Thursday, April 30, 2009

70 YEARS AGO TODAY - 1939 NEW YORK WORLD'S FAIR


Back in 1939 at the New York World’s Fair, everyone was looking forward to the world of tomorrow - a tomorrow that would bring hope, prosperity and peace through technology and human ingenuity. Today marks the 70th anniversary of the fair and mankind still reaches out for those same dreams of the future.

Unfortunately, in 2009 those same dreams are much harder for us to see and to believe in. We really need something like the 1939 New World’s Fair to restore those dreams and bring back the belief we still can build a world of tomorrow with the tools of today.


For years I’ve been fascinated with the 1939 NYWF and have put together a small collection of items. Today, is a great day to start sharing some of my collection. Slowly, I’ll be adding items to my a new flickr set simply called 39NYWF and future posts will show up here on the blog. Below, you’ll find a few images from my collection and some fun links to help you celebrate and learn more about the fair.


Click here to take a tour of the fair!.



Click here for another tour of the fair!


Watch the New York Public Library's video about the fair!


Visit the 1939 NYWF flickr group!
Watch videos at the Internet Archives!

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

70TH ANNIVERSARY 1939 NYWF - TOMORROW

Tomorrow, we’ll be celebrating The World of Tomorrow!


Pay a visit on April 30th to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the 1939 New York World’s Fair as we honor one of the greatest World’s Fairs!

SHAZAM! GENE AUTRY & JANE WITHERS READ WHIZ COMICS

I found this magazine clipping in an old scrapbook and it looks like Gene and Jane are enjoying an issue of Whiz Comics!


The clipping is from 1940 and it's a promo shot for their movie Shooting High. The comic book issue is Whiz Comics #3 from 1940. Here's a scan from the Grand Comics Database.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Saturday, April 25, 2009

LA BIONDA - I WANNA BE YOUR LOVER (SPACE DISCO)



The Italo-Disco group La Bionda performs their space disco tune I Wanna Be Your Lover on the Italian TV show Diso Ring in 1981. Cool Heavy Metal inspired animation from their video is projected in the background.

Video uploaded to YouTube by effepiparcines.

Friday, April 24, 2009

1960'S SPACE AGE PLAYGROUND POSTCARD

FLEA MARKET FRIDAYS #39

I didn't find much today, but I did find this -


"Hey you kids! Get off the modern art?"

This might be a new favorite postcard in my collection. The back says this is/was located in Sterling Forest Gardens, a family outdoor entertainment attraction near Tuxedo, New York.

Take a look at some modern photos of this playground equipment here, here, here and here.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

NEATO COOLVILLE BLOG TURNS 3 YEARS OLD TODAY!

How ‘bout that? Neato Coolville the blog, just turned three years old today! Wow, who wound up the clock so fast? Three years - really?

I suppose this would be as good a time as any to share with all of the Neato Readers the origin of Neato Coolville! Before I put everyone to sleep with a blog history lesson I want to thank everyone who stops by to read this blog, especially all you Neato Readers who have stuck with it since the early days. I always appreciate the nice comments and emails. Ok now, pull up a chair and gather around.

It all started one dreary night . . .

Oops, sorry that’s a different story.

Neato Coolville has its origins in that big virtual garage sale known as ebay. I listed a nice lot of old advertising stuff back in 2002 or 03. It was mostly ad character and kid’s packaging items from the 1950's - 1970's. I remember needing a good title for the auction and I think I named it something like - NEATO COOL 1950s 70s ADVERTISING CHARACTER VINTAGE LOT. The importance of the title is that I used two retro sounding words, neat-o and cool. I dropped the dash between the neat and the o because the title didn’t fit in the box. That box has always frustrated me.

Here’s the ebay photos from the neato cool auction. I can’t remember how much the lot sold for, but I think it went cheap. Notice I used “neat-o cool” on the first photo.







I used neato cool a few more times in my ebay titles until I changed my ebay user name from bossk to neatocoolville. Yeah, that’s right!


I used the name bossk, the lizard bounty hunter from The Empire Strikes Back as my ebay handle. What of it? I like him better than Boba Fett, natch!

Now you’re probably wondering, why the ville? I added the ville because of an idea for a children’s book that was set in a zoo in a silly little town. I scribbled down names like Zanytown, and Wowsville, but those just didn’t click. Then BANG! it hit me like a parachuting elephant. I named the town Neato Coolville.

I never did anything with the book idea, but I liked it enough to use it as my ebay name. I even started putting it on stickers that I mailed with the junk I sold. Here’s a few of them -









I made this large letter style postcard for my ebay "me" page that inspired the one that used to be this blog's banner and now can be found at the bottom of the page.



Ever since I plugged myself into the internet I always wanted a website to make a virtual museum, but didn’t have the skills to put one together. Back in 2005, I found flickr and started my little gallery of images and called it Neato Coolville. My flickr icon was my favorite childhood toy, Stretch Monster.



On April 21th 2006, I started this blog. It had a tacky space background with the Stretch Monster icon at the helm.



My first post was and is considered the most exciting post I've ever done. Click here to read the historical first post of Neato Coolville!

Next came the puke green alien head era.




It didn’t take me long to get tired of the alien heads and instead came up with a short lived rocket ship and a new spaceman icon. Don’t ask me why I didn’t get tired of the puke green background.




Finally, I ditched the puke green and just settled on black and the spaceman icon turned into a spacekid. The postcard that is now at the bottom of the page was at the top.



The last banner before the little buildings was this one -



This banner was animated. Each letter opened to reveal a Neato Coolville type of item and you can see the animated version here.

There you have it, the origin of this blog. Someday, I’ll share the fake history of the town of Neato Coolville, but until then, you’ll just have to endure the bad grammar and look at the same type of neato cool posts!

Monday, April 20, 2009

Thursday, April 16, 2009

CHICAGO'S GRANADA THEATER 1929 SNAPSHOT PHOTO


This tinted snapshot of the Granada Theater is dated August 25, 1929. The theater was designed by Edward Eichenbaum and was built in 1926. Sadly, it was demolished in 1990. Lots of wonderful info and memories at Cinema Treasures.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

1950'S SKELLY ALL-AMERICAN SPACE FLEET CARDS

Maybe five or six years ago a friend found a small stack of these Skelly All-American Space Fleet Cards. They came from the estate of a man who owned a Skelly station back in the 1950's. I ended up selling all of 'em and these were the scans I used on ebay.






Yeah, I continue to kick myself for not keeping a set. Easy come, easy go!