Saturday, May 25, 2013

Victorian Era Hotel in Galveston, Texas


Came across this recently.  There's something I love about these grand old Vic hotels. Something about their style that was both grand and magnificent, but also a bit quickly (this hotel had an on premise animal menagerie, where a child was mauled by a panther in 1884, and daring high wire walks were performed over craggy rocks at San Francisco's Cliff House).  They heavy wood content used for both hotels led to their destructions by fire. For more on the Cliff House see pictures below and my earlier post here.



The Beach Hotel: 

The Beach Hotel was a seasonal resort in Galveston, Texas. It was built in 1882 by architect Nicholas J. Clayton, at a price of US$260,000 (US$6.19 million in today's terms) to cater to vacationers. Owned by William H. Sinclair, the hotel opened on July 4, 1883 and was destroyed by a mysterious fire in 1898.
The front lawn of the beach hotel "provided a site for summer entertainment-fireworks, high-wire walkers, and bands.  The 12-story hotel was built atop 300 cedar piles driven into the sand.[ The roof had an octagonal dome, which housed the water tanks, and was painted in large red and white stripes, and the eaves were trimmed in a golden green.
The amenities advertised were:
  • Dining room
  • Gentlemen's parlor
  • Reading room
  • Saloon
  • Grand staircase
  • Electric and gas lighting

One of the features, according to Rosen Library, was an animal menagerie.  You can see the cages in the close up picture below.   From the Library's page:




   








The Cliff House:


The 1986 Cliff House, which burned down in in 1907.   The Cliffhouseproject is a great site for info about this San Fran landmark.

















Monday, May 20, 2013

The Beast





President Obama was on my block last week for a fundraiser at Harvey Weinstein's home.  Here are two shots I took from inside the lobby of my building (a few minutes before he came the police made us go inside).  There were two Presidential limos (the Beasts) as is apparently standard procedure - one more level of safety... so we didn't know in which one he was.








Here's a 1/43 scale model, marked down to $10 at the moment at Modeltrainstuff:








Saturday, May 11, 2013

Can you guess what's inside this box? (Before scrolling down)





If you guessed  (and I imagine some of you did as it is rather obvious ) that it is a rare French musical sewing necessaire automaton from 1890 that has a key- wind, two-air cylinder movement,  and was at one time possessed by the British royal family, you would be correct.   See the more detailed notes  and photos below, which are from liveacutioneers.  There was a video on that site, but it looks like it was removed. Too bad.... I would like to see how the pieces move.













Needleprint blog  

Found photographs at National Geographic





I came across these two very interesting pictures on the Nat Geo site.  They have a section called "Found".  The above photo of a male lion, lit with a flashlight,  was taken in 1910, in Africa.  

The second is a shot of Fairbanks, Alaska at Christmas.. It has a nostalgic feel and reminds me of Michael Paul Smith's work.  Here's my original posting on his fictional village,  Elgin Park.







Here's a shot of Michael's fictional town Elgin Park.  (His photos are available for purchase on his Smugmug site):