The Volkswagen Beetle—officially the Volkswagen Type 1—is an economy car that was built by the German company Volkswagen (VW) from 1938 until 2003. It has a rear-engine design with a two-door body style and is intended for five occupants (later, Beetles were restricted to four people in some countries).

 

The need for a people's car (Volkswagen in German), its concept and its functional objectives were formulated by the leader of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler, who wanted a cheap, simple car to be mass-produced for his country's new road network (Reichsautobahn). Members of the National Socialist party, with an additional dues surcharge, were promised the first production, but the Spanish Civil War shifted most production resources to military vehicles to support the Nationalists under Francisco Franco.

 

Lead engineer Ferdinand Porsche and his team took until 1938 to finalise the design. Béla Barényi is credited with conceiving the original basic design for this car in 1925, notably by Mercedes-Benz, on their website, including his original technical drawing, five years before Porsche claimed to have done his initial version. The influence on Porsche's design of other contemporary cars, such as the Tatra V570, and the work of Josef Ganz remains a subject of dispute. The result was the first Volkswagen, and one of the first rear-engined cars since the Brass Era. With 21,529,464 produced, the Beetle is the longest-running and most-manufactured car of a single platform ever made.

 

Although designed in the 1930s, due to World War II, civilian Beetles only began to be produced in significant numbers by the end of the 1940s. The car was then internally designated the Volkswagen Type 1, and marketed simply as the Volkswagen. Later models were designated Volkswagen 1200, 1300, 1500, 1302, or 1303, the first three indicating engine displacement, the last two derived from the model number.

 

The car became widely known in its home country as the Käfer (German for "beetle", cognate with English chafer) and was later marketed under that name in Germany, and as the Volkswagen in other countries. For example, in France it was known as the Coccinelle (French for ladybug).

 

The original 18.6 kW (24.9 hp) Beetle was designed for a top speed around 100 km/h (62 mph), which would be a viable cruising speed on the Reichsautobahn system. As Autobahn speeds increased in the postwar years, its output was boosted to 27 kW (36 hp), then 30 kW (40 hp), the configuration that lasted through 1966 and became the "classic" Volkswagen motor. The Beetle gave rise to multiple variants: mainly the 1950 Type 2 'Bus', the 1955 Karmann Ghia, as well as the 1961 Type 3 'Ponton' and the 1968 Type 4 (411/412) family cars, ultimately forming the basis of an entirely rear-engined VW product range.

 

The Beetle marked a significant trend, led by Volkswagen, and then by Fiat and Renault, whereby the rear-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout increased from 2.6 percent of continental Western Europe's car production in 1946 to 26.6 percent in 1956. In 1959 even General Motors launched an air-cooled, rear-engined car, the Chevrolet Corvair—which also shared the Beetle's flat engine and swing axle architecture.

 

Over time, front-wheel drive, and frequently hatchback-bodied cars would come to dominate the European small-car market. In 1974, Volkswagen's own front-wheel drive Golf hatchback succeeded the Beetle. In 1994, Volkswagen unveiled the Concept One, a "retro"-themed concept car with a resemblance to the original Beetle, and in 1998 introduced the "New Beetle", built on the contemporary Golf platform with styling recalling the original Type 1. It remained in production through 2010, and was succeeded in 2011 by the Beetle (A5), the last variant of the Beetle, which was also more reminiscent of the original Beetle. Production ceased altogether by 2019.

 

In the 1999 Car of the Century competition, to determine the world's most influential car in the 20th century, the Type 1 came fourth, after the Ford Model T, the Mini, and the Citroën DS.[

 

Nicosia ( Greek : Λευκωσία (Lefkosia), English : Nicosia), located in the middle of the island of Cyprus , is the capital of the Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus . It is the most populous city of Cyprus and the most important cultural, industrial, trade and transportation center. Nicosia is located at 35°10' north, 33°21' east.

 

The city is divided into two by the border called the Green Line . Although de jure the Republic of Cyprus has the administration of the entire city, de facto it only has control over South Nicosia . Northern Nicosia is under the rule of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and is considered to be under Turkish occupation by the international community. The two sectors are separated by a Buffer Zone administered by United Nations Peacekeeping Forces . With the 1960 Constitution of the Republic of Cyprus, the Turkish Municipality of Nicosia was granted legal status.

 

Nicosia is known as "Lefkosia" (Λευκωσία) in Greek and "Nicosia" in English .

 

The first name of the area where the city is located was "Ledra". This name is also written as "Ledrae", "Lidir", "Ledras", "Ledron" and "Letra". Later, this city was destroyed and when it was rebuilt by Leucus, the city was named "Lefkotheon" (Λευκόθεον - city of the white gods). This name was also occasionally referred to as "Ledron". Later, the words "Kermia" and "Leucus" (Λευκούς) were used for the city. In the 7th century, Hierocles, a Byzantine geographer, mentioned the city as Lefkousia (Λευκουσία) in his book Synekdemos (Vademecum) . In the 13th century , the Patriarch of Constantinople referred to Nicosia as Kalli Nikesis (Καλλι Νίκησις - Beautiful Victory). A writer and monk, St. Neophytos referred to Nicosia as "Leucopolis" (Lefkopolis - White City) in a sermon he gave around 1176. Since the 10th century, the name "Nicosia" has become generally accepted. In the 18th century, Greek Cypriot historian Archimandrite Kyprianos stated that another name for Nicosia was "Photolampos" (Shining with Light).

 

There are various claims that the city is referred to as "Nicosia" and similar forms in European languages. According to one claim, the Latins replaced the first syllable of the word, "Lef", with "Ni" because they could not pronounce it. Another claim is that the name derives from the name "Kallinikesis". A writer from Sicily named Sindaco connects the name "Nicosia" to the town named "Nicosia" in Sicily and claimed that King Tancred from this town was with Richard I during the siege of Cyprus and named the city after his own town. . Another claim is that the name "Nicosia" emerged during the rebellion of the city's people against the Knights Templar in 1192. A German priest named Ludolf named the city "Nycosia" between 1341 and 1363. HAS Dearborn, in his book published in 1819, says that another name for Nicosia is "Nicotia". In 1856, William Curry stated that the Greeks called the city "Escosie" and the Western Europeans called it "Licosia".

 

The name of the city is mentioned in Ottoman documents as "Nicosia" or "medine-i Nicosia" . In addition, in a letter regarding the conquest of Nicosia in 1570, the name of the city is mentioned as "Nicosia". Kâtip Çelebi refers to the city as "Nicosia" (which is sometimes used today).

 

The first settlement in the area where Nicosia is located took place in the Neolithic Age . The date of the first settlement is approximately 3000-4000 BC. In 1050 BC or in the 7th century BC, a city called " Ledra " was founded in the region. This city had an important place among the other city kingdoms on the island. During archaeological excavations, a Greek inscription written in the 4th century BC was found indicating the existence of a temple dedicated to Aphrodite in Ledra. By around 330 BC it had shrunk to a small village. When this city was destroyed due to earthquakes , in 200 BC, Leucus, the son of Ptolemy I Soter , founded the city that is today Nicosia.

 

The city's importance began to increase in the late Byzantine period. In the 7th century, it became the capital of the island during the Arab raids.

 

It fell into the hands of Richard I in 1191 . It was the capital of the island during the period when the Knights Templar purchased and dominated the island. A rebellion broke out in the city on 11 April 1192. The knights suppressed this uprising with a massacre and then left the island.

 

The Lusignans purchased the island and Nicosia remained their capital. During the Lusignan period, he built many new buildings in the city. During the Venetian period, most of these were demolished and used in the construction of walls. During this period, the Lusignans also built walls around the city. These walls were in the shape of an irregular pentagon . There were no walls in the city before. King Henry I built the first walls with two towers in 1211, Peter I built a third tower, and Henry II built the first walls. Henry had the city completely surrounded by walls. The city became quite wealthy during this period. Nicosia was one of four dioceses on the island. It also became the center of an archdiocese in 1212. During this period, events were taking place between Greeks and Latins, and bloody conflicts broke out in the city in 1313 and 1360.

 

Nicosia has been damaged by many earthquakes throughout its history. The 1222 Cyprus earthquake was felt strongly in the city and caused great damage. In November 1330, a flood occurred in the city and three thousand people lost their lives. In addition, the city was heavily damaged by the Genoese in 1373 and the Mamluks in 1426.

 

On February 26, 1489, Nicosia, along with the entire island, came under the rule of the Republic of Venice . Just before the Ottoman conquest of the island, the Venetians inspected the walls and found them too weak. According to the new plans, the walls of Nicosia were reduced from eight miles to three miles. Meanwhile, all buildings outside the new walls were destroyed. According to a claim, the route of Kanlıdere was changed by the Venetians. Another claim is that the Ottomans changed the route of the stream to save the city from floods.

 

During the conquest of Cyprus by the Ottomans , Nicosia was the third largest settlement taken. Piyale Pasha and his army took action to take Nicosia on 22 July 1570. On July 25, Nicosia was besieged. Clashes began on July 27, as the Venetians did not accept the Ottomans' demands to surrender the castle. The fact that the walls were very strong ensured that Nicosia would not fall. At dawn on 9 September 1570, a new attack was launched and troops of more than 20 thousand people conquered Nicosia.

 

As part of the settlement of Turks in Cyprus during the Ottoman period, the settlement of the Turkish population in Nicosia, as well as in the entire island, started in 1572. Non-professional Greeks in the city were settled in the neighborhoods outside the city and replaced by Turks. According to a census made during this period, the city had 31 neighborhoods. In two of them ("Ermiyan" and "Karaman"), the Armenian population was in the majority.

 

During the Ottoman period, Nicosia first served as the capital of the State of Cyprus as the center of a district called "Mountain Kaza", and later became a sanjak . During the Ottoman period, St. Large churches such as the Sophia Cathedral were converted into mosques. ​​Nicosia - Larnaca road was built. The gates of the city were opened at sunrise and closed at sunset. The Governor, Judge, Interpreter and Greek Archbishop resided in Nicosia. ​​William Kimbrough Pendleton states that in 1864 most of the houses in the city were made of clay brick. As a result of a major earthquake in 1741, one minaret of the Selimiye Mosque collapsed and had to be rebuilt. There were riots in the city in 1764 and 1821.

 

On July 12, 1878, Nicosia, along with the rest of the island, came under British rule . British troops entered the city through the Kyrenia Gate and hoisted the first British flag on the Değirmen Bastion next to the Paphos Gate . Nicosia Municipality was established in 1882. Under British rule, Nicosia grew outside the city walls. Between 1930 and 1945, villages such as Ortaköy , Strovolos , Büyük Kaymaklı , Küçük Kaymaklı began to merge with the city, and the first settlements were made in regions such as Yenişehir . On January 1, 1944, Ayii Omoloyitadhes was included in the municipal boundaries. In order to provide access outside the city, the walls on the sides of the Paphos Gate in 1879, the Kyrenia Gate in 1931, and the Famagusta Gate in 1945 were cut. In 1905, a train station was built in Büyük Kaymaklı and train services to Nicosia started, this practice ended in 1955. In 1912, the first electricity came to the city. Also in the same year, kerosene-powered street lamps were replaced with electric ones. Under British rule, the sewer network was cleaned and the roads were repaired. On October 17, 1947, as a result of an explosion in the power plant that supplied energy to the city, the city was left without electricity for 116 days.

 

In 1895, Greeks attacked the Turks in the Tahtakale region of Nicosia. In 1931, Greeks rebelled against British rule and burned the government building. Founded in 1955, EOKA attacked public buildings and the radio station in the city against British rule.

 

The Republic of Cyprus was established on 16 August 1960 . The flag of the Republic of Cyprus was hoisted in the House of Representatives at midnight that night, ending British rule on the island. In accordance with Article 173 of the 1960 constitution, a Greek (Nicosia -Greek Municipality) and a Turkish ( Nicosia Turkish Municipality ) municipality were established on the island. On the night of 20–21 December 1963, the events known as " Bloody Christmas " began. Zeki Halil and Cemaliye Emirali were killed as a result of fire opened on cars in Tahtakale district of Nicosia. Between 23-30, Küçük Kaymaklı was besieged. On the night of 23-24 January, 11 people were killed in the Kumsal region, and the family of Turkish major Nihat İlhan was killed in the incident known as the Kumsal Raid. An attack was carried out against the Turks in the Kanlıdere region. As a result of the events, the governments of Turkey , Greece and the United Kingdom met on 30 December 1963 . As a result of this meeting, the border , also known as the Green Line, was drawn, dividing the city into Turkish and Greek parts. The reason why this border is called the "Green Line" is that the pen of the United Nations official who drew the line on the map was green. The borders of the city were finalized with the Cyprus Operation carried out in 1974 by the order of Turkish Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit .

 

On 29 March 1968, the suburbs of Eylence , Büyük Kaymaklı, Küçük Kaymaklı, Pallouriotissa , Strovolos (partially) and Kızılay were also included in the municipal borders. Following the de facto division of the city, the area under the administration of the Republic of Cyprus continued to grow in a southerly direction. North Nicosia also continued to grow and merged with outlying villages such as Gönyeli (which has a separate municipality) and Hamitköy (which is part of the Nicosia Turkish Municipality).

 

Kermiya Border Gate was opened in 2003, and Lokmacı Gate was opened in 2008 .

 

Nicosia is located in a central point of the island of Cyprus, in the central parts of the Mesarya Plain .

 

Nicosia has a hot semi-arid climate according to the Köppen climate classification . The hottest months are July and August, and the coldest months are January and February. The month with the most rainfall is January. Nicosia is one of the warmest places on the island.

 

Nicosia is located in the center of the geological formation called Nicosia Formation. This region dates back to the Lower Pliocene period. Gray, yellow and white marl layers, sandy and yellow limestones and sparse conglomerate bands are frequently encountered. The reconnection of the Mediterranean with the Atlantic Ocean resulted in the rise of sea water and the formation of new sediments, which formed the Nicosia Formation. Underneath Nicosia is the Nicosia- Serdarlı aquifer , which has an area of ​​60 km² .

 

The riverside parts of Nicosia city, especially Kanlıdere , have a great biodiversity. [88] In a research conducted in the streams in a 12.5 km diameter area of ​​the city, which is rich in vegetation (especially in stream beds), 185 different plant species belonging to 62 different families were identified. Among these, there are four endemic and 16 rare species. The most common tree species found on the banks of streams in the city is the eucalyptus tree (various types can be found). There is a total of 0.262 square kilometers of forest area in the Nicosia Central agricultural region of Northern Cyprus . Two kilometers outside Nicosia (in its southern part), within the boundaries of the Municipality of Eylence, is the Pedagogical Academy National Forest Park, and to the south of the city is the Athalassa National Forest Park. In Northern Nicosia, there is the Nicosia Forest Nursery, which is 0.5 hectares in size.

 

The habitats of animals in the stream beds in some parts of the city are in danger. The reeds along the streams host many animals, especially bird species. Many creatures such as kingfishers , water chickens , striped turtles and chameleons live on the banks of the streams . There are especially many turtles in the streams.

 

Nicosia is the commercial center of Cyprus. The city hosts the central banks of the Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus .

 

The city of Nicosia is divided into two parts in terms of urbanization, these are old Nicosia (the area inside the walls) and new Nicosia (outside the walls). In Old Nicosia, the roads are narrow and there are dead ends. In New Nicosia, there is more vertical and horizontal development over a wider area. Junctions and roads are wider, parks occupy larger areas.

 

In Nicosia during the Ottoman period, Greeks and Turks lived mixed in some neighborhoods, and in some neighborhoods, one of them was the majority. Mosques can be found in Turkish neighborhoods and churches in Greek neighborhoods. Armenians also lived in the city. The houses of the Armenians who used to live in Köşklüçiftlik were all made of cut stone and had their own unique architecture. Bay windows are a common feature in houses in Old Nicosia . The Büyük Han is one of the most advanced architectural works on the island, and today it is a cultural center where various activities such as exhibitions, sales of antiques and traditional items, and shadow plays take place.

 

There are fourteen museums in the part of Nicosia south of the Green Line. The Cyprus Museum was founded in 1888 and exhibits hundreds of archaeological artifacts brought from all over the island. The house of Hadjigeorgakis Kornesios, who worked as a translator for the Divan during the Ottoman period, built in 1793, is used as an ethnography museum. In the northern part of the city, the number of museums is six. Derviş Pasha Mansion is used as an ethnography museum.

 

Although there are many theaters in the south of the city, the headquarters of the Cyprus Theater Association is in Nicosia. The State Theater Building, built in the 2000s, formerly hosted this institution, which suffered from inadequate facilities, and is not allowed to be used by any other theater organization. Nicosia Municipality Theatre, built in 1967, has a capacity of 1220 people. In the north, the Turkish Cypriot State Theater performs plays and organizes tours; but it does not have a hall. Also in the north is the Nicosia Municipal Theater, which was established in 1980. The Cyprus Theater Festival, jointly organized by the Nicosia Turkish Municipality and Nicosia Municipal Theatres, is a large organization attended by institutions such as Istanbul City Theatres , and all of these can be held in only two halls.

 

There are nineteen cinemas in the southern part of the city, six of which are owned by a company called K Cineplex, and thirteen are owned by other companies. In the north of the city, the number of cinemas is four.

 

Two waterways built during the Ottoman period were used in Nicosia until the mid-20th century. These waterways were Arab Ahmed and Silihtar waterways. Apart from this, water extracted from wells was also used.

 

Telegraph was first used in the city in 1873. In 1936, a public telephone network was established covering the entire island and Nicosia.

 

The migration to the city of Nicosia as a result of the Cyprus Operation in 1974 caused problems such as development, transportation, sewerage, housing shortage and lack of infrastructure in the city.

 

Since Nicosia is a divided city, the Republic of Cyprus and Northern Cyprus education systems are implemented in the city. A university called Near East University in North Nicosia , Cyprus International University, Mediterranean Karpaz University, Anadolu University 's open education faculty, apart from these, colleges such as Atatürk Teachers Academy and Police School There are. In the area under the control of the Republic of Cyprus , there are universities named University of Cyprus , Open University of Cyprus , Frederick University , University of Nicosia , [132] and European University of Cyprus.

 

In the Nicosia District of the Republic of Cyprus, there are 42 secondary schools, 133 primary schools and three kindergartens. There are a total of 30 primary schools, kindergartens and special education centers at the primary level in the Nicosia district of Northern Cyprus .

 

The roads on the island were built to be centered in Nicosia and unite in Nicosia. All important roads meet in Nicosia. During the Ottoman period, only the Larnaca road was built, and the previously built roads were in ruins. Under British rule, these roads were rebuilt and a regular postal service was established between Nicosia and other cities. The first car arrived in the city in 1907. The first bus services from the city started in 1929, these services departed from the Kyrenia Gate and went to Strovolos, Aydemet and Büyük Kaymaklı. [139] Train services started between Nicosia and Famagusta on 21 October 1905 . Train services were organized from Nicosia to approximately 30 stops. Train services ended on December 31, 1951. Nicosia International Airport was opened in 1949 . This airport is in the Buffer Zone today and is not used.

 

Today, there is a bus service in the Republic of Cyprus controlled part of the city run by a company called Nicosia Bus Company . All buses leave from the terminal in Solomos Square and make stops every 20 to 30 minutes. There are plans to expand the bus line, increase the frequency of services and renew the bus fleet. The Department of Public Works signed an agreement to establish tram and light rail lines between Nicosia - Larnaca and Limassol . There are motorways such as A1 and A2 from the city . In addition to developing this road network, there are also projects to improve the roads within the city. Apart from this, there are also taxis . Air transportation to the city is provided by Larnaca International Airport (44 km away) and Paphos International Airport . Larnaca Airport is used more than Paphos Airport.

 

LETTAŞ company also has buses in North Nicosia. The first municipal bus was put into operation on the Göçmenköy-Yenişehir route on January 15, 1980, during Mustafa Akıncı 's term as mayor. Starting from 1984, this service was transformed into a public transportation network within the municipality and started to provide service, and later the same vehicles were privatized to be operated by the LETTAŞ company. There is a bus terminal in the Yenişehir area. The airport used by the northern part of the city is Ercan Airport . Transportation to the airport is provided by buses. It is also possible to reach the city by taxi and minibus .

