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35 Fun and Strange Old Vehicles of Yesteryear

July 15, 2015, 11:51 am
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Wild designs! A collection of 35 fun and strange old vehicles...



































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10 Coolest Planes That Have Been Retired

July 17, 2015, 10:09 am
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The world of aviation has been one of constant experimentation. Sometimes the coolest models don't takeoff, or are retired in their prime. Here we take a look at ten planes which, for better or worse, have been retired.


1. Lockheed M-21 Blackbird


The now-defunct Lockheed M-21 Blackbird was one of history's greatest flying machines. The spy plane built to support a CIA program in 1963. It was a precursor to the SR-71 Blackbird, which Dan Hagedorn, curator of Seattle's Museum of Flight, describes as "the fastest, highest-flying piloted jet in history."


2. DC-10


The well-known DC-10 took its last flight in 2014, 43 years after it first flew in 1971. The American-made "trijet" was famous for having three engines and was thought to launch modern air travel, and the long-haul flight, as we know it today. When manufacturer McDonnell Douglass was merged into Boeing, production of the popular model ceased.


3. Vought V-173


Known as the "Flying Pancake," the Vought V-173 was designed during World War II to take off on short runways.


4. Hughes H-4 Hercules


This is an exterior view of the H-4 Hercules, or Spruce Goose -- a massive sea plane designed and built by American industrialist, aviator, and film producer Howard Hughes in 1947. Six times larger than any aircraft of its time, the Spruce Goose, also known as the Flying Boat, was built to carry 700 troops. Made entirely of wood (mostly birch), it only flew once. It now sits in the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in Oregon.


5. Fairchild C-82 Packet


Pima Air & Space Museum in Tuscon, Arizona, displays a Fairchild C-82 Packet, a twin-engined cargo aircraft used briefly by the United States Air Force following World War II. The C-82 is perhaps best known for its role in the 1964 film "The Flight of the Phoenix," in which James Stewart flew the plane in Libya.


6. Convair Model 118


Believe it or not, flying cars have been in existence since the '40s. The Convair Model 118 made a test flight in 1947. Alas, the hybrid vehicle never went into production after its one-hour demonstration flight, in which it had a crash landing due to low fuel, destroying the car body.


7. Taylor Aerocar III


In 1968, several Taylor Aerocar III's were built, though Hagedorn says they never really took off in the public eye.


8. Sikorsky R-4


A Church Army canteen worker is seen here handing a cup of tea to the pilot of a Sikorsky R-4 helicopter hovering overhead at an RAF Helicopter School in Andover, England, in 1945. Though not an airplane, the R-4 was the world's first mass-produced helicopter and the first helicopter used by the United States Army Air Forces and the British Royal Air Force and Royal Navy.


9. DC-2


The Douglas DC-2 was, according to Hagedorn, "one of the most loved (planes) with the Royal Air Force." The Museum of Flight displays the last air-worthy model of the DC-2.


10. Concorde


The supersonic plane Concorde made its final transatlantic flight in October, 2003. British Airways flight BA001 took three hours and twenty minutes to reach New York from London's Heathrow Airport.

(via CNN)
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Hilarious Animated Album Covers of The Beatles

July 21, 2015, 9:31 am
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Here's a collection of cool animated images of The Beatles' album covers, via Animated Albums' Tumblr

Abbey Road

Help!

Twist And Shout

Please, Please Me/ The Beatles/ Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band/ Let It Be

A Hard Day's Night

The Beatles (White Album)
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Beautiful Vintage Portraits Showing 21 National Types of Beauty from the Early 1930s

July 26, 2015, 10:42 am
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National types of beauty was a series of real photo cigarette cards distributed in the 1930s. Some of the women portrayed were well-known actresses in their country, such as Anna May Wong from China, Frances Doble from Canada and Greta Nissen from Sweden.

The photographers were unidentified but the portraits would have been taken by major studios of the time. Tellingly, no black women were represented but this may have more to do with their lack of recognition as actors in America and Europe than any deliberate exclusion on the part of the cigarette company.

Australia

Brazil

Canada

China

Czechoslovakia

Holland

Italy

Japan

Mexico

New Zealand

Norway

Persia

Poland

Portugal

Rumania

Scotland

Sicily

Spain

Sweden

Turkey

Yugoslavia

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Rare and Beautiful Photos of Teenaged American Actress and Model Brooke Shields in New York City, 1978

July 26, 2015, 10:43 am
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These beautiful photographs of Brooke Shields and her mother Teri were taken in New York City by Robert R. McElroy in 1978, when Brooke Shields was 13 and already a successful child model.

