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Category / Editor’s Picks

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. CCXLIX)

1. Victorian Living Rooms Found on Dusty Old Thing. 2. The Other Cleopatra Sometime between the 1st and 5th centuries there lived another extraordinary Egyptian woman called Cleopatra, who practiced alchemy. Known today as Cleopatra the Alchemist, she wrote The Chrysopoeia of Cleopatra which focuses on theories on the transmutation of gold. For a woman to…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. CCXLVIII)

1. A small town that escaped destruction by New York City “The doom of Katonah is sealed,” began a column on the front page of The New York Times on April 8, 1893. The town of Katonah, New York, about 40 miles north of Manhattan, was slated to be demolished—washed away, really—to make way for New York City’s expanding…

Preserved Moments of Historical Sass (Vol. 9)

sassy: adjective \ˈsa-sē\ impudent, lively, spirited, vigorous, distinctively smart and stylish, showing no respect for people in authority, saucy, pert, confident, chic. I haven’t done one from this series in a while, so this is long overdue. And it’s all thanks to an archive I stumbled upon through Flickr called SimpleInsomnia– a true treasure trove of vintage found photos with…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. CCXLVII)

1. This Abandoned Japanese Love Hotel By photographer Bob Thissen, more found on Creative Boom. 2. People in a 1920s Berlin Nightclub Flirting via Pneumatic Tubes “It was the Tinder of the early 20th century.” Two nightclubs in particular—the Resi and the Femina—pioneered the trend. At the Resi (also called the Residenz-Casino), a large nightclub…

Oh to have Eaten at the Automat, Just Once

For those who remember the Automat, the mere mention of the word taps into a wellspring of nostalgic, pungent memories. Clutching a handful of fat nickels, peering into the little glass doors framed in brass, choosing from the chicken pot pies, the cream cheese & chopped pecan sandwiches , pumpkin or lemon meringue pie, seemingly untouched by…

Holiday like Hemingway in Africa

I once read that it was the legendary writer Ernest Miller Hemingway who brought the Swahili word “safari” (meaning journey) into popular use in the English language. In 1935, a New York Times reporter reviewed Ernest Hemingway’s latest novel and wrote: “Even if you do not approve very strongly of men who go out and blast innocent rhinos into kingdom come you…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. CCXLVI)

1. Roald Dahl’s pocket-sized writing shed at the Roald Dahl’s museum in the UK Supposedly Roald Dahl‘s books continue to sell at the rate of 12 a minute every day of the year… Gipsy House in Great Missenden, England where the author lived from 1954 until his death in 1990 still remains in his family. So…

Time Capsules of Lake Como

It’s not often that you browse through real estate pages feeling a nostalgia rushing through your insides and tugging at your heart strings, but that’s exactly what happens when I find myself digging through the property inventory of Lionard (specialists in big empty Italian castles for sale). This can’t be right… I say to myself as I click through rooms with incredible art…

Inside a Real-Life Miss Havisham Mansion For Sale

It’s quite an exciting moment when you find that mysterious, abandoned house you’ve been stalking on the internet over the years– never quite certain whether it even really, truly exists– finally appearing on a realtor’s listing, announcing its officially going up for sale. The Howey mansion in Florida is a bit of local legend, built by the 1920s citrus tycoon…

Meet the Woman Behind New York’s 1800s School For Crooks

Fredericka “Marm” Mandelbaum, better known as the “Queen of Fences” was a homely Prussian immigrant running a dry goods store with her husband and four children. She was also one of the biggest crime bosses the city of New York had ever seen. Marm came to New York in 1827, a poor immigrant peddling bits of silk…

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