 

Nicosia Municipality is a sister city with the following cities:

Germany Schwerin , Germany (1974)

Greece Athens , Greece (1988)

Ukraine Odessa , Ukraine (1996)

Iranian Shiraz , Iran (1999)

Romania Bucharest , Romania (2004)

Chinese Shanghai , China (2004)

 

The city has also collaborated with the following cities:

Russia Moscow , Russia (1997, 2002, 2003-2004, 2006-2008)

Italy Nicosia , Italy (2000-2002)

Chinese Qingdao , China (2001)

Greece Athens , Greece (2001, 2003)

Finland Helsinki , Finland (2003)

Syria Damascus , Syria (2003)

Croatia Zagreb , Croatia (2004)

Malta Valletta , Malta (2007)

 

Sister cities of Nicosia Turkish Municipality

Türkiye Izmir , Turkey (2019)

Türkiye Ankara , Turkey (1988)

Türkiye Bursa , Turkey

North Macedonia Kumanovo , North Macedonia (2007)

Gagauzia Comrat , Gagauzia

Türkiye Gaziantep Turkey​

Türkiye Istanbul Turkey

 

Northern Cyprus, officially the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), is a de facto state that comprises the northeastern portion of the island of Cyprus. It is recognised only by Turkey, and its territory is considered by all other states to be part of the Republic of Cyprus.

 

Northern Cyprus extends from the tip of the Karpass Peninsula in the northeast to Morphou Bay, Cape Kormakitis and its westernmost point, the Kokkina exclave in the west. Its southernmost point is the village of Louroujina. A buffer zone under the control of the United Nations stretches between Northern Cyprus and the rest of the island and divides Nicosia, the island's largest city and capital of both sides.

 

A coup d'état in 1974, performed as part of an attempt to annex the island to Greece, prompted the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. This resulted in the eviction of much of the north's Greek Cypriot population, the flight of Turkish Cypriots from the south, and the partitioning of the island, leading to a unilateral declaration of independence by the north in 1983. Due to its lack of recognition, Northern Cyprus is heavily dependent on Turkey for economic, political and military support.

 

Attempts to reach a solution to the Cyprus dispute have been unsuccessful. The Turkish Army maintains a large force in Northern Cyprus with the support and approval of the TRNC government, while the Republic of Cyprus, the European Union as a whole, and the international community regard it as an occupation force. This military presence has been denounced in several United Nations Security Council resolutions.

 

Northern Cyprus is a semi-presidential, democratic republic with a cultural heritage incorporating various influences and an economy that is dominated by the services sector. The economy has seen growth through the 2000s and 2010s, with the GNP per capita more than tripling in the 2000s, but is held back by an international embargo due to the official closure of the ports in Northern Cyprus by the Republic of Cyprus. The official language is Turkish, with a distinct local dialect being spoken. The vast majority of the population consists of Sunni Muslims, while religious attitudes are mostly moderate and secular. Northern Cyprus is an observer state of ECO and OIC under the name "Turkish Cypriot State", PACE under the name "Turkish Cypriot Community", and Organization of Turkic States with its own name.

 

Several distinct periods of Cypriot intercommunal violence involving the two main ethnic communities, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, marked mid-20th century Cyprus. These included the Cyprus Emergency of 1955–59 during British rule, the post-independence Cyprus crisis of 1963–64, and the Cyprus crisis of 1967. Hostilities culminated in the 1974 de facto division of the island along the Green Line following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. The region has been relatively peaceful since then, but the Cyprus dispute has continued, with various attempts to solve it diplomatically having been generally unsuccessful.

 

Cyprus, an island lying in the eastern Mediterranean, hosted a population of Greeks and Turks (four-fifths and one-fifth, respectively), who lived under British rule in the late nineteenth-century and the first half of the twentieth-century. Christian Orthodox Church of Cyprus played a prominent political role among the Greek Cypriot community, a privilege that it acquired during the Ottoman Empire with the employment of the millet system, which gave the archbishop an unofficial ethnarch status.

 

The repeated rejections by the British of Greek Cypriot demands for enosis, union with Greece, led to armed resistance, organised by the National Organization of Cypriot Struggle, or EOKA. EOKA, led by the Greek-Cypriot commander George Grivas, systematically targeted British colonial authorities. One of the effects of EOKA's campaign was to alter the Turkish position from demanding full reincorporation into Turkey to a demand for taksim (partition). EOKA's mission and activities caused a "Cretan syndrome" (see Turkish Resistance Organisation) within the Turkish Cypriot community, as its members feared that they would be forced to leave the island in such a case as had been the case with Cretan Turks. As such, they preferred the continuation of British colonial rule and then taksim, the division of the island. Due to the Turkish Cypriots' support for the British, EOKA's leader, Georgios Grivas, declared them to be enemies. The fact that the Turks were a minority was, according to Nihat Erim, to be addressed by the transfer of thousands of Turks from mainland Turkey so that Greek Cypriots would cease to be the majority. When Erim visited Cyprus as the Turkish representative, he was advised by Field Marshal Sir John Harding, the then Governor of Cyprus, that Turkey should send educated Turks to settle in Cyprus.

 

Turkey actively promoted the idea that on the island of Cyprus two distinctive communities existed, and sidestepped its former claim that "the people of Cyprus were all Turkish subjects". In doing so, Turkey's aim to have self-determination of two to-be equal communities in effect led to de jure partition of the island.[citation needed] This could be justified to the international community against the will of the majority Greek population of the island. Dr. Fazil Küçük in 1954 had already proposed Cyprus be divided in two at the 35° parallel.

 

Lindley Dan, from Notre Dame University, spotted the roots of intercommunal violence to different visions among the two communities of Cyprus (enosis for Greek Cypriots, taksim for Turkish Cypriots). Also, Lindlay wrote that "the merging of church, schools/education, and politics in divisive and nationalistic ways" had played a crucial role in creation of havoc in Cyprus' history. Attalides Michael also pointed to the opposing nationalisms as the cause of the Cyprus problem.

 

By the mid-1950's, the "Cyprus is Turkish" party, movement, and slogan gained force in both Cyprus and Turkey. In a 1954 editorial, Turkish Cypriot leader Dr. Fazil Kuchuk expressed the sentiment that the Turkish youth had grown up with the idea that "as soon as Great Britain leaves the island, it will be taken over by the Turks", and that "Turkey cannot tolerate otherwise". This perspective contributed to the willingness of Turkish Cypriots to align themselves with the British, who started recruiting Turkish Cypriots into the police force that patrolled Cyprus to fight EOKA, a Greek Cypriot nationalist organisation that sought to rid the island of British rule.

 

EOKA targeted colonial authorities, including police, but Georgios Grivas, the leader of EOKA, did not initially wish to open up a new front by fighting Turkish Cypriots and reassured them that EOKA would not harm their people. In 1956, some Turkish Cypriot policemen were killed by EOKA members and this provoked some intercommunal violence in the spring and summer, but these attacks on policemen were not motivated by the fact that they were Turkish Cypriots.

 

However, in January 1957, Grivas changed his policy as his forces in the mountains became increasingly pressured by the British Crown forces. In order to divert the attention of the Crown forces, EOKA members started to target Turkish Cypriot policemen intentionally in the towns, so that Turkish Cypriots would riot against the Greek Cypriots and the security forces would have to be diverted to the towns to restore order. The killing of a Turkish Cypriot policeman on 19 January, when a power station was bombed, and the injury of three others, provoked three days of intercommunal violence in Nicosia. The two communities targeted each other in reprisals, at least one Greek Cypriot was killed and the British Army was deployed in the streets. Greek Cypriot stores were burned and their neighbourhoods attacked. Following the events, the Greek Cypriot leadership spread the propaganda that the riots had merely been an act of Turkish Cypriot aggression. Such events created chaos and drove the communities apart both in Cyprus and in Turkey.

 

On 22 October 1957 Sir Hugh Mackintosh Foot replaced Sir John Harding as the British Governor of Cyprus. Foot suggested five to seven years of self-government before any final decision. His plan rejected both enosis and taksim. The Turkish Cypriot response to this plan was a series of anti-British demonstrations in Nicosia on 27 and 28 January 1958 rejecting the proposed plan because the plan did not include partition. The British then withdrew the plan.

 

In 1957, Black Gang, a Turkish Cypriot pro-taksim paramilitary organisation, was formed to patrol a Turkish Cypriot enclave, the Tahtakale district of Nicosia, against activities of EOKA. The organisation later attempted to grow into a national scale, but failed to gain public support.

 

By 1958, signs of dissatisfaction with the British increased on both sides, with a group of Turkish Cypriots forming Volkan (later renamed to the Turkish Resistance Organisation) paramilitary group to promote partition and the annexation of Cyprus to Turkey as dictated by the Menderes plan. Volkan initially consisted of roughly 100 members, with the stated aim of raising awareness in Turkey of the Cyprus issue and courting military training and support for Turkish Cypriot fighters from the Turkish government.

 

In June 1958, the British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, was expected to propose a plan to resolve the Cyprus issue. In light of the new development, the Turks rioted in Nicosia to promote the idea that Greek and Turkish Cypriots could not live together and therefore any plan that did not include partition would not be viable. This violence was soon followed by bombing, Greek Cypriot deaths and looting of Greek Cypriot-owned shops and houses. Greek and Turkish Cypriots started to flee mixed population villages where they were a minority in search of safety. This was effectively the beginning of the segregation of the two communities. On 7 June 1958, a bomb exploded at the entrance of the Turkish Embassy in Cyprus. Following the bombing, Turkish Cypriots looted Greek Cypriot properties. On 26 June 1984, the Turkish Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktaş, admitted on British channel ITV that the bomb was placed by the Turks themselves in order to create tension. On 9 January 1995, Rauf Denktaş repeated his claim to the famous Turkish newspaper Milliyet in Turkey.

 

The crisis reached a climax on 12 June 1958, when eight Greeks, out of an armed group of thirty five arrested by soldiers of the Royal Horse Guards on suspicion of preparing an attack on the Turkish quarter of Skylloura, were killed in a suspected attack by Turkish Cypriot locals, near the village of Geunyeli, having been ordered to walk back to their village of Kondemenos.

 

After the EOKA campaign had begun, the British government successfully began to turn the Cyprus issue from a British colonial problem into a Greek-Turkish issue. British diplomacy exerted backstage influence on the Adnan Menderes government, with the aim of making Turkey active in Cyprus. For the British, the attempt had a twofold objective. The EOKA campaign would be silenced as quickly as possible, and Turkish Cypriots would not side with Greek Cypriots against the British colonial claims over the island, which would thus remain under the British. The Turkish Cypriot leadership visited Menderes to discuss the Cyprus issue. When asked how the Turkish Cypriots should respond to the Greek Cypriot claim of enosis, Menderes replied: "You should go to the British foreign minister and request the status quo be prolonged, Cyprus to remain as a British colony". When the Turkish Cypriots visited the British Foreign Secretary and requested for Cyprus to remain a colony, he replied: "You should not be asking for colonialism at this day and age, you should be asking for Cyprus be returned to Turkey, its former owner".

 

As Turkish Cypriots began to look to Turkey for protection, Greek Cypriots soon understood that enosis was extremely unlikely. The Greek Cypriot leader, Archbishop Makarios III, now set independence for the island as his objective.

 

Britain resolved to solve the dispute by creating an independent Cyprus. In 1959, all involved parties signed the Zurich Agreements: Britain, Turkey, Greece, and the Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders, Makarios and Dr. Fazil Kucuk, respectively. The new constitution drew heavily on the ethnic composition of the island. The President would be a Greek Cypriot, and the Vice-President a Turkish Cypriot with an equal veto. The contribution to the public service would be set at a ratio of 70:30, and the Supreme Court would consist of an equal number of judges from both communities as well as an independent judge who was not Greek, Turkish or British. The Zurich Agreements were supplemented by a number of treaties. The Treaty of Guarantee stated that secession or union with any state was forbidden, and that Greece, Turkey and Britain would be given guarantor status to intervene if that was violated. The Treaty of Alliance allowed for two small Greek and Turkish military contingents to be stationed on the island, and the Treaty of Establishment gave Britain sovereignty over two bases in Akrotiri and Dhekelia.

 

On 15 August 1960, the Colony of Cyprus became fully independent as the Republic of Cyprus. The new republic remained within the Commonwealth of Nations.

 

The new constitution brought dissatisfaction to Greek Cypriots, who felt it to be highly unjust for them for historical, demographic and contributional reasons. Although 80% of the island's population were Greek Cypriots and these indigenous people had lived on the island for thousands of years and paid 94% of taxes, the new constitution was giving the 17% of the population that was Turkish Cypriots, who paid 6% of taxes, around 30% of government jobs and 40% of national security jobs.

 

Within three years tensions between the two communities in administrative affairs began to show. In particular disputes over separate municipalities and taxation created a deadlock in government. A constitutional court ruled in 1963 Makarios had failed to uphold article 173 of the constitution which called for the establishment of separate municipalities for Turkish Cypriots. Makarios subsequently declared his intention to ignore the judgement, resulting in the West German judge resigning from his position. Makarios proposed thirteen amendments to the constitution, which would have had the effect of resolving most of the issues in the Greek Cypriot favour. Under the proposals, the President and Vice-President would lose their veto, the separate municipalities as sought after by the Turkish Cypriots would be abandoned, the need for separate majorities by both communities in passing legislation would be discarded and the civil service contribution would be set at actual population ratios (82:18) instead of the slightly higher figure for Turkish Cypriots.

 

The intention behind the amendments has long been called into question. The Akritas plan, written in the height of the constitutional dispute by the Greek Cypriot interior minister Polycarpos Georkadjis, called for the removal of undesirable elements of the constitution so as to allow power-sharing to work. The plan envisaged a swift retaliatory attack on Turkish Cypriot strongholds should Turkish Cypriots resort to violence to resist the measures, stating "In the event of a planned or staged Turkish attack, it is imperative to overcome it by force in the shortest possible time, because if we succeed in gaining command of the situation (in one or two days), no outside, intervention would be either justified or possible." Whether Makarios's proposals were part of the Akritas plan is unclear, however it remains that sentiment towards enosis had not completely disappeared with independence. Makarios described independence as "a step on the road to enosis".[31] Preparations for conflict were not entirely absent from Turkish Cypriots either, with right wing elements still believing taksim (partition) the best safeguard against enosis.

 

Greek Cypriots however believe the amendments were a necessity stemming from a perceived attempt by Turkish Cypriots to frustrate the working of government. Turkish Cypriots saw it as a means to reduce their status within the state from one of co-founder to that of minority, seeing it as a first step towards enosis. The security situation deteriorated rapidly.

 

Main articles: Bloody Christmas (1963) and Battle of Tillyria

An armed conflict was triggered after December 21, 1963, a period remembered by Turkish Cypriots as Bloody Christmas, when a Greek Cypriot policemen that had been called to help deal with a taxi driver refusing officers already on the scene access to check the identification documents of his customers, took out his gun upon arrival and shot and killed the taxi driver and his partner. Eric Solsten summarised the events as follows: "a Greek Cypriot police patrol, ostensibly checking identification documents, stopped a Turkish Cypriot couple on the edge of the Turkish quarter. A hostile crowd gathered, shots were fired, and two Turkish Cypriots were killed."

 

In the morning after the shooting, crowds gathered in protest in Northern Nicosia, likely encouraged by the TMT, without incident. On the evening of the 22nd, gunfire broke out, communication lines to the Turkish neighbourhoods were cut, and the Greek Cypriot police occupied the nearby airport. On the 23rd, a ceasefire was negotiated, but did not hold. Fighting, including automatic weapons fire, between Greek and Turkish Cypriots and militias increased in Nicosia and Larnaca. A force of Greek Cypriot irregulars led by Nikos Sampson entered the Nicosia suburb of Omorphita and engaged in heavy firing on armed, as well as by some accounts unarmed, Turkish Cypriots. The Omorphita clash has been described by Turkish Cypriots as a massacre, while this view has generally not been acknowledged by Greek Cypriots.

 

Further ceasefires were arranged between the two sides, but also failed. By Christmas Eve, the 24th, Britain, Greece, and Turkey had joined talks, with all sides calling for a truce. On Christmas day, Turkish fighter jets overflew Nicosia in a show of support. Finally it was agreed to allow a force of 2,700 British soldiers to help enforce a ceasefire. In the next days, a "buffer zone" was created in Nicosia, and a British officer marked a line on a map with green ink, separating the two sides of the city, which was the beginning of the "Green Line". Fighting continued across the island for the next several weeks.

 

In total 364 Turkish Cypriots and 174 Greek Cypriots were killed during the violence. 25,000 Turkish Cypriots from 103-109 villages fled and were displaced into enclaves and thousands of Turkish Cypriot houses were ransacked or completely destroyed.

 

Contemporary newspapers also reported on the forceful exodus of the Turkish Cypriots from their homes. According to The Times in 1964, threats, shootings and attempts of arson were committed against the Turkish Cypriots to force them out of their homes. The Daily Express wrote that "25,000 Turks have already been forced to leave their homes". The Guardian reported a massacre of Turks at Limassol on 16 February 1964.

 

Turkey had by now readied its fleet and its fighter jets appeared over Nicosia. Turkey was dissuaded from direct involvement by the creation of a United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) in 1964. Despite the negotiated ceasefire in Nicosia, attacks on the Turkish Cypriot persisted, particularly in Limassol. Concerned about the possibility of a Turkish invasion, Makarios undertook the creation of a Greek Cypriot conscript-based army called the "National Guard". A general from Greece took charge of the army, whilst a further 20,000 well-equipped officers and men were smuggled from Greece into Cyprus. Turkey threatened to intervene once more, but was prevented by a strongly worded letter from the American President Lyndon B. Johnson, anxious to avoid a conflict between NATO allies Greece and Turkey at the height of the Cold War.

 

Turkish Cypriots had by now established an important bridgehead at Kokkina, provided with arms, volunteers and materials from Turkey and abroad. Seeing this incursion of foreign weapons and troops as a major threat, the Cypriot government invited George Grivas to return from Greece as commander of the Greek troops on the island and launch a major attack on the bridgehead. Turkey retaliated by dispatching its fighter jets to bomb Greek positions, causing Makarios to threaten an attack on every Turkish Cypriot village on the island if the bombings did not cease. The conflict had now drawn in Greece and Turkey, with both countries amassing troops on their Thracian borders. Efforts at mediation by Dean Acheson, a former U.S. Secretary of State, and UN-appointed mediator Galo Plaza had failed, all the while the division of the two communities becoming more apparent. Greek Cypriot forces were estimated at some 30,000, including the National Guard and the large contingent from Greece. Defending the Turkish Cypriot enclaves was a force of approximately 5,000 irregulars, led by a Turkish colonel, but lacking the equipment and organisation of the Greek forces.

 

The Secretary-General of the United Nations in 1964, U Thant, reported the damage during the conflicts:

 

UNFICYP carried out a detailed survey of all damage to properties throughout the island during the disturbances; it shows that in 109 villages, most of them Turkish-Cypriot or mixed villages, 527 houses have been destroyed while 2,000 others have suffered damage from looting.

 

The situation worsened in 1967, when a military junta overthrew the democratically elected government of Greece, and began applying pressure on Makarios to achieve enosis. Makarios, not wishing to become part of a military dictatorship or trigger a Turkish invasion, began to distance himself from the goal of enosis. This caused tensions with the junta in Greece as well as George Grivas in Cyprus. Grivas's control over the National Guard and Greek contingent was seen as a threat to Makarios's position, who now feared a possible coup.[citation needed] The National Guard and Cyprus Police began patrolling the Turkish Cypriot enclaves of Ayios Theodoros and Kophinou, and on November 15 engaged in heavy fighting with the Turkish Cypriots.

 

By the time of his withdrawal 26 Turkish Cypriots had been killed. Turkey replied with an ultimatum demanding that Grivas be removed from the island, that the troops smuggled from Greece in excess of the limits of the Treaty of Alliance be removed, and that the economic blockades on the Turkish Cypriot enclaves be lifted. Grivas was recalled by the Athens Junta and the 12,000 Greek troops were withdrawn. Makarios now attempted to consolidate his position by reducing the number of National Guard troops, and by creating a paramilitary force loyal to Cypriot independence. In 1968, acknowledging that enosis was now all but impossible, Makarios stated, "A solution by necessity must be sought within the limits of what is feasible which does not always coincide with the limits of what is desirable."

