1. NYC’s Incredible Hidden Gem
Hidden in plain sight, book lovers have lived in New York City for years without discovering it….
“The outside may not look like much, but the inside of New York City’s Morgan Library and Museum is like something you’d find in a much-older European town. It was originally the private collection of super-rich banker J.P. Morgan, and it houses art, rare books … It was built between 1902 and 1906, but it wasn’t until 1924 that his son, Jack, realized that he was sitting on a collection that was too important to remain private.”
Included in the library are old illuminated manuscripts, original works by Mozart, Thoreau’s journals, Rembrandt etchings, a Dickens manuscript of A Christmas Carol, plus letters from countless historical figures ranging from Jane Austen and Albert Einstein to Abraham Lincoln and John Steinbeck.
More photos & information found on C’est Christine.
Found via Roadtrippers
2. Before Google, this is what people asked the New York Public Library
Recently some folks at the New York Public Library discovered a box containing old reference questions from the 1940s to 1980s. They’re posting the questions to their Instagram account, noting, “we were Google before Google existed.”
More questions
- A question from New Year’s Day 1967: I unexpectedly stayed over somewhere last night. Is it appropriate to send a thank you?
- What’s the difference between pig and pork?
- What kind of glass should I use in my greenhouse in Cuba?
- Can mice throw up?
- Can NYPL recommend a good forger?
- Where can I rent a beagle for hunting (1963). We also had requests to rent a guillotine.
- What percentage of all bathtubs in the world are in the US?
- A question from New Year’s Day 1967: I unexpectedly stayed over somewhere last night. Is it appropriate to send a thank you?
More weird questions found via The Gothamist
3. Dirty Car Art
Scott Wade has taken unwanted car graffiti to a new level, he is a legitimate dirty car artist.
Found on Dirty Car Art
4. Beverly Hills High School’s oil derrick that recovers hundreds of barrels of oil paying for most of its expenses (including teachers’ salaries).
Beverly Hills High School, the only large high school in this affluent enclave of Los Angeles, has had a long and profitable relationship with Big Oil – indeed, the school receives approximately $300,000 a year (some sources say $700,000) in royalties courtesy of the hundreds of barrels of crude oil and 350,000 cubic feet of natural gas extracted from beneath the stylish campus every day.
Full story found on Web Urbanist
5. Dome cottages in Toretore Village Sirahama, Wakayama, Japan
I found the website here (but it’s in Japanese).
6. DIY Pallet Projects
Found on Web Ecoist
7. New Year’s Ever Balloons
DIY Tutorial found here.
8. Vintage Seville Posters
Find your own Vintage Travel Posters on Etsy
9. This Bike
Artist Grayson Perry’s motorbike built by Battistini’s for Perry’s 2012 exhibition The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman.
Photos found here and here.
10. A Young Steve Buscemi
Steve Buscemi when he worked as a firefighter at the New York City Fire Department, 1981, found on This is Not P0rn
11. Anthony Hopkins testing different masks for Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs
To be clear they went with 2 not just one. Both the ones on the right was used.
Found on Reddit
12. An Abandoned “The Hills Have Eyes” Film set in Morocco
When French director Alexandre Aja took the reins of the Wes Craven-produced remake of his 1977 horror classic The Hills Have Eyes, he chose to shoot neither in the New Mexico setting or Craven’s original substitute of Victorville, California. No, Aja scouted around the world and settled on the city of Ouarzazate, Morocco, commonly known as “the door of the desert” due to its proximity to the Sahara. And so that is why, in the middle of this Moroccan desert area, you can still stumble upon a freestanding, out-of-service gas station.
Photos by Theodore Biscotte
Found on Flavorwire
13. Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger on Train, 1967
Paul McCartney (The Beatles) and Mick Jagger (The Rolling Stones) are travelling across the table from each other on a train at Euston Station on their way to Bangor on the Fifth of August 1967. (Photo by Victor Blackman/Express/Getty Images) found on Vintage Everyday.
Enlarged photograph here.
