New Brighton Open Air Baths 1934 -1990

Sorry for the long hiatus. There have a lot of real life things going on at moment, the biggest being that I have moved house and some of my postcard collection got separated so I'm still sorting through things. I hope I haven't lost anything.


I love this card, it contains two of my passions, open air swimming pools and art deco structures.

I'm sure quite a few of you reading this will be familiar with New Brighton baths and may have spent the odd summer day there and bathed in these waters.

Just as with the doomed New Brighton Tower, when the baths were constructed in 1934 they were the largest of their kind. Photographs of the era show that they really were quite spectacular looking at the time, bright and stylish and contemporary looking, the baths attracted 100,000 visitors in their opening week. As well as the 4 and 1/2 acre pool, visitors could enjoy lying on the terraces and soaking up the sun, watch the bathers or dine in the café and all for 6d.

From 1949 until the year before it closed it also became known for its Miss New Brighton Bathing Beauty contests which drew crowds of up 10 15,000 people.

As with everything on this blog it eventually came to an end. In February 1990 hurricane force winds damaged much of the structure and as repairs would have come to £4 million it was decided instead to bulldoze the pool and this happened in the summer of 1990.

Loyola Hall, Ranihill

The building depicted in the postcard below still stands, in fact you can even buy it if you have a spare £1.25 million.
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/controversial-historic-mansion-could-yours-11930684

However, as it is no longer used as a religious retreat, it fits in with the remit of the blog.
There is also another reason why I've decided to blog about this and that's because it was very familiar to me throughout my childhood and teenage years.  I imagine those of you from my home town reading this blog  will have their own memories of Loyola Hall, from a certain history teacher's inability to pronounce it to trying to sneak in at lunchtimes and being chased out by the gardener.
The building and site were closed to visitors and a large wall hid most of it from view, which made it all the more fascinating for me. I remember being very little and being unable to see anything at all over the wall except when I was on the bus and I could just make out the main hall and beautiful looking grounds. The fascination never abated and even at 18 I would try to sneak a peak over the wall to get a better view. When I eventually got to enter the place, in my early 20s and looking for a missing cat (he turned up safe and sound), it was something of an anti climax.
The Grade II listed building was built in 1824 and known as Rainhill House, later becoming Rainhill Hall after extension work in 1869.  It was owned along with most of the land in Rainhill at the time, by the Bretherton-Stapleton family. The devoutly Catholic family, who also founded the nearby St Bartholomew's Church, sold the building and grounds to the Jesuits in 1923. It was used mostly as a spiritual retreat with upwards of 2000 visitors yearly.
It was also used to house the North Korean Football Team shortly before their quarter final match in the 1966 World Cup. One can only wonder what the atheistic North Koreans made of the religious imagery, probably not a lot as they lost their match 5-2.
The building underwent many renovations in its history but the postcard seems to predate those and probably dates from around 1960.
Loyola Hall closed as a retreat in 2014 due to a lack of Jesuit priests to run the place.
Its not sure what the future will hold for the building and grounds. The are many rumours locally about the planned future of the place. I'm not going to comment on them as there are plenty of other places for people to have their say, but I will update the blog when we know for certain.

Update 2018

The hall is going to be a hotel and wedding venue.

http://www.sthelensstar.co.uk/news/16256427.Loyola_Hall_plans_for_hotel_and_wedding_venue_approved/

The Mystery of the MV Lyubov Orlova

In my last blog post concerning a ship I stated that she reminded me of a film star, well the vessel in the card below was named after a movie star, the Soviet Union's Lyubov Orlova.

You may not have heard of the actress, but you have probably heard of the vessel as she is the so called cannibal rat ghost ship that certain tabloids wanted us to believe was headed our way back in 2014.  This turned out to be false but it's not known what actually did happen to her.
MV Lyubov Orlova was built in 1976, a year after her namesake had died. She was built in Kraljevica, the oldest shipyard in the Adriatic which was then in Yugoslavia now Croatia. She was owned by the Far Eastern Shipping Company based in Vladivostok and was used for Antarctic cruises which she carried out without incident until 2006 when she ran aground at Deception Island, which itself is  home to abandoned scientific bases and might be of interest to some of you. 
The ship was taken out of service in 2010 and effectively placed under arrest. She was seized following a suit by a haulage contractor over a $251,000 debt. The 51 strong crew had not been paid for 5 months.
She was impounded at St John's in Newfoundland becoming gradually more derelict until she was sold for scrap in 2013. It was  when she was being towed away that her status as a ghost ship started. The tow line broke and the ship started to drift. As she was in international waters, there was some dispute as to whose jurisdiction she fell under and with no-one claiming responsibility the vessel continued to drift. She was sighted a couple of times in early 2013 the last time being on 12th March that year. It's not known what happened to her after that but she is believed to have sunk.
You may wonder how we can lose a 300 ft. ocean liner but she is not the only ship to have disappeared, though she is the only one, as far as I know, to have created such headline grabbing stories.
I've been searching for a card of the Lyubov Orlova since I first read those stories two years ago and I finally found one on ebay a couple of years ago. It's not the best quality but for me it's the "holy grail" of cards.
I'm not sure when it dates from but it's from the Soviet Era and published by Morflot.
    

Dover Stage and Coach Hotel - They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

Well paradise is pushing it, but the Dover Stage and Coach Hotel was quite well thought of for a while.

The postcard is one of those that many people would consider boring and it certainly wouldn't look out of place in Martin Parr's Boring Postcard book but it is the sort of card many collectors, myself included, enjoy. I do wonder, looking at the Martin Parr book today how many of the structures still stand. Now there's an idea for a book.  For those of interested in that kind of thing, the card was published by Judges' and is not dated but is thought to be from mid sixties to early seventies.

