I was born in 1957 and have lived in New York City for most of my life. This is a list of things I remember that are gone.
Material Culture
Carbon paper
Typewriters
Dial phones
TV antennas on top of houses
Mimeograph machines
Super-8 film
Stamps you needed to lick
Clothespins
Media
The Long Island Press
The New York World-Telegram
The New York Herald Tribune
Afternoon papers
TV station late night signoffs where they would play the National Anthem, then the screen would go blank
The 45 RPM single
Video rental stores
The Ed Sullivan TV show
Cigarette ads on TV and radio
Travel and Transportation
The gracious experience of flying
Flying with no security check
Highway rest stops with restaurants, not fast food places
Free maps at gas stations
Companies, Stores, and Brands
Woolworth's
Brentano's
Sam Goody's
Alexander's
Gimbel's
Korvette's
Schaefer beer
Chock Full O' Nuts coffee shops
Digital Equipment Corp.
Technology
Floppy disks
Computer punch cards
Minicomputers
Lotus 1-2-3
The Wang word processor
Adding machines
Business and Finance
Paper stock certificates
Fixed exchange rates
AT&T's telephone monopoly
Sports
The American Football League
Winter Olympics and Summer Olympics in the same year
A heavyweight boxing championship that meant something
New York City
The subway token
The 15 cent fare
Gum machines in the subway
The Automat
Airline offices on Fifth Avenue
The Board of Estimate
The Board of Education
World Politics
The Berlin Wall
The USSR
Communist Eastern Europe
The Cold War
Apartheid
Yugoslavia
Other
Using quarters to do the laundry
Milk delivered in bottles
Elevator operators
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6 comments:
And how about these?
The TV dial ("13 is right next to 2")
Telephone exchanges
The New York World Journal Tribune
Czechoslovakia
Reel-to-reel and 8-track tapes
By the way, video rental stores are not gone. Blockbuster is alive and well (or at least alive) here in the Bay area.
Schaefer Beer is still around, unless you're counting it out since it was purchased by Pabst. I deeply miss Woolworth's, however. Found your site b/c of the Game Theory/Loud Family lyrics. Thanks for them!
Fae - But does Blockbuster still have videos? & Janet - Hi! And Janet, meet Fae. Two librarians.
I've heard that Blockbuster still has videos, at least in Florida. We can check it out next month. Hi, Janet!
Another librarian here. Just to let you know: clothes pins are not gone; i use them all the time to attach skirts to hangers, and to close bags, e.g., frozen vegetable bags that still have something in them.
Floppy discs are also still around; i use them at home; we use them at my little library.
I do remember Brentano's and the Automat fondly, from when i lived in NYC. And you are so right about the utter disappearance of flying-as-a-pleasure. It is now this dreadful ordeal.
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