If you could travel back in time...
…which decade or era in your city’s history would you want to most experience? I started a thread in the Canada section about Canada’s Golden Age and it got me thinking that the” golden age” for each city and region across an enormous country like Canada is going to be different.
In my city of Winnipeg, I would be most interested in traveling back in time to the decade preceding the First World War, at that time we were one of the most economically aggressive, fastest growing cities in North America, growing from a population of 50,000 in 1902, 100,000 in 1906 to 250,000 by 1914. Politicians and business owners really believed we were “it” and looked to Chicago and even New York for inspiration to plan what was anticipated to be a prosperous future. Many of Canada’s first “skyscrapers”, some of the tallest in the British Empire back then, were built during this time and still stand today, being spared demolition a few decades later due to Winnipeg’s slow growth when many other North American cities were “modernizing” and demolishing heritage buildings. In this same era many of my ancestors first settled in Winnipeg from across the Atlantic, and I imagine myself in their shoes as they stepped out of one of the city’s two grand railway stations for the first time. What did they see, hear, feel… A young city with an overly optimistic, everything is possible attitude, yet also home to some of the most squalid living conditions in a North American city at that time, the “foreign quarter” north of the CPR railyards. A city so focused on growth and business that the quality of life for many of its citizens was sacrificed in the name of progress. So back to my question, if you could travel back in time, which era in your city’s history would you most want to experience? |
Does it have to be our own city? I guess just for interests' sake I would go back to Toronto of the 1860s or 70s. It's not a particularly well-documented era photographically, and when the city really started booming in the 1880s it (along with the usual fires) wiped out most of the original Georgian city.
There still exist tens of thousands of buildings from the last couple decades of the 19th century but not much left from before, so it'd just be cool to see. https://live.staticflickr.com/7853/4...ce405969_b.jpg 54525255_263636604576570_8035457896089124864_n by James McGrath, on Flickr |
^ It would be like going back in time to Chicago before the fire or Galveston before 1900, one wonders how the urban fabric of those cities might be different today (if much at all) without their disasters.
And no, doesn't have to be your own city. |
Pittsburgh in the 1920s or 1930s - to be able to get just about anywhere via street car - oh and to tell the idiot politicians NOT to misappropriate the funds in place for an adequate subway system!!!
I'd say the same thing regarding Philly as well. Imagine Chicago's El system but underground. That was a proposal for Philly I saw a few months back. Instead, we only have the BSL, MFL, and the PATCO line linking Lindenwold, NJ with Center City via the Ben Franklin Bridge. |
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and yes, it would be fascinating to travel back to pre-fire chicago. it would have been a completely different city, probably unrecognizable to my eyes. my earliest chicago ancestors were german immigrants who arrived here back in the 1850s. their family home was destroyed in the great conflagration. oh to be able to go back in time and have a beer at some ramshackle 19th century saloon with my great-great-great-grandfather. |
Probably the 60s. Biggest city in Canada, expo 67, tallest building in the british empire built in 62, awarded the 76 olympics etc.
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I'd love to just be a fly on the wall in 1960's Houston. Lots of synergy and memorable moments. As a minority, segregation would suck, so I chose fly on the wall.
As an aside, Manhattan in the late 90's would be awesome. It was cool in the Teens when I went 7 years ago but in the 90's would have been better. |
Chicago, mid to late 1920s:
Get in early on the Big Bull market, and go short stocks before the crash. Date sexy Flappers, dance the Charleston. Visit a night club or speakeasy where a hot jazz band was playing, hear Louis Armstrong play. Drive a Pierce Arrow. Talk to Al Capone, advise him to pay his income taxes and go legit. etc. Watch Babe Ruth hit a home run out of Cominsky when the Yankees visited the White Sox. Los Angeles, mid to late 1960s: Visit the Sunset Strip, listen to the Doors play at the Whisky a Go Go. Date hippie girls. Watch Koufax pitch a no hitter. Drive up to S.F. in 1967 for the "summer of love". In 1969, head east to watch Apollo 11 liftoff at the Cape and then up to New York for Woodstock. Watch the "Miracle Mets" win the '69 series. |
Nothing before the 1970s I'm not trying to get killed lmao.
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London at its height just before WWII, its population at 8.7 million and many of its old buildings still extant. All before the evacuation of millions, the destruction of 1/3 of the city
(and 1.3 million made homeless), before the decades of austerity, bulldozing, concrete and suburbanisation in the postwar period. Back when it was near the density of Paris but over 80% larger an area. For example, all this below -the result of centuries of plundering trade and empire- was flattened in the Blitz: The Roaring 30s: https://heritagecalling.files.wordpr.../epw021401.jpg |
If I could turn back time, if I could find a way I'd take back those words that hurt you and you'd stay.
Does that answer the OP’s question? |
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Berlin in the 1920's or Buenos Aires in the 1940's
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1950s-1980s california.
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For St. John's, I would've loved to live in the early 1900s. We were one of the largest cities on the east coast of North America at the time, the core was almost the size that it is today (and that's the only part of the city I've any affection for), our Prime Minister was great, there was an openly gay eccentric the whole city was in love with, we still had trams and trains.
We had zero suburbia. The edge of the city was rowhousing: http://i.imgur.com/nYSiQs9.jpg Memorial Archives And a couple of the core from the era from our archives (these views, btw, are 99.9% the same today, just on the horizon there are modern midrises): https://i.postimg.cc/nLgQZJbv/010600...land-Hotel.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/LXPg8b2G/010601...-Newfoundl.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/fLF7Hrvb/050500...oyal-Store.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/ZqWCfKsr/050500...ial-1-July.jpg Just a QUICK example of similar views today: https://i.postimg.cc/7Z2L7Q5V/615114...52189752-o.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/k5PgyF8d/151185...32241017-o.jpg https://live.staticflickr.com/7340/2...7fbf9cfd_b.jpgMemorial Day by R C, on Flickr A couple of caveats, though... I'd want to be Catholic, professional class. I've no patience for the Anglican upper class of the time, and definitely don't want to be a Catholic servant or, even worse, a fisherman or sealer. I'd like to be an accountant's kid or something - just high enough to avoid 99.9% of the shit, but not upper class. :D Failing that, fuck it, 1930s. An exciting time - our country collapsed in 1932 and by 1933 we were being ruled directly by London again. One of the only countries in the history of humanity to have legislated itself out of existence. Constant protests, riots, the works. And I would've been one more vote against joining Canada in 1949 - and it was close enough for a few votes to make the difference. :haha: Quote:
https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/4...prime-minister |
For me, 1890s Boston. Childe Hassam’s “At Dusk” Boston:
https://collections.mfa.org/internal...9654E8009202B4 https://collections.mfa.org/objects/32415 |
^ good choice
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are you fuckin’ assholes happy? (random onlookers confused)
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