The Dover Stage Hotel was built in 1957, only the third hotel to be built in the UK in the post war period. The modern but unusual design was meant to attract visitors from mainland Europe . The hotel was not glamorous but it had a lot to offer a visitor. All its 42 rooms were sea facing and had their own balcony, the hotel also had several bars and a large ballroom.  One thing it did lack were en suite facilities and though these were later added, it was to the detriment of the room size. Despite this, the hotel did attract many visitors for a while
It was not just overseas visitors who enjoyed the facilities. The ballroom and bars were popular among locals  for  wedding receptions, formal dinners and dances . Some say that this was because there was a lack of choice as other nearby hotels had been destroyed in the war but its ballroom in particular remained popular until the hotel was closed in 1988.  Unfortunately by this point the people who counted, namely Dover District Council, considered The Stage Hotel to be past its sell by date and approval was granted for its demolition.
It was stated that the plan was to build flats on site, but for some reason, possibly because that had never been the  actual plan, the flats never materialised and a car park for the visitor attraction The White Cliffs Experience was built instead.  
Ironically The White Cliffs Experience was a bit of a flop, was nicknamed the White Elephant Experience, failed to attract the visitors and closed after 8 years. Plans to build a new hotel on the site have  come to nothing and it remains a rather underused carpark.

The MV Kalakala - From Icon to Embarrassment

I've mentioned before that I particularly like Art Deco related cards so when I heard about the MV Kalakala I just had to find a postcard of her.
This wasn't too difficult considering that she was once the second most photographed item in the world, with only the Eiffel Tower beating her. Not bad for what is basically a car ferry.
She was also one of the most popular exhibits at the 1962 Seattle World fair. The postcard below was sent from Seattle but many years earlier in 1946.

She was launched in 1926 as the Peralta but a fire 7 years later destroyed her superstructure. The brief for the redesign was to be distinctive and modernistic and eventually it was decided she should modelled on contemporary aircraft. The publicity was also intriguing, billboards were commissioned with simply Kalakala written on them in large letters.
The unusual design was a case of style over substance. The narrow car deck meant that she could carry less vehicles than other vessels and there were difficulties with docking due to the setback of the wheelhouse. Still, she remained popular with tourists who enjoyed moonlight cruises on the ferry.
The design faults didn't stop her from seeing heavy service in WWII where she was used to transport shipyard workers and Navy personelle. Her popularity as a vehicle  had waned by the 1950s and she gained unflattering nicknames such as the Silver Slug and Galloping Ghost.
She was retired from service in 1967 but was used as a factory ship until she was beached in 1970 and used to process shrimp. In 2004 she was sold to a private investor as her previous owners couldn't afford the upkeep. However she was evicted from her new home Neah Bay that year and the Macah people who had provided the anchorage sued the owners. I do not know the outcome of this but she was moved to Tacoma Washington.
By 2011 she was very frail and would up being sold for a nominal fee of a dollar with the understanding that the purchaser would renovate her. This did not happen and she was scrapped in early 2015.
When writing about the Kalakala I can't help picturing her as a tragic movie star, tragic beginnings,  good looks and publicity helping her get noticed  followed by rising and falling popularity. She has a brief moment in the sun again before retirement followed by lawsuits and eviction and finally ending up on the scrap heap unloved and largely unmourned apart from by those of us with a cult interest in these things. Kind of sad  really.     
If you are wondering about the unusual name she is from the Chinook Jargon trade language and means "bird". The Chinook Jargon, unlike the Kalakala, is still being used but with less than 650 speakers who knows for how much longer.
 
 

Leave No Marx

I took an unplanned break from blogging but we're back again now.

I have to admit that I'm finding it hard to stick to a particular schedule when blogging so from now one the posts are going to be as and when rather than sticking to various places on various days.

I was reading in the newspaper today about plans to rename all the streets, avenues, squares etc. in the former East Germany which had been named after Karl Marx. This made me wonder how many cards I have of such places.

During my, still ongoing, search I found this.

I did mention in my introduction to the blog that name change places will feature in the blog, especially with post marks which no longer exist.

The card was sent almost exactly 40 years ago, again a coincidence, from Karl- Marx-Stadt in the DDR to Hannover in the BRD.

Karl-Marx-Stadt was the name given to Chemnitz  on 10th May 1953, the town centre had been heavily bombed in WWII and the rebuilding  and the new name were meant to symbolise urban development under socialism.

I'm not going to go into a history of the fall of Communism and the changes in Europe at the time, but suffice to say Germany was reunified on 3rd October 1990.

The change of name back to Chemnitz had actually taken place a few months before with 76% of the town inhabitants voting in favour of reverting back to Chemnitz in a referendum held in April that year.

I'm trying to find out which of the places feature on the card still exist. I know the petrified forest still does and Strasse der Nationen has kept its name.

I can't find any info on the fountains. They are very of their time so they may have been destroyed but they are quite innocuous looking so maybe they still stand.

The other building on the card is the Interhotel Moskau. From what I can gather the building still stands but has changed its name to Hotel an der Oper.

Interhotels had a reputation for being used by the Stasi to spy on Western Tourists. You can't help but wonder if the sender of this card was subject to such surveillance.

The Planes, The Planes

I thought I would show something quite modern, by my standards, for today .

This card was sent to me in 2002 by my brother and was issued to commemorate the Commonwealth Games which were held in Manchester that year.

Just to show how quickly things change, only one of the airlines depicted on the card, British Airways, exists under that name today.
The other three, Air 2000, Britannia and bmi have all merged into other airlines.

Air 2000 had the shortest run, operating between 1987 and 2004 before being merged with First Choice Holidays in 2008 and later with Thomsonfly to create Thomson Airways. The aeroplane on the card is an Airbus A321.

Britannia Airways was once the largest chartered airlines n the UK. It was founded in 1961 as Euravia and was renamed Britannia in 1964. It is probably best remembered in the UK as being the subject of a docusoap, ubiquitous in the 1990s, in 1998 called Airline. In 2005 it was rebranded as Thomsonfly which as we saw above eventually became Thomson Airways.

British Midland International (bmi) has the longest history of the airlines featured and operated under a number of names during its lifespan. Founded in 1938 as Air Schools Limited, as a school for training pilots, it changed its name to bmi in 1964.
The airline had two subsidiaries, bmibaby which is also defunct and BMI Regional which is still operating in the UK and Europe.
BMI itself was integrated into British Airways in 2012.

