old public building. But a faded ad painted in back reveals its delicate mission more than a century ago…”