 

After 1967 tensions between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots subsided. Instead, the main source of tension on the island came from factions within the Greek Cypriot community. Although Makarios had effectively abandoned enosis in favour of an 'attainable solution', many others continued to believe that the only legitimate political aspiration for Greek Cypriots was union with Greece.

 

On his arrival, Grivas began by establishing a nationalist paramilitary group known as the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston B or EOKA-B), drawing comparisons with the EOKA struggle for enosis under the British colonial administration of the 1950s.

 

The military junta in Athens saw Makarios as an obstacle. Makarios's failure to disband the National Guard, whose officer class was dominated by mainland Greeks, had meant the junta had practical control over the Cypriot military establishment, leaving Makarios isolated and a vulnerable target.

 

During the first Turkish invasion, Turkish troops invaded Cyprus territory on 20 July 1974, invoking its rights under the Treaty of Guarantee. This expansion of Turkish-occupied zone violated International Law as well as the Charter of the United Nations. Turkish troops managed to capture 3% of the island which was accompanied by the burning of the Turkish Cypriot quarter, as well as the raping and killing of women and children. A temporary cease-fire followed which was mitigated by the UN Security Council. Subsequently, the Greek military Junta collapsed on July 23, 1974, and peace talks commenced in which a democratic government was installed. The Resolution 353 was broken after Turkey attacked a second time and managed to get a hold of 37% of Cyprus territory. The Island of Cyprus was appointed a Buffer Zone by the United Nations, which divided the island into two zones through the 'Green Line' and put an end to the Turkish invasion. Although Turkey announced that the occupied areas of Cyprus to be called the Federated Turkish State in 1975, it is not legitimised on a worldwide political scale. The United Nations called for the international recognition of independence for the Republic of Cyprus in the Security Council Resolution 367.

 

In the years after the Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus one can observe a history of failed talks between the two parties. The 1983 declaration of the independent Turkish Republic of Cyprus resulted in a rise of inter-communal tensions and made it increasingly hard to find mutual understanding. With Cyprus' interest of a possible EU membership and a new UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 1997 new hopes arose for a fresh start. International involvement from sides of the US and UK, wanting a solution to the Cyprus dispute prior to the EU accession led to political pressures for new talks. The believe that an accession without a solution would threaten Greek-Turkish relations and acknowledge the partition of the island would direct the coming negotiations.

 

Over the course of two years a concrete plan, the Annan plan was formulated. In 2004 the fifth version agreed upon from both sides and with the endorsement of Turkey, US, UK and EU then was presented to the public and was given a referendum in both Cypriot communities to assure the legitimisation of the resolution. The Turkish Cypriots voted with 65% for the plan, however the Greek Cypriots voted with a 76% majority against. The Annan plan contained multiple important topics. Firstly it established a confederation of two separate states called the United Cyprus Republic. Both communities would have autonomous states combined under one unified government. The members of parliament would be chosen according to the percentage in population numbers to ensure a just involvement from both communities. The paper proposed a demilitarisation of the island over the next years. Furthermore it agreed upon a number of 45000 Turkish settlers that could remain on the island. These settlers became a very important issue concerning peace talks. Originally the Turkish government encouraged Turks to settle in Cyprus providing transfer and property, to establish a counterpart to the Greek Cypriot population due to their 1 to 5 minority. With the economic situation many Turkish-Cypriot decided to leave the island, however their departure is made up by incoming Turkish settlers leaving the population ratio between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots stable. However all these points where criticised and as seen in the vote rejected mainly by the Greek Cypriots. These name the dissolution of the „Republic of Cyprus", economic consequences of a reunion and the remaining Turkish settlers as reason. Many claim that the plan was indeed drawing more from Turkish-Cypriot demands then Greek-Cypriot interests. Taking in consideration that the US wanted to keep Turkey as a strategic partner in future Middle Eastern conflicts.

 

A week after the failed referendum the Republic of Cyprus joined the EU. In multiple instances the EU tried to promote trade with Northern Cyprus but without internationally recognised ports this spiked a grand debate. Both side endure their intention of negotiations, however without the prospect of any new compromises or agreements the UN is unwilling to start the process again. Since 2004 negotiations took place in numbers but without any results, both sides are strongly holding on to their position without an agreeable solution in sight that would suit both parties.

University of California at San Diego (UCSD)

Muir College

Architect: Robert Mosher (1964-69)

Location: San Diego (La Jolla), CA

1.089 cc

4 In-Line

32 hp

 

Class III : Post War "1945 - 1965"

Zoute Concours d'Elegance

Royal Zoute Golf Club

 

Zoute Grand Prix 2022

Knokke - Zoute

België - Belgium

October 2022

1.558 cc

4 in-line

103 hp

 

Class IV : Post-War "1965-1985"

Zoute Concours d'Elegance

Royal Zoute Golf Club

 

Zoute Grand Prix 2022

Knokke - Zoute

België - Belgium

October 2022

Most postwar Bentleys were built to the exact same specifications as their Rolls-Royce counterparts. The sporting heritage of Bentley, including the great Le Mans success history, remained unforgotten however and the engineers at Crewe took every opportunity to create special Bentley models.

Based on the Mark VI, the R-Type Bentley incorporated numerous improvements, not least a considerable increase in horsepower over the Mark VI thanks to a higher compression ratio.

Under the guidance of Ivan Evernden, Rolls-Royce Motors Ltd decided in 1950 to build a very special R-Type Bentley, combining the traditional luxury of all Bentley products with the sporting character of the pre-war Bentleys, "the Silent Sportcars" as they were known. A special Bentley, known as the R-Type Continental, was developed with modified suspension, a lower scuttle and an all-aluminium body with a lower radiator shell by H.J. Mulliner, weighing in at just 350 kilograms including the interior. The prototype, affectionately called "Olga", achieved a top speed of 200 kph, making this, in 1953, the fastest 4-seater car in the world. Only 208 examples of the R-Type Continental were built, and only 41 of them with left hand steering.

This example, one of the very rare LHD versions, was delivered new to Major Eric Loder in France in 1954. Equipped with the optional lightweight bucket seats and the manual gearbox, the car was built to the most desirable specification possible. When the car was shipped to New York for a subsequent owner in 1960, it was badly damaged while being offloaded at the New York harbour and had to be sent back to A.B. Price in England for repairs. The Bentley then formed an important part in a number of prominent US collections before coming back to England in 1990 where, between 1990 and 1994, it was completely restored to the highest possible standards by the world's leading specialist, P. & A. Wood in Dunmow. This involved a complete dismantling and rebuild of every aspect of the car, separating the body from the chassis. In the late nineties, this wonderful Bentley was sold to a important private collection in Switzerland.

 

Chassis number : BC44LC (C-series)

Engine number : BCC43

Engine specification : 6-cylinder 4566 cc

Colour : Astral Blue

Interior : Tan leather

Taken with an Argus A2 camera in week 472 of my 52 film cameras in 52 weeks project:

52cameras.blogspot.com/

www.flickr.com/photos/tony_kemplen/collections/72157623113584240

Although the shutter seemed to be working OK before I loaded the film, once I was outside in the cold weather it became sluggish. The majority of the photos are hopelessly over-exposed, but I've salvaged a few. This one was taken using the "B" setting, so the sticky shutter was not a problem.

In the postwar years Penguin Books issued both a free Pengins Progress, as seen here and that was posted free to over forty thousand subscribers, and a 'Classified List' that was issued less frequently. Although the List detailed both available and upcoming books of the Penguin family, the Progress gave a more in depth resume of titles and series that were underway.

 

This issue as well as being posted from the Vase Press at Thrapston was also printed there. Sadly no designer is shown - the covers showing variations on the Penguin and the end papers cleverly adapting woodcuts from the forthcoming King Penguin book on Bewick's woodcuts. Indeed the front cover carefully takes Bewick's original owl and replaces it with the penguin!

5.800 cc

V8

248 hp

 

Class IV : Post War "1965 - 1985"

Zoute Concours d'Elegance

Royal Zoute Golf Club

 

Zoute Grand Prix 2022

Knokke - Zoute

België - Belgium

October 2022

mémoire2cité - Sols absorbants, formes arrondies et couleurs vives, les aires de jeux standardisées font désormais partie du paysage urbain. Toujours les mêmes toboggans sécurisés, châteaux forts en bois et animaux à ressort. Ces non-lieux qu’on finit par ne plus voir ont une histoire, parallèle à celle des différentes visions portées sur l’enfant et l’éducation. En retournant jouer au xixe siècle, sur les premiers playgrounds des États-Unis, on assiste à la construction d’une nation – et à des jeux de société qui changent notre vision sur les balançoires du capitalisme. Ce texte est paru dans le numéro 4 de la revue Jef Klak « Ch’val de Course », printemps-été 2017. La version ici publiée en ligne est une version légèrement remaniée à l’occasion de sa republication dans le magazine Palais no 27 1, paru en juin 2018. la video içi www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwj1wh5k5PY The concept for adventure playgrounds originated in postwar Europe, after a playground designer found that children had more fun with the trash and rubble left behind by bombings -inventing their own toys and playing with them- than on the conventional equipment of swings and slides. Narrator John Snagge was a well-known voice talent in the UK, working as a newsreader for BBC Radio - jefklak.org/le-gouvernement-des-playgrounds/ - www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/chasing-the-vanishing-p... or children, playgrounds are where magic happens. And if you count yourself among Baby Boomers or Gen Xers, you probably have fond memories of high steel jungle gyms and even higher metal slides that squeaked and groaned as you slid down them. The cheerful variety of animals and vehicles on springs gave you plenty of rides to choose from, while a spiral slide, often made of striped panels, was a repeated thrill. When you dismounted from a teeter-totter, you had to be careful not to send your partner crashing to the ground or get hit in the head by your own seat. The tougher, faster kids always pushed the brightly colored merry-go-round, trying to make riders as dizzy as possible. In the same way, you’d dare your sibling or best friend to push you even higher on the swing so your toes could touch the sky. The most exciting playgrounds would take the form of a pirate ship, a giant robot, or a space rocket.

“My husband would look at these big metal things and go, ‘Oh my God, those are the Slides of Death!'” - insh.world/history/playground-equipment-of-yesterday-that...

Today, these objects of happy summers past have nearly disappeared, replaced by newer equipment that’s lower to the ground and made of plastic, painted metal, and sometimes rot-resistant woods like cedar or redwood. The transformation began in 1973, when the U.S. Congress established the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which began tracking playground injuries at hospital emergency rooms. The study led to the publication of the first Handbook for Public Playground Safety in 1981, which signaled the beginning of the end for much of the playground equipment in use. (See the latest PPS handbook here.) Then, the American Society for Testing and Materials created a subcommittee of designers and playground-equipment manufacturers to set safety standards for the whole industry. When they published their guidelines in 1993, they suggested most existing playground surfaces, which were usually asphalt, dirt, or grass, needed to be replaced with pits of wood or rubber mulch or sand, prompting many schools and parks to rip their old playgrounds out entirely.

Top: A Space Age rocket-themed playground set by Miracle Playground Equipment, introduced circa 1968, photographed in Burlington, Colorado, in 2009. Above: Two seesaws and a snail-shaped climber, circa 1970s, photographed in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, in 2007. (Photos by Brenda Biondo)

Top: A Space Age rocket-themed playground set by Miracle Playground Equipment, introduced circa 1968, photographed in Burlington, Colorado, in 2009. Above: Two seesaws and a snail-shaped climber, circa 1970s, photographed in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, in 2007. (Photos by Brenda Biondo)

That said, removing and replacing playground equipment takes money, so a certain amount of vintage playground equipment survived into the next millennium—but it’s vanishing fast. Fortunately, Brenda Biondo, a freelance journalist turned photographer, felt inspired to document these playscapes before they’ve all been melted down. Her photographs capture the sculptural beauty and creativity of the vintage apparatuses, as well as that feeling of nostalgia you get when you see a piece of your childhood. After a decade of hunting down old playgrounds, Biondo published a coffee-table book, 2014’s Once Upon a Playground: A Celebration of Classic American Playgrounds, 1920-1975, which includes both her photographs of vintage equipment and pages of old playground catalogs that sold it.

Starting this November, Biondo’s playground photos will hit the road as part of a four-year ExhibitsUSA traveling show, which will also include vintage playground postcards and catalog pages from Biondo’s collection. The show will make stops in smaller museums and history centers around the United States, passing through Temple, Texas; Lincoln, Nebraska; Kansas City, Missouri; and Greenville, South Carolina. Biondo talked to us on the phone from her home in small-town Colorado, where she lives with her husband and children.

This 1975 Miracle catalog page reads, "This famous Lifetime Whirl has delighted three generations of children and still is a safe, playground favorite. Although it has gone through many improvements many of the original models are still spinning on playgrounds from coast to coast." (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)This 1975 Miracle catalog page reads, “This famous Lifetime Whirl has delighted three generations of children and still is a safe, playground favorite. Although it has gone through many improvements many of the original models are still spinning on playgrounds from coast to coast.” (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)Collectors Weekly: What inspired you to photograph playgrounds?Biondo: In 2004, I happened to be at my local park with my 1-year-old daughter, who was playing in the sandbox. I had just switched careers, from freelance journalism to photography, and I was looking for a starter project. I looked around the playground and thought, “Where is all the equipment that I remember growing up on?” They had new plastic contraptions, but nothing like the big metal slides I grew up with. After that, I started driving around to other playgrounds to see if any of this old equipment still existed. I found very little of it and realized it was disappearing quickly. That got to me.I felt like somebody should be documenting this equipment, because it was such a big part—and a very good part—of so many people’s childhoods. I couldn’t find anybody else who was documenting it, and I didn’t see any evidence that the Smithsonian was collecting it. As far as I could tell, it was just getting ripped up and sent to the scrap heap. At first, I started traveling around Colorado where I live, visiting playgrounds. Eventually, I took longer trips around the Southwest, and then I started looking for playgrounds whenever I was in any other parts of the country, like around California and the East Coast. It was a long-term project—shot over the course of a decade. And every year that I was shooting, it got harder and harder to find those pieces of old equipment.

This merry-go-round, photographed in Cañon City, Colorado, in 2006, is very similar to the Lifetime Whirl above. In the background are a rideable jalopy and animals, including four attached to a teeter-totter. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

This merry-go-round, photographed in Cañon City, Colorado, in 2006, is very similar to the Lifetime Whirl above. In the background are a rideable jalopy and animals, including four attached to a teeter-totter. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: How did you find them?

Biondo: I would just drive around. I started hunting down local elementary schools and main-street playgrounds as well as neighborhood playgrounds. If I had a weekend, I would say, “OK, I’m going to drive from my home three hours east to the Kansas border, stay overnight and drive back.” Along the way, I would stop at every little town that I’d pass. They usually had one tiny main-street playground and one elementary school. I never knew what I was going to find. In a poorer area, a town often doesn’t have much money to replace playground equipment, whereas more affluent areas usually have updated their playgrounds by now. It was a bit of a crap shoot. Sometimes, I’d drive for hours and not really find anything—or I’d find one old playground after the other, because I happened to be in an area where equipment hadn’t been replaced.

I couldn’t get to every state, so I had to shoot where I was. I think there certainly are still old playgrounds out there, especially in small towns. But there’s fewer and fewer of them every year. My book has something like 170 photographs. I would guess that half the equipment pictured is already gone. Sometimes, I’d go back to a playground with a nice piece of equipment a year later to reshoot it, maybe in different lighting or a different season, and so often it had been removed. That pressured me to get out as often as I could because if I waited a few weeks, that piece might not be there anymore.

A 1911 postcard shows girls playing on an outdoor gymnasium at Mayo Park in Rochester, Minnesota.

a 1911 postcard shows girls playing on an outdoor gymnasium at Mayo Park in Rochester, Minnesota.

Collectors Weekly: What did you learn about playground history?

Biondo: I didn’t know American playgrounds started as part of the social reform or progressive movement of the early 1900s. Reformers hoped to keep poor inner-city immigrant kids safe and out of trouble. Back then, city children were playing in the streets with nothing to do, and when cars became more popular, kids started to get hit by motorists. Child activists started building playgrounds in big cities like Boston, Chicago, and New York as a way to help and protect these kids. These reformers felt they could build model citizens by teaching cooperation and manners through playgrounds. These early main-street parks would also have playground leaders who orchestrated activities such as games and songs.

“I started driving to playgrounds to see if any old equipment still existed. I found very little of it and realized it was disappearing quickly.”

In the late 1800s, Germans developed what they called “sand gardens,” which are just piles of sand where kids can come dig and build things. There were few of those in the United States as well. But by the early 1900s, the emphasis of playgrounds was on the apparatuses, things kids could climb on or swing on.

Soon after I started researching playground history, I happened to stumble on an eBay auction for a 1926 catalog that the playground manufacturers used to send to schools. At that point, I wasn’t thinking of doing a book, but I thought I could do something with it. I won the catalog; I paid, like, $12 for it. And it was so interesting because I could see this vintage equipment when it was brand new and considered modern and advanced. The manufacturers boasted about how safe it was and how it was good for building both muscles and imaginations.

After that, I would always search on eBay for playground catalogs, and I ended up with about three dozen catalogs from different manufacturers. My oldest is 1916, and my newest is from 1975. So I would take a photograph of some type of merry-go-round, and then I might find that same merry-go-round in a 1930 catalog. Often in the book, I pair my picture with the page from the catalog showing when it was first manufactured. I discovered a couple dozen manufacturers, which tended to be located in the bigger industrial areas with steel manufacturing, like Trenton, New Jersey, and Kokomo and Litchfield, Indiana. Pueblo, Colorado, even had a playground manufacturer. Burke and GameTime were big 20th century companies, and actually are among few still in existence.

The cover of a 1926 catalog for EverWear Manufacturing Company. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

The cover of a 1926 catalog for EverWear Manufacturing Company. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: I recently came across an old metal slide whose steps had the name of the manufacturer, American, forged in openwork letters.

Biondo: I love those. One of the last pages in the book shows treads from six different slides, and they each had the name of their manufacturer in them, including Porter, American, and Burke. One time when I was traveling, I did a quick side trip to a small town with an elementary school. In the parking lot was this old metal slide with the American step treads, lying on its side. You could tell it had just been ripped off out of the concrete, which was still attached to the bottom, and was waiting for the steel recyclers to come and take it away.

I thought, “Oh my gosh, just put it on eBay! Somebody is going to want that. Don’t melt it down.” But nobody thinks about this stuff getting thrown away when it should be preserved. If you go on eBay, you can find a lot of those small animals on springs that little kids ride, because they’re small enough to be shipped. Once I saw someone selling one of those huge rocket ships, which had been dismantled, on eBay, but I don’t know if anybody ever bid on it. It’s rare to see the big stuff, because it is so expensive to ship. It’s like, “What kind of truck do you need to haul this thing away?” I don’t know of anyone who’s collecting those pieces, but I hope somebody is.

A metal slide in Victor, Colorado, had step treads with the name "American" in them. Photographed in 2008. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

A metal slide in Victor, Colorado, had step treads with the name “American” in them. Photographed in 2008. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: It seems like an opportunity for both starting a collection or repurposing the material.

Biondo: I photographed many of the apparatuses as if they were sculptures because they have really cool designs and colors. Even when they’re worn down, the exposed layers of paint can be beautiful. Hardly anybody stops to look at it that way. People drive by and think, “Oh, there’s an old, rusty, rundown playground.” But if you take the time to look closely at this stuff, it’s really interesting. Just by looking at these pieces, you can picture all the kids who played on them.

Collectors Weekly: Aren’t people nostalgic for their childhood playgrounds?