 

Paulinerkirche - Leipzig's Lost Church (1956)

I mentioned in an earlier post that I have an interest in the GDR so you can expect to see quite a few East German cards on the blog.
I spent 5 months as student at Leipzig university in 1998 by which time University looked rather different from this 1956 postcard.
The Paulinerkirche is probably the most well know of the buildings on the card. It was built in 1231 and since the foundation of the university in 1409, the two have been closely related with the preachers appointed by the university.
During its proud history, which included inauguration by Martin Luther, many famous musicians have been associated with the church. Johann Sebastian Bach conducted holiday services there and Felix Mendelssohn's funeral was held there.  It also served as a military hospital during the Battle of Leipzig in 1813.
The church survived both word wars with little damage but a decision was made by the GDR government in 1968 to dynamite the church and the Augusteum next door as they were deemed ill-fitting for their concept of a socialist-orientated university.  Protestors were arrested.  A memorial, in the form of an A-frame sculpture in the size and location of the church was erected in 1993 and was still there in 1998 when I was a student in the city.
Today there is a new university church in its place and has the same shape as the Paulinerkirche. Church Services have been carried out there since 2009.

Edit - I've found  a picture which I took in 1998 as a student there, showing the A-frame.

Wednesday = Question Day

I'm sometimes asked if I have any cards I'm embarrassed about. I don't think I have any cards I'm ashamed of and there is certainly nothing I would hide away from people who wanted view my collection, but there are few cards that baffle me as to why I bought them.

Let's look at a couple.
This is a card depicting a holiday home on the Baltic Coast, I'm not sure why I bought it. It's true I have a liking for boring cards and I do have an academic interest in the GDR and every day life there but I do like good quality cards and this is not of good quality. The discolouration, for once, is not the fault of my scanner. I'm sure I could have found a better quality card to satisfy my interests.

Despite its ugliness I do still quite like it.

I'm going to do a rare thing and show the back (minus name and address) because it makes me laugh that the sender states they are visiting the beautiful Baltic. I've never been to that part of Germany but from pictures I've seen it is beautiful. You wouldn't know it from this card though.

The next card is also a mystery. I have been to Llandudno and it's lovely but the card below doesn't really give you this impression as its main focus seems to be a group of pensioners on a bench, with the scenery a sort of afterthought.

What is really weird is that I have two copies of this card, neither has been posted so I must have bought them myself. Now Llandudno is a tourist town so I'm sure there must have been prettier and more interesting cards available. I can only conclude that I must have bought them as some sort of long forgotten in-joke.

I do have some cards sent to me via Postcrossing which be hard to explain to people, semi naked men in sauna, Indonesian men with hooks in their back, but they will have to wait until another time.

St Peters Pro-Cathedral, Liverpool (1910)

I took a little break from blogging but everything should be business as usual this week.

A lot of my British cards will be from the north west of England as that is where I grew up and no matter how much I think I know about an area I always manage to discover places I never knew existed.

I'm sure many of you are familiar with the big gothic Anglican Cathedral in Liverpool, but how many of you were aware of its predecessor the modest looking St Peters which used to be in Church Street?

I wasn't either. Nor did I know that when the church was destroyed, Harrods planned on building their first store outside of London on the space once occupied by the building.


Firstly, let me apologise about the quality of the picture. I'm having problems with my scanner at present and I'm having to improvise.

The building, generally called ugly by most commentators, but I think that is rather unfair was situated on Church Street opposite what is now Marks and Spencer's. It was built in 1704 as a parish church became a cathedral in 1880 and closed in 1910, the years after this postcard was sent. Demolition was started in 1919 and completed in 1923. During its lifespan nearly 85 000 marriages took place and over 350 000 people were baptised. I do wonder when I see old buildings such as this if anyone is still in the city who remembers the place. Or how many people passing through the busy shopping street today know about the history of the place.

The spot the church stood on was later occupied by Woolworths, but that is also long and today Top Shop stands there, I wonder for how much longer. Apparently a Maltese Cross in the paving marks where the church once stood but I can't say I have noticed. I will make a point to look next time I am there though.

For more information on the St Peter's see here.

http://www.yoliverpool.com/st-peters-church-street-liverpool/

For information on other demolished buildings and streets of Liverpool visit here

    

SS Andrea Doria

Sorry I am rather late with my most recent blog post. As mentioned on Wednesday, today's blog post is in very questionable taste and I've been putting off writing about it.
The below is probably the most controversial card I own, not just because of the subject matter but because I bought the card knowing the history of the subject matter. I have other cards in my collection featuring controversial subjects but which were purchased in a job lot and I didn't realise the significance of the cards.

It's not the New York skyline which is the  problem here, this card is from the 1950s, long before the World Trade Centre was built and I would not feature that on the blog anyway.
The ship featured on the card is the Andrea Doria, which sank almost 60 years ago today on 25th/26th July 1956 (again the  date is a coincidence) with the loss of 46 lives.
The ship, built in 1951, was famed for it luxury and beauty and boasted three outdoor swimming pools and expensive artwork and décor throughout the ship.
It was also considered one of the safest ships ever built, with early warning radar and plenty of lifeboats no-one expected another Titanic. However there were flaws and its tendency to list when hit by heavy force was a contributing factor to its sinking. It also made it impossible to reach half of the lifeboats.
On 25th July, 9 days into a routine crossing, The Andrea Doria collided with the MS Stockholm after misinterpreting each others courses. I don't want to dwell too much on the accident itself, there are plenty of places you can read about that. I will say that 51 people lost their lives, including 5 from the SS Stockholm, but considering there were over 1700 people on board the Andrea Doria and a further 742 on the Stockholm, the loss of life could have been much greater. Survivors of the crash included Hollywood actresses Ruth Roman and Betsy Drake. Sadly, many of those killed were young families.
The fate of the two ships involved was very different, The Stockholm was repaired and is still in service as the MV Astoria, the Andrea Doria remained afloat for 11 hours after the collision before sinking into the North Atlantic Ocean. The wreck remains there to this day and 16 divers have lost their lives diving wreck giving it the nickname the Mount Everest of Scuba Diving.

