Hole in the Clouds

Tag: bike

Transportation

Nov 15, 2011

Noted in the neighborhood, on South Street.

Philadelphia South Street bike ingenuity

Boys playing marbles in May 1940, in Woodbine, Iowa. I don't know when exactly American children gave up marble-playing, but by the late 1950s, when I was a serious student of childhood fun in America, nobody played with marbles any more.

They still rode bikes, however. And there were other games in which you could lose all your stuff, such as flipping baseball cards.

In 1940, Woodbine, Iowa, was a relatively prosperous place, center of Iowa's apple-growing industry, which was the second-largest in the nation. But a freak blizzard in the early fall of that year, about six months after this picture was taken, froze the trees before summer's new growth had hardened off; all but the very oldest trees turned black and died, and Woodbine never really recovered economically.

children streetscape boys bike 1940 marbles games Woodbine Iowa (Image credit: John Vachon, Farm Security Administration, via Shorpy)

Spiraling

Oct 17, 2013

This photo sequence by Vince Perraud was among the winners of the 2013 Red Bull Illume competition. The photographer claims that the cyclist, Luc Legrand, found this spot underneath the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and nailed his flight around it the very first time he tried.