Biondo: While I was taking the pictures, I visited Boulder, Colorado, which is a very affluent community. I was sure there would be no old playground equipment there. When I was driving around, all of a sudden, I looked over and saw this huge rocket ship. It turns out that one of the original NASA astronauts, Scott Carpenter, grew up in Boulder, and this playground was built in the ’60s to honor their hometown boy. Because of that, the citizens of Boulder never wanted to take down the rocket ship. One of the first exhibitions of this photography project happened in Boulder, and at the opening, I sold four prints of that rocket ship. People would come up to me at the exhibition, and they’d go, “Oh my gosh, I grew up playing on this when I was a little kid! Now, my kids are playing on it, and I’m so excited that I can get a picture of it and hang it in their bedroom.” So people have a strong nostalgic attachment to this equipment. It’s sad that most of it’s not going to be around for much longer.

A 1968 Miracle Playground Equipment catalog features the huge rocket-ship play set seen at the top of this story. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

A 1968 Miracle Playground Equipment catalog features the huge rocket-ship playset seen at the top of this story. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: Besides slides and animals on springs, what were some other pieces that were common in older playgrounds?

Biondo: I didn’t come across as many old swings as I expected. I thought they would be all over the place, but I guess they’re gone now because they were so easy to replace. I tended to find merry-go-rounds more frequently—you know, the one where you’d run around pushing them and then jump on. When my kids were younger, they’d go out playground hunting with me, and the merry-go-rounds were their favorite things. They’re just so fun. The other thing you don’t find often is the seesaw or teeter-totter, and that was my favorite.The Karymor Stationary Jingle Ring Outfit appeared in the 1931 playground catalog put out by Pueblo, Colorado's R.F. Lamar and Co. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

The Karymor Stationary Jingle Ring Outfit appeared in the 1931 playground catalog put out by Pueblo, Colorado’s R.F. Lamar and Co. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

Before I started this project, I didn’t know there was such a variety of equipment. I figured I’d see seesaws, swings, slides, and merry-go-rounds. But I had no idea there were such things as revolving swings, which would be attached to a spinning pole via outstretched metal arms. Many mid-century pieces had themes from pop culture like “The Wizard of Oz,” “Cinderella,” “Denis the Menace,” cowboys and Indians, and Saturday-morning cartoons. During the Space Age, you started to see pieces of equipment shaped like rocket ships and satellites, because in the ’60s, Americans were so excited about space exploration. What was going on in the broader culture often got reflected in playground equipment.

Pursuing the catalogs was eye-opening. I live about an hour and a half south of Denver, so I often looked for playgrounds around the city. There, I’d find these contraptions where were shaped like umbrella skeletons, but then they had these rings hanging off the spindles. I’ve never seen them outside of Colorado. Then I bought a 1930s catalog from the manufacturer in Pueblo, Colorado, which is only 45 minutes from me, and it featured this apparatus. Later, I met people in Denver who’d say, “Oh, yeah, I remember that thing as a kid. It’s kind of like monkey bars where you had to try and get from ring to ring swinging and hanging by your arms.” There was so much variety, and even so many variations on the basics.I have a cool catalog from 1926 from the manufacturer Mitchell, which doesn’t exist anymore. I looked at one of the contraptions they advertised and I was like, “Oh my God, this looks like a torture device!” It was their own proprietary apparatus and maybe it didn’t prove to be very popular. I had never seen something like that on a playground. There probably weren’t very many of them installed.

This strange Climbing Swing from the 1926 Mitchell Manufacturing Company catalog looks a bit like a torture device. Brenda Biondo says she's never found one in the wild. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

This Climbing Swing from the 1926 Mitchell Manufacturing Company catalog looks a bit like a torture device. Biondo’s never found one in the wild. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: After a while, were you able to date pieces just by looking at them?

Biondo: From looking at the catalogs, I certainly got a better idea of when things were built. But there were a handful things I couldn’t find in the catalogs. You can guess the age by knowing the design, as well as by looking at the amount of wear and the height of the piece. Usually, the taller it was, the older it was. One of the oldest slides I photographed was probably from the ’30s. I climbed to the top to shoot it as if the viewer were going to go down the slide. Up there, the place where you’d sit before sliding had been used for so many years by so many kids that I could see an outline of all the butts worn into the metal. You can imagine all the children who must have gone down that slide to wear the metal down like that.

This 1930s-era slide, found in Sargents, Colorado, in 2007, developed a butt-shaped imprint. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

This 1930s-era slide, found in Sargents, Colorado, in 2007, developed a butt-shaped imprint. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: How did Modernism influence playground design?

Biondo: In 1953, the Museum of Modern Art in New York held a competition for playground design. Modern Art was just getting popular, and the idea of incorporating the theories of Modernist design into utilitarian objects was in the air, and was translated into playgrounds for several years. I have a 1967 catalog that features very abstract playground equipment made from sinuous blobs of poured concrete. And you’ve probably seen some of it, but there’s not too much of that around. That’s another example of how broader cultural trends were reflected in playgrounds.

When most people think of playgrounds, they say, “Oh, that’s a kiddie subject. There’s not much to it.” But when you start looking into them, you realize playgrounds are a fascinating piece of American culture—they go back a hundred years and played a part in most Americans’ lives. These playground pieces are icons of our childhood.

Collectors Weekly:What was the impact of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which launched in 1973?

Biondo: Things started to change after that, which is why I limited to book to apparatuses made before 1975. New playgrounds were starting to be build out of plastic and fiberglass. I looked up the statistics, and according to the little research I’ve done—contrary to what you’d expect—there’s not much difference in the number of injuries on older equipment versus injuries on equipment today. A “New York Times” article from 2011 called “Can a Playground Be Too Safe?” explains that studies show when playground equipment was really high and just had asphalt underneath it and not seven layers of mulch, thekids knew they had to be careful because they didn’t want to fall. Nowadays, when everything is lower and there’s so much mulch, kids are just used to jumping down and falling and catching themselves. So kids learned to assess risk by playing on the older equipment. They also learned to challenge themselves because it is a little scary to go up to the top of the thing.

This old postcard of Shawnee Park in Kansas City, Kansas, circa 1912, shows how tall slides could get.

 

This old postcard of Shawnee Park in Kansas City, Kansas, circa 1912, shows how tall slides could get.

At my local park where you have new equipment, the monkey bars aren’t that high and there’s mulch below it, but a child fell and broke their arm last year. When I was talking to the principal at the school where they had just torn out that old American slide, I asked her, “Why did you replace the equipment?” She said, “We felt the parents in the community were expecting to have a little bit newer and nicer equipment. And this stuff had been here for so long.” And I said, “Have you seen a difference in injury rates since you put up your newer equipment?” She replied, “I’ve been a principal here several years, and we never had a serious broken-bone injury on the playground until four months ago on the new equipment.”

There were some nasty accidents in the ‘60s and ’70s, where kids got their arms or their heads caught in the contraptions. Those issues definitely needed to be assessed. What’s interesting is the Consumer Product Safety Commission never issued requirements, just suggested guidelines. But manufacturers felt that if their equipment didn’t meet those guidelines, they’d be vulnerable to liability. Everybody went to the extreme, making everything super safe so they wouldn’t risk getting sued.A 1970s-era climbing-bar apparatus, photographed in Rocky Ford, Colorado, in 2006. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

A 1970s-era climbing-bar apparatus, photographed in Rocky Ford, Colorado, in 2006. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

In the last decade, people have been looking at playground-equipment design and trying to make it more challenging and more encouraging of imaginative play, but without making it more likely someone’s going to get injured. And adults, I think, are realizing kids are spending more time indoors on devices so they want to do everything they can to encourage kids to still get outside, run around, and climb on things.

Collectors Weekly: You don’t need a playground to hurt yourself. When I was a kid, I fell off a farm post and broke my arm.Biondo: Oh, yeah, kids have been falling out trees forever—they always want to climb stuff. Playground politics are always evolving. Even in the 1920s, the catalogs talked about how safe their equipment was, and they were selling these 30-foot slides. Sometimes, I’d be out with my family on a vacation, and we’d make a little side tour to look for an old playground to shoot. My husband would look at these big metal things and go, “Oh my God, those are the Slides of Death!” because they were so huge and rickety. But back then, these were very safe pieces of equipment compared to what kids had been playing on before.

A page from the 1971 GameTime catalog offering rideable Saddle Mates. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

A page from the 1971 GameTime catalog offering rideable Saddle Mates. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: Growing up in the 1980s, I always hated the new fiberglass slides because I’d end up with all these tiny glass shards in my butt.

Biondo: Yeah, I remember that, too. It’s always something. It is fun to talk to people about playgrounds because it reminds them of all the fun stuff they did as kids. When people see pictures of these metal slides, they tell me, “Oh my gosh, I remember getting such a bad burn from a metal slide one summer!” The metal would get so hot in the sun, and kids would take pieces of wax paper with them to sit on so they’d go flying down the slide. I have some old postcards that show playgrounds from the early ’20s. The wood seesaws not only were huge, but they had no handles so you had hold on to the sides of the board where you sat. I’m looking at that like, “Oh my God!” It’s all relative.

playground_postcard_milwaukee

Kids ride the rocking-boat seesaw at a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, park in this postcard postmarked 1910.

(To see more of Brenda Biondo’s playground photos and vintage catalog pages, pick up a copy of her book, “Once Upon a Playground: A Celebration of Classic American Playground, 1920-1975.” To find an exhibition of Biondo’s playground project, or to bring it to your town, visit the ExhibitsUSA page. To learn more about creative mid-century playgrounds around the globe, also pick up, “The Playground Project” by Xavier Salle and Vincent Romagny.) insh.world/history/playground-equipment-of-yesterday-that...

mémoire2cité - Sols absorbants, formes arrondies et couleurs vives, les aires de jeux standardisées font désormais partie du paysage urbain. Toujours les mêmes toboggans sécurisés, châteaux forts en bois et animaux à ressort. Ces non-lieux qu’on finit par ne plus voir ont une histoire, parallèle à celle des différentes visions portées sur l’enfant et l’éducation. En retournant jouer au xixe siècle, sur les premiers playgrounds des États-Unis, on assiste à la construction d’une nation – et à des jeux de société qui changent notre vision sur les balançoires du capitalisme. Ce texte est paru dans le numéro 4 de la revue Jef Klak « Ch’val de Course », printemps-été 2017. La version ici publiée en ligne est une version légèrement remaniée à l’occasion de sa republication dans le magazine Palais no 27 1, paru en juin 2018. la video içi www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwj1wh5k5PY The concept for adventure playgrounds originated in postwar Europe, after a playground designer found that children had more fun with the trash and rubble left behind by bombings -inventing their own toys and playing with them- than on the conventional equipment of swings and slides. Narrator John Snagge was a well-known voice talent in the UK, working as a newsreader for BBC Radio - jefklak.org/le-gouvernement-des-playgrounds/ - www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/chasing-the-vanishing-p... or children, playgrounds are where magic happens. And if you count yourself among Baby Boomers or Gen Xers, you probably have fond memories of high steel jungle gyms and even higher metal slides that squeaked and groaned as you slid down them. The cheerful variety of animals and vehicles on springs gave you plenty of rides to choose from, while a spiral slide, often made of striped panels, was a repeated thrill. When you dismounted from a teeter-totter, you had to be careful not to send your partner crashing to the ground or get hit in the head by your own seat. The tougher, faster kids always pushed the brightly colored merry-go-round, trying to make riders as dizzy as possible. In the same way, you’d dare your sibling or best friend to push you even higher on the swing so your toes could touch the sky. The most exciting playgrounds would take the form of a pirate ship, a giant robot, or a space rocket.

“My husband would look at these big metal things and go, ‘Oh my God, those are the Slides of Death!'” - insh.world/history/playground-equipment-of-yesterday-that...

Today, these objects of happy summers past have nearly disappeared, replaced by newer equipment that’s lower to the ground and made of plastic, painted metal, and sometimes rot-resistant woods like cedar or redwood. The transformation began in 1973, when the U.S. Congress established the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which began tracking playground injuries at hospital emergency rooms. The study led to the publication of the first Handbook for Public Playground Safety in 1981, which signaled the beginning of the end for much of the playground equipment in use. (See the latest PPS handbook here.) Then, the American Society for Testing and Materials created a subcommittee of designers and playground-equipment manufacturers to set safety standards for the whole industry. When they published their guidelines in 1993, they suggested most existing playground surfaces, which were usually asphalt, dirt, or grass, needed to be replaced with pits of wood or rubber mulch or sand, prompting many schools and parks to rip their old playgrounds out entirely.

Top: A Space Age rocket-themed playground set by Miracle Playground Equipment, introduced circa 1968, photographed in Burlington, Colorado, in 2009. Above: Two seesaws and a snail-shaped climber, circa 1970s, photographed in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, in 2007. (Photos by Brenda Biondo)

Top: A Space Age rocket-themed playground set by Miracle Playground Equipment, introduced circa 1968, photographed in Burlington, Colorado, in 2009. Above: Two seesaws and a snail-shaped climber, circa 1970s, photographed in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, in 2007. (Photos by Brenda Biondo)

That said, removing and replacing playground equipment takes money, so a certain amount of vintage playground equipment survived into the next millennium—but it’s vanishing fast. Fortunately, Brenda Biondo, a freelance journalist turned photographer, felt inspired to document these playscapes before they’ve all been melted down. Her photographs capture the sculptural beauty and creativity of the vintage apparatuses, as well as that feeling of nostalgia you get when you see a piece of your childhood. After a decade of hunting down old playgrounds, Biondo published a coffee-table book, 2014’s Once Upon a Playground: A Celebration of Classic American Playgrounds, 1920-1975, which includes both her photographs of vintage equipment and pages of old playground catalogs that sold it.

Starting this November, Biondo’s playground photos will hit the road as part of a four-year ExhibitsUSA traveling show, which will also include vintage playground postcards and catalog pages from Biondo’s collection. The show will make stops in smaller museums and history centers around the United States, passing through Temple, Texas; Lincoln, Nebraska; Kansas City, Missouri; and Greenville, South Carolina. Biondo talked to us on the phone from her home in small-town Colorado, where she lives with her husband and children.

This 1975 Miracle catalog page reads, "This famous Lifetime Whirl has delighted three generations of children and still is a safe, playground favorite. Although it has gone through many improvements many of the original models are still spinning on playgrounds from coast to coast." (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)This 1975 Miracle catalog page reads, “This famous Lifetime Whirl has delighted three generations of children and still is a safe, playground favorite. Although it has gone through many improvements many of the original models are still spinning on playgrounds from coast to coast.” (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)Collectors Weekly: What inspired you to photograph playgrounds?Biondo: In 2004, I happened to be at my local park with my 1-year-old daughter, who was playing in the sandbox. I had just switched careers, from freelance journalism to photography, and I was looking for a starter project. I looked around the playground and thought, “Where is all the equipment that I remember growing up on?” They had new plastic contraptions, but nothing like the big metal slides I grew up with. After that, I started driving around to other playgrounds to see if any of this old equipment still existed. I found very little of it and realized it was disappearing quickly. That got to me.I felt like somebody should be documenting this equipment, because it was such a big part—and a very good part—of so many people’s childhoods. I couldn’t find anybody else who was documenting it, and I didn’t see any evidence that the Smithsonian was collecting it. As far as I could tell, it was just getting ripped up and sent to the scrap heap. At first, I started traveling around Colorado where I live, visiting playgrounds. Eventually, I took longer trips around the Southwest, and then I started looking for playgrounds whenever I was in any other parts of the country, like around California and the East Coast. It was a long-term project—shot over the course of a decade. And every year that I was shooting, it got harder and harder to find those pieces of old equipment.

This merry-go-round, photographed in Cañon City, Colorado, in 2006, is very similar to the Lifetime Whirl above. In the background are a rideable jalopy and animals, including four attached to a teeter-totter. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

This merry-go-round, photographed in Cañon City, Colorado, in 2006, is very similar to the Lifetime Whirl above. In the background are a rideable jalopy and animals, including four attached to a teeter-totter. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: How did you find them?

Biondo: I would just drive around. I started hunting down local elementary schools and main-street playgrounds as well as neighborhood playgrounds. If I had a weekend, I would say, “OK, I’m going to drive from my home three hours east to the Kansas border, stay overnight and drive back.” Along the way, I would stop at every little town that I’d pass. They usually had one tiny main-street playground and one elementary school. I never knew what I was going to find. In a poorer area, a town often doesn’t have much money to replace playground equipment, whereas more affluent areas usually have updated their playgrounds by now. It was a bit of a crap shoot. Sometimes, I’d drive for hours and not really find anything—or I’d find one old playground after the other, because I happened to be in an area where equipment hadn’t been replaced.

I couldn’t get to every state, so I had to shoot where I was. I think there certainly are still old playgrounds out there, especially in small towns. But there’s fewer and fewer of them every year. My book has something like 170 photographs. I would guess that half the equipment pictured is already gone. Sometimes, I’d go back to a playground with a nice piece of equipment a year later to reshoot it, maybe in different lighting or a different season, and so often it had been removed. That pressured me to get out as often as I could because if I waited a few weeks, that piece might not be there anymore.

A 1911 postcard shows girls playing on an outdoor gymnasium at Mayo Park in Rochester, Minnesota.

a 1911 postcard shows girls playing on an outdoor gymnasium at Mayo Park in Rochester, Minnesota.

Collectors Weekly: What did you learn about playground history?

Biondo: I didn’t know American playgrounds started as part of the social reform or progressive movement of the early 1900s. Reformers hoped to keep poor inner-city immigrant kids safe and out of trouble. Back then, city children were playing in the streets with nothing to do, and when cars became more popular, kids started to get hit by motorists. Child activists started building playgrounds in big cities like Boston, Chicago, and New York as a way to help and protect these kids. These reformers felt they could build model citizens by teaching cooperation and manners through playgrounds. These early main-street parks would also have playground leaders who orchestrated activities such as games and songs.

“I started driving to playgrounds to see if any old equipment still existed. I found very little of it and realized it was disappearing quickly.”

In the late 1800s, Germans developed what they called “sand gardens,” which are just piles of sand where kids can come dig and build things. There were few of those in the United States as well. But by the early 1900s, the emphasis of playgrounds was on the apparatuses, things kids could climb on or swing on.

Soon after I started researching playground history, I happened to stumble on an eBay auction for a 1926 catalog that the playground manufacturers used to send to schools. At that point, I wasn’t thinking of doing a book, but I thought I could do something with it. I won the catalog; I paid, like, $12 for it. And it was so interesting because I could see this vintage equipment when it was brand new and considered modern and advanced. The manufacturers boasted about how safe it was and how it was good for building both muscles and imaginations.

After that, I would always search on eBay for playground catalogs, and I ended up with about three dozen catalogs from different manufacturers. My oldest is 1916, and my newest is from 1975. So I would take a photograph of some type of merry-go-round, and then I might find that same merry-go-round in a 1930 catalog. Often in the book, I pair my picture with the page from the catalog showing when it was first manufactured. I discovered a couple dozen manufacturers, which tended to be located in the bigger industrial areas with steel manufacturing, like Trenton, New Jersey, and Kokomo and Litchfield, Indiana. Pueblo, Colorado, even had a playground manufacturer. Burke and GameTime were big 20th century companies, and actually are among few still in existence.

The cover of a 1926 catalog for EverWear Manufacturing Company. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

The cover of a 1926 catalog for EverWear Manufacturing Company. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: I recently came across an old metal slide whose steps had the name of the manufacturer, American, forged in openwork letters.

Biondo: I love those. One of the last pages in the book shows treads from six different slides, and they each had the name of their manufacturer in them, including Porter, American, and Burke. One time when I was traveling, I did a quick side trip to a small town with an elementary school. In the parking lot was this old metal slide with the American step treads, lying on its side. You could tell it had just been ripped off out of the concrete, which was still attached to the bottom, and was waiting for the steel recyclers to come and take it away.

I thought, “Oh my gosh, just put it on eBay! Somebody is going to want that. Don’t melt it down.” But nobody thinks about this stuff getting thrown away when it should be preserved. If you go on eBay, you can find a lot of those small animals on springs that little kids ride, because they’re small enough to be shipped. Once I saw someone selling one of those huge rocket ships, which had been dismantled, on eBay, but I don’t know if anybody ever bid on it. It’s rare to see the big stuff, because it is so expensive to ship. It’s like, “What kind of truck do you need to haul this thing away?” I don’t know of anyone who’s collecting those pieces, but I hope somebody is.

