25 Amazing Photos Show How Inside the Shops Looked Like From the Early 20th Century

An amazing photo collection shows how inside the shops looked like from the early 20th century.

Art glass shop in San Francisco

Auto repair shop, Whittier, California

Bakery in St. Matthews, South Carolina

Barber shop in Los Angeles, CA

Barber shop, Canby, Minnesota

See more»

Elizabeth Taylor Salad or Cyd Charisse Salad, Anyone? Here's the MGM Commissary Menu From the Late 1950s

If you were lucky enough to be dining at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer commissary menu in the late 1950s and early 1960s, this would have been the menu you’d have been handed.

Elizabeth Taylor Salad or Cyd Charisse Salad, anyone? You knew you’d made it at MGM when they named a salad after you. To see the various choices you can see the inside pages on the website—and just get a load of the back page!

Grace Kelly eating with Ann Blyth and Janet Leigh in the MGM commissary. Elizabeth is in the background.

(via Martin Turnbull)

Forbidden Drinking: Photographer Margaret Bourke-White Captured Inside the Speakeasies of New York in 1933

Prohibition in the United States lasted from 1920, when the 18th amendment prohibiting the sale of alcohol went into effect, until 1933, with its repeal via the 21st amendment.

During the Prohibition, and forbade any sale, production importation, and transportation of alcoholic beverages, the speakeasy became the place to socialize at. These speakeasies were bars that illegally sold booze to their customers behind locked doors. Some of these popular places were run by criminals, and even though the police would sometimes raid the bars and arrest both the owners and their customers, the speakeasies were so profitable they continued to flourish.

Photographer Margaret Bourke-White were able to take some photos at a few of these notorious bars in 1933 - the year the Prohibition ban was lifted, and therefor meant the speakeasies could take the locks off their doors. Bourke-White's photos ran in the June 1933 issue of FORTUNE, under the simple and evocative title, "Speakeasies of New York."

At the Hunt Club in the theatrical district, you will find little swank, perhaps the best whisky in town... A modern filing system lists the 32,000 [people] eligible to the Hunt Club.

At luncheon half a dozen dogs feed amicably at their mistresses' side. This bar is chromium, rose and black.

No speakeasy is as popular with aviators off duty as this quiet place. Its proprietor owns tow planes, is himself an expert pilot.

In the heart of a business section Thomas keeps this speakeasy on the second floor. Drinking starts at 8:30 A.M. when full-bellied Irish contractors drop in for a solidly comforting rye.

Champagne from right to left, on mantel: half nip, nip, pint, imperial pint, magnum, jeroboam, rehoboam, methuzelah, salmanazar, balthazar... Twenty-nine waiters and eight chefs are none too many for a popular place.

Social atmosphere has made the popularity of this speakeasy, which is full of gay chintz, red and white awnings, indirect lights. The barroom is gold and Victorian-green.

Scene inside a New York City speakeasy during Prohibition, 1933.

(Photos: Margaret Bourke-White—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

New York Cafeterias From 1975 and 1985 Through Marcia Halperin's Lens

One frigid day in February 1975, Marcia Bricker Halperin, a budding street photographer, was shooting storefront windows on Kings Highway in Brooklyn. With her fingers practically frozen to her Pentax, she slipped into a Dubrow’s Cafeteria to defrost.

“I took a ticket from the man at the door and found myself looking out at a tableau of amazing faces between the coffee urns and steam tables teeming with choices and the muraled walls under high ceilings with modernist, space-age lighting”. - Marcia Bricker Halperin

Halperin discovered that Dubrow's, along with a few other cafeterias and automats in the city, was a unique and vanishing social institution, as well as a fertile ground for conversation and photography.

Self-service cafeterias like Dubrow's offered cheap coffee and ready-made meals. Customers would grab trays, pick items as they proceeded down a counter, then look around to see where their friends were sitting.

“There's a theory about communities called "Third Places." After your home and your workplace comes the need for some social institution. The Irish had bars, the Italians had social clubs, but Jews had cafeterias in New York”. - Marcia Bricker Halperin

As Halperin hung around the cafeterias with her camera, she became a noted regular, giving away portrait prints to subjects and receiving invitations to join people at their tables.

In these cafeterias, she found not only a refuge from the cold but the warmth of community.

See more»

30 Amazing Photos That Show Window Display From the 1950s and 1960s

These amazing photos were taken by Allan Hails that show store fronts from the 1950s and 1960s.

Au Printemps department store, Boulevard Haussman, Paris, 29 July 1955

In Rue Auber, Paris, 26 July 1955

Paris, 27 July 1955

Shopfront at 73 Mason Road, Erdington, Birmingham, 30 May 1955

Upper Precinct, Coventry, October 1955

See more»

In the 1940s, Men Dressed in Short Shorts and Cowboy Boots Served Up Women at a Drive Through in Dallas

What’s funny is this isn’t a completely new idea in Dallas. In the 1940s, men dressed in short shorts and cowboy boots served up women at a drive through across the street from Love Field.

“At your service, ma’am” (AP Photo)

In 1940, Dallas was in a tizzy about the sudden fad of scantily-clad “girl carhops.” This scourge had made its way to Dallas from Houston, and in April of 1940, it was a newspaper story with, as it were … legs. For a good month or two, stories of sexy carhops were everywhere.

The girls started wearing uniforms with very short skirts — or midriff-baring costumes with cellophane hula skirts. Some of the women reported an increase in tips of $25 or more a week — a ton of money for the time.

The Dallas Morning News, Apr. 24, 1940.

