She was the largest and most luxurious Imperial Yacht afloat in her time, but The Standart would inevitably meet a similarly tragic fate to her owners. After 30 years in service to the Russian Empire, the Imperial Yacht was stripped of her elegance and converted to a Soviet minelayer for World War II and then became training ship […]
Can you blame them? She’s the kind woman whose nearly 100-year-old snapshots still radiate charisma and mystique from one of the most magical eras in film history. She was a Southern Belle of showbiz stock, and she was just as convincing in the role of an 17th century French diva as she was crossdressing in the […]
They rolled out the red carpet every night for customers boarding the train, which is how that popular phrase we all know first came into use. The 20th Century Limited streamlined train made its debut in 1902, and was soon advertised as “The Most Famous Train in the World“, travelling overnight between Grand Central Station and LaSalle […]
If you happen to be a Parisian, like our new US editor Francky (hey, it’s me), who suddenly found herself plopped down in the Big Apple with a case of culture shock, you might be yearning for a cheat sheet of sorts — a means to finding a little bit of Paris in New York. […]
“Why isn’t her face on a bank note yet?” is one of several slack-jawed questions you’ll ask yourself when reading about Alexandra David-Neel, the Franco-Belge éxploratrice whose life reads like an Oscar-winning film. She was an opera singer, and an anarchist; a student of philosophy, feminism and (rumoured) seductress of monks. And when she wasn’t meeting in […]
How can you escape from the New York City grind on an MTA card budget? Make a break for Brooklyn’s Vinegar Hill, the sleepy neighbourhood that’s managed to safeguard its 400-year-old, cobblestone streets from the clutches of big development. It’s on small but hallowed ground, bound together by a tight-knit community whose homes look like […]
New York City has no shortage of vast bookstores where you can easily spend an hour peacefully browsing the endless shelves and genres, but what I’m looking for is a bookshop that makes my heart ache a little; one that makes me want to swap lives with the bookseller and live inside their world. So […]
You can go to Paris for beauty school, and the Philippines for lunch. You can find your dream Diwali dress and a 200lb Ganesh statue on one block, then put your feet up at one of the best Chinese food emporiums in the world. The glory of New York has always been its diversity, but […]
Can you imagine being among the first to study an ancient site? How you would feel brushing your fingers against those ancient monoliths, untouched for thousands of years, hidden in the thick of the jungle. You would think the days for such an adventure are long gone; that there’s nothing left to discover nowadays– but […]
History didn’t know what to do with Fred G. Johnson. On the one hand, he was just another hard-working Chicago teen in the signage business, and far from a classically trained portrait artist. Yet, there weren’t many in the sign painting game making banners for “Bearded Brenda” or “Huey the Pretzel Man”; “Josephine the Electric Girl” […]
This is embarrassing to admit now, but when we first saw Suri Bieler pop her head out from behind a doorway as we called out “anybody here?” in the entryway of a 95,000 sq. foot warehouse in Queens, we assumed she might be an office assistant; maybe a weekend volunteer. Because there was no way […]
Welcome comrade, to a special edition of Soviet “Show & Tell”, where we take a look back at the wackiest inventions and products that came out of the USSR. From the things they made to the things they never quite got around to doing, you can’t deny the Soviets certainly had ambition… This Epic Snow […]