A metal slide in Victor, Colorado, had step treads with the name "American" in them. Photographed in 2008. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

A metal slide in Victor, Colorado, had step treads with the name “American” in them. Photographed in 2008. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: It seems like an opportunity for both starting a collection or repurposing the material.

Biondo: I photographed many of the apparatuses as if they were sculptures because they have really cool designs and colors. Even when they’re worn down, the exposed layers of paint can be beautiful. Hardly anybody stops to look at it that way. People drive by and think, “Oh, there’s an old, rusty, rundown playground.” But if you take the time to look closely at this stuff, it’s really interesting. Just by looking at these pieces, you can picture all the kids who played on them.

Collectors Weekly: Aren’t people nostalgic for their childhood playgrounds?

Biondo: While I was taking the pictures, I visited Boulder, Colorado, which is a very affluent community. I was sure there would be no old playground equipment there. When I was driving around, all of a sudden, I looked over and saw this huge rocket ship. It turns out that one of the original NASA astronauts, Scott Carpenter, grew up in Boulder, and this playground was built in the ’60s to honor their hometown boy. Because of that, the citizens of Boulder never wanted to take down the rocket ship. One of the first exhibitions of this photography project happened in Boulder, and at the opening, I sold four prints of that rocket ship. People would come up to me at the exhibition, and they’d go, “Oh my gosh, I grew up playing on this when I was a little kid! Now, my kids are playing on it, and I’m so excited that I can get a picture of it and hang it in their bedroom.” So people have a strong nostalgic attachment to this equipment. It’s sad that most of it’s not going to be around for much longer.

A 1968 Miracle Playground Equipment catalog features the huge rocket-ship play set seen at the top of this story. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

A 1968 Miracle Playground Equipment catalog features the huge rocket-ship playset seen at the top of this story. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: Besides slides and animals on springs, what were some other pieces that were common in older playgrounds?

Biondo: I didn’t come across as many old swings as I expected. I thought they would be all over the place, but I guess they’re gone now because they were so easy to replace. I tended to find merry-go-rounds more frequently—you know, the one where you’d run around pushing them and then jump on. When my kids were younger, they’d go out playground hunting with me, and the merry-go-rounds were their favorite things. They’re just so fun. The other thing you don’t find often is the seesaw or teeter-totter, and that was my favorite.The Karymor Stationary Jingle Ring Outfit appeared in the 1931 playground catalog put out by Pueblo, Colorado's R.F. Lamar and Co. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

The Karymor Stationary Jingle Ring Outfit appeared in the 1931 playground catalog put out by Pueblo, Colorado’s R.F. Lamar and Co. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

Before I started this project, I didn’t know there was such a variety of equipment. I figured I’d see seesaws, swings, slides, and merry-go-rounds. But I had no idea there were such things as revolving swings, which would be attached to a spinning pole via outstretched metal arms. Many mid-century pieces had themes from pop culture like “The Wizard of Oz,” “Cinderella,” “Denis the Menace,” cowboys and Indians, and Saturday-morning cartoons. During the Space Age, you started to see pieces of equipment shaped like rocket ships and satellites, because in the ’60s, Americans were so excited about space exploration. What was going on in the broader culture often got reflected in playground equipment.

Pursuing the catalogs was eye-opening. I live about an hour and a half south of Denver, so I often looked for playgrounds around the city. There, I’d find these contraptions where were shaped like umbrella skeletons, but then they had these rings hanging off the spindles. I’ve never seen them outside of Colorado. Then I bought a 1930s catalog from the manufacturer in Pueblo, Colorado, which is only 45 minutes from me, and it featured this apparatus. Later, I met people in Denver who’d say, “Oh, yeah, I remember that thing as a kid. It’s kind of like monkey bars where you had to try and get from ring to ring swinging and hanging by your arms.” There was so much variety, and even so many variations on the basics.I have a cool catalog from 1926 from the manufacturer Mitchell, which doesn’t exist anymore. I looked at one of the contraptions they advertised and I was like, “Oh my God, this looks like a torture device!” It was their own proprietary apparatus and maybe it didn’t prove to be very popular. I had never seen something like that on a playground. There probably weren’t very many of them installed.

This strange Climbing Swing from the 1926 Mitchell Manufacturing Company catalog looks a bit like a torture device. Brenda Biondo says she's never found one in the wild. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

This Climbing Swing from the 1926 Mitchell Manufacturing Company catalog looks a bit like a torture device. Biondo’s never found one in the wild. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: After a while, were you able to date pieces just by looking at them?

Biondo: From looking at the catalogs, I certainly got a better idea of when things were built. But there were a handful things I couldn’t find in the catalogs. You can guess the age by knowing the design, as well as by looking at the amount of wear and the height of the piece. Usually, the taller it was, the older it was. One of the oldest slides I photographed was probably from the ’30s. I climbed to the top to shoot it as if the viewer were going to go down the slide. Up there, the place where you’d sit before sliding had been used for so many years by so many kids that I could see an outline of all the butts worn into the metal. You can imagine all the children who must have gone down that slide to wear the metal down like that.

This 1930s-era slide, found in Sargents, Colorado, in 2007, developed a butt-shaped imprint. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

This 1930s-era slide, found in Sargents, Colorado, in 2007, developed a butt-shaped imprint. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: How did Modernism influence playground design?

Biondo: In 1953, the Museum of Modern Art in New York held a competition for playground design. Modern Art was just getting popular, and the idea of incorporating the theories of Modernist design into utilitarian objects was in the air, and was translated into playgrounds for several years. I have a 1967 catalog that features very abstract playground equipment made from sinuous blobs of poured concrete. And you’ve probably seen some of it, but there’s not too much of that around. That’s another example of how broader cultural trends were reflected in playgrounds.

When most people think of playgrounds, they say, “Oh, that’s a kiddie subject. There’s not much to it.” But when you start looking into them, you realize playgrounds are a fascinating piece of American culture—they go back a hundred years and played a part in most Americans’ lives. These playground pieces are icons of our childhood.

Collectors Weekly:What was the impact of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which launched in 1973?

Biondo: Things started to change after that, which is why I limited to book to apparatuses made before 1975. New playgrounds were starting to be build out of plastic and fiberglass. I looked up the statistics, and according to the little research I’ve done—contrary to what you’d expect—there’s not much difference in the number of injuries on older equipment versus injuries on equipment today. A “New York Times” article from 2011 called “Can a Playground Be Too Safe?” explains that studies show when playground equipment was really high and just had asphalt underneath it and not seven layers of mulch, thekids knew they had to be careful because they didn’t want to fall. Nowadays, when everything is lower and there’s so much mulch, kids are just used to jumping down and falling and catching themselves. So kids learned to assess risk by playing on the older equipment. They also learned to challenge themselves because it is a little scary to go up to the top of the thing.

This old postcard of Shawnee Park in Kansas City, Kansas, circa 1912, shows how tall slides could get.

 

This old postcard of Shawnee Park in Kansas City, Kansas, circa 1912, shows how tall slides could get.

At my local park where you have new equipment, the monkey bars aren’t that high and there’s mulch below it, but a child fell and broke their arm last year. When I was talking to the principal at the school where they had just torn out that old American slide, I asked her, “Why did you replace the equipment?” She said, “We felt the parents in the community were expecting to have a little bit newer and nicer equipment. And this stuff had been here for so long.” And I said, “Have you seen a difference in injury rates since you put up your newer equipment?” She replied, “I’ve been a principal here several years, and we never had a serious broken-bone injury on the playground until four months ago on the new equipment.”

There were some nasty accidents in the ‘60s and ’70s, where kids got their arms or their heads caught in the contraptions. Those issues definitely needed to be assessed. What’s interesting is the Consumer Product Safety Commission never issued requirements, just suggested guidelines. But manufacturers felt that if their equipment didn’t meet those guidelines, they’d be vulnerable to liability. Everybody went to the extreme, making everything super safe so they wouldn’t risk getting sued.A 1970s-era climbing-bar apparatus, photographed in Rocky Ford, Colorado, in 2006. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

A 1970s-era climbing-bar apparatus, photographed in Rocky Ford, Colorado, in 2006. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

In the last decade, people have been looking at playground-equipment design and trying to make it more challenging and more encouraging of imaginative play, but without making it more likely someone’s going to get injured. And adults, I think, are realizing kids are spending more time indoors on devices so they want to do everything they can to encourage kids to still get outside, run around, and climb on things.

Collectors Weekly: You don’t need a playground to hurt yourself. When I was a kid, I fell off a farm post and broke my arm.Biondo: Oh, yeah, kids have been falling out trees forever—they always want to climb stuff. Playground politics are always evolving. Even in the 1920s, the catalogs talked about how safe their equipment was, and they were selling these 30-foot slides. Sometimes, I’d be out with my family on a vacation, and we’d make a little side tour to look for an old playground to shoot. My husband would look at these big metal things and go, “Oh my God, those are the Slides of Death!” because they were so huge and rickety. But back then, these were very safe pieces of equipment compared to what kids had been playing on before.

A page from the 1971 GameTime catalog offering rideable Saddle Mates. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

A page from the 1971 GameTime catalog offering rideable Saddle Mates. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: Growing up in the 1980s, I always hated the new fiberglass slides because I’d end up with all these tiny glass shards in my butt.

Biondo: Yeah, I remember that, too. It’s always something. It is fun to talk to people about playgrounds because it reminds them of all the fun stuff they did as kids. When people see pictures of these metal slides, they tell me, “Oh my gosh, I remember getting such a bad burn from a metal slide one summer!” The metal would get so hot in the sun, and kids would take pieces of wax paper with them to sit on so they’d go flying down the slide. I have some old postcards that show playgrounds from the early ’20s. The wood seesaws not only were huge, but they had no handles so you had hold on to the sides of the board where you sat. I’m looking at that like, “Oh my God!” It’s all relative.

playground_postcard_milwaukee

Kids ride the rocking-boat seesaw at a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, park in this postcard postmarked 1910.

(To see more of Brenda Biondo’s playground photos and vintage catalog pages, pick up a copy of her book, “Once Upon a Playground: A Celebration of Classic American Playground, 1920-1975.” To find an exhibition of Biondo’s playground project, or to bring it to your town, visit the ExhibitsUSA page. To learn more about creative mid-century playgrounds around the globe, also pick up, “The Playground Project” by Xavier Salle and Vincent Romagny.) insh.world/history/playground-equipment-of-yesterday-that...

A 1954 Ford “Pop” Popular 2-door, “sit-up-and-beg” compact saloon, [103E], painted in black sits atop a two-car transporter on property belonging to the famous Mathewson family auction house in Thornton-Le-Dale, Ryedale, North Yorkshire, U.K. The car has an age-related six-character black plate - “323 YUA”, which was first registered in May 2010, indicating that this rust-free RHD car may in fact be an import from overseas, such as Australia, New Zealand, or South Africa. Or perhaps it is a restored example, which was re-registered using a six-character plate? The badges on the front grille are of an old-style AA badge, and two badges from the Ford Popular registry, and the Ford sidevalve owners club.

 

The 1953-’59 Ford Popular 103E was the basic budget entry-level buy for postwar austerity Britain. The car sold for under £400 (roughly £9,050 adjusted in today’s money), and some years later the “Pop” became a homegrown favourite for British hot rodders.

 

Early fifties London scene. Model diorama in 1/76 scale OO gauge.

LCC fire station and Black Cat Tavern buildings fom the Kingsway Models range.

All these postwar shopping centres, plonked down in the hearts of bomb-damaged cities such as Southampton, Plymouth, Bristol and Exeter, had the same sort of look about them, didn't they? Any one of them might have been any of the others. How unworthy they were of these famous old cities. How pedestrian, how commonplace, how ignoble, how impoverished, how ...democratic.

The Christmas trimmings were still up, slightly alleviating the welfare state ambiance of Swansea's shopping centre, on New Year's Eve 1976 ...a Friday. A socialist government, that of Edward Heath, had made New Year's Day a public holiday from 1974. The result was that the Christmas and New Year holidays quickly merged into one, becoming the "Christmas break" and lasting from Christmas Eve until the Monday following the weekend after the New Year. All industrial and commercial activity outside the retail sector was suspended during this period.

After a surfeit of telly and stagnant days of gourmandising, idle wage-slaves go shopping. The sales would be on and, New Year's Day being followed by a Sunday (not yet a normal trading day), the shops would be closed for two days. So the streets are thronged with Cortinas and Escorts, and the pavements with harrassed figures, burdened with polythene carrier bags (David Greig, Hepworth, Dolcis?), wrapped up warm against a chilly wind from the Vale of Neath and eager to get home for a pot of tea and a slice of cherry cake. Some choose the bus ...in this case a nice AEC Regent V 2D3RA with Park Royal bodywork, new in 1964.

gizmodo.com/115165/starcks-ak47

 

moralism/ethics and jgb

 

In other words, the breakdown of the formalized social order, and its replacement with one based on more ruthless, informal, spontaneously generated rules, can liberate in a certain sense, in that it permits what was previously impermissible. In Freudian terms, the id escapes the power of the superego; what results both repels and attracts. This lesson Ballard never forgot.

 

Ballard arrived in England during the austere postwar years, the austerity lengthened by government policy that saw in it an opportunity for ideologically inspired social engineering. (Even now, one occasionally senses nostalgia in medical journals for the era of rationing, which imposed a scientifically approved diet on the population.) Ballard began medical school, but dropped out after two years to become a writer. He never entirely lost his interest in medicine, however, and it is worth noting that doctors are important figures in his novels, the first of which came out in 1962.

 

All of Ballard’s novels have a Robinson Crusoe theme: What happens to man when the props of civilization are removed from him, as they so easily are, by external circumstances or by the operation of his secret desires or by both in concert? Ballard’s past gave him an awareness of the fragility of things, even when they appear most solid; and in the introduction to his collected short stories, he tells us that he is “interested in the real future that I could see approaching.” His method: extrapolate something—a trend, a feeling of dissatisfaction—that he detects in the present; magnify it; and then examine its consequences. He is a recorder of what he calls “the visionary present,” a sociological Swift who claims (half-mistakenly, I think) that he does not write with a moral purpose but instead serves as “a scout who is sent on ahead to see if the water is drinkable or not.”

 

In Ballard’s earlier novels, the decomposition of society results largely from natural processes. For example, in his debut novel, The Drowned World, the earth has undergone an extremely rapid warming. (Ballard has an uncanny ability to anticipate future anxieties.)

 

...

It is significant that Maitland is an architect, for it is the architects, with their modernist dreams of making the world anew according to implacably abstract principles, who have created the wasteland in the first place. Ballard captures the socially isolating nature of modern architecture—and the modern way of life associated with it—with great symbolic force. The taxi driver, encased in his cage of pressed steel, can see in Maitland only a lunatic with whom he shares no humanity. The other drivers have lost their ability to choose: once on the road, they must inexorably move forward. They do not control the situation; the situation controls them. What should liberate—the car, with its theoretical ability to take you anywhere you want to go, whenever you want to go—becomes dehumanizing.

 

In the same year, Ballard published his most controversial book, Crash, later made into an equally disturbing film by David Cronenberg. The book is a kind of visionary reductio ad absurdum of what Ballard sees as the lack of meaning in modern material abundance, in which erotic and violent sensationalism replace transcendent purpose: the book’s characters speed to the sites of auto accidents to seek sexual congress with the dying bodies and torn metal. Ballard’s method is Swift’s, though with a less general target. To object that Ballard exaggerates the existential predicament of the modern middle classes is to miss the point, just as to object that Swift exaggerates man’s absurdity, pretensions, and nastiness is to miss the point.

 

In his next book, High-Rise, published in 1975, Ballard sets a small civil war in a luxurious 40-story apartment building, where “the regime of trivial disputes and irritations . . . provided [the] only corporate life” of the 2,000 inhabitants. Robert Laing is a doctor who is divorced, like all of Ballard’s protagonists.

 

“This over-priced cell, slotted almost at random into the cliff face of the apartment building, he had bought after his divorce specifically for its peace, quiet and anonymity,” Ballard writes. It seems to be part of the modern condition that people find difficulty in living together, preferring an isolation in which human contact becomes superficial, fleeting, and primarily instrumental to immediate needs or desires.

 

Where people have few affective ties but nonetheless live together in close proximity, the potential for conflict is great. Though all the residents are well-heeled, a version of class war breaks out in the high-rise, pitting the residents of the upper floors, who have paid the most for their apartments, against those of the lower floors. Boredom and a lack of common purpose provoke aggression, and self-destruction follows. Prosperity is not enough.

 

...

If anything, Ballard’s vision has darkened. Twenty years after High-Rise, prosperity had increased enormously, and Ballard published Cocaine Nights, an attack on the very idea of the good life engendered by British consumer society. The novel is set in imaginary rich expatriate enclaves on the Spanish Mediterranean coast, towns “without either centre or suburbs, that seem to be little more than dispersal ground for golf courses and swimming pools.” As one character says, “It’s Europe’s future. Everywhere will be like this soon.”

 

The utter vacuity of the abundant life that the inhabitants have worked to achieve, enabling them to retire before 50, is reflected in the enclaves’ architecture and social atmosphere. “I looked down on an endless terrain of picture windows, patios and miniature pools,” relates the protagonist, a travel writer:

 

Together they had a curiously calming effect, as if these residential compounds were a series of psychological pens that soothed and domesticated. . . . Nothing could ever happen in this affectless realm, where entropic drift calmed the surfaces of a thousand swimming pools.

Everywhere satellite dishes cupped the sky like begging bowls. The residents had retreated to their shady lounges, their bunkers with a view, needing only that part of the external world that was distilled from the sky by their satellite dishes.

The residents are refugees from a disordered world: “There’s excellent security and not a trace of graffiti anywhere—most people’s idea of paradise today.” Freed from economic anxiety, they are also “refugees from time”: in fact, they have “travelled to the far side of boredom” and are now “desperate for new vices.”

 

A young tennis coach, Crawford, responsible for arranging the social life of the enclaves, hits on the idea of crime as the solution to the prevailing boredom. Unknowingly, he recapitulates sociologist Emil Durkheim’s view that criminals fulfill an important social function by providing the rest of the population with a cause for solidarity: for one can exercise solidarity only against something and somebody else. “How do you energize people, give them some sense of community?” Crawford asks. Politics is boring, religion too demanding. “Only one thing is left which can rouse people, threaten them directly and force them to act together. . . . Crime and transgressive behaviour. [They] provoke us and tap our need for strong emotion, quicken the nervous system and jump the synapses deadened by leisure and inaction.” His conclusion: “A certain level of crime is part of the necessary roughage of life. Total security is a disease of deprivation.”

 

By arranging for crimes to be committed at random, including a deliberate fire that kills five, Crawford brings the enclaves back to life, including cultural life. The residents start to play music and participate in theater productions. Instead of living in solipsistic isolation, they now meet regularly. Ballard is not suggesting that the immolation of people is a worthwhile price if only people take to the violin and footlights as a result. He is suggesting that, absent a transcendent purpose, material affluence is not sufficient—and may lead to boredom, perversity, and self-destruction.

 

In his two most recent novels, Millennium People and Kingdom Come, Ballard treats England as a country gripped by a consumerist fever, half-aware that something more is necessary to lead a bearable human life, and thus vulnerable to an inchoate revolutionism whose inspiration is part fascist, part socialist. The books’ characters are, as usual in Ballard, educated and middle class; no member of the underclass ever appears in his pages. This is not accidental. It is the educated class that is essential to running the country and that sets its moral tone; but “sheltered by benevolent shopping malls,” Ballard writes in Kingdom Come, it “waits patiently for the nightmares that will wake [it] into a more passionate world.” Believing in nothing, sated materially, it is capable of anything to escape boredom.

 

This represents an important insight. When I briefly served as a kind of vulgarity correspondent for a British newspaper—it sent me anywhere the British gathered to behave badly—I discovered to my surprise that the middle classes behaved in crowds with the same menacing disinhibition as their supposed social and educational inferiors. They swore and screamed abuse and made fascistic gestures and urinated in the street with the same abandon that they attributed to the proletarians. It was Ballard who first spotted that the bourgeoisie wanted to proletarianize itself without losing its economic privileges or political power.

