Jeff Daly

I grew up in Astoria and graduated class of 69. My dad worked at BumbleBee Seafoods and fell in love with the history of the area, which would rub off on me. He designed can labels for the company, built floats for parades and loved marketing and advertising.

I spent most of my high school years in the garage working on the 11 old cars that I had bought with plans to bring them all back to life. My woody wagon was my favorite that I still have today. And since I had a warehouse I started collecting other things like signs and oddball objects from the area.

I spent 30 years in San Francisco with my own television production company working as a freelancer for a variety of companies. Entertainment Tonight for 10 years, shot video for apple computers when they were a start up company and stock sold for $25, and learned how lighting and string could be magical participating in the making of a film called Star Wars. In the world of filmmaking you learn quickly how to achieve a lot with a little time and sometimes not very much money.

I retired from the grueling day-to-day business of filmmaking and returned to my home town. All it took was about two weeks back home and I found myself immersed in the history and stories of Astoria once again.