The public’s reaction ranged from amusement to outrage. There were reports of community matrons who reported the “indecent” attire to the police department and demanded action. Other women were annoyed by the objectification of young womanhood. Lawmakers in Austin discussed whether the practice of waitresses exposing so much extra skin posed a health risk to consumers.

But it wasn’t until a woman from Oak Cliff piped up that something actually happened. She complained that she didn’t want to look at girls’ legs when she stopped in at her local drive-in — she wanted to look at men’s legs. Drive-in owners thought that was a GREAT idea, and the idea of the scantily-clad male carhop was born.

The Dallas Morning News, Apr. 26, 1940.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Apr. 28, 1940.

One might think that the woman behind this “equal ogling” campaign was sort of proto-feminist, until you get to the part where she said that the whole girl carhop thing was “wrong socially and economically and should not be tolerated” (DMN, Apr. 27, 1940) — not because of the skin flashed, but because men needed jobs, not girls. And that also raised hackles.

The Dallas Morning News, May 5, 1940..

The photo at the top (syndicated in papers via the Associated Press) ran in The Dallas Morning News under the headline: “Adonis and Apollo of Roadside Bring Trade to Daring Stand.” The caption:

• “First large roadside stand Friday to bow to the demand of Dallas women and feature husky young male carhops in shorts was the Log Lodge Tavern at Lemmon and Midway where four six-footers found jobs. Above, in blue shorts, white sweatshirt and cowboy boots, Joe Wilcox serves Pauline Taylor who smiles her approval of the idea. Bound for another car is James Smith, at right.” (DMN, April 27, 1940)

There were other male carhops around town, some not quite so hunky. This guy — game as he was — really needed to reconsider his outfit.

Xenia Daily Gazette, May 3, 1940.

But back to the female carhops and their siren-like hold over their male customers. This was, by far, the best story to hit the wires:

The Dallas Morning News, July 16, 1940.

Top image originally appeared in The Dallas Morning News on April 27, 1940, and was then syndicated by the Associated Press. The Log Lodge Tavern was located at 7334 Lemmon Avenue, which was across from Love Field and adjacent to the Log Lodge Tourist Court.

(This original article was written by Paula Bosse on Flashback Dallas)

Wonderful Photos of Christmas Shop Fronts in Newcastle upon Tyne and South Shields in the 1960s

This wonderfully nostalgic collection of images from Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums documents the festive spirit of Newcastle upon Tyne and South Shields in the 1960s.

The street scenes of Christmas decorations, festivities, events and shoppers are not unlike those we see in the city centre today, despite their incredibly retro style!

The photographs were taken by local amateur photographer Robert Sanderson, of South Shields, whilst Christmas shopping with his wife. Because of this they give a very sentimental and intimate view of a 1960s Christmas in the region.

'Bainbridge, a century of service' This is a photograph of the decorated Christmas window of Bainbridge's in Newcastle upon Tyne. It was taken in 1962.

A Bainbridge's gift display. This is a photograph of a Christmas display in Bainbridge's department store, Newcastle upon Tyne. It was taken in 1966.

A Fenwick display. Taken in Fenwick department store in Newcastle upon Tyne, this is a festive Christmas display. It was taken in 1965.

Allen's department store. This is a night view of the Christmas display at Allens department store. It was taken in 1962.

Allen's festive windows. This is a photograph of the illuminated windows of Allens department sore in South Shields. It was taken in 1963.

See more»

Vivid Color Photos Capture the Cityscapes of New York and Chicago in the 1970s and '80s

Chicago-born photographer Wayne Sorce began capturing the people and places of urban landscapes while at the Art Institute of Chicago in the 1960s.

In the late ’70s and early ’80s he took large-scale color photos of his hometown and New York, capturing “a formal exactitude, the light, structures, and palette of these cities within a certain era,” according to a press release from the Joseph Bellows Gallery in L.A. where this “Urban Color” series is currently on view.

Not only do the vivid colors help express the spirit of the city at this time, but the way Sorce incorporates people exposes a unique energy in which they serve as “both inhabitants, as well as sculptural forms relating to a larger composed scene.” From Manhattan barbershops and restaurants to the gritty, industrial streets of Vinegar Hill, Brooklyn, the photos transport the viewer to a bygone NYC.

Varick Street, New York, 1984.

Halsted Street, Chicago, 1978.

Dave's Restaurant, New York, 1984.

East Chicago, 1977.

Fort Dearborn Coffee, Chicago, 1977.

See more»

25 Amazing Photographs Documented Everyday Life at the "Alcoholic Haven" Sammy's Bowery Follies in the 1940s

In 1944, LIFE magazine described Sammy's Bowery Follies as an "alcoholic haven." The part-local dive, part-tourist trap always drew a huge mixed crowd. It was opened in 1934 at 267 Bowery (between East Houston and Stanton Streets) by Sammy Fuchs, who branded it as the Stork Club of the Bowery. He welcomed everyone from vaudeville acts to "Bowery bums"... or as the NY Times had put it, “drunks and swells, drifters and celebrities, the rich and the forgotten.”

"From 8 in the morning until 4 the next morning Sammy’s is an alcoholic haven for the derelicts whose presence has made the Bowery a universal symbol of poverty and futility. It is also a popular stopping point for prosperous people from uptown who like to see how the other half staggers." – LIFE Magazine, Dec. 4, 1944

Sammy’s Bowery Follies provided a home for burned out vaudeville acts that couldn't get booked anyplace else, and welcomed patrons who regularly passed out drunk on the premises. But it was raucous and fun—a place people could loosen their ties, let down their hair and sing along with popular show tunes of the day.

See more»