Wednesday - Question Day

I'm not going to answer a question today. I'm just going to muse.

I mentioned the blog at work today and that Friday's post will be rather controversial as it features a well known tragedy and I was asked if I meant  the Summerland Disaster.
I replied that I did not and  that I have no plans to feature any postcards  of Summerland on the blog as it is too close to home for most of my readers and is still an emotional subject in the Isle of Man even after 43 years.The anniversary of the disaster in which over 50 people died is coming up at the start of next month and a one minute's silence is planned to commemorate the victims. I intend to take part.
It does make me ponder why I'm willing to feature certain controversial subjects and not others and which other subject matter I would shy away from posting about.
I would certainly not post any cards featuring cultural heritage destroyed in large scale recent disasters, for example the Earthquake in Haiti in 2010 or the one in Nepal last year. The loss of life was too large and the countries involved are still recovering so it wouldn't be appropriate for me to discuss. I know other news sites have run stories on the loss of cultural heritage and UNSCO are also assessing the damage done, but for now at least you won't see any cards of such places on this blog.
Is it hypocritical of me to include a card of Varosha when the Turkish Invasion of Cyprus destroyed many more lives than the Summerland Disaster and took place only a year later?
Yes it probably is, but Varosha has been covered by so many other blogs and newspapers without too much controversy that I didn't feel I would be opening up new wounds should I choose to feature it here. I'm not sure the same could be said for Summerland.

The QEII

I'm going to start today's post by showing something I don't usually post in the blog. The postmark.
While the blog is described as being postcards you can't send anymore there isn't actually anything to stop you posting these, you're just not likely to be able to visit them.
This post mark on the hand is obsolete.

Also, in a first for this blog I can tell you exactly who sent it. It was my dad on our first trip on the ship in 1988. It was a memorable experience not least because there was a none fatal stabbing on board among the kitchen staff. Our second trip  a few years later was no less eventful with rumours of yellow fever on board and a BBC helicopter overhead filming segments for Good Morning with Anne and Nick. Despite all of that, I did have a lovely time on board.

The QE2 was in service from 1969 to 2008 , most of this time as an ocean liner, the flag ship of the Cunard line but she did also serve in Falklands War.  
She had everything a passenger could need including 5 restaurants,  a number of swimming pools, a cinema, casino and hospital. In her 40 year service history she carried over 2.5 million passenger, logged over 5 million miles,  rescued passengers from Antilles which had run aground, received a bomb threat and encountered a hurricane.
Her farewell voyage was in 2008, during which time she met with the two other Cunard Queens, The Queen Victoria and the Queen Mary this being the last time this would happen.  Unsurprisingly, I have a postcard of the occasion.

Her final voyage was on 26th November 2008 after which she was handed over to her new owners Istithmar in Dubai. 
Today, despite campaigns to bring her back to the UK, she is still docked in Dubai with a question mark over her future.  

Gone but Not Forgotten- The Majestic Hotel, Hot Springs Arkansas

I've mentioned before that there are some postcards I'd like to be able to setp into and this is one of them.
I'd love to be able to see this beautiful building in its prime and I'm intrigued to know what the people on the left of the card all in white are doing.
Curiously, I've seen a couple of different versions of this same card but with cars or trams superimposed over the horse and carriages. The mysterious figures in white remain in all versions. What do you think they are doing?

The hotel, built in 1882 and originally named the Avenue Hotel had an interesting and varied life before sadly being destroyed in fire 6 years ago.
The hotel got its new name six years after being built and with the change of moiker came a lift, something new at the time.  Curiosly it's the second hotel called the Majestic Hotel to feature in this blog. I wonder if the name is cursed. I don't really beleive in curses but I might make it a side project to see how many places called the Majestic would be suitable for this blog.
The building as depicted on the card was actually built in 1903, replacing a wooden structure and becoming one of the first brick buildings in Hot Springs. Although not part of the famous Bathhouse Row, the hotel did receive many vistors who were in town to take the waters and trams would depart to and from the hotel every five minutes to guests to the bath houses.
The hotel rose in popularity in early part of the 20th century and famous guests included The Boston Red Sox, the Pittsburg Pirates and Babe Ruth.  Could the people on the card be playing baseball? I wonder. The Pittsburg Pirates did spring training here from 1901 until 1916 so that is a distinct possibility.
The sender of the card (postmarked 29th November 1910) doesn't mention meeting anyone famous, just that she wishes she'd brought warmer clothes.
Perhaps the most notorious guest was Al Capone's rival Bugs Moran. Capone spent a lot of time in Hot Springs too and the two formed a sort of truce while in town.  During WWII, the hotel was used as a redsribution centre for American soldiers, but it opened again as a hotel in 1945 and still attracted celebrity guests such as Humphrey Bogart and Liberace.
The latter half of the 20th century seems to have a been a rather uneventful period for The Majestic though a million dollar renovation did take place in 1982.  Guest numbers dwindled in the 1990s and the hotel was closed and abandoned in 2006.
Plans to renovate the building were discussed the following year but came to nothing and now sadly never will as the hotel was destroyed by fire 2010.
The hotel is still fondly remembered by many residents of the town.

Update

Here's another version of the card, with cars instead of horse and carriages taken from the abandonedar website. Looking at it again, I believe the people in white might be fencing.

Source  http://www.abandonedar.com/

Wednesday- Question Day

Hello again.

First things first, I do intend to update my post on King Island in light of the link CarolAnn sent me.

Thank you again for taking the time to comment.

If anyone else spots anything in my blog which doesn't reflect the true picture, please let me know and I'll correct it.

I haven't received any question on the blog, but I did get one on Facebook asking me if I have a favourite subject matter for cards.

I'm particularly fond of outdoor swimming pool cards for some reason. I think they look very inviting and colourful and I suppose they evoke a feeling of nostalgia for carefree summer holidays.

I like cards which show the familiar and unfamiliar together, a recognisable building but with trams and carriages rather and people in old fashioned garb rather than cars and modern clothing would be an example.