Shields began her career as a model in 1966, when she was 11 months old. Her first job was for Ivory Soap, shot by Francesco Scavullo. She continued as a successful child model with model agent Eileen Ford, who, in her Lifetime Network biography, stated that she started her children's division just for Shields. In 1978, when she was 12-years-old, Shields played a child prostitute her age in the film Pretty Baby. Eileen Ford, founder of the Ford Modeling Agency, said of Brooke Shields: "She is a professional child and unique. She looks like an adult and thinks like one."










(Photos © Robert R. McElroy/ Getty Images, via Mashable/ Retronaut)
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Jimi Hendrix in the Army, 1961-1962

July 26, 2015, 10:46 am
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Pictures of The First Moscow Beauty Contest in USSR, 1988

July 27, 2015, 11:40 am
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In the times of Mikhail Gorbachev many things started to change in the country. That period might be called a period of imitation. It came to show business too. The first beauty contest in the USSR became a sensation. Abroad the event called “Moscow beauty” was even called as loud as the flight of Gagarin into space.


















(via English Russia)
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With Nylon Stockings Scarce, Women Painted Their Legs Using Gravy Juice During the War Years

July 28, 2015, 11:33 am
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When America took part in World War II in 1941 that DuPont company stopped producing nylons, reorganizing its factory for the production of parachutes, airplane cords and rope and asking women to donate their used stockings to the war effort so that they soon became hard to find.

That's why thousand of women started to draw on their legs in order to obtain a 1940s nylon look, using the most creative and unthinkable brown household items they had: from gravy browning to coffee passing by cocoa powder.













(Photos: Getty Images, via Mashable/ Retronaut)
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The U.S. in Autochromes – 50 Stunning Color Photographs of American Life in the Early 20th Century

July 28, 2015, 11:33 am
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These stunning photographs were taken by National Geographic Society photographers using Autochrome process. The society eventually moved on to other more advanced processes and finally to Kodachrome by 1938.

New Orleans, Louisiana - Children gather by a vendor selling "snowball" treats, c.1929.

New Orleans, Louisiana - Five boys sit together, eating large watermelon slices, 1930.

Louisiana - Four children cultivate cotton in a field, 1930.

Manhattan, New York City - The sixty-story Woolworth Building in New York's skyline stands tall, 1930.

Miami Beach, Florida - A group of people sunbathe and look out on the ocean, 1930.

Washington, D.C. - A woman looks at fruit from a vendor in front of the U.S. Capital, 1930.

St. Petersburg, Florida - Six women sit on the beach with the water behind them, 1930.

Hopi Indian Reservation - Two men stand by a car in a field looking at the nearby canyons, 1929.

Arizona - Dude ranch guests pretend to be cowboys, 1929.

Bennington, Vermont - Two people stand among white birches in the Battenkill Valley, 1927.

Montana - Three men stand in front of a plane on the Crow Reservation, 1927.

Montana - A Native American family relaxes inside their tipi, 1927.

Montana - A chief on the Crow Indian Reservation, 1927.

Virginia - A woman and child do laundry outside in Sperryville, 1926.

Virginia - a girl poses with corn and pumpkins during corn harvest, 1926.

Washington, D.C. - A group of kids looks at an elephant in the National Zoo. c.1930.

Stowe, Vermont - Two women look west from the village of Stowe at Mount Mansfield, 1927.

Shasta, California - A woman stands at the edge of a pond observing the view, 1916.

Portrait of a Hopi Indian holding one of the baskets she has made, 1916.

A Hopi Indian and his burro stand at the edge of a high mesa, 1916.

New Orleans, Louisiana - A boy sits on a barrel outside a brewery in the French Quarter, c.1929.

New Orleans, Louisiana - A vendor sells pralines in the French Quarter, c.1929.

An informal portrait of a young New Orleans boy eating watermelon, 1930.

A woman sits outside the doorway of the Absinthe House in New Orleans, c.1929.

Atlantic City, New Jersey - Life guards of the Beach Patrol push a boat into the water, c.1930.


Ohio - People walk through stands at a Loundonville fair, 1929.

Ohio - Four women stand beside an apple stand at a fair in Loundonville, 1929.

