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a view across New York's Central Park Lake framed by the SHERRY-NETHERLAND and PLAZA hotels...
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vintage
photo
New
York
Added: 28th April 2008
Views: 1364
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Posted By: Teresa |
 
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Here's the Colony, originally built in the 30's, it was the winter home of NYers for years, now it's part of the Club scene on Miami Beach. I often think of the scene in Scarface, where Al Pacino meets with the Columbians for a drug deal, remember the chainsaw shower scene?? I think it was filmed next door. I know this neighborhood like the back of my hand.
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colony
hotel
art
deco
miami
beach
hotels
Added: 2nd April 2008
Views: 1603
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Posted By: Naomi |
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The Great Depression did not produce many happy stories, but the birth of the Dionne quintuplets near remote Callander, Ontario, Canada in 1934 was at least outwardly a feel-good news item of the decade. Five identical girls were born to Elzire Dionne on May 28, 1934. They were attended to by a country doctor, Roy Allan Dafoe. Never before had quintuplets survived infancy. The story turned sour when the quints were made wards of the Ontario government because of the financial straits of the Dionne family and other concerns. The provincial government built Quintland, a tourist attraction where the girls were put on public display for the numerous visitors who travelled the Trans-Canada Highway to northern Ontario to see them. Quintland served as a home for the girls who were cared for by nurses, as well as a museum and viewing area for the tourists. Eventually some three million tourists came to Quintland--as many as 6,000 each day at its peak. (There was no admission charge to see the quints, but the region reaped millions of dollars in revenues from hotels, restaurants, etc.) At one point, the quints were Canada's top tourist attraction, surpassing Niagara Falls. The quints were isolated from the outside world and even from their parents and other siblings. The Dionne parents staged years of legal challenges to regain custody of their estranged daughters. They finally succeeded in 1943. The three surviving quints were awarded a large cash settlement in the late 1990s by the Ontario government. Only two of the girls survive today.
Tags:
Dionne
quintuplets
Added: 4th May 2008
Views: 7995
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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They'd be considered very unhygienic today, but in their day spittoons were actually a step up in public health. Used as a receptacle for spit generated by chewing tobacco, in the late 19th century spittoons became a common sight in pubs, brothels, saloons, hotels, stores, banks, railway carriages, and other places where people--especially adult men--gathered.
Although brass was the most common material for spitoons, other materials ranged from basic functional iron to crafted cut glass and fine porcelain. At higher-class hotels, spittoons were often elaborately decorated.
Spittoons were flat-bottomed, often weighted to minimize tipping over, and commonly had an interior lip to make spilling less likely even if they did tip over. Occasionally they'd have lids. Some had holes with an accompanying plug, to aid in draining and cleaning.
Use of spittoons was considered an advance of public manners and health, intended to replace previously common habit of spitting on floors, streets, and sidewalks. Many jurisdictions passed laws against spitting in public--other than into a spittoon.
Boy Scout troops organized campaigns to paint "Do not Spit on the Sidewalk" notices on city sidewalks. In 1909, Cincinnati scout troops allied with members of the Anti-Tuberculosis League painted thousands of such messages in a single night. A punny mass-produced sign common in saloons read:
'If you expect to rate as a gentleman, do not expectorate on the floor.'
Spittoons were also useful for people suffering from tuberculosis who would cough up phlegm. Public spittoons would sometimes contain a solution of an antiseptic such as carbolic acid with the aim of limiting transmission of disease. With the start of the 20th century, medical doctors urged tuberculosis sufferers to use personal pocket spittoons instead of public ones; these were jars with tight lids which people could carry.
After the deadly 1918 flu epidemic, both hygiene and etiquette advocates began to disparage public use of the spittoon, and use began to decline. Chewing gum replaced tobacco as the favorite chew of the younger generation. Cigarettes were considered more hygienic than spit-inducing chewing tobacco. While it was still not unusual to see spittoons in some public places as late as the 1930s, vast numbers of old brass spittoons met their ends when they were melted down during the scrap metal drives of the Second World War.
Tags:
spittoons
hygiene
tobacco
Added: 17th July 2012
Views: 4037
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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