I also like lighthouse cards, art deco architecture and "through the window cards"

I'm extremely envious of this gentleman's window cards collection and I could, in fact I have,spent hours looking at them.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/94207108@N02/albums/72157633894905340


I have a couple of guilty pleasures. I love the so-called boring cards, the type that you see in Martin Parr's books but I know I'm not alone in this as many collectors enjoy these too.

My real guilty pleasure, because they don't tend to be popular with collectors, are postcards of dolls. I used to collect dolls as well but don't anymore as they are prone to damage, take up a lot of room and doll phobic friends ask me to hide them when they come for visits. Collecting postcards of them is a good alternative.

 I like dolls in national costumes but I also like general doll cards too. This card, sadly not my own, which combines dolls and an outdoor pool, is unsurprisingly one of my favourites.


https://www.flickr.com/photos/kitschandcurious/4775760680/in/faves-27534119@N08/

News of the World.

I made a decision last week that Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays would be my blog days, with Monday dedicated to British Isle related cards, Wednesdays for questions and Fridays for cards from further afield.
While a lot of the items in this blog are places it has been a shame to lose, I doubt many people mourned the passing of this notorious tabloid which ceased publication 5 years ago yesterday. 

I would like to say that the choice of card for today was intentional but it was not.  I could not get a good enough scan of the card I wanted to show so looking for a replacement this was the first one I came to. The timing was just luck.

I won't go into the history of it as I'm sure you all know it.

Hit the comments button with thoughts on the News of the World or anything else you would like to see the back of or which you are glad no longer exist.

Ukivok, King Island : The Inuit Stilt Village

Ukivok on King Island isn't the most northerly abandoned settlement, that would be Pyramiden in Svalbard but the Inupiat stilt village in Alaska must be a contender for runner up.
Hanging on a cliff face in the Bering Sea, 40 miles from mainland Alaska, it also has to be one of the most precarious and isolated dwellings in the world.
In the 19th century, several hundred Inuit families lived  there and made their living hunting, fishing and carving souvenirs.
By the early 20th century, the settlement's only school was closed, over concerns about rock slides, meaning the younger population had to move to  mainland making island life less viable. World War II and TB sadly also contributed to the dwindling population.
By the time the postcard above was produced in the mid 60s only 25 families remained on the island but even they had left by 1970. The village itself still remains and is in quite good condition probably because its isolated location keeps it safe from vandals.
The former residents still have a proud and distinct culture and some have returned to the island from time to over the past decade.

Update
Thanks to research done by CarolAnn it seems that the part about concerns over rockslides being the reason for the school closures was not true. Many pieces about the island refer to social and economic pressures forcing people off the island. It seems as if government bureaucracy, under the guise of Western modernisation, was the real culprit. The rock side never happened and families were torn apart and forcibly separated for no real reason, children were sent to boarding schools thousands of miles away from their families and were punished for speaking their own language and adults were sent to live somewhere not suited to their lifestyle and skills.
Would island life still be alive and well if the Bureau of Indian Affairs hadn't interfered? It's hard to say but considering there had been a community there with a flourishing language and culture for a long time I imagine it probably would.

Wednesday - Question Day

Well it seems everyone is too shy to comment on my blog so I'll get the ball rolling by answering a couple of frequently asked questions.

How Many Postcards do you have?

I get asked this a lot and people are always surprised when I say I don't know.  I don't collect postcards because I want to amass a huge collection of cards. although I don't believe you can ever have too many cards but I've never had the desire to count them.
I will say that I have 18 albums plus a small suitcase  full of cards as well as a few which I have framed or put up on my walls etc.

Why do you collect postcards then?

There are many reasons why I collect cards. They serve as a memory to holidays or day trips I've had and I like to look at them when I'm feeling low to remind myself of happier times. I keep cards people have sent me because it's nice to think that someone was thinking about me and they serve as reminder to friendships past and present.

Finally they are a window into another world, one which we may  not experience but which we an imagine through the postcard. I can spent hours looking over my old cards and I never get bored.

What's the oldest postcard you have?

A Valentine's produced card of Sugar Loaf Rock from 1894. I won't feature on this blog as the view is virtually unchanged.

So that's it for now, join me on Friday when I'll be looking at a village hanging on the face of a cliff.

Hit the comments for any questions for next week.

 

Death, dereliction and destruction - The Curious Case of Jezreel's Tower.

This strange folly stood in Gillingham, Kent from 1885 until 1961. It was never completed and had already started to fall into dereliction when this misspelt  postcard was produced.

The building was the vision of self proclaimed prophet James Jershom Jezreel, the founder of  the Jezreelites sect.
He had grand plans for the tower which was to be their headquarters. These plans  included an amphitheatre to hold upto 5000 people, printing presses, castellated towers in a cube shaped building with a glass roof. Perhaps the most ambitious part of the project was the assembly room floor which would rise under hydraulic pressure on which a choir and preachers would rotate.  Along with gardens and stately avenues ,the estimated cost of the project was £25,000.
Jezreel did not live to see his vision realised. He died in March 1885, 6 months before the foundation stone was laid.
His unpopular widow carried on with the project,  alienating many of the followers along the way before she too died in 1888 at the age of 28. Her death put an end to any further building work.  
The Tower was sold in 1903 but only used by the few remaining Jezreelites for two years before demolition began.
However in  twist to the tale, the contractors employed to do this went bankrupt and demolition was only completed in 1961.
The strange building, fortunately for people like me, was a popular subject for postcards allowing people to marvel at the eccentricity of it all.

Wednesday - Question Day.

This type of blog is rather new to me and so far I've been enjoying sharing my cards with you.

I would like it to a bit more interactive though so I'm giving you the opportunity to ask some questions or comment on what I've written about up to now.

I don't want the blog to be structured in such a way that I'm tied to writing about a particular thing on a particular day but I will be making Wednesdays question days.

Hit the comments with any question you may have and I'll answer them next Wednesday.  I regret I won't be able to answer and valuation queries, I don't know too much about that but I'm happy to answer other questions (within reason)

I'm going to be away for a couple of weeks so next question and answer post will be 5th July.

