America’s Last Drive-in Movie Theatres

Photograph by Thomas Wrede At their peak, in the late 1950s, there were almost 5000 drive-ins. Today, there are only 366 drive-ins operating in the United States. The outdoor theaters saw a dramatic decline in the 70s and 80s and many of their remains can still be found off highways, marked by rusting entrance marquees…

The Ghostly Flintstones Amusement Park

The soundtrack of Flinstones cartoons broadcast continuously over the park’s tinny loudspeakers, echoing eerily between the dusty, dilapidating houses of Bedrock’s famous residents from a bygone era. Built over 40 years ago during the Route 66 roadside attraction craze, this lonely concrete replica of a cartoon town has seen better days. You can only wonder how…

Inventing the “Stepford Wives” American Dream Town

The first thing to know when walking around Levittown, PA, is that it is very easy to get lost. The leafy winding streets often double back on themselves, and confusingly, the street names in the different parts of town not only all begin with the same letter, but have similar sounding, idyllic names; Shadetree Lane,…

For over 40 Years, This Guy Photographed the Same Buildings as he Watched them Decline

We all see familiar buildings in our neighbourhoods change over the years, but what if you photographed them from the exact same spot, documenting them over a time span of over four decades? That’s exactly what Chilean-born photographer Camilo José Vergara did. Focusing on the poorest and most segregated communities in urban America, Camilo returned…

Streamliner Trains that Oozed the Elegance of Old World Travel

Say, can I get that train pamphlet in a framed poster? That’s not something you’re likely to wonder about any of the marketing coming out of today’s rail travel industry. I found this gorgeous vintage pamphlet design by Union Pacific Railroad and it sent me on a cyber hunt for more memorabilia from a glittering era in train travel between the 1930s to the…

She Taught Amelia Earhart to Fly

Without Neta Snook, there may never have been an Amelia Earhart. “The Lone Aviatrix” of Iowa had been shattering the proverbial glass ceiling with her plane long before the Earhart took to the skies, and she did it in a plane she assembled in her parents’ backyard. In other words, Snook was the kind of…

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…

Girl Friends, Inc: The African American Social Clubs of Yesteryear

It all started over a pot of stew in the summer of 1927. Eunice Shreeves rang a fews friends to come over to her New York home, break bread, and make a few more memories before heading their separate ways for college. The Harlem Renaissance was at its peak, and these ladies were headed to…

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The Abandoned Half of Ellis Island

Sailing to the Statue of Liberty and near-by Ellis Island is one of New York’s most popular attractions. And with good reason; the Statue of Liberty remains one of America’s most iconic landmarks– but it’s also estimated that a staggering 40% of all Americans can trace at least one ancestor who passed through the famous…

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

1.Freddie Mercury’s First Band You can see him, centre, with his bandmates in 1958. Their band was called “The Hectics”. The school-band was formed while all five were students at St. Peter’s Boys School, an English boarding school near Bombay (now Mumbai), India. The band only played at school events and were not allowed to venture outside for bookings. Found on…