 

In Millennium People, the residents of an affluent housing project called Chelsea Marina “had set about dismantling their middle-class world. They lit bonfires of books and paintings, educational toys and videos. . . . They had quietly discarded their world as if putting out their rubbish for collection. All over England an entire professional caste was rejecting everything it had worked so hard to secure.”

 

This strikes me as a suggestive metaphor for much that has happened over the last four decades, not only in England (though especially here) but also throughout parts of Western society. We have become bored with what we have inherited, to which, for lack of talent, we have contributed so humiliatingly little. Ballard understands why educated people, haunted by the pointlessness of their lives, feel the need to protest, and he satirizes it in Millennium People. The book’s protagonist, a psychologist, infiltrates the growing middle-class revolutionary movement and attends a protest against a cat show in a London exhibition hall with Angela, a revolutionary:

 

Angela stared across the road with narrowed eyes and all a suburbanite’s capacity for moral outrage. Walking around the exhibition two hours earlier, I was impressed by her unswerving commitment to the welfare of these luxurious pets. The protest rallies I had recently attended against globalisation, nuclear power and the World Bank were violent but well thought out. By contrast, this demonstration seemed endearingly Quixotic in its detachment from reality. I tried to point this out to Angela as we strolled along the line of cages.

“Angela, they look so happy. . . . They’re wonderfully cared for. We’re trying to rescue them from heaven.”

Angela never varied her step. “How do you know?”

“Just watch them.” We stopped in front of a row of Abyssinians so deeply immersed in the luxury of being themselves that they barely noticed the admiring crowds. “They’re not exactly unhappy. They’d be prowling around, trying to get out of the cages.”

“They’re drugged.” Angela’s brows knotted. “No living creature should be caged. This isn’t a cat show, it’s a concentration camp.”

“Still, they are rather gorgeous.”

“They’re bred for death, not life. The rest of the litter are drowned at birth. It’s a vicious eugenic experiment, the sort of thing Dr. Mengele got up to.”

The press recently ran obituaries of Peter Cadogan, whom one paper called a “professional protester.” Another wrote that Cadogan “spent fifty years on a long quest of resistance to global injustices.” He appeared inseparable from a megaphone, and no man would have been more disappointed to wake one day to a world denuded of injustice. Apparently, someone read the protest poems of William Blake to him on his deathbed, and these roused him temporarily from a coma. Protest was the meaning of his life. His dying words evoked Blake: “Live differently.” Not better, but differently.

 

This mind-set can result in the violence from which, as Ballard discovered early in life, we are always but a hairbreadth away, however solidly founded our comfort may seem. Civilization’s fragility does not make it unreal or valueless—quite the reverse. And while I suspect that Ballard would dislike seeing conservative implications drawn from his work, they are most certainly there.

 

Theodore Dalrymple, a physician, is a contributing editor of City Journal and the Dietrich Weismann Fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

  

dalrymple - city mag: a moralist reading ballard

 

now compare to waxman: a doctor friend reading ballard:

(the reality - the books - the writer)

(our bleak society - literary representations of that - the man himself completely unscathed by our bleak society, while thoroughly engaged with it..?)

 

He was a “Jimmy”, a surprisingly sweet name for a man of such seeming austerity. Although this austerity seemed to be part of the public persona, this view had no origin in fact. He was a man of warmth and love, and a man who himself inspired great love. I was a witness to the affection that people had for him and the tenderness that came to him from his partner Claire and his children.

 

Perhaps many will not be able to credit that a man who imagined gangs of bored people indulging in random violence (Super Cannes) or protagonists having sex in smashed-up cars (Crash) could be described as a gentle man who inspired great affection. But that is to focus too much on his dystopian writings rather than taking into account his polymathic range - a range that encompassed everything from genre fiction to his most traditional novel, Empire of the Sun.

 

The occasional brutality of his work was not a reflection of a dark personality. They were instead the fruit of a man who lived the life of the mind to the full, who had a knack of looking at the world in a different way and asking “what if?”. What if, as he imagined in Millennium People, the middle-classes rose up in a tax rebellion?

 

Though Jimmy had an original mind he was utterly conventional on the surface. He was like any man of his time and upper-middle class upbringing, right down to his tweed jacket and reserved, polite manner.

 

He was also generous, a great supporter of all who came into his life.

 

....

 

baLLArdian.com

 

‘Content in their little prisons’: J.G. Ballard on ‘The Towers’

Author: Dan OHara • Nov 21st, 2008 •

 

Category: France, Lead Story, architecture, archival, crime, technology, urban decay

   

L’ile de béton (Concrete Island), French edition, Calman-Lévy (1974). Thanks to Herve for the scan.

  

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Interview by Philippe R. Hupp.

 

Translation by Dan O’Hara.

  

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Ballard’s novels have always been translated into French with alacrity. His 1974 novel, Concrete Island, was already in translation in time for review in the January 1975 edition of the major Paris literary organ Magazine Littéraire, and Antoine Griset’s review was both penetrating and positive. Griset immediately connected the predicament of Ballard’s protagonist, stranded on an urban desert island between motorway intersections, with the extremes of social inequality within our society.

 

‘The image or the idea of a man dying of hunger only a step away from a haven of abundance is tragically familiar’, Griset writes, noting how absurd it is that such distress has become a banal commonplace. Whilst admiring the ‘immense talent’ of Ballard in transforming a vague, banal terrain into a hallucinatory hell — a feat also achieved in Crash — Griset observes that although Concrete Island may be a continuation of the earlier novel, this time the automobile is a mere symbolic pretext for an examination of the flip-side of our ordered, automated, aseptic lifestyle.

 

Griset sees the real focus of Concrete Island as being on the flotsam of urban Man Fridays (or should that be ‘Men Friday’?) living in the interstices of modern cities: the invisible masses we observe daily from behind the safety of the windscreen or the office window. In the novel Maitland, an affluent architect who crosses this invisible barrier, decides to remain on the concrete island, having triumphed over its obstinate vagrants. Yet Griset suggests that, if the Maitland who first arrived on the island dies and is transformed into a new, stronger version of himself, he also remains afraid to recognize his own true nature. In a brilliant insight into Ballard’s metafictional method, Griset implies that this transformation of the protagonist is intended to provoke a similar transformation in the reader. Concrete Island is less concerned with awakening a new moral knowledge than with demonstrating the ways in which the mirror-world of own native brutality is just on the other side of the windscreen.

 

The following brief interview was printed alongside Griset’s review. Mostly concerned with the novel he was then in the early stages of writing, High-Rise, it does however contain an intriguing reference to Ballard conducting research on the relation between criminal behaviour and the urban environment. Whatever the sources of this research might have been, it seems that it started a line of enquiry which became a central topos of his writing, leading from Concrete Island through High Rise to Running Wild and the loose tetralogy bookended by Cocaine Nights and Kingdom Come.

 

Dan O’Hara

  

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PHILIPPE R. HUPP: You’re in the process of writing a new novel called The Towers…

 

JGB: In fact I still haven’t found a title. It’s a book about what in England and the USA are called ‘high-rises’, these residential towers which can have forty or fifty floors or more. I saw a film about Poland last week, in which one complex of apartments had twenty floors and was a kilometre in length! I’ve been interested for several years now in new lifestyles which permit modern technology; skyscrapers have always attracted me. The life led there seems to me very abstract, and that’s an aspect of setting with which I’m concerned when I write — the technological landscape.

 

Have you read The World Inside by Robert Silverberg? It’s a novel in which people live in groups of 800 thousand in vertical cities. And Silverberg, instead of simply planting the people of today in a futuristic setting, is concerned with showing how their mentality and their social life would be affected.

 

I haven’t read that book, but what interests me is the present. I don’t want to extrapolate too far – there’s the risk of becoming detached from reality. Although I did write a story a few years ago, ‘Build up’, in which one city occupied the entire universe. It’s a quite fascinating subject.

 

You’ve already examined housing schemes?

 

I did research before sitting down to write. For example, in cities, the degree of criminality is affected by liberty of movement; it’s higher in culs-de-sac. And high-rises are culs-de-sac: two thousand people jammed together in the air…

 

Entirely isolated.

 

Cut off from the rest of the world. In this kind of situation, all sorts can happen. Above all I’d like to examine the psychological modifications which occur without the knowledge of the inhabitants themselves, to see to what degree the mind of someone who drives a car or lives in a concrete high-rise has been altered. In the course of my investigations, I observed that there now exists a new race of people who are content in their little prisons, who tolerate a very high level of noise, but for whom the apartment is nothing more than a base allowing them to pass the night in comfort, as they’re absent during the day.

 

Will this new novel be as symbolic as Crash and Concrete Island?

 

I think it will be in the same vein, although this time I’m no longer concentrating on one single character.

 

And after that, will you further continue your series on the ‘technological landscape’?

 

No. I don’t have an idea for a novel, but I’d very much like to write several stories that I haven’t had the time to write these last few years. And it’s been a long time since I’ve written anything in the way of imaginative narratives, romances…

   

I.G.H. (High-Rise), French edition, Calmann-Levy, Dimensions SF (1976). Thanks to Herve for the scan.

  

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Originally published in French as ‘Entretien avec J. G. Ballard’, Magazine Littéraire 96 (January 1975), 54.

  

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Author: Dan OHara

 

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2 Responses »

Rick McGrath on November 24th, 2008 at 1:00 am:

 

Great one, Dan… thanks!

 

Clearing the tabs on November 27th, 2008 at 8:16 pm:

 

[...] Ballardian » ‘Content in their little prisons’: J.G. Ballard on ‘The Towers’ "For example, in cities, the degree of criminality is affected by liberty of movement; it’s higher in culs-de-sac. And high-rises are culs-de-sac: two thousand people jammed together in the air…" (tags: Ballardian Ballard architecture highrise interview urbanism crime) [...]

   

One of the fragments of 15th century stained glass from old St Michael's reinstated in the former south porch (now the Haigh Chapel, which is normally locked so these fragments can only be glimpsed through the glazed frontage facing into the ruins).

 

Coventry's Cathedral is a unique synthesis of old a new, born of wartime suffering and forged in the spirit of postwar optimism, famous for it's history and for being the most radically modern of Anglican cathedrals. Two cathedral's stand side by side, the ruins of the medieval building, destroyed by incendiary bombs in 1940 and the bold new building designed by Basil Spence and opened in 1962.

 

It is a common misconception that Coventry lost it's first cathedral in the wartime blitz, but the bombs actually destroyed it's second; the original medieval cathedral was the monastic St Mary's, a large cruciform building believed to have been similar in appearance to Lichfield Cathedral (whose diocese it shared). Tragically it became the only English cathedral to be destroyed during the Reformation, after which it was quickly quarried away, leaving only scant fragments, but enough evidence survives to indicate it's rich decoration (some pieces were displayed nearby in the Priory Visitors Centre, sadly since closed). Foundations of it's apse were found during the building of the new cathedral in the 1950s, thus technically three cathedrals share the same site.

 

The mainly 15th century St Michael's parish church became the seat of the new diocese of Coventry in 1918, and being one of the largest parish churches in the country it was upgraded to cathedral status without structural changes (unlike most 'parish church' cathedrals created in the early 20th century). It lasted in this role a mere 22 years before being burned to the ground in the 1940 Coventry Blitz, leaving only the outer walls and the magnificent tapering tower and spire (the extensive arcades and clerestoreys collapsed completely in the fire, precipitated by the roof reinforcement girders, installed in the Victorian restoration, that buckled in the intense heat).

 

The determination to rebuild the cathedral in some form was born on the day of the bombing, however it wasn't until the mid 1950s that a competition was held and Sir Basil Spence's design was chosen. Spence had been so moved by experiencing the ruined church he resolved to retain it entirely to serve as a forecourt to the new church. He envisaged the two being linked by a glass screen wall so that the old church would be visible from within the new.

 

Built between 1957-62 at a right-angle to the ruins, the new cathedral attracted controversy for it's modern form, and yet some modernists argued that it didn't go far enough, after all there are echoes of the Gothic style in the great stone-mullioned windows of the nave and the net vaulting (actually a free-standing canopy) within. What is exceptional is the way art has been used as such an integral part of the building, a watershed moment, revolutionising the concept of religious art in Britain.

 

Spence employed some of the biggest names in contemporary art to contribute their vision to his; the exterior is adorned with Jacob Epstein's triumphant bronze figures of Archangel Michael (patron of the cathedral) vanquishing the Devil. At the entrance is the remarkable glass wall, engraved by John Hutton with strikingly stylised figures of saints and angels, and allowing the interior of the new to communicate with the ruin. Inside, the great tapestry of Christ in majesty surrounded by the evangelistic creatures, draws the eye beyond the high altar; it was designed by Graham Sutherland and was the largest tapestry ever made.

 

However one of the greatest features of Coventry is it's wealth of modern stained glass, something Spence resolved to include having witnessed the bleakness of Chartres Cathedral in wartime, all it's stained glass having been removed. The first window encountered on entering is the enormous 'chess-board' baptistry window filled with stunning abstract glass by John Piper & Patrick Reyntiens, a symphony of glowing colour. The staggered nave walls are illuminated by ten narrow floor to ceiling windows filled with semi-abstract symbolic designs arranged in pairs of dominant colours (green, red, multi-coloured, purple/blue and gold) representing the souls journey to maturity, and revealed gradually as one approaches the altar. This amazing project was the work of three designers lead by master glass artist Lawrence Lee of the Royal College of Art along with Keith New and Geoffrey Clarke (each artist designed three of the windows individually and all collaborated on the last).

 

The cathedral still dazzles the visitor with the boldness of it's vision, but alas, half a century on, it was not a vision to be repeated and few of the churches and cathedrals built since can claim to have embraced the synthesis of art and architecture in the way Basil Spence did at Coventry.

 

The cathedral is generally open to visitors most days. For more see below:-

www.coventrycathedral.org.uk/

Coachwork by Baur

 

Aiming to create a postwar sports car worthy of the brand, in 1954 BMW took a shortened sedan chassis with a 3.186 cc V8 engine and fitted it with an aerodynamic body designed in-house by Heinz Jacht and built by Baur in Stuttgart. Tested at the Nurburgring by former BMW racing director Ernst Loof, the car proved capable of 200 km/h. However, project 502 won few friends and was shelved. The day was saved when US importer Max Hofman employed Count Albrecht Goertz to create the 507.

 

Class VII : 60th Anniversary BMW 507

 

Zoute Concours d'Elegance

The Royal Zoute Golf Club

 

Zoute Grand Prix 2017

Knokke - Zoute

België - Belgium

October 2017

1/76 scale OO gauge, model tramway layout.

Postwar era British military engineering vehicle

This version of the Churchill AVRE (Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers) was based on a Churchill Mk.VII and was in British Army service between 1954 and 1965. They were fitted with a breech-loading low velocity L9A1 165mm demolition gun, firing a 64lb HESH (High Explosive Squash Head) round designed to destroy bunkers and obstacles.

This example is on display at the Royal Engineers Museum

Gillingham, Kent, UK

24th July 2021

Triumph Mayflower 1949. With RAC motorbike at the Cook Street Gate in Coventry.

 

Collection: Warwickshire

Date: 1949

Reference Number: T003215

 

To enquire about any of our images or for more information, please contact photo@britishmotormuseum.co.uk or visit our photographic website at www.motorgraphs.com/.

Sergiu Pasca arrived at his Stanford lab on October 28, 2025, dressed like a scientist from another era. The navy suit, the precisely knotted tie, the substantial black frames all evoked that postwar period when researchers believed they could decode the fundamental mysteries of life itself. But the work happening in his laboratory at the Clark Center represents something thoroughly contemporary: growing human brain tissue in dishes to understand psychiatric disease.

 

The photograph captures him surrounded by the tools of his trade. Molecular models sit on the desk before him, physical representations of the chemical architecture underlying consciousness itself. Framed certificates hang shadowed on the wall behind. Everything arranged with precision, yet something in his expression suggests the restless intelligence that drives breakthrough science.

 

Pasca has accomplished what many thought impossible. His assembloids, organized clusters of human brain cells that recapitulate specific regions and their connections, have fundamentally altered how neuroscience approaches mental illness. These aren't merely collections of neurons floating in culture medium. They're structured tissues that develop recognizable features of cortex, striatum, thalamus. More remarkably, when fused together, they form connections that mimic how different brain regions communicate in living humans.

 

The implications ripple outward. For the first time, researchers can watch human brain development unfold in real time, introduce genetic variations linked to autism or schizophrenia, and observe the cellular consequences. No need for autopsy tissue or animal models that approximate but never fully capture human neurobiology. The actual substrate of human thought, grown from stem cells, available for study.

 

He came to this work through an unusual path. Born in Romania, trained in medicine before turning to research, Pasca brought a clinician's attention to human suffering alongside a scientist's appetite for mechanism. His early papers on Timothy syndrome, a rare genetic condition causing autism and heart defects, revealed how calcium channel mutations disrupted cortical development. But it was the assembloid work that established him as a pioneer.

 

By his late thirties, he was directing his own center, publishing in Science and Nature, being recognized with awards typically reserved for researchers decades older. The compression of achievement suggests not just talent but a particular kind of obsessive focus. He had found his problem: how brains build themselves and what goes wrong in psychiatric disease.

 

The assembloid studies have yielded concrete insights. In certain forms of autism, the difficulty lies not in individual neurons but in how brain regions communicate. His team fused cortical and striatal organoids and watched the connections form aberrantly in tissue carrying autism-associated mutations. Other work revealed how neural stem cells in schizophrenia patients show accelerated maturation, potentially explaining the timing of symptom onset.

 

This represents detective work at the cellular scale, tracking developmental divergences that manifest years later as a child who cannot speak or an adult who experiences psychosis. The molecular models on his desk aren't decorative but essential: they represent the chemical reality underlying every thought, every perception, every psychiatric symptom.

 

What makes Pasca's approach distinctive is its philosophical grounding in experimental rigor. By creating these miniature brain circuits, he's solved one of neuroscience's oldest problems: access to living human tissue during the critical period when circuits form. The assembloids provide a window into processes previously hidden, happening in utero or early childhood, long before symptoms appear.

 

The work has practical applications. Pharmaceutical companies use assembloids to test drug candidates on actual human brain tissue. Clinicians may eventually use patient-derived organoids to predict treatment response. But the deeper contribution is conceptual: a new way to think about brain development and its vulnerabilities.

 

That October afternoon, photographed in his laboratory, Pasca embodied a particular type of scientist. The formal attire speaks to seriousness of purpose. The molecular models and certificates frame achievement already substantial. But the eyes suggest someone still engaged with fundamental questions, still building toward insights not yet realized. He's made brains in dishes not as spectacle but as tool, a means toward helping people whose brains diverged from typical developmental trajectories.

 

His career will likely be defined by this work. The questions he's pursuing couldn't be more urgent: What causes autism? Why does schizophrenia emerge in early adulthood? Can we intervene earlier, more precisely? The answers are taking shape in his lab, one assembloid at a time, grown from stem cells into structures that think but cannot yet speak.

In the postwar years, Fiat was working on an eight-cylinder engine which was internally known as Tipo 106. Dante Giacosa originally designed the engine for a luxury sedan, but then that project stopped. Rudolf Hruska, at the time working at S.I.A.T.A., was given the task to design a car around the V8 engine. Development took place in absolute secrecy. To not stress the experimental department of Fiat, S.I.A.T.A took up the production of the chassis. Styled by chief designer Fabio Luigi Rapi, the Fiat 8V or OttoVù was presented to the Italian press in February 1952 and first exhibited in the following March at the Geneva Motor Show.

 

The Fiat 8V prototype used an art deco grill that extended into the hood. A second series was made featuring four headlights with some of the later cars have a full-width windscreen. A high-performance coupé destined to compete in the GT class, the 2-litre 8V model, was a departure from the usual Fiat production. It was well accepted by Italian private drivers and tuners and was the car to beat in the 2-litre class, also thanks to the unique versions built by Zagato or Siata. The Fiat V8 had a 70-degree V configuration of up to a 1996 cc of volume, at 5600 rpm the engine produced 105 hp (78 kW) in standard form with two two-barrel Weber 36 DCS carburettors giving a top speed of 190 km/h (118 mph). Some engines were fitted with substantial four-throat Weber 36 IF4/C carburettors offering 120 bhp, but the intake manifold was very rare. The Fiat 8V is the only eight-cylinder built by Fiat. The engine was connected to a four-speed gearbox. The shapes of the car have seen several changes over time: the prototype had an art deco grille that extended into the bonnet. A second series was made with four headlights; finally, some of the latest cars had a large windshield without divisions. Only 114 of this high-performance coupé were produced, 63 of which with a “Fiat Carrozzerie Speciali” body, 34 first-series and 29 second-series. It was made available in different body styles, offered by the factory and by various coachbuilders like Zagato, Pinin Farina, Ghia and Vignale. The production ceased in 1954.