Before I go here a few blog posts you can look forward to on my return.

The hotel frequented by Al Capone's rivals.

The Ukrainian city which has undergone 7 name changes.

One of the most isolated and precarious ghost towns in the world.

Plus many more.   

Gilman, Colorado

Gilman, Colorado as with Centralia is a former mining town, also in common with Centralia it was abandoned relatively recently but it doesn't seem to be as famous as Centralia.

Now on private property it is strictly out of bounds without permission though some photographs of the town in its abandoned  and sadly vandalised state do exist.

It was founded in 1886 during the Colorado Silver Boom and centred on the now flooded Eagle Mine. The boom ended in 1893 and many towns became ghost towns in the period immediately afterwards. However, Gilman survived until 1984 even though it was nearly destroyed by a fire in 1899. As with Centralia, Gilman was quite a thriving town in its heyday with theatres, shops, hotels and schools.


The abandonment of the town was ordered by the Environmental Protection Agency due to toxic pollutions and contaminated water, but by this point the mines were not profitable either.

As you can see from the card (undated but from the 1907-1914 period) the town is rather high up. It sits at an elevation of  2,700 metres on a cliff of around 180 metres high.

The town today is relatively well preserved and includes cars and trucks left behind by their owners.

For photographs of the town today, as well as information on other ghost towns I recommend the below link.

http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/co/gilman.html

For a detailed history and some really cool photos check out the below.

http://substreet.org/gilman-colorado/

The Hotel Majestic

As another TT draws to a close this will be my last Manx related post for a while, though do expect more in the future. I have a lot of Isle of Man postcards.

We've looked at some tourist attractions, but all those tourists had to stay somewhere so I'll be looking at one of the many sadly now defunct hotels on the island - The Majestic.

Although there is still a request stop in Onchan called the Majestic Halt, the hotel is long gone having been razed to build apartments .

The hotel started life as a mansion in 1893 and was sold in 1920 to a couple looking to build a hotel to cater to tourists who wanted to take advantage of the attractions of Douglas and not have to travel from the South of the island to do so.

Tho hotel open in 1922 and boasted a ball rooms, billiard room and bar. The swimming was not added until 1935 and the same year the hotel changed its name to the Majestic Lido Hotel. In the following decades the hotel became a popular place for wedding receptions and was increasingly used by non-residents.

The decline of the hotel is a familiar one. As foreign holidays become more available, domestic based holidays fall out of favour and the local tourist industry suffers and so it was the case with the Majestic. It ceased functioning as a hotel in 1987 but the building remained for a few years as an auction house before, as stated earlier,it was razed to build apartments.

I'm not sure when the above postcard is from, it's not dated,  but I've seen similar pictures used on adverts for the hotel from the early 1970s so that seems about right.

Open Air Bathing Manx style : Port Skillion and Peel

Some of my postcards I'd really like to be able to dive right into and with the hot weather we've been having recently I wish I could dive right into the pools depicted on the following couple of cards.

The fist post card  shows Port Skillion bathing creek near Douglas Head. Built in 1874 by Mr Robert Archer , they were possibly the first open air baths in the British Isles.

Initially they were for men only though women used to enjoy watching the men which was considered quite scandalous at the time with people writing letters to newspapers about the moral decline of the island.

I imagine the scene would have looked like this card sent in 1908 and written in what I think is Welsh.

The people who wrote the card  below do not seem too bothered about any lowering of  moral standards as they state they are having a great time.

The card is published by Valentines and research indicates it's from 1909 but other research conflicts that as guides published in 1910 state the cove was for gentleman only. The card is not dated but the stamp is of George V SG 338 so 1911 seems about right.  

The creek stopped being used in 1932 after the surrounding walls were storm damaged.

The second postcard is more up to date and shows the outdoor pool in Peel.  It was published by Bamforth is one of the Color (sic) Gloss Series and is likely from 1969.

There had been an open air pool in Peel since 1900 but this was closed in the 1950s due to cliff erosion. Those above replaced it and remained open until the 1970s. They are now filled in and there are currently no public outdoor swimming pools in the Isle of Man which I think is a shame.

   

Cambrian Airlines

It's not just places which disappear from the map. Companies can also cease to exist for a variety of reasons and it is one such company I'd like to look at today.

While the bikers who visit during the TT will arrive via the ferry, I'm sure some of the crowds will have flown in to Ronaldsway. However, they won't have done so by Cambrian Airlines.

Cambrian Airways was a UK based airline which operated between 1935 and 1974 before being incorporated into British Airways in April of that year. The Isle of Man was one of 16 destinations flown to by the airline. The company used several types of aircraft including the now retired Viscount Vickers 701 which is shown on the card below. These types of craft were last flown commercially in 2008.

The plane on the card above G-AMOO was scrapped long before then.

The website below gives precise information about this particular plane. I won't go into details here other than to say that it was built in Bournemouth in 1953 and sold to Cambrian Airways in 1966 and it remained with them until 1970 when it was withdrawn from service on 19th December that year. It sold for scrap in October the following year and broken up.

The card above is not dated but form the colours we can tell it's from 1969 as this was the year it was painted  in the Cambrian Airways 'BAS - British Air Services' livery.  So, the airline, the aircraft type and the aeroplane all no longer exist. It really is a postcard from a vanished world.

For the full story and for information on other Viscount Vickers planes please see below.

http://www.vickersviscount.net/Index/VickersViscount028History.aspx

Calvary Glen

I have to admit to not knowing an awful lot about this glen. I hand not heard of it until I was looking through my postcards.

What I can tell you is that the glen was created in the 1960s by Father McGrath of St Anthony's church in Onchan.
The statues were made in Lourdes and set up in "The Way of the Cross". They were also illuminated and could be seen from Douglas Head. I have tried  finding photos which illustrate this but no luck so far.
I also know that the statues, which were nearly four foot high, are now in the grounds of St Anthony's church in Onchan which was built on the site of the former internment camp.
They were moved there sometime in the 1980s.
What I haven't been able to find out is when the glen was closed to the public, but I do know that it was purchased from the Diocese of Liverpool in 2013 and there are plans to renovate it though it is still in a state of disrepair.

