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Category / Nostalgia

Sketchbooks of a 21 Year-Old World War II Soldier

Victory A. Lundy recalled that during his training, he “never listened, I was busy sketching.” But soon, “I sort of took to it. … war experience just hypnotizes young men.” When the aspiring architect was 19 years-old, he enlisted in the Army Special Training Program with a dream of helping to rebuilt post-war Europe. He never expected…

World War II Love Letters

The other day from across the pond, a New Yorker got in touch with me to ask whether I might be interested in a scrapbook he found at a Brooklyn flea market, made by a young lady leaving New York in 1939 for California to become a theatre director. Of course I was interested, and of…

Buried under a Bridge in Paris: The Misfit Mausoleums of Montmartre

At the foot of Montmartre under a heavy wrought-iron bridge that skims the tips of blackened mausoleums, forgotten souls are spending their after lives in perpetual darkness– not exactly what they might have had in mind when they reserved the best plots in the house for their final curtain call… Cemeteries are usually curious places to begin…

My Secret Paris Toy Shop

Strolling through the 11th arrondissement, wandering in and out of boutiques on the Rue de Charonne, I noticed an open cobblestone passageway calling my name. I crossed the street to take a closer peek down the scruffy dark corridor leading to something a little bit special… Waiting for me at the end of the rabbit hole is…

Hungover at the Abandoned Strip Club in a Tiny Japanese Village

I opened my inbox today to find a note from my favourite urbex photographer over in Japan updating me on his latest find. You might recall his surreal visit to Japan’s rather inexplicable abandoned American Cowboy theme park, and this time, Shane Thoms has really outdone himself. Rotting away on a lonely road side in a…

The Hidden Mothers of the Victorian Era

It’s a tall order to take a nice picture of a screaming baby even with Photoshop, so how are there so many vintage photos of well-behaved children at a time when it took up to 30 seconds for a camera to take a single picture? The clue is in the furnishings. That’s no ordinary pattered armchair–…

The Hidden Antiques Village of the Marais, Paris

On a Sunday stroll from the river Seine to the bustling Marais, take the Rue Saint-Paul, a street lined with medieval archways leading to hidden passages and secret treasures… Sneak through residential courtyards from one passage to another, all the while imagining which apartment windows would be yours… Enter through the secret backstage entrance to Saint Paul…

The Posters That Warned Against “the Horrors of a World With Women’s Rights”

At first glance, this illustration looks like the depiction of a rather cool Victorian hangout. The image was commissioned in 1908 for a political magazine of the era, Puck, predicting a liberated woman of the future. Fashionably-dressed women are shown smoking cigars and ignoring children, drinking, gambling using stock tickers and generally hanging out like barflies. The title underneath…

Last Night a DJ saved my Life in a Secret Bomb Shelter

So this weekend, I partied in an abandoned bomb shelter. Thirty meters below the streets of Paris, in a 1500 square meter labyrinth built to withstand an atomic blast of the Cold War era, awaited a night to remember… Thundering down the boulevard in WWII jeeps and tanks, our military escorts arrive at the secret…

The Last Peach Orchards of Paris

Peaches grown right here in Paris? Believe it or not, centuries ago, Paris became home to a thriving peach farming industry that produced up to 17 million fruits a year– and even today, a little-known community of cultivators are still growing them in the very same orchards. These were the original greenhouses. Established during the…

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