Old Photos USA

[-Corey-]

WOW beautiful pictures.

[lovecharlie]

Heres a few pic from Kansas City.

Bryant Building and the Southwestern Bell Telephone Building 1935.


Fidelity National Bank Building.


Downtown Kansas City 1931.


Kansas City Power & Light Building.

[lovecharlie]

100 years ago today, san francisco was rocked by a large earthquake, that and the following fires destroyed most of the city. The earthquake has since become probably the most famous natural disaster ever to hit a major city. These photos show the city not at the time of the disaster but when the city and its skyline were back on its feet and back to its former glory.

1931

1934

1937

1945

1947

[*UofT*]

WOW, One of the Best Threads on SSC, Thanks Lovecharlie for the awsome contribution.

[lovecharlie]

Glad you enjoyed them, it has become something of a hobby finding old photos.

[lovecharlie]

Some more photos of old San Francisco

The Ferry Building 1915


During the Diamond Jubilee of 1925




The Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Building and the Hobart Building


The Shell Building 1930

[PotatoGuy]

It's fun to see cities and compare them to how they are now....

[wada_guy]

BALTIMORE - THE MONUMENTAL CITY!

BALTIMORE 1919 - CITY HALL CENTER RIGHT


CITY HALL 1920'S


CITY HALL TODAY


BALTIMORE STREET 1900


BALTIMORE STREET TODAY


BALTIMORE'S WASHINGTON MONUMENT (FIRST IN THE COUNTRY) 1898


WASHINGTON MONUMENT TODAY


BATTLE MONUMENT (WAR OF 1812 - WE SAVED THE COUNTRY!)


BATTLE MONUMENT TODAY


DOWNTOWN FROM FEDERAL HILL 1950'S


AND TODAY


AFTER THE GREAT 1904 FIRE - STILL SMOULDERING


AND TODAY - NOTE THE 4 SMOKE STACKED BUILDING RIGHT CENTER, IT IS THE SAME ONE


CAMDEN STATION 1890'S


CAMDEN STATION TODAY WITH THE CONVENTION CENTER HOTEL HOLE
NOTE-the 3 towers you see today are reproductions that were constructed when Oriole Park and Ravens Field were built!


PENNYSLVANIA STATION 1926


AND TODAY - HE/SHE IS 65 FEET TALL!

[ROCguy]

lol... there is a street in Baltimore called Baltimore street? Creative. jk

[lovecharlie]

The Tower Building with the clock face, in the first photo of Baltimore, was pretty special, shame its not still there.

[sargeantcm]

Those 30s-40s vintage pics of KC look beautiful.

[lovecharlie]

I am finding it hard to find any decent photos of Houston, the photo that i posted earlier in the thread is the only one I have come across! Anyone know where there are any?

[MexAmericanMoose]

Originally Posted by lovecharlie

I am finding it hard to find any decent photos of Houston, the photo that i posted earlier in the thread is the only one I have come across! Anyone know where there are any?

here is a good link-

http://users.ev1.net/~plhailey/hpat/index.html

[TexasStar]

More Vintage Dallas

1913


1916


1946


1948


1950




Before and After -- Fifty Years Later:
1955


2005

[lovecharlie]

Thanks for the link Mex they look like great calendars, its such a shame that a lot of the buildings in Houston and Dallas are gone.

[lovecharlie]

Thanks for the link Mex they look like great calendars, its such a shame that a lot of the older buildings in Houston and Dallas are gone.

[PotatoGuy]

Originally Posted by wada_guy

BALTIMORE - THE MONUMENTAL CITY!

CITY HALL 1920'S


CITY HALL TODAY

It reminds me of San Francisco's city hall, very nice

[wada_guy]

Originally Posted by ROCguy

lol... there is a street in Baltimore called Baltimore street? Creative. jk

We are a proud people!

Thanks. City Hall construction started in 1867 and it was the first commission of 22-year-old architect George E Frederick. It is done in the 2nd empire style, a Baroque revival made popular by Napoleon III. There are only a handful of American government buildings in this style. The segmented dome capping the building is the work of Baltimore engineer, Wendell Bollman, known for his iron railroad bridges (B&O).

In 1977 the city voted to renovate the old city hall rather than build a new one. The ceremonial chambers were restored and the office space was doubled by adding floors between the existing ones (the old floors had 20 foot ceilings). In the process the dome was disassembled and put back together.

This is one of the few downtown buildings to survive the great 1904 fire. The exterior is clad with white Cockeysville marble, the same marble that the Capital and Washington Monument in DC was constructed with. The quary was in Baltimore County. From that quary also came all the white marble steps on the front of thousands of Baltimore row houses.

[tmac14wr]

Boston's history is a very sad one in regards to many of the older buildings in our great city. The building central artery plowed a huge gash through the middle of our downtown and the "urban redevelopment" of the West End completely destroyed an entire neighborhood. City Hall Plaza is another horrible mistake. While Boston still has a very European feel to it, in the past it was a legitimate European city(at least visually). Here's some pictures that I got from ablarc over on the Cyburbia forums:






















The beginning of the end of Old Boston



Here's what City Hall Plaza did to downtown:


Planning authorities were offended by the West End's resemblance to Medieval Paris, so they said it bred crime.

The West End before:



After:



There's tons more pictures here in the thread that I got these pics from, here's a link:
http://www.cyburbia.org/forums/showthread.php?t=10814

[wada_guy]

Great Boston pictures, but how incredibly sad they make you feel. We almost did the same thing down in Baltimore. The expressway was to go through our Fells Point and Federal Hill neighborhoods, two of the oldest in the city (1700's). They had condemened thousands of buildings and they sat there boarded up for years in the 60's and 70's. Of course, it would have cut the rest of the city off from the waterfront, just like in Boston.

It never happened due to many law suites that were filed, and now those neighborhoods are some of the most expensive places to live in town. Sometime it is good to be 10 years behind the times like we are down here.