Once a Californian Boom Town, Now a Sunken City at the Bottom of a Lake

At one time Kennett, Ca, had 40 saloons, dozens of trade stores, a hotel, hospital, a schoolhouse– it even had an opera house– that is, before it was sitting at the bottom of the huge man-made Lake Shasta. Kennett is now completely invisible, buried as deep as 400 feet below the water’s surface. There is no…

Patrick Swayze’s Dirty Dancing Leather Jacket is For Sale (and a few other weird things)

I‘m pretty certain that even today, if I watched Dirty Dancing for the hundredth-and-something time, I would still swoon over Patrick Swayze in his leather jacket, visible chest hair, tight pants and shades. Patrick Swayze, aka, Johnny Castle can bring any grown woman back to her teenage adolescent years when she would have done anything…

Dog Lover Restores Historic Mansion while her Labradors Live the Downton Abbey Dream

Is it normal to be envious of a dog’s life? Meet the youngest Lady of this soon-to-be-restored 17th century Georgian mansion near Bath in the English countryside. Her name is Dizzy and she’s a very lucky lady, because as you’re about to see, she is currently living the real-life “Downton Abbey” dream. Along with her older…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. CCXXVIII)

1. A 1920s Abandoned Star-gazer A university observatory built in 1920 on Hanover Drive in East Cleveland. Its last owner was sent to jail for fraud before he could turn it into a luxury home. More info & photos found here. 2. A Fake Town That Became Real Agloe was a copyright trap—a century old trick mapmakers…

The Ruins of Batman’s Lair in Thailand

The Batman nightclub entertainment establishment sits decaying away in the Thai coastal city of Pattaya, often associated with its notorious sex-tourism trade, though there is much more to the city than that seedy side. Derelict for over 20 years, the crumbling club sits on Soi Batman, the street that still carries its name, as it…

Forgotten Glamour at Mermaid City

Girls would come from as far as Tokyo to audition for the chance to be a Weeki Wachee mermaid in the 1960s. They performed to sold-out crowds; half a million people a year came to watch their dazzling underwater shows, including the King himself, Elvis Presley. They took etiquette and ballet lessons and they were treated…

Love at First Instagram: Tiny Envelope Paintings

This is a quick one– just a “love at first instagram” kind of thing. These are the opaque watercolour or gouache paintings of Lucy Halcomb, an illustrator, graphic web designer and Brooklyn-based “pen pal”. Her instagram account is a record of her outgoing mail (lucky recipients), on which she paints little nostalgic pop culture artworks. Is it…

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Checking into New York’s Lost Holiday Resort

Hidden away in upstate New York, about two hours north of Manhattan, lies a forgotten holiday resort. Fifty years ago, it would have been the height of luxury for well heeled New Yorkers to come here, escaping from the Metropolis to the seclusion of the Catskill Mountains, to a place called Grossinger’s. It had opened…

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Flying Water Taxis are coming to Paris this Summer

Lo and behold, flying machines straight out of a Jetsons cartoon are set to become a reality. Think Uber but as a boat which hovers above the water– so basically, a flying boat taxi, right here along the Paris Seine River.. Alain Thébault and Anders Bringdal, who together broke the record for speed on a flying sailboat that…

The Wonderful Lost World of Mr. Hendy

Number 36 High Street in Hastings, England, started out its very long life as a soda-bottling shop. During the restoration of this 18th century grade II listed Georgian town house, they unearthed bullet-shaped soda bottles under the floorboards. According to records, it was later a saddlers in the 19th century, then a tailor, a sweet shop, a…