Ashtabula, Ohio - Coastguardsmen go out in their boat, 1929.

San Antonio, Texas - A trick rider poses with her blue pony at the rodeo, 1928.

San Antonio, Texas - Cowboys and riders sit along a fence at the Rodeo, 1928.

Fort Worth, Texas - A cowgirl shows her sister how to handle the ropes, c.1929.

Fort Worth, Texas - Three young women attend a rodeo, 1928.

People enjoy the falls of a brook during a warm summer day, 1927.

Columbus, Ohio - A view of the high street in Columbus' business district, c.1929.

Galveston, Texas - Men load storage bins with sulfur on the docks, 1928.

Galveston, Texas - A man shovels sulfur in storage bins on the docks, 1928.

New York City - An aerial view of Manhatttan, 1930.

New York City - A view of the Hudson River, 1930.

Manhattan, New York City - A view of Washington Square, 1929.

New York City - A view of Washington Square at Fifth Avenue, 1929.

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania - Four tour guides of the Gettysburg battlefield wait for tourists, 1929.

New York State - A group of students relaxes on the terrace at Cornell University, 1929.

Crow Indian Reservation, Montana - Men stand at the site of the monument to the Seventh Cavalry, 1927.

Washington, D.C. - A scenic fall view of the capitol, 1927.

New Orleans, Louisiana - A view of galleries in the French Quarter, c.1929.

New Orleans, Louisiana - A woman sitting on stone steps in The French Quarter sells pralines, c.1929.

Manhattan, New York City - Commuters stop to look at hardware for sale along downtown streets, 1930.

Miami Beach, Florida - Crowds form at a pool for a swim competition, 1930.

Atlantic City, New Jersey - A panoramic view of the beaches, piers and hotels along the boardwalk, 1929.

(Photos: National Geographic Collection/Corbis, via Mashable/ Retronaut)
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Amazing Vintage Photographs of Paris in the Early 20th Century

July 29, 2015, 1:06 pm
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Eugène Atget was a French photographer noted for his photographs documenting the architecture and street scenes of Paris. An inspiration for the surrealists and other artists, his work gained wide attention only after his death.

He picked up photography in the late 1880s, around the time that photography was experiencing unprecedented expansion in both commercial and amateur fields. He would go on to enter the commercial field with his photos; he sold photos of landscapes, flowers, and other pleasantries to other artists. It wasn’t until 1897 that he started a project he would continue for the rest of his life-his Old Paris collection.

He photographed Paris with a large-format wooden bellows camera with a rapid rectilinear lens. The images were exposed and developed as 18x24cm glass dry plates.

Between 1897 and 1927 he captured the old Paris in his pictures. His photographs show the city in its various facets: narrow lanes and courtyards in the historic city center with its old buildings, of which some were soon to be demolished, magnificent palaces from the period before the French Revolution, bridges and quays on the banks of the Seine, and shops with their window displays. He photographed stairwells and architectural details on the façades and took pictures of the interiors of apartments. His interest also extended to the environs of Paris.

In addition to architecture and the urban environment, he also photographed street-hawkers, small tradesmen, rag collectors and prostitutes, as well as fairs and popular amusements in the various districts. The outlying districts and peripheral areas, in which the poor and homeless sought shelter, also furnished him with pictorial subjects.








































































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50 Fascinating Facts about Pink Floyd

August 1, 2015, 12:06 pm
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Pink Floyd were an English rock band formed in London in 1965 by students Syd Barrett, Nick Mason, Roger Waters, and Richard Wright. They achieved international acclaim with their progressive and psychedelic music. Distinguished by their use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, extended compositions and elaborate live shows, they are one of the most commercially successful and musically influential groups in the history of popular music. Here are 50 fascinating facts about the band via NME.

1. Pink Floyd have confirmed that new album ‘The Endless River’ will be their final album. Made up of tracks started during the ‘Division Bell’ sessions that formed the basis of a Nick Mason side project (it had the working title ‘The Big Spliff’), it was finished off latterly by singer and guitarist David Gilmour. Refresh yourself of Pink Floyd's majestic career in 50 fascinating facts.

Photo: Getty

2. Pink Floyd founder members Roger Waters and Nick Mason met while studying architecture at the London Polytechnic (now the University of Westminster) in 1963.

Photo: Getty

3. Guitarist and early driving force Syd Barrett joined Mason, Richard Wright and childhood friend Waters around mid-’65 when he moved from Cambridge to London. By the end of the year they’d started calling themselves The Pink Floyd Sound.