The card dates from the mid 1960s probably from around the time the glen was first created.

Source http://www.isleofman.com/places-to-visit/countryside/glens/calvary-glen/

The Changing Fortunes of Port Soderick Bay and Hotel

Is that the roar of motorbike engines I can hear? Is that Bushy's beer tent I can see from my window and are those leather clad men I can see wondering around Strand Street?

It seems so, which can only mean that TT is upon us again and so all my blog posts for the next fortnight will be Manx related.

Port Soderick got a brief mention in a previous post but it deserves a post of its own.

The Isle of Man is known for its glens and among them is Port Soderick. Its Wikipedia entry makes for rather grim reading, describing closed and abandoned buildings, filled in padding pools and unsafe walkways. Strangely, or perhaps not, it's one of my favourite places to visit on the Isle of Man.

In visiting the glen I'm following on from many a tourist from previous generations.  The site was first developed as a tourist attraction by the Forrester brother and advertised as "the only free glen on the island". Holiday makers in the late Victorian era flocked in their droves to the Port Soderick Hotel where they enjoyed the private beach, camera obscura and the funicular. The railway, built in 1898, which still runs today, was once the busiest in the island such was the popularity of the place.

The card below dates to the Edwardian era and shows the funicular, which was destroyed in 1914, as well as the hotel and holiday makers.

This is actually my favourite card in all my collections.

Here it can be seen from a different angle but from the same era.

Although the hotel closed in the 1950s, tourists still came to the hamlet and enjoyed the bay as the card from the early 1960s shows below.

    The hotel was sold to private hands in 1984 but did go through something of a renaissance in the 1990s when celebrity chef Kevin Woodford  had the Anchor Hotel there. This was closed in 2002 and the building has been derelict ever since.

However, in March this year we received news that Heritage Great Britain is interested in buying the site and bringing it back to life. This is great news if it happens, though part of me will miss the quiet secluded Port Soderick I like to visit.

Grossinger's - The Dirty Dancing Hotel.

Grossingers Resort Hotel was a  family run affair in the  Catskill Mountains, a popular tourist spot for urban Jewish families and the starting point for many Borscht Belt style comedians.
It is said to have been the inspiration behind the hotel in Dirty Dancing, a film which premiered the year after Grossinger's closed.

It was founded in 1919 by married couple Asher and Malke Grossinger but really hit its stride in the 1950s and 60s when Jennie, their daughter, acted as hostess. The emphasis was on glamour but with a personal touch and it soon gained the nickname "The Waldorf of The Catskills"

The outside of the building as shown on the postcard below (sent in 1967 by someone attending a banquet for School Business Officials) is fairly uninspiring looking.

However, the site itself was very impressive with  35 buildings in 1200 acres of land which included its own airstrip and post office complete with its own zip code.

The card (written in 1965 to someone's mum, someone with handwriting so terrible that's all I can make out) below gives some impression of the size.

The rooms such as the Terrace Lounge and The Pink Elephant Bar were bright and colourful. The former was modernised by Morris Lapidus a name synonymous with 50s and 60s hotel architecture.

There were a variety of activities the guests could enjoy, they didn't even have to wait for winter to go skiing as the hotel became the first place to use artificial snow in 1952.

There was also an ice rink and indoor and outdoor swimming pools.

  

Jennie died in 1972 but the hotel did still attract guests until cheaper foreign air travel in the late 70s and early 80s and changing tastes meant that resort hotels fell out of favour.

It was closed in 1986 and thirty years later the buildings remain decaying and abandoned. That is all except the golf course which is still active and possibly one of the eeriest golf courses around.

More information including photos of before and after can be found here

http://joe4speed.com/grossingers.htm

The Short and Tragic History of New Brighton Tower

I have to admit that when I was looking through my old cards recently, this one barely registered until I realised that New Brighton doesn't have a tower anymore.
I investigated and found an interesting and  rather tragic history.

It's not easy to tell from the postcard but when construction was completed in 1900 the tower, at 567, was the tallest building in Britain. It is said that from the top of the tower you could see the Isle of Man, The Lake District and the Welsh Monuntains.
The grounds of the tower were 20 acres and contained a boating lake, complete with gondolars ;  funfair and gardens. The tower itself contained a menagerie which included bears, leopards and the now extinct Barbary lion. (what I wouldn't do for a postcard of those.)
The contruction itself was beset with problems. 6 workers were killed in accidents and a fireman also met his death extingingusihing a fire which broke out during construction.
Sadly, the tower only enjoyed 14 years as a tourist destination as with the outbreak of WW1 it was closed for national security reasons and fell into disrepair. The dismantling started in 1919 and was completed in 1921 . The brick portion at the bottom which contained a theatre and ballroom remained until 1969 when another fire destroyed all but the shell. The site was eventually cleared and now contains a housing estate and football pitch. Plans to build a new tower in New Brighton have been rejected, perhaps knowing the history of the old one this is for the best.
The postcard itself is undated but is similar to others I have seen dated  1912. It was published by Valentines and is a devided back postcard.

Edits

This postcard isn't mine but it does show the size of the place rather well.

Also, I received a message on Facebook asking why I didn't mention the connection with Beatles. I agree that this was an oversight. The Beatles played at the Tower Ballroom a total of 27 times, second only to the Cavern club for UK venues. A Blue Plaque was erected in 2011 to honour this.

The Rise and Fall of the Lee Plaza Hotel, Detroit

I would to take a look at something which may have a happy ending.

The Lee Plaza Hotel in Detroit was once the cities biggest apartment hotel. The 15 storey building was constructed in 1929 in the Art Deco style.

Although it was originally conceived as hotel, it spent much of its life as an upscale apartment block with hotel services. The cities rich and powerful who resided in the building could choose one of 220 rooms which ranged from 1 bedroom to 4 bedrooms. They could also take advantage of a concierge, Servidor, 24 hour valet parking, beauty parlour, games room, library and a supervised children's play room.

