Just a little interesting history; one of only 11 made.
Famous enough that replicas were made of it:
More information and a lot more photos can be seen at Just a Car Guy and Hemmings Daily.
I used to be an avid collector of those die-cast models, particularly the Matchbox series by Lesney. I would have loved one of these in my collection.
Photo by Al Fenn.
“A Safe Place to Play,” says the caption. That’s what the playgrounds I remember used to look like.
Awesome rope swing
Don’t forget the merry-go-round, that could fling you off with great force.
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Look at this beautiful old slide from the NYU playground project.
And, of course, the swings.
Wow. We never had anything like this. And still, somehow, we survived. There was the occasional bump and bruise. Someone would show up at school with a broken arm, and everyone would ooh and aah over the cast, as happened to my own son after he fell off a jungle gym. It happens. We didn’t even think of calling a lawyer.
Even as late as the 1980’s, playgrounds could be awesome:
Sadly, even looking at pictures like this is enough to give tort attorneys an orgasm thinking about all the billable hours they could earn, which is why modern playgrounds look like this:
Safe and boring.
Thanks, legal profession.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
This telephone tower in Stockholm in 1890 shows how the city was covered in thousands of phone lines. A bit more information is available at Colossal.
Manhattan looked similar in 1887, but notice how tidy the Swedish tower is by comparison.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
That’s a lot of people. Made me think of similar pictures of crowded beaches in China – the linked ones are of China’s Qingdao Huiquan Beach. The brochure photo probably looks a lot different:
But when it’s hot in the City and you want to get away, that’s the price you have to pay. I grew up in New York in the 50s and I don’t ever remember visiting Coney Island when it was that massively crowded, but this was, after all, a holiday shot.
♬ When the sun is shining brightly
And there ain’t no ice cream cones,
It ain’t no sin to take off your skin
And dance around in your bones. ♬
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Seen at /r/HistoryPorn, additional information from Retronaut.
“228 So. Spring St.. The first telephone line between San Francisco and Los Angeles had just been opened, and long distance calls to the Bay City were being stimulated. The young man, Roy E. Jillson, was messenger boy then and was still an employee of the telephone company in 1934.”
Depending on which inflation calculator you use, 50¢ turns out to be hideously expensive for 1899. $13.78 per minute… that would basically mean you didn’t want to call San Francisco unless it were a matter of life or death.
For the curious, here’s what the area looks like right now:
It’s a neighbor to the LA Times building.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Putting each other back together is harder.
J.F.S. Esser, the renowned Dutch plastic surgeon (with the white coat) surrounded by his patients, all in different stages of reconstruction. Berlin – 1920
Found at /r/HistoryPorn, submitted by /u/Senexz
Above: brochure from the Canadian Field Comforts Commission, 1915. These packages were sent to Canadian soldiers on the Western front. Below: A soldier sits in front of crates ready to be sent to soldiers on the front in 1918.
Anti-war meeting in Union Square, New York City – August 8, 1914
Found at /r/HistoryPorn, posted by /u/rpilek
Rowhouses in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, 1938 (photo by Arthur Rothstein)
Playing in the World Game 