 

Text from:

 

www.carrozzieri-italiani.com/listing/fiat-8v-carrozzerie-...

A rather wonderful postwar advert for the well known Poole, Dorset, based company of Carter & Co Ltd, the producers of tiles and faience work who were closely associated with the art pottery of Carter, Stabler & Adams. In pre-WW2 years Carter's had produced vast amounts of faience for the interiors of London Transport's new tube stations, including the Stabler designed "London Landmark" relief tiles as well as the tube lined tiled name friezes at stations.

 

This advert is aimed squarely at the newer trend for patterned and artwork based ceramic tiles and the company went on to produce vast numbers of such tiles - either as part of their 'catalogue' or as bespoke projects and many 1950s and early '60s buildings still carry Carter's tiles. Annoyingly I cannot quite decipher the illustrator's signature but Sludge G below has - Raymond Myerscough-Walker.

Postwar drivers pass by the Banqueting House where three hundred years earlier, Charles I lost his head...

architects: BBPR (banfi, barbiano di belgiojoso, peressutti, rogers)

torre velasca, mixed-use tower, milano 1950-1958

 

the famously exposed constructions of the cantilever, hardly necessary in a modern concrete building. a touch of violet-le-duc here and his famous reinterpretation of the gothic in iron and stone. ideas take the strangest routes in architecture.

 

a few words on the project here

The fleet of trams that I run on Kennington Cross are all in the postwar red London Transport livery. A lay observer might be forgiven for saying that "they all look the same", but this is far from true.

Most strikingly, ex-LCC car 1, is central in the photo - the unique prototype of a new fleet that was never built, showing off a set of doors at the leading end. Those at the rear were left open, so that the car could function in the same way as any other, with passengers free to board even when moving. The LCC originally painted it in a special blue livery, but when London Transport took over in 1933, the fate of the trams was quickly sealed, and 'Bluebird' was disguised to look as normal as possible.

On the left is E1 1571, an example of a 'typical' London tram, though by the time of the early fifties, one of the few cars that only had one trolley pole - most were fitted with two, to ease the task of the conductor, who would otherwise have to swing it around from one end to the other whilst braving passing traffic.

To the right is apparently the least noteworthy of this trio; 1597, a twin pole E1 on route 10. In fact, this was the sole postwar survivor of the E class which were generally disposed of between 1936-8. Originally numbered, 420 it was damaged in an accident in 1937, and rebuilt with a new top deck in the style of the E3s. Renumbered 1597. and reclassified E1, it ran until 1951. Th main distinguishing feature was that the E class lower deck had a window pillar adjacent to the passenger entrance that was noticeably narrower than the E1 type - compare to that on 1571 on the left.

 

Such variety, and there's not even a passing Feltham, to add some more!

 

Postwar London Transport tramway scene in 1/76 scale.

The layout will have it's exhibition debut at Worksop MBF Model Transport Exhibition on 19th January.

Triumph 2000 Mk II 1970. Pictured outside Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire.

 

Collection: Oxfordshire

Date: 1970

Reference Number: CC006795

 

To enquire about any of our images or for more information, please contact photo@britishmotormuseum.co.uk or visit our photographic website at www.motorgraphs.com/.

The ultimate icon of jet-age fabulosity, Eero Saarinen's TWA Flight Center demonstrates the confluence of an architectural Modernism divorced from its European leftist constituency and that most fleeting of American achievements, the postwar mass middle class. The situation sowed the seeds of its own ruin. In the short term, the increased acccess to air travel wrecked older tourist economies (like that of Atlantic City), contributing to the growing problems of urban economic stagnation while promising that in due time the glitzy jet-setting of princesses and Rockefellers would be available to everyone. In the long term, the capacity of American capital to extend its representatives and bureaucratic infrastructure across the globe would squeeze the well-paid American factory worker back out of the equation, though this process was not entirely complete by the time that cheap fuel and giant aircraft rendered the TWA Flight Center obsolete.

 

To present-day eyes, the building seems small, not only in the usual way of architectural masterpieces that just never seem to live up to their photographic billing. It's quaint, really - a departure terminal with food and drink areas prepared to seat a couple of dozen at most. Yes, the building was always only a foyer - aerials here make clear the relationship of the main building to the two actual departure gateways (one added by Roche-Dinkeloo in the late Sixties), both since demolished. But still: its justly-celebrated grace and adventure, its attempt to convert mystical-utopian Expressionism into the giddy coinage of Leisure Time, could only ever be for a relative few. The customer base of flying was made cheaper in part by lowering the quality of accomodations. The ubiquity of interchangable, banal, people-moving airport-space resulted; its manifestations now literally encircle the Saarinen building, which ceased operations in 2001. In later years, if commuter air travel unravels completely, we may look back on the desperate ordinariness of present-day air travel with the same nostalgia that's now directed towards the glamour and the glitz of Saarinen's time. These are both temporary phenomena made possible by particular intersections of money, resources and perceived need.

 

For all that, though, the Saarinen building is something special, in the same way that the palaces of kings can often lay claim to more architectural merit than the barracks of migrant farm-workers. It is not merely a testament to the economics of its own making, any more than Long Lines or the Moscow subway system. The conventional wisdom is right: this is a hum-dinger and a genuine original, a magnificent synthesis of prewar concrete Expressionism with a triumphant American confidence and literalism. The "bird in flight" here is a far cry from the magical abstractions of Taut or Steiner. TWA's real opposite number is Neviges: a reinvention of the same architectural language to the tune of dour theological agonies and the seeming inversion of Taut's crystalline dream-kingdoms. Just as a nonbeliever may roam Böhm's shadowy city-crown and be moved by the light, the footsteps and the heaviness of air, so may a leftie cynic still relish an aesthetic thrill in Saarinen's fantastic, mass-luxury mirage.

 

Images shot during a reception for Open House New York. Reflections prompted by recent weeks spent struggling with Theodore Adorno and Walt Disney, about which the less said here, the better.

 

Addendum: Yes, I'm back to posting photos. A month in, the Flickr redesign remains disastrous, and many aspects of the posting and browsing experience are outright hostile to my workflow. They've closed the relevant feedback threads after a total of some 40,000 largely negative comments; all we can really do is hope that behind the scenes, the staff are working to resolve the most egregiously awful features. I'm still not the least bit happy about how things look around here, but what can I do? My archive aside, the people worth talking to are all here...

Standard Motor Company resumed civilian car production with the small 8 model, which was essentially a warmed-up prewar design, but from 1947 launched the eye-catching Vanguard, with distinctly American styling cues. Standard engineers were have said to got their inspiration while on fire-watch duties at the Coventry plant.

mémoire2cité - Sols absorbants, formes arrondies et couleurs vives, les aires de jeux standardisées font désormais partie du paysage urbain. Toujours les mêmes toboggans sécurisés, châteaux forts en bois et animaux à ressort. Ces non-lieux qu’on finit par ne plus voir ont une histoire, parallèle à celle des différentes visions portées sur l’enfant et l’éducation. En retournant jouer au xixe siècle, sur les premiers playgrounds des États-Unis, on assiste à la construction d’une nation – et à des jeux de société qui changent notre vision sur les balançoires du capitalisme. Ce texte est paru dans le numéro 4 de la revue Jef Klak « Ch’val de Course », printemps-été 2017. La version ici publiée en ligne est une version légèrement remaniée à l’occasion de sa republication dans le magazine Palais no 27 1, paru en juin 2018. la video içi www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwj1wh5k5PY The concept for adventure playgrounds originated in postwar Europe, after a playground designer found that children had more fun with the trash and rubble left behind by bombings -inventing their own toys and playing with them- than on the conventional equipment of swings and slides. Narrator John Snagge was a well-known voice talent in the UK, working as a newsreader for BBC Radio - jefklak.org/le-gouvernement-des-playgrounds/ - www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/chasing-the-vanishing-p... or children, playgrounds are where magic happens. And if you count yourself among Baby Boomers or Gen Xers, you probably have fond memories of high steel jungle gyms and even higher metal slides that squeaked and groaned as you slid down them. The cheerful variety of animals and vehicles on springs gave you plenty of rides to choose from, while a spiral slide, often made of striped panels, was a repeated thrill. When you dismounted from a teeter-totter, you had to be careful not to send your partner crashing to the ground or get hit in the head by your own seat. The tougher, faster kids always pushed the brightly colored merry-go-round, trying to make riders as dizzy as possible. In the same way, you’d dare your sibling or best friend to push you even higher on the swing so your toes could touch the sky. The most exciting playgrounds would take the form of a pirate ship, a giant robot, or a space rocket.

“My husband would look at these big metal things and go, ‘Oh my God, those are the Slides of Death!'” - insh.world/history/playground-equipment-of-yesterday-that...

Today, these objects of happy summers past have nearly disappeared, replaced by newer equipment that’s lower to the ground and made of plastic, painted metal, and sometimes rot-resistant woods like cedar or redwood. The transformation began in 1973, when the U.S. Congress established the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which began tracking playground injuries at hospital emergency rooms. The study led to the publication of the first Handbook for Public Playground Safety in 1981, which signaled the beginning of the end for much of the playground equipment in use. (See the latest PPS handbook here.) Then, the American Society for Testing and Materials created a subcommittee of designers and playground-equipment manufacturers to set safety standards for the whole industry. When they published their guidelines in 1993, they suggested most existing playground surfaces, which were usually asphalt, dirt, or grass, needed to be replaced with pits of wood or rubber mulch or sand, prompting many schools and parks to rip their old playgrounds out entirely.

Top: A Space Age rocket-themed playground set by Miracle Playground Equipment, introduced circa 1968, photographed in Burlington, Colorado, in 2009. Above: Two seesaws and a snail-shaped climber, circa 1970s, photographed in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, in 2007. (Photos by Brenda Biondo)

Top: A Space Age rocket-themed playground set by Miracle Playground Equipment, introduced circa 1968, photographed in Burlington, Colorado, in 2009. Above: Two seesaws and a snail-shaped climber, circa 1970s, photographed in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, in 2007. (Photos by Brenda Biondo)

That said, removing and replacing playground equipment takes money, so a certain amount of vintage playground equipment survived into the next millennium—but it’s vanishing fast. Fortunately, Brenda Biondo, a freelance journalist turned photographer, felt inspired to document these playscapes before they’ve all been melted down. Her photographs capture the sculptural beauty and creativity of the vintage apparatuses, as well as that feeling of nostalgia you get when you see a piece of your childhood. After a decade of hunting down old playgrounds, Biondo published a coffee-table book, 2014’s Once Upon a Playground: A Celebration of Classic American Playgrounds, 1920-1975, which includes both her photographs of vintage equipment and pages of old playground catalogs that sold it.

Starting this November, Biondo’s playground photos will hit the road as part of a four-year ExhibitsUSA traveling show, which will also include vintage playground postcards and catalog pages from Biondo’s collection. The show will make stops in smaller museums and history centers around the United States, passing through Temple, Texas; Lincoln, Nebraska; Kansas City, Missouri; and Greenville, South Carolina. Biondo talked to us on the phone from her home in small-town Colorado, where she lives with her husband and children.

This 1975 Miracle catalog page reads, "This famous Lifetime Whirl has delighted three generations of children and still is a safe, playground favorite. Although it has gone through many improvements many of the original models are still spinning on playgrounds from coast to coast." (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)This 1975 Miracle catalog page reads, “This famous Lifetime Whirl has delighted three generations of children and still is a safe, playground favorite. Although it has gone through many improvements many of the original models are still spinning on playgrounds from coast to coast.” (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)Collectors Weekly: What inspired you to photograph playgrounds?Biondo: In 2004, I happened to be at my local park with my 1-year-old daughter, who was playing in the sandbox. I had just switched careers, from freelance journalism to photography, and I was looking for a starter project. I looked around the playground and thought, “Where is all the equipment that I remember growing up on?” They had new plastic contraptions, but nothing like the big metal slides I grew up with. After that, I started driving around to other playgrounds to see if any of this old equipment still existed. I found very little of it and realized it was disappearing quickly. That got to me.I felt like somebody should be documenting this equipment, because it was such a big part—and a very good part—of so many people’s childhoods. I couldn’t find anybody else who was documenting it, and I didn’t see any evidence that the Smithsonian was collecting it. As far as I could tell, it was just getting ripped up and sent to the scrap heap. At first, I started traveling around Colorado where I live, visiting playgrounds. Eventually, I took longer trips around the Southwest, and then I started looking for playgrounds whenever I was in any other parts of the country, like around California and the East Coast. It was a long-term project—shot over the course of a decade. And every year that I was shooting, it got harder and harder to find those pieces of old equipment.

This merry-go-round, photographed in Cañon City, Colorado, in 2006, is very similar to the Lifetime Whirl above. In the background are a rideable jalopy and animals, including four attached to a teeter-totter. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

This merry-go-round, photographed in Cañon City, Colorado, in 2006, is very similar to the Lifetime Whirl above. In the background are a rideable jalopy and animals, including four attached to a teeter-totter. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: How did you find them?

Biondo: I would just drive around. I started hunting down local elementary schools and main-street playgrounds as well as neighborhood playgrounds. If I had a weekend, I would say, “OK, I’m going to drive from my home three hours east to the Kansas border, stay overnight and drive back.” Along the way, I would stop at every little town that I’d pass. They usually had one tiny main-street playground and one elementary school. I never knew what I was going to find. In a poorer area, a town often doesn’t have much money to replace playground equipment, whereas more affluent areas usually have updated their playgrounds by now. It was a bit of a crap shoot. Sometimes, I’d drive for hours and not really find anything—or I’d find one old playground after the other, because I happened to be in an area where equipment hadn’t been replaced.

I couldn’t get to every state, so I had to shoot where I was. I think there certainly are still old playgrounds out there, especially in small towns. But there’s fewer and fewer of them every year. My book has something like 170 photographs. I would guess that half the equipment pictured is already gone. Sometimes, I’d go back to a playground with a nice piece of equipment a year later to reshoot it, maybe in different lighting or a different season, and so often it had been removed. That pressured me to get out as often as I could because if I waited a few weeks, that piece might not be there anymore.

A 1911 postcard shows girls playing on an outdoor gymnasium at Mayo Park in Rochester, Minnesota.

a 1911 postcard shows girls playing on an outdoor gymnasium at Mayo Park in Rochester, Minnesota.

Collectors Weekly: What did you learn about playground history?

Biondo: I didn’t know American playgrounds started as part of the social reform or progressive movement of the early 1900s. Reformers hoped to keep poor inner-city immigrant kids safe and out of trouble. Back then, city children were playing in the streets with nothing to do, and when cars became more popular, kids started to get hit by motorists. Child activists started building playgrounds in big cities like Boston, Chicago, and New York as a way to help and protect these kids. These reformers felt they could build model citizens by teaching cooperation and manners through playgrounds. These early main-street parks would also have playground leaders who orchestrated activities such as games and songs.

“I started driving to playgrounds to see if any old equipment still existed. I found very little of it and realized it was disappearing quickly.”

In the late 1800s, Germans developed what they called “sand gardens,” which are just piles of sand where kids can come dig and build things. There were few of those in the United States as well. But by the early 1900s, the emphasis of playgrounds was on the apparatuses, things kids could climb on or swing on.

Soon after I started researching playground history, I happened to stumble on an eBay auction for a 1926 catalog that the playground manufacturers used to send to schools. At that point, I wasn’t thinking of doing a book, but I thought I could do something with it. I won the catalog; I paid, like, $12 for it. And it was so interesting because I could see this vintage equipment when it was brand new and considered modern and advanced. The manufacturers boasted about how safe it was and how it was good for building both muscles and imaginations.

After that, I would always search on eBay for playground catalogs, and I ended up with about three dozen catalogs from different manufacturers. My oldest is 1916, and my newest is from 1975. So I would take a photograph of some type of merry-go-round, and then I might find that same merry-go-round in a 1930 catalog. Often in the book, I pair my picture with the page from the catalog showing when it was first manufactured. I discovered a couple dozen manufacturers, which tended to be located in the bigger industrial areas with steel manufacturing, like Trenton, New Jersey, and Kokomo and Litchfield, Indiana. Pueblo, Colorado, even had a playground manufacturer. Burke and GameTime were big 20th century companies, and actually are among few still in existence.

The cover of a 1926 catalog for EverWear Manufacturing Company. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

The cover of a 1926 catalog for EverWear Manufacturing Company. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: I recently came across an old metal slide whose steps had the name of the manufacturer, American, forged in openwork letters.

Biondo: I love those. One of the last pages in the book shows treads from six different slides, and they each had the name of their manufacturer in them, including Porter, American, and Burke. One time when I was traveling, I did a quick side trip to a small town with an elementary school. In the parking lot was this old metal slide with the American step treads, lying on its side. You could tell it had just been ripped off out of the concrete, which was still attached to the bottom, and was waiting for the steel recyclers to come and take it away.

I thought, “Oh my gosh, just put it on eBay! Somebody is going to want that. Don’t melt it down.” But nobody thinks about this stuff getting thrown away when it should be preserved. If you go on eBay, you can find a lot of those small animals on springs that little kids ride, because they’re small enough to be shipped. Once I saw someone selling one of those huge rocket ships, which had been dismantled, on eBay, but I don’t know if anybody ever bid on it. It’s rare to see the big stuff, because it is so expensive to ship. It’s like, “What kind of truck do you need to haul this thing away?” I don’t know of anyone who’s collecting those pieces, but I hope somebody is.

A metal slide in Victor, Colorado, had step treads with the name "American" in them. Photographed in 2008. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

A metal slide in Victor, Colorado, had step treads with the name “American” in them. Photographed in 2008. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: It seems like an opportunity for both starting a collection or repurposing the material.

Biondo: I photographed many of the apparatuses as if they were sculptures because they have really cool designs and colors. Even when they’re worn down, the exposed layers of paint can be beautiful. Hardly anybody stops to look at it that way. People drive by and think, “Oh, there’s an old, rusty, rundown playground.” But if you take the time to look closely at this stuff, it’s really interesting. Just by looking at these pieces, you can picture all the kids who played on them.

Collectors Weekly: Aren’t people nostalgic for their childhood playgrounds?

Biondo: While I was taking the pictures, I visited Boulder, Colorado, which is a very affluent community. I was sure there would be no old playground equipment there. When I was driving around, all of a sudden, I looked over and saw this huge rocket ship. It turns out that one of the original NASA astronauts, Scott Carpenter, grew up in Boulder, and this playground was built in the ’60s to honor their hometown boy. Because of that, the citizens of Boulder never wanted to take down the rocket ship. One of the first exhibitions of this photography project happened in Boulder, and at the opening, I sold four prints of that rocket ship. People would come up to me at the exhibition, and they’d go, “Oh my gosh, I grew up playing on this when I was a little kid! Now, my kids are playing on it, and I’m so excited that I can get a picture of it and hang it in their bedroom.” So people have a strong nostalgic attachment to this equipment. It’s sad that most of it’s not going to be around for much longer.

A 1968 Miracle Playground Equipment catalog features the huge rocket-ship play set seen at the top of this story. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

A 1968 Miracle Playground Equipment catalog features the huge rocket-ship playset seen at the top of this story. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: Besides slides and animals on springs, what were some other pieces that were common in older playgrounds?