While some people probably did stay there long-term, and who can blame them, many more used the place as a temporary residence such as the sender of our postcard who stayed there in 1941 while her place was being decorated.

Sadly the good times were not to last. The hotel changed ownership several times, was declared bankrupt at least once and guests dwindled as residential hotels fell out of favour.

In 1969 it, along with other famous buildings in Detroit, became a senior citizens' complex. However its troubles were not over and when an elderly resident was murdered there in 1987 more residents began to leave and the place was finally closed in 1997.

This century the building has been seen by many as a symbol of Detroit's decline from prosperity to poverty.

The building may yet prosper again. A Detroit native by the name of Craig Sasser bought the building in 2015 and there are plans to renovate the building and develop the surrounding area.

This is not the first time hotels have been redeveloped from seemingly hopeless cases. The King Edward Hotel in Jackson, Mississippi was empty for 40 years before restoration began in 2007. Closer to home, another Art Deco masterpiece the Midland in Morecambe underwent expensive restoration to be returned to its former glory.

For now though, The Lee Plaza remains an example of an abandoned building and symbol of the turbulent nature of the past 80+ years.

More information about the Lee Plaza and other buildings in Detroit can be found at the excellent historicdetroit.org

Varosha, Cyprus.

We are moving into more controversial territory with today's cards, yet strangely perhaps more familiar territory too.

Varosha is perhaps one of the most famous abandoned towns of the latter 20th century. It is a favourite of many websites profiling abandoned towns, and the BBC, ITV and The Independent have all published articles on this ghost town, which is now out of bounds and beyond repair.

Before I show the cards, I'd like to point out that the Turkish Invasion of Cyprus was no trivial matter. There were roughly 6000 deaths, military and civilian; a further 1400 are still considered missing as of 2015 and tens of thousands of people were displaced.

The reason Varosha seems to have caught the imagine is because prior to the bloodshed which led to it being abandoned it was a popular holiday destination and amongst its many visitors were glamourous Hollywood stars. Elizabeth Taylor was said to have been particularly fond of the Argo Hotel on JFK Avenue.

It is because of its popularity as a resort that postcards of the town in its heyday are not hard to find.

The above is a typical 1970s tourist card, published by the famous John Hinde. It depicts Varosha beach in the bottom right hand corner and the blurb on the  back describes the place as the ideal place for holiday makers and one of the main seaside resorts of Cyprus. It was written and posted in July 1972 and the senders of the card state they are having an excellent holiday.

The second card is a single view of the beach. It is postally unused and not dated but seems to be from about the same era as the previous card.

Both cards are an good example of how events can dramatically change things many of us take for granted. They are a historic records of a different world and demonstrate the essence of this blog perfectly.

Douglas Southern Electric Tramway

Today I'm going to be showing a postcard of something destroyed long before I was born.

The Douglas Southern Electric Tramway travelled from Douglas Head to Port Soderick ( which will feature in a later post) from 2nd September 1896 to 28th August 1939. It was eventually destroyed in 1955 and all that remains is the entrance at Marine Drive which will be instantly familiar to all those of us who have walked that way. It is unlikely to operate again due to landslides in the area.

I'm not sure of the exact date of the above postcard. It hasn't been used, but the publisher is S. Hildersheimer who were producing cards between 1881 and 1920.

One of the trams is currently at Crich Tramway Museum and is shown on a 1997 postcard below.

Today, anyone wanted to go to Port Soderick is likely to get the Steam Train whose fate has been better than a lot of the transport on the Isle of Man.

Rainhill Village

After the warning in my previous post, I've decided to show something today which was not destroyed by disaster, war or terrorism but simple human error.

I doubt many of you will have heard of Rainhill. If you have I can almost guarantee you are either a) a resident or ex resident of the town, b) a train buff, c ) a Ripperologist/Victorian murder aficionada d) a Mel C fan.
I'm in  group a though I do lurk on Casebook from time to time.

I was brought up in Rainhill and lived there until I was 18 and the above image is one of my enduring memories of the town. Those of you in group b will know that Rainhill was the site of the Locomotive Trials in 1829 where Stephenson's Rocket was declared the winner and Britain was changed forever.

In 1979 there was an exhibition celebrating 150 years since the trials took place and the above mural was erected in a prominent place in the village (now occupied by the Co-Op Supermarket). I used to see it everyday when I went I to playschool and reception class and I loved it. It had pride of place in the town until 1981 when it was dismantled. Sadly it was stored away whilst wet and rotted away to nothing. Ironically the Rocket itself can still be seen in the Science Museum.

A Question of Taste

I should probably get this out of the way now. Some of the posts in here may be in questionable taste. After all many of the places mentioned in the blog will have been abandoned due to war, invasion, natural or man-made disasters or poverty. I make no apologies for this.
I will say only that postcards are a historical record, sometimes the only historical record of a place, and I believe they deserve to be shown.

An introduction

So what's this blog about then?

I've been collecting postcards for over 30 years and those which fascinate the most are of places which have long gone or changed beyond recognition or which have a "time capsule" moment forever placing them at a specific moment and they are the postcards I will write about here.

They aren't all going to be as extreme as the Centralia card, some of them may just show a building or two which have been pulled down, some may show places which are used for a different purpose and some may just be places which changed names. The one thing they have in common is that you couldn't post a card with that exact same image today.   

Centralia, PA

The above image is a postcard of Centralia, Pennsylvania dated 1914. A postcard from a place which no longer has a ZIP code.

Centralia was a mining town in the sate of Pennsylvania and although never a bustling place, it did have a sizeable population with hotels, churches and, as seen in the postcard, shops and tree-lined avenues.
The 20th century was not kind to the town, as WWI raged on, young men who normally have been working in the mines were enlisted and mining declined, there was further tragedy in 1929 when The Wall Street crash resulted in five mines being closed.
Worse was yet to come when in 1962 a coal seam fire ignited and is still burning today. This led to the town being almost totally abandoned and most of the buildings levelled. In 2013 there were 7 people living in the town and once these people leave it is unlikely the place will ever have a permanent  population again, though it remains a popular tourist destination.