The Forgotten LGBT Queen of Paris and Her Secret Masonic Temple

She was the kind of woman who never belonged to anyone but herself. At least, when it came to love. But for Natalie Clifford Barney, life overflowed with colour, creativity, and passion in Paris’ Left Bank during one of city’s most romantic periods. Think of her as a lesser-known Gertrude Stein, albeit one who curated…

Discovering Black Outsider Art in a Whitewashed World

Their abilities don’t come from any artistic establishment. They didn’t have any formal training and they were not influenced by other mainstream artists. Hailing from places like Mississippi, Tallapoosa, and other rural pockets of the deep south, they’re the African American Outsider and Folk artists whose voices and colour palettes explored a world that wasn’t…

Inside the Drawing Board of the Soviet Subway

It doesn’t get much better than this, especially for a morning commute: space-age chandeliers, marble statues, ‘golden’ ornaments, and a floor so clean you lick your lunch clean off it. Well, it’s all a part of the Moscow Metro, which has been shuttling Russians to-and-fro in opulent style since 1935. The stops were designed to…

Let’s Raise a Glass to America’s Black Wall Street

Something else they forgot to tell us about in history class: Black Wall Street. Why is it that our textbooks neglected to tell us about the African Americans who opened their own banks, did business with the Rockefellers and prospered as entrepreneurs decades before the Civil Rights Movement? Yes indeed, long before desegregation, America had…

Play the New Sheriff of this Ghost Town for Sale

Cerro Gordo was “the Silver Thread to Los Angeles,” the once violent pioneer town whose grounds saw the rush of miners and cowboys mark it on the map in blood. The literal translation of its Spanish name, “Fat Hill,” helps express that unshakeable bond to good ‘ole Western greed in Nevada — even if these days, Cerro Gordo is spread rather…

Famous People Dancing Like Nobody’s Watching

That’s a young Prince Charles shaking his thang with R&B group The Three Degrees, allegedly one of his favourite bands, in 1978. It’s a little bit like running into your teacher outside of class — it’s not that they’re not supposed to be anywhere else, but it’s weird to catch them getting their boogie on. That’s a…

The Last Makers of the Parisian Café Chair

Stepping inside Maison Gatti is like entering Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory for Francophiles and furniture connoisseurs alike. Nestled in the Parisian commune of Fontainebleau, the atelier is the last of its kind — and one of the few surviving sources for authentic Parisian bistro chairs. As such, Gatti has become the guardian of a long-standing…

The Last Diners of Old Manhattan

They belong to a bygone era of American dining, one that includes the long-lost “Automat”– the mere mention of which, taps into a wellspring of nostalgic, pungent memories for those who remember clutching a handful of nickels and peering into those little glass windows containing chicken pot pies and lemon meringue desserts. With the slip…