A glance will show / Why Phoebe Snow / Prefers this route / To Buffalo.
And Phoebe's right / No route is quite / As short as Road / of Anthracite.
In 1908 the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad began work on the
New Jersey Cut-Off to make its New York to Buffalo mainline (the Road of Anthracite
so liked by
Phoebe Snow) even shorter and faster. It was to have no grade crossings, and was to be as straight and level as possible — through hilly terrain. The 28-mile
Lackawanna Cut-Off, as it is now known, was built over three years, cost $11 million, and was an
engineering marvel of massive reinforced concrete bridges, enormous cuts, and the largest railroad embankment in the world. All of this has been
abandoned for years, though there are plans afoot to restore the Cut-Off for
commuter rail.
[more inside]
posted by parudox
on Dec 24, 2008 -
17 comments
A nice
set of photographic glass-plate transparencies depicting life in Japan ca. 1910. These "Yokohama photographs" were sold to foreign tourists between about 1868 and 1912. I found the
Crafts and Trades section most interesting.
posted by Rumple
on Jun 7, 2007 -
18 comments
"
Tall-tale postcards emerged around the turn of the 20th century, when postcards came to function as surrogates for travel. People soon realized that postcards could be used to create or sustain a certain utopian myth about a town or region, and crafty photographers began to physically manipulate their photographs. Nowhere did these modified images, or "
tall-tale postcards" as they came to be called, become more prevalent than in rural communities that hoped to forge an identity as places of agricultural abundance to encourage settlement and growth. Food sources specific to the region — vegetables, fruits, or fish — were the most common subjects."
posted by jonson
on Dec 30, 2006 -
20 comments
Benny's Postcards "is devoted to the postcards my grandfather collected from approximately 1906-1918. The collection is comprised of 435 postcards, most of which were produced in Russia, Poland and Germany." [
coral cache]
posted by strikhedonia
on Nov 3, 2005 -
5 comments
OK, Seattleites, see the American flag
here ? On the sidewalk below is where your 3rd & Pine McDonalds now sits. Man, I can see five buildings here that are still standing, but that red brick one at the lower right got replaced
early. Now here's the
Northern Life Tower. Note how the bricks lighten towards the top, so as to make it look taller from below--very subtle, that. It's one of Seattle's two Art Deco buildings, the other being the
Exchange Building. You can cut through that one, coming off the ferry at First Avenue and take the elevator to walk out on Second Ave rather than climb that steep hill, you know.
And consider on what
playground equipment our grandparents got to play. Lucky stiffs--you can't even find a decent 50s era swing set in a park in this town anymore.
Penny Postcards From King County, from
Penny Postcards of Washington, from
Penny Postcards. Man, I loves me some vintage postcards. And if you do, too, check that last link--it's got all 50 states.
posted by y2karl
on Dec 19, 2004 -
17 comments
Big Hats and Eroticism is just one of the many features of
Tallulahs.com, an excellent site dedicated to images of the
vintage nude. There's also lots of wonderful trivia and commentary, such as a
brief biography of the
Mante sisters (immortalized in the brilliant ballerina images of painter
Edgar Degas), and the story of
Liane de Pougy, convent girl turned runaway wife, turned
celebrated dancer of the French stage, turned
Romanian Princess. Or you can read about the
mystery of H. Traut,
elusive photographer of "the gentle eroticism of fairyland" whose
images graced hundreds of postcards for several years until he
seemingly vanished from the scene some time before WWI. Interested in
drawing or painting nudes yourself? Here's a page of
classical nude poses - studies in various categories that you can work from, including "
The beauty of butts" and "
seductive smoking"! Plus, you can peruse
Tallulah's own art nudes, and a fabulous
links page. NSFW, obviously.
posted by taz
on Aug 9, 2004 -
4 comments
"America As It Was: A Tour Of The USA In Vintage Postcards" is a vast, amazing collection, quaintly presented by my new heroine: an Atlanta real estate agent and church volunteer called
Pat Sabin who dreams of one day visiting Chicago and whose(some would say surprising) love for
all things webby is an example to us all. Please don't be put off by the homey graphics and folksy language - it really is a rich, rich resource! [
My favourite postcard turns out to be from James Lilek's New York collection. Go figure. All I can say is God bless the meetings of unlikely minds!)]
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Jun 25, 2002 -
5 comments
The Pornography of Racist Violence: NYT Columnist Margo Jefferson reviews "Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America", and says the book is a "record of what we can call civil war crimes." She goes on to say:
"The images are also what the historian Leon F. Litwack calls, in his introduction, race pornography: they were often made into picture postcards that were mailed, with curt, gleeful or venomous messages to friends and foes with nary a peep from the United States postal authorities."
posted by likorish
on Dec 26, 2000 -
35 comments
