The first swimming pool was a public pool built in 1887 in Brookline, Massachusetts. Pools such as this were great places to socialize, and they provided a way to escape the summer heat before the invention of air conditioning. One of the first residential pools built was on the Vanderbilt estate in Asheville, North Carolina in 1895.
 |
| Swimming pools of Florida hotels in the 1950s and 1960s |
In the 1950s, after the Korean War, the pool construction boom really took off, as more and more pool companies were using gunite over poured concrete or hand-stacked concrete. Now Florida, Texas, New York, and even the Midwest were beginning to have pool companies move in, mostly from California.
In the 1960s, the boom continued, with low unemployment and a good economy. Motels continued to put pools in people’s minds, and the application process of gunite continued to improve. The 1960s are credited with PVC plumbing, pool skimmers, manufactured pool main drains, underwater lights, kool deck, and vinyl-liner pools. But the biggest advancement for this decade was the shapes of pools, which were becoming more freeform than the rectangle pool that preceded it.
Here below is a set of beautiful postcards that shows what swimming pools of Florida hotels looked like in the 1950s and 1960s.
 |
| Airliner Motel, 4155 N.W. 24th Street, Miami, Florida |
 |
| Argosy Motel, 17425 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach, Florida |
 |
| Aztec Motel, Miami Beach, Florida |
 |
| Azure Tides Hotel Court, Sarasota, Florida |
 |
| Bahama Motel, 401 N. Atlantic Ave, Fort Lauderdale, Florida |
 |
| Bambi Motel, U.S. Highway 441, Gainesville, Florida |
 |
| Beach Plaza Apartment Hotel, 625 N. Atlantic Blvd., Route A1A, Fort Lauderdale, Florida |
 |
| Beaux-Arts Apartments, Fort Lauderdale, Florida |
 |
| Bel Air Hotel, Cabana Club, Miami Beach, Florida |
 |
| Blue Grass Ocean Front Motel, 183rd and Collins Ave., Miami Beach, Florida |
 |
| Blue Waters Hotel, 74th St. & the Ocean, Miami Beach, Florida |
 |
| Brazilian Court Hotel, Palm Beach, Florida |
 |
| Buccaneer Resort Motel, Gulf Boulevard, St Petersburg, Florida |
 |
| Carnaval de Venise, 4324 El Mar Drive, Lauderdale-By-The-Sea, Florida |
 |
| Castaways Resort Motel, Ocean at 163rd St., Miami Beach, Florida |
 |
| Chateau Resort Motel, Miami Beach, Florida |
 |
| Congress Royal Palm Motel, 1250 Cleveland St., Clearwater, Florida |
 |
| Coral Savoy Motel, 2573 N. Federal Highway, Fort Lauderdale, Florida |
 |
| Daytona Beach Bungalows, 2545 S. Atlantic Ave., Daytona Beach, Florida |
 |
| Dolphin Motel, 1350 Gulf Coast Highway (U.S. 19), St Petersburg, Florida |
 |
| Edgewood Arms Apartment & Motel, 2850 S.W. 18th Terrace, Fort Lauderdale, Florida |
 |
| Edward James Resort Hotel, 11750 Gulf Blvd.,St Petersburg, Florida |
 |
| Eldorado Motel, 11360 Gulf Blvd., St Petersburg, Florida |
 |
| Esquire Deluxe Apartments, 4710-20 Pinetree Drive, Miami Beach, Florida |
 |
| Flamingo Resort Motel, 1915 S. Ocean Drive, Hallandale Beach, Florida |
 |
| Fleetwood Motel, Fort Lauderdale, Florida |
 |
| Grant Motel, St Petersburg, Florida |
 |
| Haddon Hall Hotel, 1500 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach, Florida |
 |
| Hi Seas Motel, 455 South Gulfview Boulevard, Clearwater Beach, Florida |
 |
| Holiday Inn, 2700 Ocean Drive, Riviera Beach, Florida |
 |
| Holiday Inn, Pensacola, Florida |
 |
| Holiday Inn, U.S. Highway 27, Tallahassee, Florida |
 |
| Holiday Shores Motel, 1015 South Atlantic Avenue, Daytona Beach, Florida |
 |
| Island House Motel, 46 Venetian Way, Miami Beach, Florida |
 |
| Ivanhoe, Oceanfront 101st Street, Bal Harbor, Miami Beach, Florida |
 |
| Langford Hotel, Winter Park, Florida |
 |
| Lauderdale Ruttger, Fort Lauderdale, Florida |
 |
| Leo Motel, Dania, Florida |
 |
| Lewis Palm Park Motel, 4100 N. Fourth Street, St Petersburg, Florida |
 |
| Lombardy Hotel, Miami Beach, Florida |
I'd take a time machine back to any of vs. the tattooed ghetto crap seen at pools nowadays, and that's not a comment on race but a comment on behavior.
ReplyDelete