1960's
Greenwich Village Sunday - 1960
Greenwich Village (pronounced /ˌɡrɛnɨtʃ ˈvɪlɨdʒ/), in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families. Greenwich Village, however, was known in the late 19th to mid 20th centuries as the bohemian capital and the East Coast birthplace of the Beat movement. What provided the initial attractive character of the community eventually contributed to its gentrification and commercialization.
The name of the village is Anglicized from the Dutch name Groenwijck, meaning "Pine District", into its near heterograph Greenwich, a borough of London, England.
Currently, artists and local historians mourn the fact that the bohemian days of Greenwich Village are long gone, because of the extraordinarily high housing costs in the neighborhood.
ShareThisTravel Time: Freedomland - 1963
Freedomland U.S.A. (usually just called Freedomland) was a short-lived, U.S. history-themed amusement park in the Baychester area in the northeastern part of the Borough of The Bronx, New York City. Its slogan was "The World's Largest Entertainment Center" (later, "The World's Largest Outdoor Family Entertainment Center").
Freedomland opened on June 19, 1960. It closed at the end of the 1964 season when it failed to make a profit.
Freedomland was conceived by Cornelius Vanderbilt Wood (1920–1992), a young Texan who had previously worked in the planning, construction, and management of Disneyland. Hired by Walt Disney in 1953, Wood was the person who selected the orange grove site in Anaheim, California, where Disneyland was eventually built.
Wood became very close to Disney during the next two years, but eventually the two men had a falling out. Reasons for this are unclear, but three theories exist: Wood was embezzling money from the park[citation needed]; Wood was taking too much public credit for Disneyland; or Wood had betrayed Disney by planning his own amusement parks, effectively stealing Disney's original concept.
By January 1956, Wood had been fired from Disneyland. To this day, The Walt Disney Company refuses to acknowledge any role played by him in the creation of the first Disney theme park.
In 1956, the 33-year-old Wood began planning and building three of his own amusement parks across the country. In 1958, Wood opened Magic Mountain near Denver (closed in 1960 but revitalized in Southern California in 1971), Pleasure Island in Wakefield, Massachusetts, in 1959 (closed in 1969), and finally Freedomland in 1960.
The site of the former park is now occupied by the large residential development Co-op City and the Bay Plaza Shopping Center.
Wood's partner was Milton T. ("Ted") Raynor, a television sports producer and attorney, who served as Freedomland's president.
The park's original concept was history-based and the layout was arranged in the shape of a large map of the contiguous United States with guests entering at the approximate location of Washington, D.C.. Baychester Avenue at the park's eastern edge represented the border with Canada. Freedomland was divided into different themed areas based on the history of The United States, each with its own attractions, shops, and restaurants. This made Freedomland a true theme park with one real theme.
ShareThisOlympics in Tokyo - 1964
A short newsreel recounting the Olympics held in China's uneasy neighbor Japan. Forty-four years ago, notice the absence of corporate sponsorship and the lack of steroid enhanced wins.
ShareThisNewsreel: Anti-War March - 1967
In this clip from 1967, newsreel reader Ed Herlihy narrates a cynical take on the anti-Vietnam War marches which took place in New York City, San Francisco, and across the US. Martin Luther King, Jr. petitions the UN, students burn their draft cards at demonstrations, and anti-anti-Vietnam protesters make their support of the conflict known.
Forty years later, we find ourselves in a similar scenario.
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