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Category / Nostalgia

The Summer before the Storm: Paris, July 1939

In July 1939, Paris was just as it should be during the height of summer; the avenues inviting you to get lost in them and the night seeming as if it may never come. LIFE photographer, William Vandivert captured the calm before the storm in these stunning colour photos that have recently surfaced. Eleven months later, more than…

Tagging along with an Underground NYC Urban Explorer

Feel as if you’re tagging along right behind urban historian and photographer, Steve Duncan on his nocturnal exploration of the underbelly of New York. It’s exciting and tense as Steve guides us through the unknown while desperately trying to avoid getting caught: “It’s very worrisome to get caught doing something like this because a lot of…

The Neighborhood Leopard of 1960s Kensington, London

Meet Angela McWilliams and her pet leopard Michael, taking a walk on a leash in London, possibly Gloucester Road or Cromwell Road and in Hyde Park. This will no doubt spark a some fury with a few readers– but just try to remember (and be thankful) that this video is around 50 years old, when the public…

The Bohemian Coffee Houses of 1950s London

Before Starbucks took over the London high street, London had as many bohemian coffee houses as Paris does charming cafés. A meeting place for artists, writers, musicians, radicals and intellectuals, coffee houses had their own quirky themes and style. This 1959 newsreel gives us a glimpse into the golden age of London’s beatnik coffee bars… [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nsRHHcq1P8#at=130]…

The Bond 1977 Lotus Submarine Found in a Storage Unit, Now for Sale

Like most Bond girls, once 007 had his way with her, this 1977 Lotus Esprit ‘submarine’ was cast aside, while James took his pick from an endless line up of other purring beauties. After filming in the Bahamas for her starring role in The Spy Who Loved Me, the submergible sports car was shipped to…

Montmartre: Then & Now

On a Sunday ride with my outdated pedal-starter moped, aimlessly putt-putting through the streets of Montmartre, I came across a peculiar building, unlike any of the others I had seen that day. It looked as if it were hundreds of years old … Standing at the intersection of Rue Marcadet and Rue du Mont Cenis, it…

An Unknown Bob Dylan & friends at Summer Festivals of the 1960s

While thousands storm the famous muddy fields of Glastonbury for its annual music festival this week, why don’t we turn back the clock to the summertime festivals gone by, when Bob Dylan’s words weren’t yet American anthems, hipster was just another name for a jazz musician and the music seemed to have just a little…

The Sole Resident of the World’s Largest Abandoned Building & other Tales

Earlier today, we met the “castaway collector” at his mind boggling apartment in Brooklyn. But I just couldn’t stop there without showing you the rest of this fantastic series This Must Be the Place from Lost & Found films. Collaborators with names like VICE magazine, NY Times and Nike, the film production company, founded by Ben Wu…

A Trip down Memory Lane with the NSA Vintage Photo Album

Everybody loves a good photo album, even the NSA! For their 60th anniversary last year, they put together this heart-warming album of top secret snaps dating all the way back to the 1930s when the nation’s most secretive intelligence agency was just a baby spy agency. So with the NSA being such a buzzword as…

The Chained Books of Zutphen

A spot of ‘book p0rn’ for you on this fine Friday, which takes us to the 16th-century chained library of Zutphen, in the east of the Netherlands. Photos by Eric Wakkel No need for a library card here, the Zutphen hasn’t updated its system for more than 550 years! Each book is fitted with a metal…

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