Photo: Getty

4. The names Pink and Floyd came from two of Syd Barrett’s favourite Carolina bluesmen, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council, which he merged together and voila!

Photo: Getty

5. People often assumed Pink Floyd was the name of a person in the band, especially stupid record industry people. The band sent this up with the line “which one’s Pink?” on the ‘Wish You Were Here’ song ‘Have A Cigar’ in 1975.

Photo: Getty

6. Pink Floyd recorded their first album ‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ in Abbey Road studios while a band of Moptops toiled next door making ‘Sgt Pepper...’ The latter Beatles record blew minds on its release, though it could be said that the former was even further out there...

Photo: Getty

7. ‘Arnold Layne’ - their first single and a minor hit at the time (it has subsequently achieved classic status) was based on a real life person Roger Waters knew who would steal women’s clothes and knickers from washing lines.

Photo: Getty

8. The b-side to ‘Arnold Lane’ - the psychedelic ‘Candy and a Currant Bun’ - was faithfully covered by Mars Volta and given away free with ‘The Bedlam in Goliath’ album via the mildly pointless VinylDisc format (vinyl on one side, CD on the other).

Photo: Getty

9. Pink Anderson and Floyd Council, the two Americans who inspired the band’s title were both early blues singers. Both musicians died within a year of the release of Pink Floyd's seminal album, ‘Wish You Were Here’ (1975).

Photo: Getty

10. David Gilmour later released his own live version of ‘Arnold Layne’ recorded at the Royal Albert Hall in 2006 with David Bowie on vocals. It made no.19 in the charts.

Photo: Getty

11. ‘See Emily Play’ was their first song to crack the top 10 in 1967, and they didn’t manage another until ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ topped the charts in 1979. As a “serious” albums band in the 70s, singles were considered low priority to a group like Pink Floyd (Led Zeppelin, for instance, never released a single).

Photo: Getty

12. During the second part of the 60’s, The Pink Floyd (as they were known then) became regulars at the Roundhouse in Camden as well as the legendary UFO Club.

Photo: Getty

13. The name The Pink Floyd was used right up to the late 60’s - the ‘The’ disappeared not long after the departure of Syd Barrett. Syd’s acid-induced schizophrenia got so bad that the band had no option to go on without him, and they parted company on the way to a show in 1968.

Photo: Getty

14. Syd moved back in with his parents in Cambridge and became a recluse. He recorded two solo albums with the help of his replacement, David Gilmour: ‘The Madcap Laughs’ and ‘Barrett’.

Photo: Getty

15. Barrett famously turned up at Abbey Road when Roger Waters was recording the vocal for ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’ about him. He’d put on excessive weight and had shaved his eyebrows and lost most of his hair. His appearance was so disturbing that Waters and Gilmour reportedly cried.

Photo: Getty

16. Pink Floyd also played as The Tea Set in their earlier incarnation. This moniker was settled upon for a while at least after a plethora of name changes, which included: Sigma 6, Meggadeaths, the Abdabs and the Screaming Abdabs, Leonard's Lodgers, and the Spectrum Five.

Photo: Getty

17. A film of their 1967 Alexandra Palace show - part of the legendary ‘14 Hour Technicolor Dream’ - still survives and is available on DVD. Yoko Ono is there performing an art installation, and John Lennon is captured among the crowd, although at the time the pair had not met.

Photo: Getty

18. In 1968, Pink Floyd headlined the first ever free gig in Hyde Park with Tyrannosaurus Rex and the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band in support. Not a bad bill... and nada as well!

Photo: Getty

19. The 1970 album name ‘Atom Heart Mother’ was apparently inspired by a newspaper headline about a woman being fitted with the first ever atomic pacemaker.

Photo: Getty

20. The cow on Pink Floyd’s ‘Atom Heart Mother’ album had a name too, which was Lulubelle III. Sadly Lulubelle is no longer with us.

Photo: Getty

21. Nick Mason is certainly the silent but violent one in Pink Floyd; ie. he hits things for a living and doesn’t open his mouth much. Despite the drummer being the only band member to play on everything the group have ever made, he only ever contributed one vocal - on ‘One of These Days’ from 1971’s ‘Meddle’ - and it was just one line, slowed down to scare the pants off the listener.