Biondo: I didn’t come across as many old swings as I expected. I thought they would be all over the place, but I guess they’re gone now because they were so easy to replace. I tended to find merry-go-rounds more frequently—you know, the one where you’d run around pushing them and then jump on. When my kids were younger, they’d go out playground hunting with me, and the merry-go-rounds were their favorite things. They’re just so fun. The other thing you don’t find often is the seesaw or teeter-totter, and that was my favorite.The Karymor Stationary Jingle Ring Outfit appeared in the 1931 playground catalog put out by Pueblo, Colorado's R.F. Lamar and Co. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

The Karymor Stationary Jingle Ring Outfit appeared in the 1931 playground catalog put out by Pueblo, Colorado’s R.F. Lamar and Co. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

Before I started this project, I didn’t know there was such a variety of equipment. I figured I’d see seesaws, swings, slides, and merry-go-rounds. But I had no idea there were such things as revolving swings, which would be attached to a spinning pole via outstretched metal arms. Many mid-century pieces had themes from pop culture like “The Wizard of Oz,” “Cinderella,” “Denis the Menace,” cowboys and Indians, and Saturday-morning cartoons. During the Space Age, you started to see pieces of equipment shaped like rocket ships and satellites, because in the ’60s, Americans were so excited about space exploration. What was going on in the broader culture often got reflected in playground equipment.

Pursuing the catalogs was eye-opening. I live about an hour and a half south of Denver, so I often looked for playgrounds around the city. There, I’d find these contraptions where were shaped like umbrella skeletons, but then they had these rings hanging off the spindles. I’ve never seen them outside of Colorado. Then I bought a 1930s catalog from the manufacturer in Pueblo, Colorado, which is only 45 minutes from me, and it featured this apparatus. Later, I met people in Denver who’d say, “Oh, yeah, I remember that thing as a kid. It’s kind of like monkey bars where you had to try and get from ring to ring swinging and hanging by your arms.” There was so much variety, and even so many variations on the basics.I have a cool catalog from 1926 from the manufacturer Mitchell, which doesn’t exist anymore. I looked at one of the contraptions they advertised and I was like, “Oh my God, this looks like a torture device!” It was their own proprietary apparatus and maybe it didn’t prove to be very popular. I had never seen something like that on a playground. There probably weren’t very many of them installed.

This strange Climbing Swing from the 1926 Mitchell Manufacturing Company catalog looks a bit like a torture device. Brenda Biondo says she's never found one in the wild. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

This Climbing Swing from the 1926 Mitchell Manufacturing Company catalog looks a bit like a torture device. Biondo’s never found one in the wild. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: After a while, were you able to date pieces just by looking at them?

Biondo: From looking at the catalogs, I certainly got a better idea of when things were built. But there were a handful things I couldn’t find in the catalogs. You can guess the age by knowing the design, as well as by looking at the amount of wear and the height of the piece. Usually, the taller it was, the older it was. One of the oldest slides I photographed was probably from the ’30s. I climbed to the top to shoot it as if the viewer were going to go down the slide. Up there, the place where you’d sit before sliding had been used for so many years by so many kids that I could see an outline of all the butts worn into the metal. You can imagine all the children who must have gone down that slide to wear the metal down like that.

This 1930s-era slide, found in Sargents, Colorado, in 2007, developed a butt-shaped imprint. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

This 1930s-era slide, found in Sargents, Colorado, in 2007, developed a butt-shaped imprint. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: How did Modernism influence playground design?

Biondo: In 1953, the Museum of Modern Art in New York held a competition for playground design. Modern Art was just getting popular, and the idea of incorporating the theories of Modernist design into utilitarian objects was in the air, and was translated into playgrounds for several years. I have a 1967 catalog that features very abstract playground equipment made from sinuous blobs of poured concrete. And you’ve probably seen some of it, but there’s not too much of that around. That’s another example of how broader cultural trends were reflected in playgrounds.

When most people think of playgrounds, they say, “Oh, that’s a kiddie subject. There’s not much to it.” But when you start looking into them, you realize playgrounds are a fascinating piece of American culture—they go back a hundred years and played a part in most Americans’ lives. These playground pieces are icons of our childhood.

Collectors Weekly:What was the impact of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which launched in 1973?

Biondo: Things started to change after that, which is why I limited to book to apparatuses made before 1975. New playgrounds were starting to be build out of plastic and fiberglass. I looked up the statistics, and according to the little research I’ve done—contrary to what you’d expect—there’s not much difference in the number of injuries on older equipment versus injuries on equipment today. A “New York Times” article from 2011 called “Can a Playground Be Too Safe?” explains that studies show when playground equipment was really high and just had asphalt underneath it and not seven layers of mulch, thekids knew they had to be careful because they didn’t want to fall. Nowadays, when everything is lower and there’s so much mulch, kids are just used to jumping down and falling and catching themselves. So kids learned to assess risk by playing on the older equipment. They also learned to challenge themselves because it is a little scary to go up to the top of the thing.

This old postcard of Shawnee Park in Kansas City, Kansas, circa 1912, shows how tall slides could get.

 

This old postcard of Shawnee Park in Kansas City, Kansas, circa 1912, shows how tall slides could get.

At my local park where you have new equipment, the monkey bars aren’t that high and there’s mulch below it, but a child fell and broke their arm last year. When I was talking to the principal at the school where they had just torn out that old American slide, I asked her, “Why did you replace the equipment?” She said, “We felt the parents in the community were expecting to have a little bit newer and nicer equipment. And this stuff had been here for so long.” And I said, “Have you seen a difference in injury rates since you put up your newer equipment?” She replied, “I’ve been a principal here several years, and we never had a serious broken-bone injury on the playground until four months ago on the new equipment.”

There were some nasty accidents in the ‘60s and ’70s, where kids got their arms or their heads caught in the contraptions. Those issues definitely needed to be assessed. What’s interesting is the Consumer Product Safety Commission never issued requirements, just suggested guidelines. But manufacturers felt that if their equipment didn’t meet those guidelines, they’d be vulnerable to liability. Everybody went to the extreme, making everything super safe so they wouldn’t risk getting sued.A 1970s-era climbing-bar apparatus, photographed in Rocky Ford, Colorado, in 2006. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

A 1970s-era climbing-bar apparatus, photographed in Rocky Ford, Colorado, in 2006. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)

In the last decade, people have been looking at playground-equipment design and trying to make it more challenging and more encouraging of imaginative play, but without making it more likely someone’s going to get injured. And adults, I think, are realizing kids are spending more time indoors on devices so they want to do everything they can to encourage kids to still get outside, run around, and climb on things.

Collectors Weekly: You don’t need a playground to hurt yourself. When I was a kid, I fell off a farm post and broke my arm.Biondo: Oh, yeah, kids have been falling out trees forever—they always want to climb stuff. Playground politics are always evolving. Even in the 1920s, the catalogs talked about how safe their equipment was, and they were selling these 30-foot slides. Sometimes, I’d be out with my family on a vacation, and we’d make a little side tour to look for an old playground to shoot. My husband would look at these big metal things and go, “Oh my God, those are the Slides of Death!” because they were so huge and rickety. But back then, these were very safe pieces of equipment compared to what kids had been playing on before.

A page from the 1971 GameTime catalog offering rideable Saddle Mates. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

A page from the 1971 GameTime catalog offering rideable Saddle Mates. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)

Collectors Weekly: Growing up in the 1980s, I always hated the new fiberglass slides because I’d end up with all these tiny glass shards in my butt.

Biondo: Yeah, I remember that, too. It’s always something. It is fun to talk to people about playgrounds because it reminds them of all the fun stuff they did as kids. When people see pictures of these metal slides, they tell me, “Oh my gosh, I remember getting such a bad burn from a metal slide one summer!” The metal would get so hot in the sun, and kids would take pieces of wax paper with them to sit on so they’d go flying down the slide. I have some old postcards that show playgrounds from the early ’20s. The wood seesaws not only were huge, but they had no handles so you had hold on to the sides of the board where you sat. I’m looking at that like, “Oh my God!” It’s all relative.

playground_postcard_milwaukee

Kids ride the rocking-boat seesaw at a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, park in this postcard postmarked 1910.

(To see more of Brenda Biondo’s playground photos and vintage catalog pages, pick up a copy of her book, “Once Upon a Playground: A Celebration of Classic American Playground, 1920-1975.” To find an exhibition of Biondo’s playground project, or to bring it to your town, visit the ExhibitsUSA page. To learn more about creative mid-century playgrounds around the globe, also pick up, “The Playground Project” by Xavier Salle and Vincent Romagny.) insh.world/history/playground-equipment-of-yesterday-that...

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Last vehicle from my first Brighton Run on 5/5/68 is RT44 which in those days was preserved in postwar livery - the condition in which I saw them used as Learners in the 1950's. She is followed by RT 191 - here at Bolney.

Enjoying the luxurious life

This was Bury Corporation's first bus to be delivered after the end of the second world war, in the Corporation's then-new green and cream livery. The six years of war took a heavy toll on heavily used buses due to petrol rationing and war work in the factories. with little maintenance due to staff shortages of men who had gone to the forces and shortages of spares. Moreover the flow of new buses slowed to a trickle as factories concentrated on war transport.

 

So the sight of new buses at the end of the war was a welcome sight for weary travellers and staff alike, and Bury took its new acquisition to the junction of Rochdale Road and Wash Lane for a photo.

 

In fact 102 has a place of history not just as Bury's first postwar bus, but the first postwar Leyland 'PD1' model to be delivered. Leyland had been planning for its postwar designs since the mid-war years and number 102 was the very first postwar Leyland bus to be seen on the streets.

 

For the enthusiast, you can tell this is a very early postwar Leyland because the first few had a concealed radiator cap, under a flap in the chrome cowling: but this was impractical and the more traditional cap at the top soon returned.

 

Today. there are two Bury Corporation buses preserved in the Museum of Transport Greater Manchester: number 177 of 1952, and number 116 of 1963.

 

If you'd like to know more about the Museum of Transport Greater Manchester and its collection of vintage buses, go to www.gmts.co.uk.

4,0 Litre

6 In-line

150 hp

 

Class III : Post War "1945-1965"

Zoute Concours d'Elegance

Royal Zoute Golf Club

 

Zoute Grand Prix 2022

Knokke - Zoute

België - Belgium

October 2022

“Sunsets on the Overhead” (Liverpool)

From and oil painting by Eric Bottomley G R A.

 

Eric Bottomley Prints.

 

Post card: - British Postwar Trams, No. 3 of 8.

Schulklasse, 1948.

Class III b : Post-War Closed Cars "The Special Ones"

Zoute Concours d'Elegance

Royal Zoute Golf Club

 

Zoute Grand Prix 2021

Knokke - Zoute

België - Belgium

October 2021

Just getting the front off here. Surprisingly, the leatherette came off intact and can be reused.

 

Prewar C3s had the cocking lever secured by a set screw. In postwar ones, there was a hex jam nut below the lever. To release the nut, you need a very thin 5/16" open end wrench - much thinner than you'll find in any standard wrench set. Back in "The Day", when we had to change ignition points in our flathead straight-eights, they made special sets of "ignition wrenches", which were open end wrenches in tiny sizes, often stamped out of sheet steel. These are ideal for this job. I don't know if you can still find them in auto parts stores, but you might come across a set at a flea market or antique shop. To remove the lever, you engage the nut with the wrench to keep it from turning, and then turn the cocking lever CLOCKWISE (it's a Left-Hand thread). Once you get past the resistance of the jam nut, it spins right off.

Class III a : Post-War Closed Cars "The most elegant ones"

Zoute Concours d'Elegance

Royal Zoute Golf Club

 

Zoute Grand Prix 2021

Knokke - Zoute

België - Belgium

October 2021

The Duchess copper deposit was discovered by Jack Kennedy, the son of pioneer pastoralist Alexander Kennedy, in 1897. In 1906 the Hampden-Cloncurry Copper Mines Ltd acquired it and it became the richest producer in the region. By 1912, Hampden-Cloncurry had also gained control of the rich Trekelano copper mine to the south of the smaller Mount Mascotte mines to the north. The ore was railed to Kuridala for processing. However, in 1918 continuing labour shortages, breakdowns, exhaustion of the high-grade oxidised ore, and the drastic postwar drop in copper prices forced the closure of most of the company’s mines including Duchess. At the time, the Duchess copper mine boasted a 100 ton capacity bin. This elaborate structure was the wonder of northwest Queensland at the time and it enabled a full train to be loaded in a relatively short time. Mining activities in the region then almost ceased. The Duchess mine had produced 204 865 t of ore that yielded 25 155t of copper, 76kg of gold and 62kg of silver.

 

The Duchess orebody occurred in a steep west-dipping shear zone that cuts granite and dolerite, which are probably the same age as the Burstall Granite, and mica schist and calc-silicate rocks of the Corella Formation. The lode in the upper levels of the mine consisted of bornite and subordinate chalcocite, malachite, and cuptire in calcite, but at deeper levels chalcopyrite with quartz was dominant. The mine was worked to a depth of 259m. Today only concrete footings of the machinery remain, apart from a small pit and trenches excavated by more recent exploration. Malachite forming veins and fracture coatings in quartz, and some pyrite can be found on the site. Numerous smaller copper mines occur in the vicinity of Duchess but most are very small.

 

The Duchess railway opened on the 21st of October 1912 as a temporary terminus for the Great Western Railway construction project. The Hampden Co pressured for the early completion of the line to Duchess to reach its copper mine situated near the station. Ore was forwarded on the 10th of June 1912 as soon as the rails reached Duchess, several months before all the bridging and ballasting was completely finished, such was the urgency.

 

When the railway arrived in 1912 a small town sprung up on both sides of the station. Amenity comprised a hotel, store, butcher, school, police station, and a post office. There was a local activity as shown by passenger traffic levels at around 4000 annual journeys. Distant travellers were catered for by the connecting road coach services. A weekly coach ran from here to Camooweal via Colton Hills (320km), taking in mines and pastoral stations on the way. The service departed Duchess on Thursday at 0800am and arrived at Camooweal by 1800pm. Another coach service ran to Trekelano mine twice a week on a day return.

 

At first there was no water infrastructure required here, locos apparently running to and from Duchess ex Malbon without filing tender tanks. However when the Trekelano tramway opened in 1917 the locos were required to haul a water gin owing to the extra distance involved. In 1918 the manager of the Duchess mine offered Queensland Rail (QR) access to a mine well and this was availed of. QR erected a 30 000 gallon tank for loco water. After the mines closed QR was able to tape the shafts of several mines in turn to maintain supply, which water was suitable after softening.

 

Rail passenger figures remained firm for a few years by dipped after 1921 and settled at around 1200 annually until the late 1950s when they increased to the mid-1960s, probably due to workers from the Mount Isa Line rehabilitation project. A sharp decline then ensued, and numbers dwindled to a couple of hundreds per year.

 

The downturn in smelting saw Duchess ore loadings terminate abruptly at the end of 1920. The Hampden Co closed the Duchess mine in 1921 and the site was not revived until 1926 when the dumps were able to be sold for smelting. QR repaired the long unsued siding to allow safe access and over the next 18 months the dumps were completely removed. The Hampden Co has no further use for the mine (its workings completely flooded by then) and none for the rail connection so it sold the siding to QR in 1928. The mine plant and the rail weighbridge were removed at the same time. Penny packets of ore continued to be sent away throughout the 1930s by district gougers and tributers, presumably loaded at the mine siding.

 

The copper ore and limestone traffic revived in the earnest for Mount Isa Mines from the late 1940s and a few thousand tons annually were loaded at Duchess for a while and again in the mid-1960s at around 10 000 annual tons. No copper ore or limestone was loaded after 1970. The largest single burst ore traffic came from the Phosphate Hill mine in 1975 and 1976 when phosphatic rock to the order of 176 000 tons was road trucked to rail at Duchess pending completion of the Flynn to Phosphate Hill railway and associated loaders at the mine.

 

The station lost its status as a terminus when the line was continued to Butru in 1915 but the place came into its own when the Mount Isa mining filed was discovered and subsequently developed. Traffic for Mount Isa went through Duchess as it was the closest railhead. The railway extension to Mount Isa officially opened on the 17th of May 1929 and Duchess became the junction to Dajarra and Mount Isa from this time. The yard was expanded, and a full suite of signals was installed. The station was protected from three directions (Mount Isa, Dajarra, and Cloncurry) by distant and home signals all worked from a six lever frame near the station office.

 

Some sidings were re-arranged to a new layout. The goods shed road was lifted at one end and relaid around the Mount Isa curve where a new loading bank was installed. The passing loop was extended at the Dajarra end to run beyond the Mount Isa turn out. A refreshment room was established in 1929 when the new line opened and it catered for passengers on the Mail plus the mixed trains and those transferring to and from the Dajarra service. The rooms remained in business until 1938 and benefited from the Dajarra service being worked from Mount Isa for a period in the 1930s.

 

Additional staff and their accommodations were placed at Duchess from 1929, including track gangs and train crews. The train crews were necessary to do away with the need for Cloncurry crews to run the full distance to Mount Isa on overnight rest.

 

The mine siding remained in place until around 1950 when it was lifted and an alternative ore loading ramp provided between the legs of the angle that was served by a new length of siding. The rehabilitation project of 1961 – 1962 saw the crossing loop extended at the Cloncurry end and the Up home signal moved further out.

 

The place generated enough traffic to justify the appointment of a station master, particularly when the copper boom lasted. However, when ore traffic ceased in 1921 the place was immediately downgraded to a gate. Developments from Mount Isa from 1924 onwards saw the station master position returned in 1928 when construction of the extension was underway and Duchess becoming a junction station. Fettling gangs were placed at Duchess to maintain the track in three directions.

 

The station master position lasted until 1972 when replaced by Porter-in-Charge under gate conditions but the building and opening of the Phosphate Hill branch and a rise in ore traffic caused the position to be reinstated in 1975. Changed in train running and safe working led to the final demise of the station master office in 1988 and the place was unattended from the 30th of September that year. The introduction of mechanised gangs from 1966 led to the gradual attrition of the fettling gangs and track inspectors and from a high point of 20 or so staff and a dozen departmental residences the Duchess staffing establishment dwindled to nothing by the late 1990s.

 

In 1988 Train Order Working was implemented here and yard rationalisation was initiated in instalments from this time through to 2004. Removed during this phase were the goods shed, water softener, ore loading siding, goods shed sign and loading bank, the western leg of the angle and, a little later, the eastern leg plus the Dajarra line stub and loop continuation at that end of the yard. The loco water tank was retained as the basis for the town water supply after being lifted from its stand and mountain at ground level. The wooden station office (a 1949 replacement to the original which was destroyed by fire) was demolished in 2006. Its substitute is a new high level, short length, passenger platform and rudimentary shelter.

 

The Duchess township slowly diminished in concert with the railway attrition and by 2007 was down to a few houses, the hotel, and the corrugated iron public hall (with children’s playground intact). The opening of the Trekelano mine and associated camp 14km out of town in 2005, with the access road junctioning at Duchess, gave the hotel a welcome injection of custom.

 

Source: Rocks and Landscapes of Northwest Queensland by Laurie Hutton and Ian Withnall, Copper in the Curry by Norman Houghton.

Title inspired by the great dry wit of Javier Mayoral.

6.277 cc

V8

325 hp

 

Class IV : Post-War "1965-1985"

Zoute Concours d'Elegance

Royal Zoute Golf Club

 

Zoute Grand Prix 2022

Knokke - Zoute

België - Belgium

October 2022

A close-up of a picture from an Alfred Wiseman 'Overhead Line Material' book. It shows the trolleybus terminus at Penn, Wolverhampton in the late 1940s, or very early 1950s. The trolleybus is one of the pre-war Park Royal bodied Sunbeam trolleys from 1938. These buses were withdrawn from service between 1949 and 1952, some of them being sold on to Belfast Corporation for further service in 1952.

 

Today, this is a busy dual carriageway, but the shops and houses seen to the left of the picture still survive in 2009.

Austin 3-litre 1969. Pictured at the Birmingham Bull Ring shopping centre at night.

 

Collection: Longbridge

Date: 1969

Reference Number: CC005093

 

To enquire about any of our images or for more information, please contact photo@britishmotormuseum.co.uk or visit our photographic website at www.motorgraphs.com/.

4,0 Litre

6 In-line

150 hp

 

Class III : Post War "1945-1965"

Zoute Concours d'Elegance

Royal Zoute Golf Club

 

Zoute Grand Prix 2022

Knokke - Zoute

België - Belgium

October 2022