ld89.org

Just another WordPress site

The Wuppertaler Schwebebahn is the oldest electric elevated railway with hanging cars in the world

Designed by Eugen Langen and offered first to the cities of Berlin, Munich and Breslau who all turned it down, the installation with elevated stations was built in Barmen, Elberfeld and Vohwinkel between 1897 and 1903; the first track opened in 1901. The railway line is credited with growth of the original cities and their eventual merger into Wuppertal. The Schwebebahn is still in use as a normal means of local public transport, moving 25 million passengers annually, per the 2008 annual report. New rail cars were ordered in 2015, called Generation 15, and the first new car went into service in December 2016.

From Wikipedia

(via Reddit)

Category: Travel // Tagged: , ,

The Bettmann Archive

To get into the Bettmann Archive, about 90 minutes north of Pittsburgh, you need more than a library card. You need the proper credentials to get past the armed guards at the door. You need to be gloved and swaddled in several layers to deal with the cold. And you need to be OK with claustrophobic conditions, since the trip requires being shuttled hundreds of feet underground.

Seen as the father of image resource archives, Otto Bettmann immigrated to the United States from Nazi Germany in 1935 with “a few personal effects and two steamer trunks bursting with photographs, line drawings, engravings, and art reproductions.”

(via Atlas Obscura)

Category: Photography, Travel // Tagged: , ,

The Darth Vader Statue of Odessa

What was once a statue of Lenin transformed into a monument to the most famous Sith Lord in the universe.

Category: Travel, Architecture // Tagged: , ,

Follow ld89

Kottke.org feed

Sampleface feed

Cultrface feed

LOGiCFACE feed

Playrface feed

Distant Arcade feed