Photo: Getty

22. Hipgnosis, the team behind most of Pink Floyd’s album covers, actually presented the band with the inverted swimmer that would eventually become the cover of Def Leppard’s iconic ‘High ‘n’ Dry’ album, for ‘Atom Heart Mother’. The band rejected it and opted for the cow instead.

Photo: Getty

23. Recorded in 1973, ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ stayed on the Billboard Chart (top 200) for more than 800 weeks straight, a record that will take some beating.

Photo: Getty

24. ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ was the best selling album in the world for a while (it is still third best seller ever), shifting so many units that one in 12 people is said to own a copy.

Photo: Getty

25. Roger Waters’ ‘The Wall’ - the bellwether of concept albums - has sold around 33 million albums to date, someway behind Dark Side of the Moon’s 50 million, but no slouch nonetheless.

Photo: Getty

26. The laughter heard on ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ tracks ‘Speak to Me’ and ‘Brain Damage’ came from Peter Watts, a Pink Floyd road manager at the time. Watts died of a heroin overdose in 1976.

Photo: Getty

27. Dark Side of the Moon is said to sync perfectly with The Wizard of Oz and led to conspiracy theories that the band had written it with that purpose in mind. To quell the rumours, Nick Mason said they’d intended to soundtrack The Sound of Music instead.

Photo: Getty

28. On the cover of ‘Wish You Were Here’, two businessmen shake hands, one of whom is on fire. He was actually on fire, if only briefly. Played by a stuntman in a fire retardant suit under his actual suit (a wig covered a hood too) the shot was done for real (and the wind blowing the wrong way apparently singed the stuntman’s moustache).

Photo: Getty

29. One of Pink Floyd’s most iconic covers is ‘Animals’ - Pink Floyd’s 10th studio album - featuring Battersea Power Station and in the distance a flying pig. The porcine balloon and the title were both in reference to George Orwell’s Animal Farm which informed much of the lyrical content.

Photo: Getty

30. Oddly enough the epic ‘Echoes’ from ‘Meddle’ seems to fit the final sequence of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey rather well, no doubt spotted by another person with too much weed and time on their hands.

Photo: Getty

31. Kubrick asked Floyd to collaborate on more than one occasion, but word has it Roger Waters was trying to distance the band from Space-rock and reluctantly declined. Waters said later that it was a decision he regretted.

Photo: Getty

32. If the Beatles had Peter Blake and Factory Records had Peter Saville, then Pink Floyd had Gerald Scarfe, an artist whose iconoclastic work has become as synonymous with the Floyd as it has scything satire.

Photo: Getty

33. That’s not forgetting art director Storm Thorgerson of course, who collaborated almost as an auxiliary member of the band and came up with the iconic album cover for ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’.

Photo: Getty

34. As well as writing ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’, bringing the world Live Aid and taking a song about classroom shootings to no.1 (the Boomtown Rats’ ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’), Bob Geldof also starred in the lead role for Pink Floyd’s filmed version of ‘The Wall’.

Photo: Getty

35. In 1977, the inflatable pig caused havoc with air traffic control when it became free of its tethers, veering into the Heathrow flight path. It was later found in a field in Kent.

Photo: Getty

36. The last Pink Floyd album Roger Waters appeared on was ‘The Final Cut’ - a work he conceived and wrote with no help from the others (David Gilmour expressed misgivings about the record later).

Photo: Getty

37. Waters took the other members of Pink Floyd to court in the mid-80s in the hope of barring them from continuing with the name. He recently admitted regretting the litigation.

Photo: Getty

38. Russian astronauts took ‘Delicate Sound of Thunder’ with them when they boarded the MIR space station in 1989, making it the first album to be played in space (that we know of).

Photo: Getty

39. The album ‘The Division Bell’ was named by The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy author Douglas Adams.

Photo: Getty

40. Richard Wright was sacked from the band during ‘The Wall’ sessions for not pulling his weight. He returned to Pink Floyd for their 1987 Gilmour-led ‘A Momentary Lapse of Reason’ album, but for legal reasons was not reinstated as a full member again until the group toured ‘The Division Bell’ in 1994.

Photo: Getty

41. Novelist and journalist Polly Samson described the new album as keyboard player ‘Rick Wright’s swansong’ when she announced it on Twitter. She also said it was ‘very beautiful’. Richard Wright died from cancer in 2008. Samson is married to Dave Gilmour.

