1. NYC Cab Driver Spends 30 Years Photographing His Passengers
In 1980, aspiring photographer Ryan Weideman landed in New York City from California, looking to make a name for himself. But he soon found himself focused on more practical matters, like paying the rent….
Full story found on My Modern Met.
2. Microcar du Jour
This tiny car was practically a microcar by U.S. standards at the time, but as far as microcars go, it was quite large. In total, approximately 100,000 were built.
1960 Metropolitan Series IV at Fuelfed Coffee and Classics in Winnetka, Illinois.
Found here.
3. “Horse of Steel, Runs Across Fields”, 1933
“A horse that trots and gallops on steel-pipe legs, under the impulse of a gasoline engine, is the recent product of an Italian inventor. With this horse, he declares, children may be trained to ride. The iron Dobbin is said to canter along a road or across a rough field with equal ease. Its design recalls the attempts of inventors, before the days of the automobile, to imitate nature and produce a mechanical steed capable of drawing a wagon.”
From a newspaper clipping circa 1933, found on Modern Mechanix.
4. Inside the Playmobil Factory
Inside Playmobil, Malta, photographed by Alastair Philip Wiper.
5. If there’s one piece of furniture I want in life…
It’s a Desede sofa. An endless one.
6. A decommissioned ex-Soviet Train, rusting away in Pyongyang, North Korea
Found on Tumblr.
7. The crumbling spas of Abkhazia
Between the Black Sea and the Caucasus mountains, Georgia and the disputed territory of Abkhazia were once where the Soviet elite spent their summers. Soviet citizens in the 1920s would head south for two weeks each year, making the most of the region’s warm climate, spring waters and coastline during their state-funded holidays. Since the collapse of the USSR, most of the Soviet spas have been abandoned and Abkhazia has fought to break away from Georgia as an independent state.
Found on The Spaces.
8. Circleville: A town that was built in perfect circle, until, well, it needed to be “squared” off…
Circleville is a city in Ohio … the name is derived from its original layout created in 1810 within the 1,100 ft diameter of a circle of a Hopewell tradition earthwork (Native American culture) dating to the early centuries AD. The county courthouse was built in the center of the innermost circle. By the late 1830s, some believed the design was “childish sentimentalism”, and others complained that the lots were too irregular and inconvenient, and that a circular plan wasted space that could become profitable. They gained authorization to change the layout to a standard grid, which was accomplished by the mid-1850s. All traces of the Hopewell earthwork were destroyed in Circleville (and the town today is very much square– best-known today as the host of the Circleville Pumpkin Show, an annual festival held since 1903).
Found on Wikipedia.
9. An American History Class at Hampton University, late 1800s
Found here.
10. Oil paintings of old neon
by Kellie Talbot.
11. On the set of “I Dream of Jeannie”, 1965
Found on History Cool Kids.
12. One of the Oldest Bars in Lisbon, Portugal
The Foxtrot Bar. Art nouveau decor, jazz & dancing spot. Found on Instagram.
13. Meet the mayor of Ballarat, a Death Valley Ghost Town
Meet Rock Novak – the caretaker, the mayor, the sheriff, the judge and the undertaker of the ghost town, Ballarat.
