Category Inspiration Vault

Meet the Neighbourhood Slot Car King & Queen of Brooklyn

They’re kind of Brooklyn’s Romeo and Juliet. He was made of slot car stock, and she was, well, not. At least, that’s what she’ll tell you — but it’s clear that Dolores, who’s one-half of the legendary couple behind Buzz-a-Rama, is a slot car queen. “Oh this whole thing?” she jokes, a boot propped up […]

A Guide to the Secret Bee Villages of NYC

As fate would have it, some of the dreamiest real estate in New York City is also its tiniest. From Bryant Park to the gardens of one of Manhattan’s grandest cathedrals, the beekeeping villages of America’s premier metropolis aren’t always where you’d expect, and it can take a keen eye to spot them amongst the skyscrapers […]

Her Tiny Apartment is New York’s Most Secret Jazz Club

For the past 25 years, Marjorie Elliot has been hosting free jazz concerts out of her New York apartment every Sunday for strangers. While serving up some of the best jazz in the city from her parlour, Harlem’s secret jazz queen of Sugar Hill is single-handedly upholding the musical legacy of a neighbourhood that nurtured legends […]

Lunch at the Forgotten Rothschild Party Palace

I stood looking up at the gates, hands on my hips, wondering what forgotten chateau I’d stumbled upon this time. We’d taken a detour to avoid the traffic back into Paris and suddenly pulled over into the ditch by the side of the road at my absolute insistence. What I didn’t know then, peeping through […]

Murder and Afternoon Tea on the Orient Express

“The impossible could not have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances,” wrote Agatha Christie in her iconic 1934 novel, Murder on the Orient Express, which was adapted into a Hollywood motion picture this year featuring an all-star cast including Johnny Depp, Kenneth Brannagh, Michelle Pfeiffer, Willem Dafoe and Penelope Cruz. It still feels […]

Meet Benjamin Franklin’s Girlfriends

Sure, on the surface, Benjamin Franklin might have all the sex appeal of a hedgehog, but back in the day, the Founding Father was renowned for an unparalleled charm that not only made him America’s most valuable asset in foreign affairs, but a major hit with the ladies. Especially with French ladies. In 1776, a 70-year-old […]

The Woman who staged a Private Revolution from her Photo Studio

For decades after her death, Marie Høeg’s secrets remained hidden, until the 1980s, when a box of 440 glass plate negatives marked “private” was found inside a disused barn in Oslo, Norway. The discovery revealed the near-forgotten rebellion of a group of women and friends experimenting with gender in an era of strict conventions surrounding sexuality […]

Welcome to the Messy World of Jerry’s Junk

Staring out at you from behind those rusty gates; thousands of tightly packed, unwanted objects from the past sit in an eerie silence, almost as if they might just come alive as soon as you turn your back. Each and every single one has been collected by Kentucky’s King of Junk, who has made a temporary home for them […]

Shopping for City Relics destined for Demolition

Awesome places get demolished and modernised whether we like it or not. But have you ever wondered where some of their contents end up? In New York City, before the wrecking ball hits, a Harlem-based company called The Demolition Depot makes it their business to go in and salvage the irreplaceable pieces of a building’s […]

Forgotten Art Deco Marvels of a Lost 1920s Copacabana Magazine

Little information has survived about Brazil’s Para Todos magazine. I couldn’t actually find what date or why it ever went out of print. I do know that it was created in 1918 with a focus on movie stars, and in 1922 until 1930, it came under the direction of José Carlos, a cartoonist, illustrator and major talent in Brazilian Art […]