Photo: Getty

42. Everyone thinks problems between Roger Waters and David Gilmour surfaced around 'The Wall.' In truth, friction already existed during the run-up to 1969's 'Ummagumma.' Each member had been tasked with constructing a solo contribution. When Gilmour asked Waters for some lyrical help, his response was a simple "no."

Photo: Getty

43. Sampson co-wrote seven of the eleven songs on ‘The Division Bell’. She has also contributed lyrics to the forthcoming ‘The Endless River’.

Photo: Getty

44. Pink Floyd made their music available on Spotify last year, and in anticipation of the big event they streamed one song, ‘Wish You Were Here’. Once fans streamed the song one million times, access to the whole back catalogue was granted.

Photo: Getty

45. Charlie Gilmour is the son of Sampson and novelist Heathcote Williams, and is David Gilmour’s adopted son. Charlie was jailed in 2011 for violent disorder during student fees demonstrations, after famously swinging from a union flag on the Cenotaph whilst under the influence of whisky and acid.

Photo: Getty

46. Pink Floyd sued label EMI in 2010 when it sold tracks separately on iTunes (the band stipulated in their contract that tracks had to be sold as a whole album or nothing at all). The judge agreed that separate songs could not be sold without the group’s consent.

Photo: Getty

47. While Pink Floyd don’t perform anymore, there’s a whole industry of lucrative covers bands who will take their songs around the world. The Australian Pink Floyd have sold more than 3 million tickets playing in 35 different countries, and they even made an appearance at David Gilmour’s 50th birthday party.

Photo: Getty

48. Roger Waters caused an international furore in December last year and was accused of antisemitism when he compared modern day Israelis to the nazis. Speaking about “oppression” of the Palestinians in a magazine interview he said: “The parallels with what went on in the 1930s in Germany are so crushingly obvious.”

Photo: Getty

49. Adrian Maben, who directed Pink Floyd’s concert film ‘Live at Pompeii,’ said Pink Floyd hired a person specifically to say no over and over again to interview requests during their Dark Side-era tours. The idea was to “remain unseen, enigmatic,” he said.

Photo: Getty

50. In 2005 Waters joined Mason, Gilmour and Wright for the first (and last) show the four would do together since Earl’s Court in 1981. The special occasion was Live8, an event to put pressure on G8 leaders and to Make Poverty History, organised by - who else - Bob Geldof.

Photo: Getty
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Amazing Vintage Pictures of The Teds in 1970s England

August 2, 2015, 1:26 pm
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Teddy Boy culture developed in the London of the 1950’s. This new alchemy of teen culture fused Edwardian fashion, rock ‘n’ roll, drinking, dancing and, at times, collective violence into an original youth subculture. And like everything in Britain, social stratification and class played their customary roles. The Teds, for their part, were decidedly working class.


























(Photos by Chris Steele-Perkins)

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Streets of Los Angeles in the 1950s and 1960s

August 2, 2015, 1:32 pm
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A collection of 25 beautiful color photographs show streets of Los Angeles from between the 1950s and 1960s...

























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Laundry in New York City from the 1930s

August 4, 2015, 8:58 pm
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Line drying has largely disappeared from New York as so many traditions of the lower classes in the name of social progress. Industrialized laundries with delivery and drop off were introduced as a convenience service to the middle class at the turn-of-the-century. Electric dryers were developed in the 1930s, but did not become marketable until the late 40s and early 50s. Soon, New Yorkers began to haul their laundry (as most do now) in swollen bags down the narrow passages and steep stairwells of their buildings through the street to laundromats lined with self-service machines and coin dispensers.

Tudor City from 39th Street. c. 1930-1933. (Museum of the City of New York)

Court of the First Model Tenements in New York City. March 16, 1936. (Museum of the City of New York)

View of clothesline strung between windows in brick courtyard, 1392 Madison Ave. ca. 1933. (Museum of the City of New York)

Greenwich Street. 1932.(Museum of the City of New York)

Vacant Lot between Buildings at 148th St., 1939. (Museum of the City of New York)

Hanging laundry, 1940. (Museum of the City of New York)

Wooden Rear Tenements–Children Playing in Dirt. 1935. (Museum of the City of New York)

Rows of laundry outside a New York City apartment house, 1935. (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration)

Tenements, New York, ca. 1937. (The Jewish Museum)

Laundry, New York City, ca. 1930s.

Laundry, New York City, ca. 1934.

A woman hanging out the laundry on the roof of her building, New York City, 1939.

A view down an alley, as rows and rows of laundry hang from tenements, New York City, ca. 1930s. Seen looking west from 70 Columbus Avenue or Amsterdam Avenue at 63nd Street. (NYC Municipal Archives)
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17 Known Facts About the Song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" by The Beatles

August 6, 2015, 9:28 pm
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"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" is a song written primarily by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney, for the Beatles' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Shortly after the song's release, speculation arose that the first letter of each of the title nouns intentionally spelled LSD. Here are 17 known facts about the inspiration, composition, and reverberating impact of this classic song.

1. The "Lucy" who inspired this song was Lucy O'Donnell (later Lucy Vodden), who was a classmate of John's son Julian Lennon when he was enrolled at the private Heath House School, in Weybridge, Surrey. It was in a 1975 interview that Lennon said "Julian came in one day with a picture about a school friend of his named Lucy. He had sketched in some stars in the sky and called it Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds."

Lucy at age six.

The identity of the real Lucy was confirmed by Julian in 2009 when she died of complications from Lupus. Lennon re-connected with her after she appeared on a BBC broadcast where she stated: "I remember Julian and I both doing pictures on a double-sided easel, throwing paint at each other, much to the horror of the classroom attendant… Julian had painted a picture and on that particular day his father turned up with the chauffeur to pick him up from school."

2. In 2009, Julian Lennon released the EP “Lucy” when he found out that his childhood friend Lucy Vodden was suffering from Lupus. All the proceeds from the EP benefitted the Lupus Foundation in the United States and UK. It was then that Julian revealed that the original drawing was lost and bought at an auction by David Gilmour of Pink Floyd.

Julian Lennon’s “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” Painting

About the drawing Julian said,
“It got lost. So how it was found or who may have taken it, I have no idea, but it’s now been re-found and David Gilmour from Pink Floyd has it and kindly allowed us to use a copy of it for the art work” for “Lucy.”

3. Many people thought this was about drugs, since the letters "LSD" are prominent in the title, and John Lennon, who wrote it, was known to drop acid. In 1971 Lennon told Rolling Stone that he swore that he had no idea that the song's initials spelt L.S.D. He added: "I didn't even see it on the label. I didn't look at the initials. I don't look - I mean I never play things backwards. I listened to it as I made it. It's like there will be things on this one, if you fiddle about with it. I don't know what they are. Every time after that though I would look at the titles to see what it said, and usually they never said anything."

The Beatles in 1967

4. Paul McCartney would later say it was "pretty obvious" that this song was inspired by LSD.
The images Lennon used in the song were inspired by the imagery in the book Alice In Wonderland.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland's cover of the 1898 edition.

5. George Harrison played a tambura on this song. It's an Indian instrument similar to a sitar that makes a droning noise. He had been studying with Indian musician Ravi Shankar, who is the father of Norah Jones.

George Harrison playing sitar.

6. The song was banned by the BBC (British Broadcasting Company) for what they thought were drug references.

Cover art for the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band The Beatles in 1967.

7. In 1974, this was a #1 hit for Elton John. Lennon sang and played guitar on his version, but reportedly forgot some of the chords and needed Davey Johnston, Elton John's guitarist, to help him out. Lennon made a surprise appearance in Elton's Thanksgiving concert in New York and performed 3 songs, which proved to be his last public performance.

Front cover for the single "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" by Elton John.

8. Actor William Shatner, who played Captain Kirk on Star Trek, covered this in his dramatic, spoken-word style. In at least one poll, this version was voted the worst Beatles cover of all time.

Cover art for the album The Transformed Man by William Shatner, which including the Beatles' cover "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."

9. In 1974, Johanson and Gray named the 3-million-year-old Australopithecus fossil skeleton they discovered (the oldest ever found) Lucy, after this song because it was playing on the radio when Johanson and his team were celebrating the discovery back at camp.

Donald Johanson (left) assembles the Lucy skeleton for the first time with French colleague Maurice Taieb. Image: Courtesy Institute of Human Origins, Arizona State University.

10. During the media controversy over this song in June of 1967, Paul McCartney admitted to a reporter that the band did experiment with LSD.

Paul McCartney, 1967.

11. In 2004, McCartney addressed the issue of drugs in an interview with the Daily Mirror newspaper: "'Day Tripper,' that's one about acid. 'Lucy In The Sky,' that's pretty obvious. There are others that make subtle hints about drugs, but it's easy to overestimate the influence of drugs on The Beatles' music. Just about everyone was doing drugs in one form or another, and we were no different, but the writing was too important for us to mess it up by getting off our heads all the time."

The Beatles in the Sgt Pepper suits, 1967.

12. A group called John Fred and his Playboy Band had a #1 hit in 1968 with "Judy In Disguise (with Glasses)," a song that was a parody of this.

Front cover for the album Agnes English by John Fred and his Playboy Band, which including the song "Judy In Disguise (with Glasses)."

13. In the Anthology one of the Beatles referred to being on LSD as like seeing through a kaleidoscope. Although Lennon denied this is about drugs, it does refer to "The girl with kaleidoscope eyes."

Collage of The Beatles Anthology covers, created by Klaus Voormann.

14. Lennon said "The girl with kaleidoscope eyes" turned out to be Yoko.

John Lennon and Yoko Ono, at a reception, 1968.

15. This song is very distinctive musically. It's in 3 different keys and uses 2 different beats.

The Beatles posed for a photo-shoot in 1967.

16. Lennon admitted to British journalist Ray Connolly in an interview around the time of the break-up of the Beatles that he didn't think he sang this song very well. "I was so nervous I couldn't sing," he said, "but I like the lyrics."

George Harrison, and John Lennon on The Frost Programme, 1967.

17. In 2004 the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics announced the discovery of the universe's largest known diamond, white dwarf star BPM 37093. Astronomers gave the star the catchier name of "Lucy" from this song.

Carats of the largest diamond in space, a crystalized star that was named Lucy after the Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds".

(via Songfacts)
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23 Rare and Stunning Color Portraits of French Women from the 1920s

August 9, 2015, 11:33 pm
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French photographer Gustave Gain (1876-1945) was born in Cherbourg, France on June 27, 1876. As a chemist he keens on photography and related technical achievements. After the invention of the Autochrome by the Lumière brothers, Gustave is actively engaged in color photograph.

Gustave Gain loves beach. In the summer, he spent much time with his family on the coast of the English Channel in Brittany and Normandy, where he took a lot of stunning shots of his wife, Adeline and other women.























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Hollywood Boulevard in the 1970s – Time-Warping Photos of LA's Main Drag at Its Disco Pinnacle

August 12, 2015, 2:04 am
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Today, the neighborhood is overrun with buskers in superhero outfits, but 40 years ago, real Angelenos wandered the sidewalk with the stars under their feet. Ave Pildas spent more than two years walking up and down Hollywood Boulevard taking photos of the homeless, the star obsessed, the old ladies and the prostitutes that all walked the same street.
"At that time people were saying the country was tilted to the West and all the crazies rolled towards California," says Pildas. "They stopped just short of the ocean and landed in Hollywood."
Ave Pildas moved to Los Angeles in 1971 to work as an art director at Capitol Records in the heart of Hollywood. Between 1972 and 1975, he shot thousands of black and white photos on Hollywood Boulevard’s “Walk of Fame”. These photos document a unique and lively period in the history of Los Angeles and in American culture.
































(All photographs by Ave Pildas)

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20 Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Life on the Streets of Manchester in the 1960s

August 18, 2015, 11:22 am
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From neighbours chatting between rubble-strewn terraces to kids playing cricket on cracked pavements, Shirley Baker’s photographs capture a rich street life on the brink of being bulldozed into history...





















(Photos © Shirley Baker/courtesy the Shirley Baker Estate, via The Guardian)
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Funny Pictures of John Lennon Wearing a Superman Shirt in 1965

August 18, 2015, 11:26 am
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11 Beautiful Vintage Photos of Yvonne Craig as 'Batgirl' in 1967

August 19, 2015, 10:43 am
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Yvonne Craig was an American ballet dancer and actress best known for her role as Batgirl from the 1960s television series Batman. She appeared in the final season (1967–1968). Batgirl's true identity was unknown to Batman and Robin, and their true identities were unknown to her; only Alfred, the butler for Bruce Wayne/Batman, was aware of Batgirl's identity. Craig felt some connection to the character and complained to DC Comics after Barbara Gordon was shot and paralyzed by the Joker in the 1988 graphic novel Batman: The Killing Joke. Here, we collected 11 beautiful color portraits of Yvonne Craig as 'Batgirl' in 1967.











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